Nonetheless, the last thing I’d want to do is sitting in front of a computer and write when I come home. I didn’t stop playing WoW, but my raiding activity is quickly approaching Zero. I still enjoy the game. I absolutely enjoy to be a backup healer once in a while. My times of progression raiding though? Those are over, at least for now.

When I started this blog in November 2008, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect and how far this project would go. I had one big incentive though: There just weren’t many quality resto blogs out there. Especially resto shamans raiding 25 man content seemed to be a rarity in the world of WoW blogging. I liked informing myself through blogs though. Reading EJ is one thing, reading a blog is the other. The personal note every writer gives to his posts is what makes the theoretical content interesting. And even if a resto blog ventures into general ramblings/rants, it’s still interesting to see how fellow shamans see the world (of warcraft). From my early days of reading resto shaman blogs, there’s only one blog which I happily remember: Resto4Now. The blog closing down was my main motivation to start Shields Up!

I’d like to thank everyone who ever took his time to read one of my posts, leave a comment or write me a kind e-mail. Also, a big “thank you” to all fellow bloggers out there who encouraged me, linked to my site, gave me tips and moral support. Out of fear of forgetting to mention someone I won’t drop any names. You guys are really the best.

This blog is probably going to stay up for some more months, at least until my subscription runs out. Maybe I’ll write some random posts from time to time, they might or might not have to do anything with WoW. Drug, the dedicated resto shaman blogger, says good-bye though.

1. I finally got a job. This will significantly reduce the time I can invest in the game and updating the blog. This isn’t bad though. I’ll try deliver more quality post, which really should answer any questions a resto shaman could have. Tankingtips.com is an excellent example of a quality blog, which doesn’t need a new post every 1-2 days to be of interest. I’ll have to be realistic though, even if quality before quantity is the goal, I can almost guarantee some future rants/fun posts.

2. My paladin got to level 80 in a big effort of power leveling. Paladin Healing is better than I thought. I like to pace of healing, I like the small but strong arsenal of healing spells, which isn’t that different from shaman healing. Holy Beacon, Flash of Light HoT and Sacred Shield also offer a nice number of buffs you’ll have to watch closely as a healer. Healing a Tank through The Beacon is really awesome once you get used to it. Especially if tanks run out of your heal range and you can still heal them through another party member.

Paladin tanking was pretty much what I expected: Incredible AoE DPS/Threat but a slightly monotonous 696 rotation. It isn’t as boring as druid tanking, but far from the fun I have while I enjoy the mobility/gadgets/snappy snap aggro of my warrior tank. If only prot warriors would do halfway decent DPS.

3. I ran tons of normal mode Dungeons through LFD. The problem I see is this:

• Cross-realm grouping is really encouraging bad behavior. On my realm, I quickly get a bad reputation if I suck at playing or even worse, behave like a total idiot. In cross realm groups, you don’t have to fear any consequences for ignorance/ninja looting/leaving the group.
• Normal mode Dungeons are especially bad, because 90% of the players are in blues/greens, with dual spec and rolling Need on everything, that looks slightly attractive.
• The offspec vs mainspec question: This is really tricky. If you only roll on the gear your playing at this moment, you probably won’t get any loot. Whenever I healed, tons of DPS/tanks would roll on healer (=mp5) loot. Especially shields/trinkets/rings will often lead to 3-4 people rolling Need. Tanking is even worse. Plate wearing DPS will nearly always roll on nice tank drops, especially in HoR. I’m still not sure if it’s better to be nice (and really being punished loot-wise for fair game) or roll on offspec myself from time to time (with the risk of stealing loot from a decent person).
• Pre-raiding BiS items in non heroic dungeons are horrible. I’m talking about tank cloak/shield in Halls of Reflection and to some extent DPS ring in Pit of Saron. Tons of people will leave the group instantly if the loot they want doesn’t drop.
• The climate in heroic LFD is a lot better. Most people are polite, are decently geared and will only roll on the spec they’re playing.

4. I got my 4pcT10. Early data looks promising, this could be topic of a future post.

5. Valithria Dreamwalker is in fact a very fun fight for us healers. It’s a nice change to concentrate purely on HPS for once, using haste pots and so forth. I like the encounter.

What’s up with you guys?

(2) Set: Your Riptide spell grants 20% spell haste for your next spellcast within 10 sec.

Just think about how great this is. You cast one Riptide and your next spell is going to get 20% spell haste. Riptide has a 6 sec CD, so you can proc this buff called Rapid Currents very often, every 6 seconds that is. 20% spell haste brings my CH unbuffed from 1.9 down to 1.6. Impressive, isn’t it? This Tier bonus is great because of two things: 1. It has a high value in terms of HEP and 2. it brings an additional layer of depth into shaman healing.

Let’s talk about the HEP thing first: stassart has included the Bonus in his great shaman_hep program. I ran this with a log from a Rotface kill and some 10 Putricide attempts. That’s the results I got for my Tier bonuses:

Set Bonus Report:

Tier 9 2-piece:

HEP: 217.6783

Tier 10 2-piece:

“Shaman T10 Restoration 2P” (655 haste rating) buff uptime: 33 mins 24 secs  (34.23%)

HEP: 420.3783

420 HEP for one little tiny set bonus? Is this crazy talk? Well to be honest, I doubt it’s as good as those numbers would make you believe. Stassart calculates the HEP value of the T10 bonus like that:

It looks at the SPELL_AURA_APPLIED and SPELL_AURA_REMOVED events in the combatlog for sid 70806 (Rapid Currents). It monitors the buff whether you are in combat or out of combat, but the time only starts when you enter combat and stops when you exit combat.

For example, if you cast riptide then cast chain heal the buff is up from when the riptide lands until the chain heal finishes.

It’s using uptime in combat not overall log uptime. Since shaman can’t rez other people in combat, using it out of combat to rez would have no effect on its uptime in general. That said if other people in the raid are in combat and you aren’t and you are rezing, it counts that as combat time.

So stassart calculates the uptime of the Rapid Currents buff, converts it into haste rating and uptime x haste rating value = HEP. This isn’t all wrong but it isn’t rocket science either. The problem: You have a higher HEP value the longer you wait between casting Riptide and then casting the next spell. I see though why stassart calculates it that way. From the moment you cast Riptide you have in fact 655 haste rating up to the moment your next healing spell lands. But it isn’t quite correct to give this haste the same value as static haste. Even if you have the haste in theory, you only benefit from it from the beginning of a cast following riptide until this cast ends. The way stassart calculates it, I guess movement heavy fight will get much higher HEP values, because you might cast Riptide while running, keep running for some seconds and thus make the Rapid Currents buff last longer. While a very stationary fight might result in lower HEP values, because you use the buff up right after casting Riptide.

Nevertheless, this bonus is great. It’s 655 haste rating for every heal following a Riptide. Even if the HEP value might be a tad lower than shaman_hep suggests, it’s easily the best Tier bonus in game.

Especially because it isn’t just a throughput bonus, no it will affect the way you play. Riptide has always been a great spell, it’s pretty low on the mana cost side, especially because of the synergy with IWS, it is instant and the HoT, while prone to overhealing, is a great asset to our healing arsenal. And now Riptide is even more worth casting whenever possible because of our lovely 2pc T10  bonus. Choosing the spell following RT is now a much more tactical decision than it was before:

• RT/LHW: Do you remember the times when Tidal Waves used to apply haste to LHW? When you got those ultra-fast LHWs? The combo is back, one instant RT followed by a really fast LHW can solve a lot of problems. Remember one thing though: LHW is very likely to be cast in under 1 sec, while the GCD will still be 1 sec. So while it’s nice to have a heal land sooner, casts shorter than 1 sec aren’t ideal HPS wise. This isn’t a reason NOT to cast LHW after a RT, not at all. It’s just something to keep in mind.
• RT/HW: This was a good choice for burst healing with Tidal Waves alone, but now we can combine Tidal Waves haste with 2pc T10 bonus haste and we get an ultra fast HW. self-buffed (WoA), my HW is at 1.1 after RT, LHW is at 0.9. This is a pretty small difference. Cave: HW is very mana hungry, LHW isn’t. HW is higher HPS, but also higher MPS, choose the places for a RT/HW combo wisely.
• RT/CH: Last but not least my favorite. Up until now, RT didn’t have a direct affect on CH via Tidal Wavs (the only synergy between RT and CH includes consuming the RT HoT). I often used to fire a LHW after RT to use up a Tidal Waves Charge and only then cast a slow CH. Now RT/CH is pure love. If there isn’t someone dropping dangerously low (RT/LHW) or you get heavy predictable burst damage on a tank (RT/HW) there really isn’t a good reason not to fire RT/CH as often as possible.

This only leaves one question: Which pieces should you get? Shoulders and Helm! Which T9 Pieces should you stick to? Chest and Gloves! Especially if you’re sporting 245 or even 258 T9. In my shaman_hep report, my 2pc T9 bonus was worth 200 HEP (around 120 might be more typical though) so it isn’t hard to calculate how good upgrades have to be to make it worth loosing 2pc T9. As far as additional pieces of Tier loot go: Be patient until some guys get to test 4pc T10. If you can’t wait: the chestpiece is very well itemized, so this would be a great item number three.

I’ll end this post with my actual HEP values, Plagueworks bosses, 25 man content. 2770 Bonus healing, 942 haste. Might be a good reference if working with shaman_hep is too much trouble for you.

Shaman Healing Equivalency Points:
1 SP = 1
1 mp5 = 0.7300 (calculated)
1 mana = 0.0123
1 Haste rating = 1.8727
1 Crit rating = 0.9449
1 INT = 0.6843 (actual)
1 INT = 0.8653 (max theoretical)

Lootrank link

Additional thoughts are welcome.

Our pick of the evening was Rotface. We got him down to something around 30%. I won’t link to any tactics. Google is your friend. Hell I surely won’t write up any tactics myself, not now, not after we kill the guy. Especially since Vixsin is doing a great job at writing up shaman centric boss tactics.

The only thing I’m going to do is list some observations. Some related to raiding in general, some related to killing Rotface:

• The bug issue: I share Beruthiel’s feelings about blizzard delivering buggy encounters. I mean they have the manpower, they have the resources and they have their PTRs. But patch after patch we get buggy mechanics and quick hotfixes. That’s not all bad. It just somewhat taints the first exciting night in new content.
• The balancing issue: Blizzard always starts out with rather challenging bosses on normal mode, be it due to incoming raid damage or dps requirement or due to slightly buggy mechanics. After some days/weeks, those encounters get nerfed. Not some little tuning. No,  it’s pulling down the bosses pants and make raider laugh at them. I know it’s a balancing act, the encounters have to be somewhat interesting for dedicated raiders but accessible for the broad mass of guilds. I’m just always a little bit puzzled to see this story repeating itself time and time again: release – hotfix – nerf – (nerf) – release – hotfix…
• Rotface balancing: I think the encounter is pretty challenging. I’m pretty sure though the nerf bat will hit Rotface soon and hard. I love the mechanics and the pace, but I guess compared to the first 4 bosses, that’s too big a step in difficulty.
• PTR based strategy guides: The interwebs are full of well written boss guides for Rotface. Many of them are based on 10 man raiding. And sadly, many of them will stick around for a long time while ignoring many important aspects of the fights.
• The Infection issue: The encounter is all about the Mutated Infection. Sure there is some other stuff going on, like his conic AoE, kiting Adds and dodging AoE. But there’s nothing a decent raid wouldn’t learn very quickly, except handling the infection. The main issue: The time between casting an infection on someone will get shorter and shorter! Starting from 14 seconds between casts you’ll be down to an infection every 6 Seconds after some good 3 Minutes (if I haven’t completely misread our WorldofLogs data). Many guides ignore this aspect of the fight. It’s absolutely critical to stay calm, heal the infected people and keep to merge oozes into ONE bigger ooze. This is especially difficult during Ooze explosions. I’m pretty sure though the frequency between infections is going to be nerfed.
• This every raider should ask himself: Where is the add tank and the big Ooze? Is there a big Ooze at all or would I have to kite? Am I infected? Am I a 100% sure I merged my little ooze into a big one?
• Update your Bossmods and GridStatusRaiddebuff.

That’s it for today. Back to Season 5 of The Shield.

Absolutely all credits for the idea go to Lyn.

Download on Filefront.

Before you change anything, backup your WoW settings!

Raid screenshot

Instructions/profiles:

• 1680×1050
• uiScale “0.63999998569489″ (edit your config.wtf to match this)
• Grid profile: “stuf”
• DXE profile: “Drugfreeyth – Telrassil”
• Dominos profile: “Default” (Buttons on the right of my toon are for cooldown watching, not clicking!)
• MSBT profile: “Default”
• Skada profile: “neues”
• Bazooka profile: “Default”
• BankStack profile: “Default”
• Clique profile: “Drugfreeyth – Telrassil” (works with 5 button mouse)
• ButtonFacade profile: “Default”
• The alpha of actionbar 4 is applied by Alphabuttons.
• Buff/Debuff watching is done with rFilter2, if you want this to work, you have to change the .lua to match your toons name. Just replace “Drugfreeyth” with your shamans name or “Nianzu” with your warriors name.
• You can turn of SpeedyActions if you don’t like the idea behind this addon.

The Grid problem: Don’t update Grid at this point! The authors somehow rewrote the code, so all Grid versions newer than r1263 will break your Grid plugins. Wait until most of the Grid plugins are updated, then update Grid.

Please do comment if there’s stuff (or stuf) not working, looking ugly or if you have any ideas how to make this a better UI.

In WoW, I’ve spent my raid-free time with leveling a warlock on my girlfriend’s account. I just couldn’t bring myself to start an own lock at level 1. So I’m currently at lvl 75, enjoying SL/FG leveling. At the same time I’m still tweaking my UI. I ditched the pixel font from my last WIP, this just didn’t work out for my eyes. I then tried to get an old-school Lyn-look, this UI compilation textures/fonts bring back so many good memories.

WIP with Lyn textures

While working on this layout I was amazed to find out, that Lyn updated his latest UI layout here. I wasn’t all to happy with the functionality of the oUF layout though, so I adapted the looks into Stuf. Also, I went from Filger to rFilter2, Filger somehow doesn’t track debuffs correctly in my case. I’m quite happy with the result so far.

Stuf adaption of most recent Lyn UI

This just leaves me with one big question. Teal from screenshot one or the more standard blue from screenshot two? I just can’t decide.

Various stuff:

• If you’re looking for actual content: I love Vixin’s latest post on viability of theorycrafting in the real raiding world.
• AlphaButtons is a fantastic little addon for cooldown management. It will apply a low alpha value to everything off the cooldown, making the buttons transparent if they are not on cooldown. This works with Dominos or Bartender. You can also specify if this should work with all bars or just a few selected (in my screenshot only bar 4 is activated, that’s the bar on the left side of Grid).
• LFGStatusIcon is a very sweet little addon, which makes the status of your group searching visible right on the minimap button.
• Last but not least: I finally switched my dual spec back to enhancement. I’m loving it, very complex but great flow. A most welcome break from the rather simple elemental DPS rotation.

Guys and Girls: Blue or Teal? Any good enhancement blogs? Any good Christmas stories? Or any good addon tips?

early Christmas

temporary WIP

Did you get any new shiny loot? Any new good addons/UI compilations I should know about?

A lot of people ask me about Addons/UI/Settings uploads. I just don’t have time to Upload all kind of things and answer questions regarding an UI, which inevitably comes with an UI Upload.

Anyways, Quse UI hasn’t been updated for 3.3, so I’ll upload my personal fix to the UI including my Grid configuration. If you don’t know how to get an UI compilation running, don’t download. Don’t mess around with your folders without a backup! Don’t overwrite all your macros. I included them anyway in case you’re curious.

Download on Filefront

Screenshot:

Loading ClassColors will lead to a harmless .lua error. The newest version will break the whole UI. Just wait for the next update.

• uiScale “0.63999998569489″
• Grid profile: “stuf”
• DXE profile: “Drugfreeyth – Telrassil”
• Dominos profile: “Default” (Buttons on the left of my toon are for cooldown watching, not clicking!)
• MSBT profile: “Default”
• Skada profile: “neues”
• ChocolateBar profile: “Default”
• BankStack profile: “Default”
• Ailo profile: “Drugfreeyth – Telrassil”
• Clique profile: “Drugfreeyth – Telrassil” (works with 5 button mouse)

Filger Configuration: open Filger.lua. Change “local configmode = false” to “local configmode = true“. /rl. Drag the Buttons to wherever you want to see important procs/Flameshock debuff. Revert Filger.lua back to “local configmode = false“. /rl. Feel free to add your own procs/buffs to watch.

Action Button Bar 1 is shown on mouseover only! I have everything on those buttons keybound. You can change this in Dominos’ options.

Absolutely all Credits for this UI go to Qupe!

Backup all your files before you do anything! I will only comment if something is seriously broken.

WIP. New textures. New font. Got rit of ForteXorcist.

On with the list, slot by slot:

Helm:

Helm of the Spirit Shock (FoS Heroic) is a fantastic Resto and Elemental piece. I’d take it over Nobundo’s Headpiece of Conquest, the regular T9 helm, any day. I’d even consider the 245 Emblem of Triumph Helm, Helm of Inner Warmth, only a very very minor upgrade over this piece. Save your 75 Emblems, this helm is really all you need. I also think it’s pretty decent looking. The helm is clearly better than Conqueror’s Worldbreaker Headpiece, if you like 2pcT8, you can stick with your T8 pieces. I’d recommend wearing the helm as soon as you get it though. If you get Polished Mirror Helm (PoS Normal), you get a decent starter helm, not as good as the T8 helm though.

Neck:

Arcane Loops of Anger (FoS Heroic) is already the second mp5 free piece. The only downside to this piece: Caster DPS might be interested as well. Love’s Prisoner (FoS Heroic) is nearly as good, mp5 could be helpful considered how much haste you’ll get through the new instances.

Shoulders:

Whoa, third slot, still no mp5 and even cloth? Frayed Abomination Stitching Shoulders (HoR Normal) Is a decent shoulder option anyway. Be nice though and don’t roll Need against clothies. Your goal should be Thrall’s Shoulderpads of Conquest. Yes, you heard right: Elemental shoulders. If you ever plan to raid 10 mans, this is the way to go. If you’re doing exclusively 5 mans and run out of mana all the time, you can go for the resto shoulders.

Back:

Cloak of the Fallen Cardinal (PoS Normal) is a decent healer cloak. If you’re already wearing Cloak of Kea Feathers, I’d stick with this one.

Chest:

Shroud of Rime (PoS Normal) is a very nice starter piece. It just lacks sockets. This makes it weaker than 213 iLvL loot from Naxxramas25 (Valorous Earthshatter Tunic, Fallout Impervious Tunic or Valorous Earthshatter Hauberk). Of course Conqueror’s Worldbreaker Tunic is a better choice, if you have it, stick with it. Your goal should be Thrall’s Tunic of Conquest, a very strong chest piece really worth its Emblems. Crafting alternative: Ensorcelled Nerubian Breastplate. This isn’t a huge upgrade over the 232 chestpiece though and doesn’t add to your Tier set bonus.

Wrist:

Nothing exciting here. If you’re wearing Limb Regeneration Bracers or Pigmented Clan Bindings, stick with it. Option: Crafted items. Bejeweled Wizard’s Bracers is incredibly strong but cloth, Black Chitin Bracers is nearly as good and not too pricey, considered how cheap arctic fur is at this point.

Hand:

Nothing exciting here. Stick with Gloves of Dismal Fortune, aim for Thrall’s Handguards of Conquest.

Waist:

Strip of Remorse (HoR Heroic) is cloth but excellent nonetheless. It beats Windchill Binding and Girdle of the Dauntless Conqueror. Don’t sell the belts with mp5 though, you might find them useful for mana intensive fights.

Legs:

Blackened Ghoul Skin Leggings (PoS Heroic) are all you need and superior to the T9 alternative, Thrall’s Legguards of Conquest. Black Dragonskin Breeches (PoS Normal) are decent entry level leggins, not as good as Leggings of the Snowy Bramble from ToC Heroic though.

Feet:

Two excellent options: Mudslide Boots (PoS Heroic) without mp5 and Soul Screaming Boots (FoS Normal) for your mana regen set.

Ring:

Two good rings with mp5 and crit. The heroic version Oath of Empress Zoe (HoR Heroic) is of course better than the iLvL 219 ring, Spiteful Signet (FoS Normal). Both rings are inferior to the rings you can get through Emblem of Triumph: Heartmender Circle and Band of the Invoker, the latter is stronger if you raid and cast a lot of chainheal, it’s very good, even with the spirit.

Trinket:

The snowflake (HoR Heroic). Is it good? Is it bad? If you don’t have mana problems, it’s bad. A haste bonus on a 2 min cooldown just isn’t fantastic. The regen bonus though is very Interesting. It seems to proc off all our direct heals, CH bounces and RT ticks. The internal cooldown is 0.4 seconds, still you’ll get a lot of those 11 mana ticks. I’ll heal some instances with this trinket and add some data. My guess: very good trinket if you tend to run out of mana.

MH:

Surgeon’s Needle (PoS Hero) is what you want. Except if you get the Battered Hilt and finish the quest line up to the Hammer of Purified Flame. Yeah, the hammer itself is ugly, it’s a fantastic healer mace though and the questline is great. Bone Golem Scapula (HoR Normal) is still a small upgrade over Mariel’s Sorrow.

OH:

Protector of Frigid Souls (PoS Normal) is your best bet. Unless you like walking around with a Shriveled Heart (HoR Heroic) in your hand. If given the choice, stick with the shield.

That’s it. Great Resto loot. Excellent to gear up for raiding. And the new LFG tool loves all healers.

Did I forget anything?