*Crickets*Follow

Personally I'm loving the Resto changes. I'm only level 83 now, and healed a couple of instances so far without any problems.

Healing wave is definitely the go to heal for shaman now. You have to be pre-emptive with the casting of it though. Watch the tanks health and if they are below 90% start casting, if they don't take much damage you can either let it go to get them up a bit or cancel it out and start off a GHW to take the next hit and top them off.

I've found that starting any pull so far (granted these aren't heroics) that throwing out Riptide as the tank is rushing in, shocking the main target and starting the cast on a HW (canceling it if they don't need it, or letting it go off) is pretty much the rinse and repeat of trash in instances. Boss fights are pretty much the same but as I'm not sure of bosses yet I'll have the Riptide going and a GHW on the way just in case of spike damage right at the start. Again I just cancel if I don't need it and start with the shock/HW rotation.

One thing I've started doing is throwing a Riptide out to the rest of the party instead of worrying about CH. I really don't keep anyone else topped up anymore, generally just above 60% is good to survive most of the sudden AOE damage that pops up, and there is time to catch them up with Healing Surge/CH if everyone takes a big hit.

Stack the crap out of Spirit and Int, at least that's what I've done and I have no issues with mana,(the sp/int gear usually has some +spell stuff on it too) usually on a long boss fight I'm around 20% when we drop him. So far my crits with HW are somewhere around 10 - 15k. With those and RT/ES combo usually no problems.

Elem I use for leveling and haven't played with it in instances at all. I'm a healer and only use Elem when I'm leveling or doing dailies/quests for gold. I do have fun with it though. Earthquake kicks some serious *** with Fire Nova and Chain Lightning for massive AOE :)

Just my two cents for now. Those are my experiences with resto and elem just leveling, I'm sure they will change when I hit 85 and start on heroics though.

Right now my shaman is enhancement and he's pretty fun. Although im still unsure on mastery for enhance since it only effects spell damage (lightning bolt/earth shock/ETC) I am still going for haste/crit.

Because of how the scaling at 85 is, my enhance shammy is no where near his prime. With having nearly 1000 haste rating and only getting 8.5% haste, my dps isnt at its highest. However, with lava lash/unleash elements, i can still do pretty nice dps in semi heroic gear.

I think enhance will get alot better once you dont have to reforge everything to hit/expertise and can concentrate on haste.

Elem is my main spec.

Unleash Elements is a nice addition to the rotation. Throws in that lil twist Blizz wants us to have to "think" when pushing buttons.

My main annoyance, post LK, with the spec is how long Lightning Bolt feels now. It's about .5s slower than in LK was, unless I'm mistaken ... and I can feel it.

Another concern, which may not matter so much, is off-healing. Healing Surge (1 target, large heal) is the only heal worth using (in Elem spec), as Chain Heal, which used to be very helpful, heals pitifully low. Healing Rain is situational use, and I feel I'm remaining oblivious to how much it is/isn't worth casting ... I cast it when I think it's needed, but not overly confident it'd ever save the day.

1k Healing stream ticks are fun, too. I can never get 3 people close enough to make Chain Heal useful in heroics, though, and no one stands in Healing Rains.

Just wanted to chime in since I re-specialized to Enhancement after being repeatedly butt-munched by a Death Knight.

Enhancement, at least at earlier gear levels, is completely insane. 10k DPS without even trying too hard. And Maelstrom Weapon means you can toss a free Healing Rain every couple of seconds. Not as efficient as a Resto's version, but with my current gear I've still got 3500 healing power, so it does matter a bit.

I often find it more useful to throw a free and instant Healing Rain than Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning. So what if my DPS drops from 11k to 10k, if I use my Maelstroms on just healing spells, I'll do about 20-30% of all healing done.

It's crazy.

I thought they nerfed the FT/FT setup?

When are you supposed to switch for the DPS jump? Right now I'm sitting at 10-12k DPS in heroics. 14k if I pop Wolves or BL.

In 4.0.6, FT damage is dropping, WF is going to 3x hits off a proc instead of 2. Also, apparently a lot of epic caster weapons have had their physical damage nerfed "TO THE GROUND!" (tm). Blade of the Witching Hour vs Elementium Hammer vs Claws of Torment vs Fist of Pained Senses. Even if FT/FT does a lot for you in 333-346 gear, your damage might drop again when you try to get epic weapons.

With regards to the "switch", I got the impression from EJ that the FT/FT setup becomes efficient at a certain gear level.

Also, I've noticed a lot of caster weapons from Halls of Origination have some odd damage values. Like 1-xx damage for a total of 30 DPS or so. Thought the nerf had already happened, but guess not.

There is also talk of agil/agil weapons with FT/FT as being viable on the PTR, but pure speculation at this point. Either way, I have two agility weapons if needed and I have my caster weapon if needed. As far as the switch goes, EJ does mention that the better the gear is, the better FT/FT is doing on live. I just noticed that my dps shot way up at my gear level (ilvl 342 avg.)