How to be a Raiding Restoration Shaman!

[Funkyx]

First off this will not be a 100% Everything you need to know guide and will be about a Resto Shaman taking the role of RAID healing. This guide is all based upon my 2 years of Resto Shaman Knowledge which I have gathered by myself, From sources throughout the internet and other Shamans. I shall be updating this through the next few days.

I decided it was time to start a fresh and actually contribute to MMOwned.


Intro

To me and my guild mates, A restoration Shaman is a core part of our raiding team. A Resto Shaman can produce very fast yet powerfull heals along with a few rather good HoTs(Heal over time) to the whole raid and is mostly considered as a Raid healer.

The most amazing stat ever for a resto shaman is Haste. It's amazing. Get it. Other stats a Resto shaman should take into account are Spellpower, Crit and Mp5 although at high levels of gear Mp5 to myself does not matter, Your gear should tend to provide enough Spellpower, Crit and Mp5.

Gems, Enchants and Professions.
Gems

A Restoration Shaman focuses mainly on speed(Haste Rating) I personally stack all +20 Haste Rating gems There is no real Haste cap for a resto shaman although I have heard whispers of 1200Soft Cap. Once you reach this cap, You can consider gemming spellpower for example +12 Spellpower +10 Haste.

Mp5(Mana Gained every 5 seconds(Mana per 5)) Is another stat a restoration shaman uses, I do not gem ANY Mp5 gems, apart from 1 for the meta bonus. Some restoration Shamans that Tank heal usually Gem for Mp5.

Meta Gem - This has a very nice proc chance and I see it restore around 600mana. To gain the Meta gem bonus I suggest you use
+12 Spellpower +10 Haste
+12 Spell Power and +5 Mana every 5 seconds
Of course the Yellow will be filled by the +Haste.

Enchants/Enhancements
Lets start from the head down Will include a few alternatives for items which you require reputation.

Head - Kirin Tor reputation
Head 2 - PvP at Wintergrasp, These enchants are not good for PvE but are better than nothing if you do not have the rep.

Shoulder - Sons of hodir reputation.
Shoulder 2 - PvP at Wintergrasp, These enchants are not good for PvE but are better than nothing if you do not have the rep.

Cloak - +23 Haste, Can be obtained from your friendly local enchanter.

Chest - +10 Stats, Can be obtained from your friendly local enchanter.

Bracer - +30 Spellpower, Can be obtained from your friendly local enchanter.

Gloves - +28 Spellpower, Can be obtained from your friendly local enchanter.

Belt - +1 Prismatic Gem Slot, Allows you to add another gem to your belt! Yay more haste! From any Blacksmith/Auction House.

Legs - +50 Spellpower +20Spirit, From any Tailor/Auction House

Now boots for me a somewhat split up, I enjoy the speed of Tuskarrs Vitality as there are no major boot enchants for a Shaman.
Boots +150 Health and increased movement speed, Found on the AH or a decent Enchanter.
Boots 2 +7 mana and health every 5 seconds from any enchanter.

Shield - Any enchanter

Weapon - Any enchanter

Professions
Jewelcrafting is the one main profession I would choose. It's very powerfull for all classes and gives some very nice bonuses as well as a decent money making profession.

All of the following professions are also good for a Restoration shaman, In my opinion all are good or acceptable to a Resto Shaman. Any that won't really effect a Resto Shamans performance in raids will not be included.

Leatherworking - very nice bracer enchant.
Enchanting - Nice ring enchants, +46 Spellpower(+23 a ring).
Alchemy - Increased Flask duration along with a few more little bonuses.
Blacksmithing - Although this is not very well suited it will give you a good boost in raids.
Inscription - Good shoulder enchants.
Engineering - Very fun, Nice boot enchants!! Aswell as some nice haste on gloves.

Talents and Glyphs.
Talents
I'm not going to force Talents and Glyphs on you but Advise. You change them depending on your play style as you get a feel for healing.
Build 1
This build focuses on Shield power and Healing Wave instead of reduced pushback.

Build 2
This build focuses on Shield power and Reduced pushback. I currently use this build as Healing Wave is not a big part of my used spells.

Glyphs
Chain Heal
Lesser Healing Wave
Water Mastery
You may wish to mix and match with Riptide

Water Shield!
Ankh up boi

Rotation / Spells
A Resto Shaman has no "rotation", Instead he/she shall use whatever spell in his/her book he/she finds is needed.

Riptide - Very powerfull, Provides a HoT and Tidalwaves. Also with the T10 2set Bonus it provides very tasty +20% haste for your next spell. Use whenever it's off cooldown as the HoT and proc is too good to waste.

Lesser Healing Wave - Very good spell, Fast and reliable to heal up a low ally.

Chain Heal - FIRE TEH LAZOR BEAMS!!!!1!111one Good spell, will heal multiple targets. I tend to spam this a little too much :P Also provides Tidalwaves.

Earth Shield - Provides heals everytime the shielded target takes damage. Keep this up on the tanks ALWAYS.

The above spells are spell which I mainly use. That does not mean you should use these and these only.

Healing wave - Big heals, good for saving tanks.
Natures Swiftness Instant heals! Save someone from death or get another Chain Heal out quickly.
Water Shield - Keep this up on yourself ALWAYS.
Earthliving Weapon - Keep this up on yourself ALWAYS.

Addons!
Ahhh yes, Addons!! The things that will make you or break you.
I would recomend Grid and Clique for the base healing addon as it's easy to use and easy on the eye.

Setup guides can usually be found on Youtube aswell as POWHEADSHOT

I also use things like Bartender, Recount, DBM, Cooldowns, Power Auras Classic, Gframes, Gmedia. All of these can be found on Curse.com a very good WoW AddOn website apart from Gframes and Gmedia - Try wowinterface.com for these(Gframes will not work without Gmedia).

Here's a little taster of my current UI
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/3659/myuiu.png

Thankyou for using my guide I'll add some more in the next few days but as I say this is not a 100% everything to know guide. I was sleepy towards the end of this so any mistakes, please point out. Anything you want to add - please do.

[dracogp]

1 thing i would like to say about haste. you do not need to get 1,2k haste yourself to get cap. you should stack up to 30% haste (around 980) unbuffed because then when in a raid with buffs (and guessing you have retri pala or boomkin in grp) your haste WILL RISE TO 1,2k (softcap). so you do not have to stack like crazy on haste, but haste is a lovely stat . nice guide but might wanna fill it out a bit +Rep

[Unholyshaman]

I like the guide myself simply because I play a restoration shaman at 80 and am basically self taught (so I don't go looking for theorycrafting guides etc). So it's nice to sometimes confirm that I am on the right track etc.

If for some reason you get over the soft haste cap then you can start going for [Reckless Ametrine] which is +spellpower + haste red/yellow gem which can help with socket bonuses and your meta.

Also you should add into your guide enchants for main hand, shield and 2 hander.

[ToxicSheeplol]

Ok, after reading through this, its a pretty good guide.
I will add a few things my elitist self just has to say (lol):

First off, Haste Soft and Hard cap;
Soft cap is like you said at around 1200 (1269 to be exact), what this means is that your GCD is down to the MAX of 1.00 WITH ALL RAID BUFFS!

As far as i know the Hard Cap is Considered for some players when you are at 50% haste (crazy huh?) CH and HW would be at a 1.50 cast time at that point.

Now that i got that out of the way, lets talk about the way to Gem;

All you specified was what gems to use for the meta and to just go all out on haste in every other slot.
The better thing to do here is this:
For example Lightning-Infused Leggings, they have 1 Red 1 Yellow and 1 Blue Socket.
The way i would gem these is like you said to go full out on 20 Haste gems (yellow) IF YOU DO NOT already have a Blue gem for your meta. If thats the case i would socket Spellpower + Haste in Red, Haste in Yellow and Haste + Mp5 into the blue (yes, i said Haste + MP5, i feel haste Mp5 is a better choice over 12 Spellpower + Mp5)
Now another Example Belt of the Blood Nova, This Belt has 1 Red and 1 Yellow socket PLUS 1 extra slot with the eternal belt buckle. The way this should (IMO) be socketed would be Spellpower haste into the Red socket 20 Haste into the yellow and Prismatic socket that the eternal belt bucket gives you.

TLDR:
If an item has a Blue and Yellow/Red socket, Put in double 20 Haste gems ( exeptions apply if you do not have the meta requirement with the blue gem yet )
If an item has a Red and/or Yellow socket, Match these sockets with their respective gems; Spellpower Haste and 20 Haste.

Sorry for kind of Ninja'ing your thread, but i thought i would throw in my elitist twocents in here

[Funkyx]

Np, I wanted everyone's comments - I wanted other people to be part of the guide as I'm not exactly "elitist" like yourself And of course now I'm awake I'll add more like I said. I've just come back to raid ICC on my shaman, Being playing a hunter allot and wanted Kingslayer on my first ever character so thanks for the hastecap tips.

[ToxicSheeplol]

im not really elitist, i was saying that more as a joke
Also, one thing i forgot to mention:
Glyph of Earth Shield!!!!! use it over the glyph of water mastery!, its only 30 Mp5 where the Earthshield glyph makes your earthshield tick higher which is usually at around 10-15% or more of your total healing done.

[Funkyx]

I don't know whether you mean Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave or glyph of earth shield. Glyph of LHW gives +20% heals on a earth shielded target. Glyph of earth shield just buffs it's healing a bit.

[ToxicSheeplol]

yeah, you are right, sorry about that... it was late last night and i was tired, haha.
Anyway, the Earthshield glyph is still better (it ranks at around 140 HEP which makes it the second best Glyphs for resto shamans, Below Chain Heal and above Riptide.) because you dont have to worry about your mana in raids anyway, i very rarely have to call for Innervate (only fights i need an innervate are LK 25 and 10man heroic) even with only 1 Solace while constantly spamming either the tank or the raid.