WTB Threat Reduction Ability, PST

For the first time since I joined this guild, we raided without our guild leader and main tank. I was hesitant to log on this evening - afraid of wiping a million times with no progress. It turns out that the new people were surprisingly competent and things went rather well. I died a LOT, but it was because I kept pulling healing aggro.

Let me tell you, no amount of threat reduction is going to save an over-geared shaman, even if she downranks twice (my primary heal is Chain Heal rank 3, max rank is 5). You slap one of those around the main tank and melee before the tank has a good hold and you're going to get aggro. This is problematic because a shaman doesn't have any abilities to reduce aggro. Save your jokes about reincarnate, please.

We, as a raid, didn't wipe until we moved to Black Temple and we struggled a little with Gorefiend because the new people didn't know what to do or how to handle the constructs well. Despite the lack of wipes, I still ended the evening with over 100g in repairs. I was quite annoyed. If I had some way of fixing that, I would, but sometimes the tank just needs a heal.

Additionally, this new resto shaman is very, very good. He can beat me on the meters, but only if I end up dead or I don't position myself well (meaning folks are out of range). Otherwise he sits just below me. When his gear matches mine, I will be hard-pressed to top him. Consequently, I think it's time to step up my healing another notch. As of this moment, I'm at somewhat of a loss for how to accomplish that, beyond making some changes to my gear that I don't want to make yet.

I have lots of bonus healing (2332 unbuffed), which means my mana efficiency comes from downranking. I could increase the amount I healed if I used a higher rank heal, but with that comes less mana efficiency and I'm drinking more mana pots to keep up with my mana usage, since I've traded out some mp5 for more healing. I could theoretically do that - drink more mana pots. I am proud of myself for using about one per boss fight though.

The other thing I could change is add spell haste to my healing gear. I'm not sure where I can add that yet, unless I swap in some gear that's inferior in all stats compared to what I'm wearing. Honestly, I don't think the trade-off is worth it. Not only that, but the more spell haste I have, the faster I drain my mana.

Beyond those two things, there's not much else I can do. My internet connection is very solid and I have very little lag. I use Healbot for healing, so my reactions are quick. I have the add-on set up to cast 3 ranks of chain heal, one rank of lesser healing wave, and 2 ranks of healing wave with a click of my mouse. It's very efficient. In other words, there's not much I can do from an interface standpoint.

I need to do a bit of research to see if there's some way I can increase my healing efficiency, mana usage, and overall healing numbers without changing my gear. There has to be something I can tweak, because gear alone cannot explain the difference on the meters between the new resto shaman and myself. I think I need to ask him what add-ons, if any, he uses.

I will report what I find here.