Free Respec!

Last week, shaman were bestowed with a free respec courtesy the WoW development team. This was primarily due to significant changes with the elemental tree, which really needed a buff. More on that in a bit.
I took full advantage of the free respec to tweak Salanthe's restoration build. Since patch 3.0, I've had Salanthe specced for pure raid healing and made a few small sacrifices to boost her raid healing. Notably, I gave up 3 points in Healing Way. As time went on, I began missing the talent more and more, particularly when I healed 5-man heroics. Such a small talent that can make a big difference in single-target healing.

With the free respec of 3.0.8, I decided to squeeze 3 points out of my preferred raid healing spec and toss them in Healing Way, particularly as the talent was buffed in the patch as well. Instead of requiring 3 Healing Waves to gain the full benefit of the talent, it now takes one. A most welcome change, as it makes it much easier for a shaman to keep Healing Way up on the tank (though Healing Wave itself is still a mana-intensive spell).

Without further ado, here is Salanthe's new spec. I dropped a point in Thundering Strikes, Ancestral Fortitude, and Tidal Force to accomodate Healing Way. I rarely used Tidal Force because I'm terrible about on-use effects like that (I even had it bound to my mouse wheel and I'd still forget to use it!). The extra point in Thundering Strikes wasn't a big deal to me, although I do love my crit. I am not however, particularly happy with losing a point in Ancestral Fortitude. It took much debate before I finally decided that of all the one-point losses I could take, that would be the one place I could do it without hurting my healing per second or mana regeneration.

I have yet to test this new spec in a raid, but it seems to be effective in 5-man heroics.

Now, my promised comments on the elemental buff. Let me begin by stating that I have not tried the new elemental myself yet. Anecdotally, from my observations of an elemental shaman I tank and heal for regularly, her overall damage and dps has improved significantly since the patch. Previously, she was doing fairly high dps but very low overall damage. Post-3.0.8, she seems to be doing competitve damage and dps. One of these days I need to get around to respeccing to elemental and try the changes out for myself.