There are many misconceptions going around about the shaman these days. One is that a shamans totems are his greatest strength. However, if you ask any experienced shaman in the game they’re all going to tell you the same thing. It is not the totems that make a shaman, it is their weapon imbuements; the four currently available are, Flametongue, Frostbrand, Windfury, and Earthliving. What many don’t realize is that each of these imbuements in itself is more powerful than any enchant in the game. Because of this, shamans are able to cut back on certain talents and make up for them with imbuements.

Perhaps the best example of this is the Dual Wield Chain Heal restoration talent specialization. Now, before you scoff consider this; currently the best main-hand/shield combo for a restoration shaman is Torch of Holy Flame and Voice of Reason both from 25 Kel’Thuzad. The shamans restoration weapon imbuement Earthliving Weapon, adds 195 healing and has a 25% chance (if your using Earthliving Glyph) to apply the Earthliving heal over time affect to the recipient of the heal, which heals for 642 over 12 seconds(modified by spell power).

As you can see this imbuement alone is going to do more for you than the shield. Now below tier 8 talents in the restoration tree there are no “chain heal” talents. So if you only go as far down as Improved Chain Heal and Natures Blessing, then dump the rest of your points into Enhancment to receive the Duel Wield ability you can now have two Earthlivings active at the same time (0/31/40). Of course there are no spell power off-hand weapons so your best bet is to go with a weapon with as much haste or critical strike rating as possible.

So an off-hand enchanted with 63 spell power and Earthliving will give 187 spell power plus whatever haste or crit the weapon you’re using already has, which will benefit your talents much more than any shield. When using the glyph of chain heal, your chain heal will jump to four different targets, as the percentages of EL do stack you will now have approximately 45% chance of applying the EL heal over time.

I have played with this spec through several 25 man raids and found that not only am I able to keep up with the HoT crazy druids, but am even able to top the charts with very little effort. For example, my last downing of Heroic Patchwork with this spec, a fight where the raid itself is taking no damage but your three tanks are taking massive damage, I was able to keep the EL hot up on all three tanks for 87% of the fight, and out of six healers I was responsible for 37% of total healing done by simply spamming chain heal on my target tank.

The biggest drawback to this spec is that besides chain heal your only heal that you will be speced into will be Haling Wave which has a much longer cast time and healing potential than lesser healing wave. This will call for a bit more guess work and over healing (Glyph of Healing Wave will be your best bet for single target healing in this spec). Bear in mind this is a pure raid talent spec, in five man content and arena the more widely accepted lesser healing wave spam spec is far superior.

As the game changes I find that one talent spec is becoming less and less dominant over another. Because of this the players who are able to adapt and take advantage of these changes first are the ones that will truly dominate. So start studying up on those patch notes, experiment, and most of all keep the game fun.