Best stats for a Resto Shaman?

With the new changes to mastery for resto shamen in 4.1, I have to re-evaluate my stat choices.

Even with the change, it feels to me like haste should take the cake. The faster I can cast, the better chance I have of getting a heal off. When heals go off, people don't die.

Of course, you have to have spirit to go with haste. Earlier, I didn't realize this and stacked haste to the point my spirit couldn't keep up. Now, I scaled back and reforged off my haste because it was considered the least valuable stat.

But now, I have to rethink everything, since I want to be at the top of my game for raids.

And the Elitist Jerks site is no help. In their 4.1 discussion, they label Intellect as the most valuable stat, followed by Spirit. The problem is they don't take a stand on the stats I can do something about with reforging, haste, crit and mastery.

I recall reading other sites that suggest you get to 916 haste and then move onto other stats.

I guess I will stay away from reforging, outside of Spirit until I figure it out.

What stats are my fellow shamen prioritizing?

Downfall of gear scores

With all this talk of gear scores, I've been paying more attention to mine and I'm starting to rebel.

First of all, gear score has never been a good assessment of a player's skill. While his character should be able to do something, that doesn't mean the player behind the mask can accomplish the task.

The gear score also doesn't factor in what items are good for a character, it just looks at a number and assumes players would only wear useful gear.
Yay! Our tank has a 3800 gear score. It would be more impressive if half of it weren't cloth.

So as all these morons run around asking for groups with 5k gear scores, I am left wondering if it would be better to equip useless gear just because it has a higher score and make it easier to group up.

For example, I just picked up [Mudslide Boots], but my gear score went down. I had been wearing [Lightning Grounded Boots], a 226 ilevel item, but my score dropped by 6 points when I equipped the [Mudslide Boots].

Since the new boots are better for me, but the gear score fanatics out there would have me use the old boots.
What's a spacegoat to do?

My Space Goat

This blog is going to focus on the World of Warcraft from the perspective of an average player.

I started playing during The Burning Crusade so I'm not an original player, but I didn't start yesterday. I haven't done enough raiding or arenas to be a jaded elitist, but I don't consider myself a complete n00b.

My original character was a human paladin, but he went to the wayside when I started my draenei shaman named Morkk on the Dalaran server. I leveled in the restoration tree (stop laughing) with my wife, a draenei protection paladin named Mindey.

From the time I started, I knew I wanted to be a healer and, for me, the best way to learn was by using that abilities and talents in fights while leveling. In case no one noticed, the game doesn't offer much in the way of healer training.

So, it took longer to level, but we had fun doing it and I learned enough about healing to prevent my first foray into a high-level dungeon (70 at the time) from being a complete fail.

I geared up a bit and went into Karazhan a couple times with my guild, Stronghold, but raiding lost some of its luster when the Wrath of the Lich King was announced.

With Lich King, we again took our time leveling and I eventually got enough gear to head into Naxxaramas with the guild. Some of them had been in the original instance, so they could offer strategy and other advice. It was all new to me since I skipped over the level 60 raids and I didn't do much at 70.

Between work and family obligations, I don't raid regularly, but I enjoy it when I have the time. I haven't been to the top tier areas, but maybe someday.