Buff me?! Buff you!

Ok, so we all know how to maximize Arcane Mage DPS, but what do you, the well-meaning Shaman healer, need to maximize your output? Who do you want in your raid and/or in your group to buff you the most?

The first thing you need to look for is a Critchicken (Balance Druid). That Moonkin Aura makes a good Restosham cry tears of joy. Improved Moonkin Form gives a haste bonus to the aura, but that doesn’t stack with your Wrath of Air, so it doesn’t matter if he skips that talent.

While you’re at it, you need to get that druid to hit you with Mark or Gift of the Wild. I’m sorry, did I say Mark of the Wild? I meant Improved Mark of the Wild. Don’t leave Dalaran without it.

The next checkbox you need to hit is a Mage. Their Intellect buff satisfies one of your primary stat priorities. Intellect feeds your spellpower through Nature’s Blessing, increases your crit (a little, 0.36%), your mana pool, the mana contribution from Replenishment, and the mana contribution from Mana Tide Totem. Int is a happy thing to buff.

If you absolutely can’t get a mage, you’ll have to settle for a Warlock. His Felhunter pet can give you Fel Intelligence, which is 80% as good as Arcane Intellect. And it buffs Spirit. Which you shouldn’t /spit on. On armor, you can /spit on it. But as a buff it’s okay.

Now you want to stay close to your friendly, neighborhood Paladin. Particularly the sort sporting Improved Blessing of Wisdom and Improved Devotion Aura. Make sure they stay fat and happy. Stay polite with that other Paladin who offers you Blessing of Kings, but make sure your buddy knows your heart belongs only to her.

Somewhere along the line you are going to be called upon to raid with an Elemental Shaman. And he’ll be waving around his mighty Totem of Wrath. Which is nice to have, in a big-brotherly kind of way. Sure, the crit bonus does nothing for you, and the spellpower buff overrides your own Flametongue Totem. But he does pleasant things for your Bonus Healing bottom line. And if you didn’t get a Moonkin in step 1? Elemental Oath will serve you almost as well as the Critchicken aura.

You’ll probably have a Priest in your raid. Cross your fingers that it’s a Shadow Priest, so they can offer Replenishment to go with the Improved Power Word: Fortitude. If you’re stuck with a Discipline Priest, maybe they can put Power Infusion on you every so often. That’s probably too much to hope for, though. Don’t act offended when they buff you with Divine Spirit; they mean well.

And don’t think I’m letting Replenishment off so easy. Sure, that Shadow Priest is working hard to keep the effect ticking, but it can only select 10 raiders to operate on at a time. That might be you, but it might not! The only way to make sure is to get a bunch of people generating Replenishment procs. Instead of laying in a bunch of Shadow Priests, you should probably grab a variety of providers. Frost Mages, Retribution Paladins, Destruction Warlocks and Survival Hunters can all give you that sweet, sweet mana. No need to choose. Take one of each!

At that point, you’re done. Not so hard, huh? Sure, you could fish up some food. Flask yourself. But stacking the raid is where it’s truly at.

Update on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 11:56AM by Llyra

I was wrong about the flavor of Warlock that can provide Replenishment. Destruction Warlocks proc it, not Demonology ones. Corrected in the article.

Who stole my buffs?

Content patch 3.0, shortly before the Lich King expansion, made a huge number of buffs non-stacking. If you have two effects that don’t stack active, you will see both buffs, but only the most powerful will provide its benefit. Knowing what classes and specs provide non-stacking buffs to yours is the key to maximizing group synergy and total output.

Let’s look at each totem and who has buffs it will not stack with.

 Flametongue Totem

Shaman (Elemental) — Totem of Wrath: Superior to Flametongue in every way, even if you talent it. I still tend to drop my totem because of the meager value of other fire category totems, and it covers me in case I am out of range of the Elemental Shaman’s totem. Or when she drops Magma Totem instead.

Warlock (Demonology) — Demonic Pact: 10% of the Warlock’s spellpower is quite probably greater than the 144 spellpower of the totem, although the proc requirement means that you cannot count on it at all times. Which is particularly important when refreshing Earth Shield, which uses your bonus healing at the time of casting. Update: Demonic Pact’s spellpower bonus only applies to bonus damage, not healing.

 Frost Resistance Totem

Paladin (Any) — Frost Resistance Aura: These buffs are identical.

Druid (Any) — Gift of the Wild: The druid buff gives only 54 resistance (70 talented), although it obviously provides many other benefits.

Strength of Earth Totem

Death Knight (Any) — Horn of Winter: Identical buffs, although the totem can be talented stronger. Provided the Death Knight is applying it regularly, there’s little reason to drop this totem. The talented version has no match, however.

 Stoneskin Totem

I was guessing that the armor buff provided by this totem wouldn’t stack with Gift of the Wild or Devotion Aura. It turns out that it does though. Nice! The only thing you have to watch out for is another Shaman with Guardian Totems.

 Mana Spring Totem

Paladin (Any) — Blessing of Wisdom: Identical buffs, even down to talents that improve each (Restorative Totems, Improved Blessing of Wisdom). In what must surely be a bug, these buffs don’t merely fail to stack. Dropping this totem will wipe out Blessing of Wisdom over the entire raid. Which will make for some irate Paladins. It costs them reagents to apply their buff, so be nice. Even if yours is talented and theirs is not (which is common), do not drop this totem unless the Paladins know you’re going to do so.

 Fire Resistance Totem

Paladin (Any) — Fire Resistance Aura: These buffs are identical. One must bear in mind, of course, that this is a water totem, and therefore comes at the expense of your most defining buffs.

Druid (Any) — Gift of the Wild: The druid buff gives only 54 resistance (70 talented), although it obviously provides many other benefits.

 Windfury Totem

Death Knight (Frost) — Improved Icy Talons: The Death Knight ability is based on use, so you can’t guarantee uptime. But as a melee class, he is much more likely to be where the fighting is than your totem.

 Nature Resistance Totem

Druid (Any) — Gift of the Wild: The druid buff gives only 54 resistance (70 talented), although it obviously provides many other benefits.

Hunter (Any) — Aspect of the Wild: These buffs are identical.

 Totem of Wrath

Paladin (Retribution, but easily obtained by any spec) — Heart of the Crusader: Totem of Wrath is, of course, an Elemental trait, and one that I don’t have. I include it here for completeness. The critical strike debuff is the only overlapping portion. The unparalleled spellpower buff on the Totem makes it irreplaceable.

Rogue (Assassination) — Master Poisoner: Overlaps the critical strike debuff portion of the totem.

Update on Saturday, May 16, 2009 at 1:21PM by Llyra

Updated information based on reader Aelenai. Thanks!