Why would a resto shaman consider using Thrall's Helm of Triumph instead of Thrall's Headpiece of Triumph for their BiS piece?

Using the same logic would this have been the case prior to the changes made in patch 3.2?

more crit and it has haste!

lawl if he doesnt know im bad on my hunter already then idk what hes doing

Basically as of 3.2 shamans benefit greatly from haste. Shamans using Healing Wave and Chain Heal are much more viable now then in Ulduar and Naxx. You can stack haste as much as you want pretty much as long as it can keep up with your mana regen and actual heal size. So taking the ele helm is a very good option. I also found that many people are taking the ele shoulders as well for there BiS gear. For example with my hunter my BiS gloves are leather from 10man FC. I may lose Int but i gain more agi, AP, ArmP, and 2 red sockets. So many classes can benefit from taking gear that is not made for them.

edit: this wouldn't have been a likely choice pre 3.2 btw

As it stands haste is the 1# stat for resto shamans at the present because they need to lower there gcds and casting speed on important spells. Since shamans have just one hot in order to compete a shaman must lower their cast speed as low as possible for spells like chain heal and healing wave.

Ok - sorry this took so long, and since no one feels like they need to answer these questions, it looks like Myo and Money will be competing for the healing gear this week.

Anyway - here goes my answer....which I gave to Myo last Tuesday.

The elemental shaman piece - with haste and crit would be a viable choice for resto shammies as of 3.2. As of the patch, mana regeneration for resto was improved via water shield (can now proc via Chain Heal) so the need for Mp5 is much lower than pre 3.2. Haste has now become the necessary evil for healing - and this elemental helm gives a yellow socket - so you can socket the +20 haste and still gain the spell power socket bonus.

It seems that the resto Shaman 4pc would be OP - Myo would you use the elemental helm as your 5th Tier piece?

Hey guys sorry this took forever for me to reply to, work is eww.

Anyways Shlev you are right the t9 4 set bonus is pretty OP, but no I would not be using the ele helm as my sixth piece. The Leather legs off HM 25 man Toc is actually my BIS because of the tremendous amount of haste. Haste has become the shaman way to go because of the changes not only to water shield, but to Tidal Waves which is a result of using riptide or chain heal. Anyways before 5/5 points in Tidal Waves used to reduce the cast time of lesser healing wave by like A BAJILLION, which made haste back not really worth it. They made shamans QQ by switching it to Healing Wave which is a lot more mana costly and not as efficient. Because of this, resto shamans now gem haste to reduce the cast time on not only chain heal (which is OP) but lhw as much as possible. Right now at about 870ish haste my lhws raid buffs are at about 1 second and my chain heals are at about 1.8 seconds. The goal is to have about 1200 haste to reduce it under 1 second, which would be pretty OP.
Anyways because haste is the way to go instead of crit the ele helm is the best choice for resto shamans UNTIL they are blessed with the 25 man Hardmode TOC leather legs from Anub.

References:
Tidal Waves: No longer reduces the cast time of Lesser Healing Wave by 30%. It instead now provides +25% critical strike chance to Lesser Healing Wave, along with the previous 30% cast time benefit to Healing Wave.

Improved Water Shield: This talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.