Totem Talk is the column for Shamans. Matthew Rossi was up all night trying to get a new hat. Only in Azeroth does getting a new hat involve wading in the blood and viscera of dragons from outside the time stream. Seriously, they really need to just put in a freaking boutique or something. Imagine how bad it would suck if you had to prepare for a new job interview by killing Aeonus every time. Heck, maybe you do, I don't know where you work.Last week we talked about gearing up your off-spec sets. This week, we'll talk about those times when, either by accident or design, you end up having to fill an off-spec role. Usually, this means an elemental or enhancement shammy has to fall back and throw some heals, but not always: my resto shaman has ended up in groups with other healers and actually had to switch over to casting lightning bolts at things on a couple of occasions.
Of course, it helps if you happen to have gear for the role you're taking up: when I find myself forced to heal I usually equip my healing shield and weapon (since we're usually in combat anyway) and switch out to the best possible totems for my limited +heal and mana pool (either healing stream or mana spring depending on the situation, and wrath of air for the bonus to healing) but expect to run out of mana and burn a potion when you're doing this kind of emergency healing. Elemental shamans tend to last a little longer doing this because their gear usually has spell damage and healing on it, which will translate to more effective healing, even if your enhancement shamans have full mental quickness. But neither DPS spec is really suited to healing, especially not when in their DPS gear, so don't feel too bad if you try your best and the tank still goes down - if you're healing then things have already gone pear shaped.
While I'm sure we've all had the experience where a crucial group member went away from their keyboard at a bad time, a whole different type of disastrous 
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