updating for Warlords of Draenor

Restoration Contents Restoration Shaman Talents Glyphs Resto Stats Rotations Gems Enchants Consumables Professions Races Leveling Quickly

This Restoration Shaman guide is primarily intended for Raid/PvE healing at level 90 and to some extent in PvP. However, if you’re looking for advice on leveling your Shaman, check out our Shaman Leveling Guide. Other Shaman Guides: PvE: Enhancement DPS, Elemental DPS PvP: Restoration Other: Shaman overview, Shaman leveling If you want the same in-game step by step leveling guide that we use to get to level 100 as fast as possible, take a look at our favorite in-game leveling guide.

 

 

Restoration Shaman Talents

Most of the Resto Sham talents have, at least, situational utility. There might well be times when you want to switch up before a fight. Keep a stack of Tome of the Clear Mind handy for those occasions.

Descriptions are below the image and our primary picks are checked.

 

Tier 1, level 15:

1. Nature’s Guardian is only useful if you anticipate dropping to low levels of health on a frequent basis. That shouldn’t be a problem for you outside of PvP.
2. Stone Bulwark Totem is useful for sustained incoming damage, which is probably what you are most likely to encounter most of the time. Astral Shift is better for burst damage.
3. Astral Shift is a useful damage mitigation tool, pick either this or Nature’s Guardian although personally I’m partial to Astral Shift.

Tier 2, level 30

1. Frozen Power roots a target in place for 5 seconds and is the least potentially useful of the three talents in this tier, only effective on a single target. Useful for the occasional wandering add.
2. Earthgrab Totem is an AoE root/slow which will see only very occasional value as the Tank should have control of everything.
3. Windwalk Totem gives you and your raid immunity to movement impairing effects for a short time, quite useful under the right circumstances.

Tier 3, level 45

Each of these is somewhat situational and will really depend on the fight.

1. Call of the Elements is the most useful choice of this tier as it can give you your totems right now.
2. Totemic Persistance is useful in PvP, not so interesting for PvE/Raiding.
3. Totem Projection is more for doing damage, or PvP, but could have the occasional other use. .

Tier 4, level 60

1. Elemental Mastery provides a big haste cooldown, 20 seconds, every 90 seconds, one of two recommended choices. Useful for when you need a lot of extra healing during heavy damage periods.
2. Ancestral Swiftness is another viable choice as it allows for an instant emergency heal and has a nice passive Haste boost.
3. Echo of the Elements is too random to be as helpful as the other two options. It’s likely to cause overhealing when it does proc and can’t be counted on to proc when you actually need it.

Tier 5, level 75

1. Rushing Streams is useful for when the team gets spread out. Increases overall healing by a small amount.
2. Ancestral Guidance is also beneficial in certain specific situations, such as for tightly stacked melee, but less useful overall than Healing Tide Totem. More of a useful DPS talent than a Resto talent.
3. Conductivity has very limited value the vast majority of the time, avoid it.

Tier 6, level 90

1. Unleashed Fury for powerful single target heals.
2. Primal Elementalist is best used when the majority of your heals are area effect.
3. Elemental Blast is lacking due to the random factor of the buff. The long cast time doesn’t help.

Tier 7, level 100

These talents are coming with Warlords of Draenor.These are the description as of 4/1 (not an April Fools joke) and will likely change. The new talents often have different effects depending on your spec. This will be true for other classes, as well, and some of the lower level talents may change to do the same thing. See our level 100 talents post for details on the other classes.

• Rainstorm:
  • Elemental and Enhancement: While lightning Shield is active Lightning will strike a random enemy within 40 yards, that you are already in combat with, for decent nature damage.
  • Restoration: Summon a Water Totem that will collect all Overhealing and grant it, as Spell Power, to your next Healing Surge, Healing Wave, Chain Heal, or Riptide.
• Storm Elemental Totem
  • All: Summons an Air Totem (with 6k health) that calls forth a Storm Elemental which hurls gusts of wind at your enemies for damage. The damage done is returned to all allies within 15 yds, as healing, split evenly among them. 5 min cooldown.
• Reach of the Elements

• Elemental and Enhancement: Your Fire Totem now spits globs of lava at random targets within 40 yds. every 1 second for 15 seconds. Each glob deals damage to the target and all enemies withing 8 yds of the target.
• Restoration: Chain Heal now bounces to all targets affected by your Riptide.

 

 

Restoration Glyphs

Some of the more useful glyphs. Swap as necessary.

1. Glyph of Healing Stream Totem – adds some damage reduction to the target of your heal.
2. Glyph of Riptide – less immediate heal, but no cooldown. Spam Riptide all over the place. Will result in more effective Chain Heals as they will be affected by the Riptide buff more often.
3. Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem – When your elemental is up it can buff your healing ability via Empower or Reinforce.
4. Glyph of Spiritwalker’s Grace – great for fights with lots of movement
5. Glyph of Chaining – mostly for 5 mans and 10 man raids, where your targets are likely to be spread out. Not so useful for larger raids.
6. Glyph of Water Shield

Minor Glyphs are mostly only cosmetic, But there are a couple of exceptions. Grab any that you like the look of. Such as these:

1. Glyph of the Lakestrider: Gain water walking
2. Glyph of Astral Recall: reduces CD by 5 min.
3. Glyph of Deluge: chain heal now has a watery appearance.

 

Restoration Stat Priorities

All of these stats values will change greatly when Warlords of Draenor launches.

• Priority: Int & Spirit > Haste at a breakpoint  > Mastery >  Crit > Haste in between breakpoints.

The above is a quick and dirty stats guide. The value of the secondary stats depends a lot on exactly how you play the healing game. The exact value of the stats also depends on break-points, gear levels, etc.

Int is your Spellpower and is your most important stat, but it’s not the only one you need. Pump everything you can into Int and you’ll have powerful heals, but you’ll run out of mana quickly. Pump it all into Spirit and your heals will be weaker, but you will last forever.

Spirit is your mana regen. Stack it until you’re happy with your mana usage. Note that this will vary greatly with exactly what you’re fighting, your gear level, your team, and so on. In long fights with lots of damage you will need more than otherwise. If you are low at the end of the fight, but not running Out of Mana (OOM,) then your spirit is about right. If you’re near full mana then get rid of some Spirit. Likewise if you’re OOM then you need more.

Mastery: Your Mastery stat becomes increasingly valuable as your targets are lower in health. If your team is constantly topped off, then points in Mastery will have a significantly lower value than if they’re constantly at 10% of full health.

Note that healing people up when they really need it is far more important than when they don’t and that’s exactly where your Mastery helps.

At higher health levels Crit actually appears to be more valuable, due to Resurgence.

Haste: Restoration has a somewhat complex Haste Soft Cap system, make certain to research it further before finalizing. Start by checking the Haste break-point card on Totemspot (you’ll have to scroll down a bit.) 12.51 total Haste (all buffs included) gets you the first three breakpoints. The next one is at 20.01% total Haste. When you hit the break-point Haste is your best stat (after Int and Spirit,) though it’s not so hot in between break-points. High Haste will also cause you to burn mana faster.

Crit: Resurgence returns a pretty nice amount of mana and crits do 200% healing, so what’s not to like? The randomness. It’s great when it happens, but you can’t count on it. It will certainly add the amount of healing you do and help keep your mana up, or at least it’ll help keep it from running out as fast.

You can find a detailed discussion of your stats on ElitistJerks.

 

Restoration Shaman In-Depth Ability Guide

Keep it Up

1. Water Shield should always be active.
2. Maintain Earth Shield on the tank at all times. Earthshield has nine charges and heals the shielded player every time they take damage. Earth Shield does not stack and if you have multiple shaman in a raid you should coordinate to make best use of the effect.

Your Abilities

1. Unleash Elements should be used to boost the effectiveness of your healing.
2. Riptide is important to maintain on as many targets as possible to benefit from the 25% increase in healing done by Chain Heal on targets already affected by Riptide. Additionally, using Riptide triggers the Tidal Waves buff which reduces the cast time of Healing Wave by 30% and increases the critical effect chance of your Healing Surge spell.

If the raid is taking AoE damage or at the very least multiple players are taking damage at the same time, use Chain Heal. As mentioned above, Chain Heal will benefit from a 25% increase in healing done if the target is already affected by Riptide.

Use Healing Rain to cope with periods of heavy raid damage in addition to using Riptide on as many targets as possible before spamming Chain Heal.

Healing Surge is your emergency heal for situations where you don’t have enough time to cast Greater Healing Wave on someone. Making frequent use of Healing Surge will very shortly leave you with no mana so it’s recommended to avoid using it if at all possible.

Totems and Such

1. Spiritwalker’s Grace will allow you to move and still heal when necessary.
2. Healing Stream Totem should be used as often as possible. It lasts for 15 seconds with a 30 second cooldown and heals the most injured players within 40 yards every 2 seconds.
3. Spirit Link Totem reduces all damage taken by players within range by 10% for 6 seconds. Each second the health of all players effected by the totem is shifted such that they have an equal percentage of life remaining.

Tier 4 Talented Abilities:

• Elemental Mastery provides a significant haste buff and is ideal for healing through periods of heavy damage.
• Ancestral Swiftness provides you with an instant cast heal every minute, this is best used to insta-cast  Greater Healing Wave in an emergency.

Tier 5 Talented Abilities:

• Both Ancestral Guidance and Healing Tide Totem are potent healing cooldowns that are best saved for AoE healing the raid.

 

Gems for the Restoration Shaman

Unless a socket bonus offers a solid Int or Spirit bonus, it’s generally more effective to gem for pure intellect and ignore the bonus. But, note that gems with secondary stats have twice the value of gems with primary stats, so your Haste gems are 320 points and your Int gems are 160. This does give some reason to match those socket bonuses, though we recommend only doing it if it’s for a nice Int bonus. See the stats section above and also check your healing logs and gem accordingly.

Your mail bonus adds to any Int gem bonuses, making them worth 5% more Int. That bonus does not add to the other stats.

Gemming Routine

This routine makes certain assumptions, for example: that you need more spirit.  This is for your pre-Warlords/pre-level 100 gear.

• Meta: Burning Primal Diamond is generally the best choice, esp. at higher gear levels when your mana is fine. If you need Spirit then use the Revitalizing Primal Diamond. The legendary gem Courageous Primal Diamond, is great if you can get it.
• Red, Blacksmithing, and belt buckle sockets: Brilliant Primordial Ruby – for the spellpower.
• Yellow: Reckless Vermilion Onyx (Int & Haste) or even Quick Sun’s Radiance if you can hit a Haste break-point with the gems, otherwise Artful Vermilion Onyx (Int & Mastery)
• Blue: Need the Spirit? Then use Sparkling River’s Heart. Otherwise Purified Imperial Amethyst (Int & Spirit.)

 

Restoration Shaman Enchantments

Short on gold? If you want to buy the best enchants, fund all of your alts, donate to the guild, etc., but don’t have the cash, then see what the Tycoon Addon can do about about fixing your poverty.

Helm enchants are gone as of Mists of Pandaria; shoulder enchants all come from the Inscription profession.

 

Restoration Shaman Professions

This is for those who need every last bit of burning power. All of the regular professions offer a self-only buff of some sort. None of these buffs will make or break your healing capability. Leveling any of the crafting professions will be expensive. Check out Tycoon if you are short on gold.

• Blacksmithing –
• Engineering –
• Tailoring –
• Enchanting –
• Inscription –
• Leatherworking –
• Alchemy –
• Jewelcrafting –
• Mining –
• Herbalism –
• Skinning –

 

Consumables for Resto Shams

Note that Pandarens get twice the food buff. All food buffs last one hour.

 

 

Race Choice for the Restoration Shaman

As a healer your race doesn’t matter all that much. If being big and furry or short and annoying is more important than every last iota of healing power then go for it.

Pandarens get better food buffs, Trolls and Orcs have useful cooldowns.

Pandaren

• Can choose to be either Horde or Alliance upon leaving their starting area.
• Take less falling damage, though this has very little PvE use.
• If you’re leveling then your rest XP lasts twice as long.
• If you eat then you get increased benefits from food buffs.
• Can stun melee opponents for four seconds, which might have occasional use.
• Good with cooking.

Draenei

• Self-Heal: You have plenty of heals, but this one is free and there are times when that’s a nice thing to have.
• Jewelcrafting skill increase.

Dwarf

• Stone Form washes away bleeds and other effects, but this is of value mainly in PvP.
• Good with Archeology.

Orc

• Blood Fury increases Spell Power for 10 seconds, which is a good thing in all cases.
• Resistance to Stuns has PvP value and is occasionally useful in PvE, but will only reduce a 6 second stun by about 1 second.

Tauren

• War Stomp is strictly melee range so has very infrequent use in PvE, but has definite use in PvP when melee types get in your face.
• Health Increase is nice, but hardly important for you.
• Good with Herbalism, and this skill provides a pretty nice Haste buff.

Troll

• Berserk increases casting speed, once every three minutes, which can be rather nice.
• Damage Increased Vs Beasts: Pretty useless.
• Da Voodoo Shuffle is always useful in PvP (though not nearly as good as an escape ability or trinket.) Occasional value in PvE. It reduces a six second root to about 5 seconds.

Goblin

• Rocket Jump is a nice little escape from, or entry into, combat. Kinda like a cheap Blink spell.
• Increased Haste (1%) is always useful.
• Increased Alchemy skill is nice if you have that skill. Keeping a pile of mana potions on your bar is a good idea anyway.

 

 

 

 

Shaman Leveling Guide for FASTER Leveling

The best way to get to level to the level cap fast is to do it with a pre-written, automated, in-game leveling guide. WoW has thousands of quests and a few million mobs to grind and it’s easy to get lost (in terms of what to do or where to go next ) or just bored. A full-blown guide will make your blast to the top much smoother.

Dugi’s Guide is what you want: constantly showing you where to go and what to do, without ever having to leave the game to look something up:

Assuming you stay focused on leveling (as opposed to shopping, PvP sessions, and RPing) you should be able to go from 1 to 100, or whatever in well under 10 days, and maybe even less. If you’re brand new or have full heirlooms and Recruit a Friend you’ll find yourself leveling even faster with Dugi’s.

Dugi’s is always quickly updated for new patches and expansions (such as Warlords) and so will never be obsolete. You can snag your copy of Dugi’s Guide here and cruise through the levels.

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