Restoration Shaman Guide - Talents, Rotations, Races & More

Level 30 Talents (0,0,21)

We're going all in on the Restoration Tree so you can get down to Mana Tide Totem and Nature's Swiftness.

1. Start off with 5 points in Improved Healing Wave
2. Put 3 points into Mindfulness and 2 points into Tidal Focus
3. Pick up Water Shield, put 2 points into Tidal Mastery and 2 into Ancestral Healing
4. Use the next 3 points to finish Tidal Focus and the next 2 into Tidal Mastery
5. Finally put your level 30 talent point into Nature's Swiftness

Level 60 Talents (0/5/40)

Here's a look at what we think the level 60 Restoration Shaman Talent Tree will look like. As mentioned above, this guide will be updated as we go through the beta and during launch to include any other Endgame Restoration Shaman Talent Trees, along with all the other information you need to excel in the endgame and Raids as a Shaman.

Playable Races

Alliance - Dwarf

Horde - Orc, Tauren, Troll & Skyborne

Recommended Races

Dwarf provides 3 useful abilities and is probably the best race for leveling to 30 as Alliance. Mace Specilization gives you 1% crit when using a mace. Stoneform grants you immunities and Physical Damage Reduction and Big Game Hunter increases you damage to beasts (which you'll see a lot of while leveling up).

Troll is great since you’ll be fighting a lot of beasts in the early game and they have 5% increased damage to beasts. Their Berserking buff grants you 10% casting speed for 10 seconds and they also have Rapid Regeneration which allows you to restore 50% of your health every 3 minutes.

Orc is the other competitive horde race choice. Blood Fury boosts your Spell Power by 10% for 15 seconds. Shatter Curse grants immunity to Curses, Banes and reduces Magical Damage taken. Hardiness decreases stuns by 20%

See our full racial abilities guide for every other race's bonuses.

The primary Skills you’ll use are Lesser Healing Wave, Healing Wave, Earth Shock and your Totems. Chain Heal is a Shamans best healing spell but unfortunately it's unlikely we'll be acquiring it during the BETA with the level 30 cap.

1. Focus on using Healing Wave and down ranking it to save mana when applicable.
2. Lesser Healing Wave is good when you need some quick heals, but it costs more mana and heals for quite a bit less. It's smarter to just pre cast a lower rank Healing Wave most of the time and try to time it well with the incoming damage.
3. Keep an eye out for caster mobs and use your Earth Shock to interrupt them when they're casting. This will make them run in to your tank. If the tank has no aggro on them and they start running to you dont panic, just get close to your tank so they can hit them and get them off of you. You can even drop Stoneclaw Totem or Earthbind Totem if it seems like it's actually going to be a problem.

Totems

Totems are the next part of gameplay that's important. There are a lot of options you can use depending on situations. Wow forever has added 2 new skills for totem management: Totemic Projection allows you to move your existing totems to a new location and Call of the Ancients lets you cast all 4 totems on your "totem bar" by pressing 1 button.

Three essential totems for early leveling are Stoneskin Totem, Mana Spring Totem and Searing Totem. You're going to want to keep these down basically all the time and move them with you.

There are 4 very powerful utility totems that you need to have at the ready depending on the encounter

1. Earthbind Totem will slow all enemies nearby, this is great to have when you need to escape from danger. You can also drop Stoneclaw Totem to taunt enemies if your tank dies and you just need to buy a little time for a kill.
2. Tremor Totem breaks fear, charm and sleep. This will be more useful in dungeons where these are more of a concern, but is crucial to have down when you need to prevent your allies form suffering from these ailments
3. Grounding Totem will absorb a harmful spell coming at you. This shouldn't be unlocking until level 30 unless they changed it. But it's another great Totem you can toss down to soak some damage to yourself or an ally.

Check our WoW Forever tier list to see how the Restoration Shaman stacks up against other Healers.

Visit your Class Trainer often to get your new skills. Even levels are when new skills will become available, so always go back at 6, 8, 12, etc to get upgrades.

You have the ability to Purge enemies. If an enemy has a strong magic buff purge it off of them.

There will be class quests to unlock the different totems (Air, Earth, Fire, Water) make sure to do these when they're available so you aren't missing out on the power of a new totem.

Unlike most other casters, Shamans can't use wands, RIP.

A Shamans favorite stats are Intellect and Stamina, Spirit is also decent but not as important for this class as some other casters. Intellect increases your maximum mana pool and increases your Spell Critical Strike Chance. Stamina increases your health, and Spirit helps your Health and Mana regenerate faster when out of Combat. Prioritize Intellect and Stamina on items but don't be disappointed when a good item has Spirit on it.

Restoration Shaman requires a group to play, you aren't going to heal enemies to death on your own. The gameplay above covers how to play it.

If your party has multiple people who are using Attack Power to do damage drop a Strength of Earth Totem instead of Stoneskin Totem.

Remember as the healer you need to focus on keeping everyone alive, but always prioritize the tank. If the tank dies things can go poorly very fast

Down rank your heals when you can to conserve mana. It's smart to keep a Healing Wave rank 2 on your bars even if you have unlocked up to rank 5 for example. Spamming low rank heals that cost very little mana can a lot of times get the job done without you having to use up all your mana.

Swap between Healing Stream Totem and Mana Spring Totem depending on what benefits your party the most.

If the tank isn't requiring many heals, you can get in there with Rockbiter Weapon on and melee mobs to help out. Always try to be useful even if you feel like your healing is hardly needed. You can use Lightning Bolt and your Shock skills to help DPS too if your mana is full and you don't have much to do.

Always be ready to Earth Shock a caster to reduce incoming damage or prevent another harmful spell. Using Rank 1 Earth Shock is a smart way to conserve mana but still get off the Interrupt.

Stop Casting / Earth Shock

#showtooltip Earth Shock

/stopcasting

/cast Earth Shock