Welcome to Key & Heal. The site is currently in Beta. Join our healer community on Discord and share your suggestions. You can also use the contact form.
Restoration Shaman is a peculiar healer, which shines by its utility and versatility. You are a jack of all trades. It also means that you do not especially have a niche. Shaman usually gets its place in the sunshine if the meta does favor low interrupts or no lust DPS comps, as it brings both.
I want to start by mentioning that the guides are made by myself, and I am not a class expert. Hopefully, this will help get you started and will include some information that was harder to find. I want to emphasize that these pages more than anything are here to act as a portal to the content creators and other useful links in the right column (or scroll to the bottom on mobile). They are the experts :) In the mean time, if you read something that you think is inaccurate in this website, please let me know, so that we can make sure no erroneous information is shared!
You will go back to the season 1 tiers set which can be summarized as "you will have more healing and damage". It is not particularly exciting gameplay wise, as there is no real implication on how you should play. But it will be very efficient!
While Shamans are a little under the radar this expansion, they are still very good, and one of the very best healer to PUG, thanks to their flexible interrupt and their controls.
Restoration Shaman is a spec that relies heavily on a maintenance rotation to cover minor damage damage events and to enable your cooldown windows. I would heavily recommend that you follow the maintenance rotation religiously until you reach the stage at which you really understand the spec and the damage pattern, to know when you can stop for a while and focus on damage.
Riptide is a very efficient spell. It also ties in to your tiers set, and a third of your talents. It is very important to never let it sit on two charges. This should be your first idea to heal any small damage and you will want to have some running before any big burst. You should see it as your first layer of security. It makes it extremely fast to heal any sort of single target damage as it works with your 2-set, and it will prepare for your Primordial Wave window for AOE healing.
Make sure to keep it on your ranged players in priority, if nobody is really in danger. Your melee players should be in Healing Rain, but your ranged may not, and you do want everybody to be under Deluge
Healing Rain is a spell around which you will need to build. It is a long cast, which can make it hard to sneak in at times. However, it is both an important blanket of healing a great source of damage (thanks to Acid Rain). Just keep it down at all times, it is even worth for Single Target damage.
Remember to always stand in it yourself, to take advantage of Deluge!
Earth Shield is of great assistance for Single Target Healing. In general you will keep it on your tank or your weakest ally, but do not hesitate to move it when a severe Dot is being applied, this little preemptive step can go a long way.
Whatever happens, do not forget to keep it up on both targets!
Nature Swiftness is a 1-min CD, and the last thing you should do is to hold it for too long. The best way to use it is generally on Healing Rain, as it is obviously the best gain of time. It can however be used in a pinch on Chain Heal of Healing Wave if you need some emergency healing. In particular, it will help trigger PrimordialWave with Healing Wave it you have to move at the same time!
As you learn the spec, I would recommend that you start by using Healing Stream Totem rather then Cloudburst Totem. Restoration Shaman does have a lot of buttons and mechanics to handle, and Cloudburst Totem may be just a bit too much, for little gain until you reach 20+ Tyranical keys. Healing Stream Totem however is extremely straightforward. Just press it as soon as there is damage on the group.
As Keys ramp up in damage, the hardest part will be the big bursts of damage. Shaman have a collection of tools they can use, but they might have do more cooldown management than others, although Chain Heal is always a good spell. It will drain your mana however, so using your cooldown will help you stay afloat for long tyranical bosses!
More than any other specialization, there is a real plus to preparing your cooldowns per boss as the alignment of your multiple cooldowns can be the cause of serious headache.
What is very important is to always have a cooldown for a damage event. On a fight with a low cadence (60s or 90s loop), you can stack some cooldowns together, but on faster cadence (20-30s) you will want to spread out your cooldowns to never be caught without one. Which one should you then pick? The rule of thumb is to always use the shorter cooldown first. For you as a restoration shaman, this means:
Primordial Wave is an important cooldown. It will give some really solid healing every 30 seconds with Continuous Waves. It does rely on proper usage of Riptide, but so does half your kit, so you will have to get there one way or the other.
In general the main mistake when using Primordial Wave is to not use the HealingWave (because of movement etc). Make sure to use it!
If you play with Primal Tide Core (Riptide Build), you should have a really solid Riptide coverage at all times, and Primordial Wave becomes really essential to your AOE healing, since Chain Heal will be much less efficient.
In all situations, but especially in this case, another important tip is to always cast your buffed HealingWave when you have 2 stacks of Undulation. The Healing Wave you are casting will get you a 3rd stack and the "cleaved" Healing Waves will benefit from the Undulation buff, making the heal much stronger!
Cloudburst Totem is the special tool of Restoration Shaman. It adds a lot of depth to the specialization. You will always play it with 2 charges, and it has a 45 seconds cooldown. It makes it somewhat weird to consider on a cooldown rotation, but never let it sit at 2 charges and consider using an extra cooldown if it is not available on one instance of a healing check.
How to play it is actually more simple than you would think. Just place it down as you prepare for incoming damage. it will always find its value, do not try to min max it too much! It does combine perfectly with Primordial Wave but not with Ascendance or Healing Tide Totem, which you should definitely use when your are out of Cloudburst Totem charges. The reason is that Ascendance heal replication and all Healing Tide Totem healing do not feed Cloudburst Totem.
Totemic Recall will give you an emergency extra charge if you are running out. In the same spirit, do not wait to use it. If you have to heal in the coming seconds and you do not have a Cloudburst charge, just pop it. Unless you have a very specific plan in mind, this is good value. Be careful not to reset another totem however, just press it right after Cloudburst Totem when you know you will need it to be sure not to mess up there.
Spiritwalker's Grace is not technically a cooldown of course, but Restoration Shaman has in general strong healing on demand, Chain Heal, Healing Surge and even Healing Wave are all pretty good, except you will need to cast and stand a lot, which can be tough during some AOE burst mechanics that combine with movement requirements. Spiritwalker's Grace solves this problem. It is as strong as any of your other cooldowns if you are for example buffed by High Tide.
Ascendance is a pretty strong cooldown. The initial burst of healing is always appreciated and it really makes for a good buff to your healing for the 15 seconds of your duration. This is definitely your strongest throughput cooldown.
Healing Tide Totem is not super impactful, but it does cover a hole in your rotation, and can have the advantage of covering a movement timing. Do not expect it to solo heal a big damage event however!
Spirit Link Totem is a very niche cooldown. Or at least that's what people will tell you about its usage in raid. In keys, it becomes an extremely versatile cooldown. What is essential to understand is that you need to maintain people above 0 HP. 1 HP is fine. And Spirit Link Totem allows use to cumulate all your team into one single common bar that needs to stay above zero, which makes every decision after easier, no triage, no thinking, just pump. Put Spirit Link down and push your best HPS, and there is absolutely nothing outside of 1-shots that can kill your group. It is especially strong against extreme single target damage. Heavy tank damage, vicious bleed, a DOT on 2/3 people. Once you group the team into a single health bar, all of these become low burst AOE, much easier to heal. If we take the example of high tank damage, Spirit Link Totem pretty much means your tank now has a total HP pool equivalent to the sum of all your group's HP pools: absolutely unkillable. Use it, abuse it, it really is an incredible tool.
It was mentioned above, but think of Spirit Link Totem, it can really make the toughest Single Target checks a breeze
Undulation is a passive you will not really try to game, as it can be hard to follow and time accordingly, however when someone is under a lot of pressure, and you need to cast several Healing Surge/Healing Wave in a row, it will come in handy and is a good part of the reason why Restoration Shaman is considered a strong Single Target healer in keys.
You do not have great tools to deal with multiple magic dispels at the same time or close enough (less than the 8 seconds cooldown of your dispel). And you do not have the best Single Target tools to mitigate damage. So you will not like it :)
Restoration Shaman is sturdy with Earth Shield on them at all times, but you do not have many defensives. This means that you will need to be careful with avoidable damage. Think of Spiritwalker's Grace to be able to move as you cast if you really need to move and heal at the same time!
Thanks to Elemental Orbit, you can always have Earth Shield on yourself, which considering the addition of Earthen Harmony, provides you with a permanent 6% DR and some healing when you take damage. Make sure to always keep it up on you, you do not have much defense wise, so you cannot really be lazy on this maintenance. If you do the math at the end of the dungeon, between the DR and the healing, it actually does a ton of work.
Astral Shift is your main defensive, and it is a very good one. You will almost always pair it with Planes Traveler for more availability, 40% DR is always enough unless you have a really specific use case. It is also often the only real defensive you have, but that does not mean you should hold onto it. On the contrary, make sure to use it as much as possible, 90 seconds is not that long, dont hold it!
By far the most specific Shaman piece of utility, Wind Shear is the best interrupt in the game. So yes, interrupt is no longer your exclusive utility as a healer, but think about. the shortest CD in the game (12 sec), and a ranged interrupt, which means you will have it always and without the constraint of being in melee: a game changer. The only mistake you can do is not using it enough. You need to think about the quantity of damage you will save by interrupting this many enemy casts, it is absolutely unbeatable. A classic configuration is to have 3 keybinds: 1 for a regular cast or mouseover cast (to use it on nameplates), 1 to assign focus, and 1 to interrupt your focus if any or your target otherwise. See below for some samples. One thing though, this means that if you ever want to try Priest, you are in for a brutal awakening.
/cast [@mouseover,harm][] Wind Shear
/focus [@mouseover,harm,nodead] [harm]
/cast [@focus,harm][] Wind Shear
The other tool you have for Controls is a great double stop with Capacitor Totem boosted by Guardian's Cudgel. This will always find great value in particular to open up an AOE CC rotation on a pack, as it locks the mobs down for a while. It will take practice to use as a pure Stop because of the delay, but you will learn the timings, run by run.
Not as good as a regular Poison Dispel because of the longer cooldown, but it is an option other healers do not have, and it will find some use cases to multi-dispel poisons (multiple dryads in Darkheart Thicket being a prime example). Dont forget to pick it up for Darkheart Thicket, the Everbloom and Waycrest Manor at least.
Thunderstorm, used with Thundershock, will provide another AOE CC. It can also be used without Thundershock, in particular during Spiteful and Sanguine weeks, to push enemies away.
Mythic + is a race against the clock, and running faster between pack will help gain dozens of seconds over a dungeon. Wind Rush Totem can also make some mechanics easier, a good pick overall
In a choice node with Wind Rush Totem, Earthgrab Totem is more of a niche pick, but it can provide incredible value to lock down adds that do not (or cannot, hello Morchie) be defeated.
A big part of your damage will come from healing rain, which you should use on cooldown anyway for healing. It is an art to put down AOE zones down, as you need to anticipate where the pull will move towards. In general, a good piece of advice is to try to find a tank buddy(-ies) so you can communicate with them to know what their plan is for the pull!
As a quick priority list:
The first thing you should do in a pull is to apply Flame Shock on your priority target (and dont forget to maintain it). This will help getting Lava Surge procs, giving extra instant charges of Lava Burst. This is a big component of your single target DPS, and gives you one damage spell while you move!
Stormkeeper is a straighforward cooldown, simply activate it to get 2 instant and boosted Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt. It always has value, and you should simply use it on cooldown, unless you are currently fighting less than 3 targets and you know more are being added to the pull in the next 10 seconds.
Ancestral Guidance is a great cooldown since you can often combine it with Stormkeeper to heal through damage on packs. The two Chain Lightning will heal a lot under the effect of Ancestral Guidance, giving you a low cost burst of healing. It is not as good as it used to be following the nerfs however, so it is hard to use to heal big bursts of damage, but it helps you have some maitenance healing while you are doing damage!
Outside of this, simply spam cast Chain Lightning on multi-targets!
This was hopefully a nice and helpful introduction, but if you want to get further into healing with Restoration Shaman, you should look for more information, from more expert players. IV Resto Shaman Guide and Wowhead Resto Shaman Guide might include more than this present guide, and be more precise about the priority list.
When it comes to video content, I really recommend Laren's Youtube Channel, starting with his video guide for the spec:
At this point, you should have enough information to get pretty high. What's left will be gear and stat optimization, for which you should use the QE: Live tool.
And then it is really watching the very best play, review some logs, ask for for feedback in the class discord or in the streams chat, and get better, one step at a time. Good luck!
This should be the standard build in 10.2, not so different from 10.1
This build drops Chain Heal in favor of using Riptide and Healing Surge more, leaning on the tiers set to handle AOE. It will require more anticipation of AOE damage, but you will not encounter mana issues.
This is going to be the beacon of this tiers, although it will not be as strong. Be careful of the DOT it will leave on you!
Ward of Faceless Ire© 2023 Bubu
Thanks to Safio for the Icons - Tooltips are a courtesy of Wowhead