Mists of Pandaria Classic Restoration Shaman Leveling

Last updated on Jun 22, 2025 at 12:00 by Seksixeny

On this page, you will find our level-by-level Restoration Shaman leveling guide for WoW Mists of Pandaria Classic.

1.

Restoration Shaman Leveling in Mists of Pandaria Classic

RestorationRestoration Shaman is a healer role specialization meant to be played in a group, and thus you should look to mostly do dungeon leveling when playing as one.

Restoration is also one of the most meta healers, which means they have a very strong healing and utility kit which enables fast pulling, very large pulls with healing cooldowns, and high damage from the group.

1.1.

Restoration Shaman Leveling Spec

Nature's Guardian
Stone Bulwark Totem
Astral Shift
Frozen Power
Earthgrab Totem
Windwalk Totem
Call of the Elements
Totemic Persistence
Totemic Projection
Elemental Mastery
Ancestral Swiftness
Echo of the Elements
Rushing Streams
Ancestral Guidance
Conductivity
Unleashed Fury
Primal Elementalist
Elemental Blast
Major Glyphs
Glyph of Healing Stream Totem
Glyph of Telluric Currents
Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem
Minor Glyphs
Glyph of Astral Recall
Glyph of Astral Fixation
Glyph of Spirit Wolf

In Mists of Pandaria you will be able to unlock a new row of talent selections every 15 levels, starting at level 15. Each row has a specific theme in order to keep the choices balanced with each other, and thus the choice will mostly rest on what type of defensives you want, or mobility, or utility, for the situation.

1.2.

Level 15 Talents

This tier of talents is dedicated to additional defensive options and cooldowns.

  • Nature's Guardian Icon Nature's Guardian provides a passive defensive layer by increasing your health by 25% and reducing your threat whenever you drop under 30% health. While this is not a particularly powerful talent, it is also fully passive making it easy to make full use out of.
  • Stone Bulwark Totem Icon Stone Bulwark Totem summons a totem which shields you for 30 seconds. With its short cooldown of 60 seconds it is easy to get good value out of this talent but its shields are not particularly powerful.
  • Astral Shift Icon Astral Shift has the longest cooldown of all options at 90 seconds but is also by far the most powerful as it reduces all damage taken by 40% for 6 seconds when used. That means you can activate it before hard hitting abilities or if you cannot dodge a dangerous ability to guarantee your survival.
1.3.

Level 30 Talents

This tier of talents has crowd control and anti-crowd control options. Their usefulness depends on the encounter you are facing, so be prepared to adjust these talents on a fight by fight basis.

  • Frozen Power Icon Frozen Power causes Frost Shock Icon Frost Shock to root its target for 5 seconds. While this can occasionally be useful, its diminishing returns and high time cost when needing to root multiple times make it not that useful in practice.
  • Earthgrab Totem Icon Earthgrab Totem replaces Earthbind Totem Icon Earthbind Totem and roots its targets before slowing them. This totem can be very useful whenever dangerous enemies need to be crowd controlled for an extended period.
  • Windwalk Totem Icon Windwalk Totem grants allies within 40 yards immunity to movement impairing effects 6 seconds on a 1-minute cooldown. While this totem does nothing if the encounter you are doing lacks movement impairing effects, it is invaluable against slows and roots!
1.4.

Level 45 Talents

This tier of talents increases the quality of life for using most of your utility totems.

  • Call of the Elements Icon Call of the Elements allows you to reset the cooldown of all totems with a base cooldown under 3 minutes which mostly excludes Healing Tide Totem Icon Healing Tide Totem, Stormlash Totem Icon Stormlash Totem, and the Fire / Earth Restoration totems. This can be very useful to get multiple utility totem usages in emergencies or more Healing Stream Totem Icon Healing Stream Totem healing.
  • Totemic Persistence Icon Totemic Persistence allows you to have multiple totems of a type active at the same time, but does not affect Fire totems. This is mostly used to allow you to use your utility totems freely, as Tremor Totem Icon Tremor Totem and Earthgrab Totem Icon Earthgrab Totem would not be able to be active at the same time otherwise, for example.
  • Totemic Projection Icon Totemic Projection allows you to change the location of your totems to a nearby point every 10 seconds. This can be extremely useful to use Earthgrab Totem Icon Earthgrab Totem and Capacitor Totem Icon Capacitor Totem on enemies far away, for example, or to relocate Spirit Link Totem Icon Spirit Link Totem to hit players not standing next to yourself.
1.5.

Level 60 Talents

This tier of talents grants you extra throughput ranging from long cooldowns to passive bonuses.

  • Elemental Mastery Icon Elemental Mastery grants a 30% Haste boost for 20 seconds on a 90 second cooldown, which makes it very useful for fights requiring extra burst healing, especially when combined with Healing Tide Totem Icon Healing Tide Totem or Ascendance Icon Ascendance.
  • Ancestral Swiftness Icon Ancestral Swiftness increases your melee Haste by 10% and spell Haste by 5% passively and also allows you to make your next spell instant cast every 90 seconds. This is a decent semi-passive option, with the active effect being small but still useful for occasional emergency healing.
  • Echo of the Elements Icon Echo of the Elements gives you a 30% chance to duplicate spell effects other than Elemental Blast Icon Elemental Blast which has only 6% chance. This is a fine passive effect, but as much of your power comes from cooldowns, you are leaving significant potential on the table by not picking the Elemental Mastery Icon Elemental Mastery multiplier.
1.6.

Level 75 Talents

This row is healing focused with multiple options to increase the power of your healing kit.

  • Rushing Streams Icon Rushing Streams allows your Healing Stream Totem Icon Healing Stream Totem to heal two targets at once for 15% additional healing. This is a good passive option, but its total healing bonus is rather underwhelming when compared to the potential of the other two options.
  • Ancestral Guidance Icon Ancestral Guidance copies 20% of your non-totem direct healing to three injured allies nearby for 10 seconds, resulting in a 60% direct healing increase on a 2-minute cooldown. While it is often overkill, if you need very high burst healing this is a great multiplier skill to apply on top of Ascendance Icon Ascendance.
  • Conductivity Icon Conductivity extends the duration of your Healing Rain Icon Healing Rain by 3 seconds every time you use most spells and abilities, up to a maximum of 30 seconds. This makes it potentially the best talent of the row, but also the most situational, as having to recast Rain often will ruin its benefit.
2.

Glyphs

There are only two categories of Glyphs in Mists of Pandaria: Major and Minor Glyphs. Major Glyphs tend to improve or change how major abilities work and thus have direct impact on your performance, while Minor Glyphs are mostly cosmetic or small quality of life improvements for niche spells.

3.

Major Glyphs

While not all recommended glyphs affect your throughput, we still recommend using the glyphs listed below for their high quality of life improvements.

  • Glyph of Healing Stream Totem Icon Glyph of Healing Stream Totem — causes Healing Stream Totem Icon Healing Stream Totem to reduce the elemental damage taken by its targets by 10% for 6 seconds. This is a very strong glyph with high damage reduction potential as long as you are using Healing Stream frequently.
  • Glyph of Telluric Currents Icon Glyph of Telluric Currents — causes Lightning Bolt Icon Lightning Bolt to restore 2% of your Mana every time it strikes an enemy. This is another strong glyph which allows you to actively regenerate your Mana when healing is not required.
  • Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem Icon Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem — is great for leveling, as most fights are short, and thus would waste the full duration of Fire Elemental Totem Icon Fire Elemental Totem.
  • Glyph of Spiritwalker's Grace Icon Glyph of Spiritwalker's Grace — increases the duration of Spiritwalker's Grace Icon Spiritwalker's Grace by 5 seconds, allowing you to cast while moving for a bit longer.
  • Glyph of Riptide Icon Glyph of Riptide — is very situational because it removes the direct heal component of Riptide Icon Riptide, in exchange for removing its cooldown. This can be useful if you need to move very often, since Riptide is one of the best spells we can use while moving.
  • Glyph of Chain Lightning Icon Glyph of Chain Lightning — is situational since it lowers your area damage in situations with less than 4 targets, but is can be recommended whenever you will be facing 4+ targets, although it has no healing value.
4.

Minor Glyphs

Restoration Shamans only have quality of life Minor Glyphs, but there are a few useful ones listed below.

  • Glyph of Astral Fixation Icon Glyph of Astral Fixation — causes Astral Recall Icon Astral Recall to take you to your capital's Earthshrine rather than your Hearthstone Icon Hearthstone location, allowing you to have a different Hearthstone location for extra mobility around the world.
  • Glyph of Spirit Wolf Icon Glyph of Spirit Wolf — allows you to use Ghost Wolf Icon Ghost Wolf while in ghost form, which is likely to make any corpse runs much faster.
  • Glyph of Astral Recall Icon Glyph of Astral Recall — reduces the cooldown of Astral Recall Icon Astral Recall by 5 minutes, allowing you to teleport with it more often.
5.

Leveling Rotation

Your leveling rotation as a Restoration Shaman stays very consistent throughout the levels, with higher levels mostly contributing extra healing cooldowns which can be used to pull more enemies at once safely.

Make sure to use the Earthliving Weapon Icon Earthliving Weapon weapon imbue and keep Earth Shield Icon Earth Shield active on the tank and Water Shield Icon Water Shield active on yourself.

The priority list for Restoration Shaman is as follows:

  1. Use Healing Surge Icon Healing Surge for emergency healing;
  2. Use Healing Stream Totem Icon Healing Stream Totem on cooldown;
  3. Use Healing Rain Icon Healing Rain (buffed by Unleash Elements Icon Unleash Elements when possible) if multiple allies are injured and will be able to stay inside the rain for most of its duration;
  4. Use Riptide Icon Riptide on cooldown for efficient healing and Tidal Waves Icon Tidal Waves;
  5. Use Chain Heal Icon Chain Heal to heal group damage, casting it on an injured target with Riptide Icon Riptide if available for extra healing;
  6. Use Greater Healing Wave Icon Greater Healing Wave (highly injured target) or Healing Wave Icon Healing Wave (lightly injured target) to heal single-target damage;
  7. Use Lightning Bolt Icon Lightning Bolt to DPS during downtime in order to recover Mana through Glyph of Telluric Currents Icon Glyph of Telluric Currents.