Mists of Pandaria Classic Restoration Shaman Guide

Restoration has a ton of utility and is a flexible healer which feels most at ease when raid healing stacked groups of players with Chain Heal and Healing Rain. It also brings a lot of unique utility, including ally health increases with Purification and a unique damage reduction cooldown in Spirit Link Totem.

Originally, Restoration Shaman was one of the worst healers in Mists of Pandaria until the final Siege of Orgrimmar raid phase. Due to Mists Classic being played with the final patch changes, however, Restoration benefits from massive buffs and quality of life improvements made across the expansion, even after considering the nerfs introduced by the Classic balance team before release.

Thus, we expect Restoration to be meta, or at least very competitive with all other healers in all PvE and PvP content.

Strengths

• Totems and support spells for every type of situation, from healing cooldowns to CC removal;
• Spirit Link Totem, Healing Tide Totem, and Purification are particularly powerful unique skills;
• Shared gear with Elemental allows for easy swapping between healing and damage between encounters;
• Great area healing with Chain Heal and Healing Rain whenever raid can be stacked.

Weaknesses

• Very weak at spread area healing and tank healing is Mana inefficient;
• Mana sustain depends on having time to cast Lightning Bolt with Glyph of Telluric Currents;
• Dependency on Healing Rain and Conductivity is a problem on heavy movement fights.

Without going too deep into detail, Trolls are the top PvE race due to the synergy of Berserking and Healing Tide Totem which makes your main healing cooldown even better. Alternatively, Goblins have the unique Rocket Jump for extra mobility, extra vendor discounts and 1% Haste.

Finally, going Orc for PvP Hardiness and extra burst with Blood Fury is also a decent option, especially if you off-spec DPS often as the other racials are also of great use in that case.

Alliance Shamans should be Draenei due to their free Hit from Heroic Presence and some free healing from Gift of the Naaru.

1. Engineering — Engineering is the best PvE profession in the game due to the extra burst healing granted by Synapse Springs, and mobility increase of Nitro Boosts.
2. Tailoring — Tailoring is also a great PvE profession due to the flexibility of using Lightweave Embroidery for even more burst healing or Darkglow Embroidery for extra Mana.
3. Alchemy — Finally, Alchemy can be of use due to enabling the Zen Alchemist Stone trinket early on, which will stay great for Challenge Modes throughout the expansion, and it also saves some Flask gold with Mixology.

Addons and Macros can greatly improve your quality of life during Mists of Pandaria. Listed below are some of our recommendations on Addons and Macros to help get the most out of your time playing the game.