Mists of Pandaria Classic Restoration Shaman Rotation and Cooldowns
On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Restoration Shaman Healer, depending on the type of damage your group is receiving while doing PvE content in Mists of Pandaria Classic. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, etc. in order to minmax your healing output and your mana efficiency.
Restoration Shaman Rotation
If you have not already, we recommend going through the Spell Summary guide first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the rotation suggestions below.
Restoration Shaman Rotations
Spell Analysis
Assuming all spells do zero overhealing, this is their efficiency ranking (healing done divided by Mana cost) with the low gear values expected from recently leveled characters:
Healing Rain (best heal in game if 6 injured targets are inside for whole duration, especially when previously buffed by 
Unleash Life and extended by 
Conductivity);
Healing Stream Totem (provides high healing for a single global cooldown every 30 seconds);- Unleash Life (result of using
Unleash Elements with the 
Earthliving Weapon weapon imbue); 
Chain Heal (top efficiency requires hitting 4 injured targets, even better if you can consume 
Riptide as well);- Riptide (much of the efficiency is on the heal over time and Chain Heal boosting effect);
Greater Healing Wave (less efficient than 
Healing Wave at high gear levels);- Healing Wave (health gained per time spent casting is atrocious as well);
Healing Surge (more efficient with 
Tidal Waves but never enough to not be the most inefficient heal of all).
Efficiency becomes less important when Spirit values on gear get higher in the
later parts of the expansion, at which point you will start to rely on expensive
heals more frequently and using 
Lightning Bolt for Mana with 
Glyph of Telluric Currents
less often.
Healing cooldowns such as 
Ascendance, 
Healing Tide Totem, and
Ancestral Guidance are not listed above because their usage is generally
planned ahead of time in coordination with the other healers in the group or as
a way to deal with high damage events, rather than in a rotational fashion.
Healing Rotation
Make sure to use the 
Earthliving Weapon weapon imbue and keep 
Earth Shield
active on the tank and 
Water Shield active on yourself.
The rotational logic for Restoration Shaman is as follows:
- Use Healing Surge for emergency healing;
- Use Healing Stream Totem on cooldown;
- Use Healing Rain (buffed by Unleash Elements when possible) if multiple allies are injured and will be able to stay inside the rain for most of its duration;
- Use Riptide on cooldown for efficient healing and Tidal Waves;
- Use Chain Heal to heal group damage, casting it on an injured target with Riptide if available for extra healing;
- Use Greater Healing Wave (highly injured target) or Healing Wave (lightly injured target) to heal single-target damage;
- Use
Lightning Bolt to DPS during downtime in order to recover Mana through 
Glyph of Telluric Currents.
Cooldowns
Healing Tide Totem is a 3-minute cooldown which does massive healing to all
of your raid while active. As it is a totem, you will be able to act freely while
its healing is happening.
Ascendance duplicates your healing and distributes this increased healing
evenly among nearby allies. This can be a powerful healing cooldown, as long as
you continually cast powerful spells while it is active. Try to also have 
Healing Rain
and multiple 
Riptides active in order to focus on using 
Chain Heal
and 
Greater Healing Wave during its effect.
Spirit Link Totem will stabilize the health of anyone within its radius,
and is especially powerful against mechanics that hit targets inside a clump of
players for deadly damage, as it will spread that damage across the whole clump
evenly, making it easy to heal with area heals. You can move it with 
Totemic Projection.
Elemental Mastery is a new talent which can be used to gain a large amount
of Haste for a short duration, making it perfect to use alongside other cooldowns
to make them even more powerful!
Alternatively, 
Ancestral Swiftness can be used to respond to emergency
damage with Greater Healing Wave, or add more healing options while moving.
Finally, Ancestral Guidance is also a new talent that acts as a healing
multiplier which works well alongside other cooldowns.
The 
Primal Elementalist talent makes your Fire and Earth elementals more
powerful and allows them to cast 
Empower and 
Reinforce, which
are significant healing boosts and should be used alongside healing cooldowns.
Remember to use your utility abilities as well:
Stormlash Totem should be used in a rotation with the rest of the Shamans in the raid;
Bloodlust / 
Heroism for a massive temporary raid Haste buff;
Earthbind Totem to slow nearby enemies and allow for kiting;
Wind Shear to help interrupt important casts;
Grounding Totem to absorb enemy casts that Wind Shear cannot interrupt.
Windwalk Totem to free allies from movement-impairing effects;
