Restoration Shaman Healing Guide — The War Within (11.2.7)

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Restoration Shaman is an extremely flexible specialization that shines when healing groups of clumped players. They have a variety of unique tools to deal with otherwise deadly influxes of damage, such as Spirit Link Totem.

Because Chain Heal has no cooldown, Restoration Shamans are one of the few healers that can area-of-effect heal continuously when dangerous, unexpected damage happens, a situation also perfectly suited to their Mastery effect, Mastery: Deep Healing, and to external Mana tools such as Innervate.

Shaman can be quite mobile with Spiritwalker's Grace, Ghost Wolf, and Gust of Wind or Spirit Walk, and deal decent damage when focusing on it, but for the most part cannot heal at the same time as they deal damage; this is considered one of the major weaknesses of the specialization.

In order to properly play a healing role, you will need more than just class-specific information. To better understand healing in general, we recommend that you read our healing guide.

FAQAre Restoration Shamans Good?

Restoration Shamans are fine picks in Raids and PvP due to their flexible healing and utility. They are also strong picks for Mythic+, with great reactive healing and utility that includes a stun, knock and ranged interrupt, as well as decent DPS with minimal global cooldown investment from Acid Rain.

FAQAre Restoration Shamans Good in Raids?

Yes, as they bring powerful, unique tools, such as Spirit Link Totem, with Spouting Spirits and Ancestral Protection Totem, as well as strong cooldown-oriented healing with Ascendance, Healing Tide Totem and Cloudburst Totem, among other miscellaneous utility and a strong raid buff in Skyfury!

FAQAre Restoration Shamans Good in Mythic+?

Restoration Shamans are a good healer for keys, as they have good healing, the Skyfury group buff, and the sustained damage of Acid Rain. They are also able to interweave DPS and healing with the reworked Master of the Elements and are among the few healers who can interrupt from range and have utility talents for all situations.

FAQAre Restoration Shamans Good in PvP?

As the most versatile healers in the game, with the Skyfury group buff, incredible PvP talents such as Static Field Totem, roots slows, strong healing output, mobility, and even a ranged interrupt, they always have a place on PvP teams.

Restoration Shaman has a powerful raid buff in Skyfury, and many 1-point impactful talents such as Spouting Spirits, Deeply Rooted Elements, Downpour, and First Ascendant or Preeminence, to name a few.

It also has multiple defensives beyond the standard Astral Shift personal cooldown, such as Stone Bulwark Totem and Primordial Bond, great mobility through Gust of Wind or Spirit Walk, and Wind Rush Totem, which provides niche but potentially fantastic utility with Jet Stream and Ascending Air.

Once these factors are all considered, Shaman is a great healer for players new to healing or who want to have a relaxing time while healing. This is thanks to high reactive throughput, many healing cooldowns, and especially unique utility, which includes an area stun and knock-up, a short cooldown ranged interrupt, one-click poison removal tool Poison Cleansing Totem, and multiple ways to increase your group's effective life pool with Ancestral Vigor and Downpour.

If you want to play a Restoration Shaman, but currently do not have one at max level, you can check out our leveling guide for tips on your journey.

Restoration Shaman, like any healer, is all about using your abilities strategically. Rather than a fixed rotation, you will be using your flexible spell kit to adapt and overcome whatever the game throws at you.

Cooldown abilities, such as Riptide, Unleash Life and Healing Rain are very efficient, and thus important to use as many times as possible throughout a fight, while the likes of Healing Wave and Chain Heal can be thrown in at any time they are needed, as long as you still have Mana left.

If you are an absolute beginner to the spec but would like to learn the basic fundamentals of the class, we recommend looking through the Spell Summary first, as well as the Easy Mode page linked below.

If you are already somewhat familiar with Restoration Shamans, you can head straight to the Talents and Rotation pages to jump right into more detailed information.

Gearing can be hard to pin down due to the huge number of variables that can affect your character's performance. You can find information on how best to gear a Restoration Shaman on our dedicated gearing page, which includes the current Best in Slot from this tier.

Once you have started to gear, you will need to make sure that you have the appropriate consumables, gems, enchants, and more. We have a dedicated page for this, as shown below, as well as the stats page, where you can find more information on the possibility of a changing stat priority and the necessary changes you may need to make for consumables.