Restoration Shaman Frequently Asked Questions — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.3

In short: really good in raids and decent in Mythic+! A summary of all changes for the latest patch can be found on our Restoration Shaman introduction page. Read on for a more detailed opinion on our state for Mythic+ and Raids.

We can push high keys alongside any other healer class, and output significant damage by using Igneous Potential traits as well. While we are very easy to play in Mythic+ healing-wise, there is a lot of skill involved in perfecting the weaving of our DPS and utility kit alongside healing, as well as making sure everything is purged and interrupted ASAP.

Restoration Shamans are a must have in raids due to our powerful, unique tools ( Spirit Link Totem, Ancestral Protection Totem and Ancestral Vigor, especially) and strong cooldown-oriented healing. There are plenty of good playstyles available in our talent tree — from flexible High Tide-powered Chain Heal bursts, to cheap Downpour / Wellspring rotations replacing most would-be expensive Chain Heal casts.

Haste will make your rotation feel smoother and more responsive. Due to the stat squish, however, Intellect is now our most powerful stat (eventually giving way to Critical Strike and the other secondary stats, as we get more Intellect throughout the expansion) and should be stacked as much as possible. In 99% of cases, this means that you should use the highest item level gear you have available, as the specific stat distribution is a minor healing gain. Items with Leech / Avoidance are worth ~10 item levels extra, 15 if they are rings. Finally, rings do not have Intellect and thus you can afford to lose 5 to 10 item levels on them in order to use the best secondary stats possible. Keep in mind that trinkets and Azerite gear usually have special effects alongside their baseline stats, which are critical for determining their worth.

The best race for Alliance players is Kul'Tiran, while the best race for Horde players is Goblin (PvE) / Orc (PvP), as explained in our Restoration Shaman racial breakdown on the Simulations page.

Earth Shield does not increase the whole Chain Heal by 10%, when cast on a target with it. Only the first hit is increased, and this applies to all other interactions with Earth Shield; only its target gets the healing increase and only while Earth Shield is active.

Chain Heal casts with the High Tide buff are very powerful, but you can also take one of the other talents, especially Wellspring and perform well, as long as you can cast it on cooldown without much overhealing and make good use of the Mana saved with these casts. Also, keep in mind that Chain Heal generates Tidal Waves while doing significant healing, which warrants usage in most group healing scenarios. Finally, it is one of the ideal spells to cast while you have Innervate on yourself!

Yes! Casts done under the effects of Innervate cost 0 Mana, but are still counted towards High Tide's next activation threshold.

Wellspring will divide its tooltip healing amount by the targets hit in order to do a maximum amount of 6 * (tooltip healing). This means that, usually, the maximum amount of healing you can get from a Wellspring cast caps at 6 injured targets. The trick to go past this hard cap is understanding it does this calculation as you finish casting it but it still has a small travel time to actually hit other players. If only a few people are injured at the time Wellspring finishes casting, but they all become injured by the time Wellspring actually hits, all of them are hit by the uncapped amount, thus creating a huge burst of healing! Just be careful not to finish casting Wellspring when no one is injured because, at that point, its unique overhealing prevention mechanic will kick in and it will do extremely low healing on anyone hit, instead.

The hard and fast rule for what stacks and what does not on Azerite Traits is as follows: numerical bonuses that scale with item level all stack, however most of the other effects do not. When in doubt, check the trait on our Azerite Traits page. If it has mechanics that don't stack, that will be said in its description.

The Critical Strike buff provided by Embrace of Pa'ku is currently the best choice available for healing.