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Restoration Shaman Healing Gear and Best in Slot in Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.0.1

Last updated Yesterday at 11:55 by Seksixeny 17 comments

Table of Contents

General Information

This page is a gear reference for Restoration Shamans. It lists your best items, with an emphasis on trinkets, and gives you gearing advice.

The other pages of our Restoration Shaman guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Author

This guide has been written by Seksi, member of two top 60 guilds, Group Therapy (shaman) and Wiping as Intended (priest). While you can routinely find him participating in discussions across all healer discords, he is particularly active on Ancestral Guidance, Earthshrine and Focused Will.

1. Gearing Up in Battle for Azeroth

There are three main paths to gear your characters in Battle for Azeroth:

  • World Content (crafting, reputations, emissaries, world quests, world bosses, world PvP)
  • Instanced PvE Content (dungeons, raids, warfronts, and islands)
  • Instanced PvP Content (battlegrounds and arenas)

You are free to pursue any, or all, of these paths. The more content you do in the game, the faster your gearing up will be, but we recommend that you focus on the types of content you enjoy the most, letting gear come as a by-product of having fun!

Also, keep in mind that you should generally be using your highest item level gear, including Azerite gear. If you have an intellect two-hander that is of higher item level than your one-hand + shield combination, use the two-hander, otherwise use the shield for an increase in survivability against physical damage. If you have several Azerite pieces at the same level and / or are unsure on which traits to pick, check out our Azerite traits page.

1.1. World Content

Crafting wise, as a Restoration Shaman, you will want to pick up Leatherworking, because you will be able to craft yourself two Normal raid item level items (leggings and gloves), with the ability to upgrade them up to Mythic raid item level as you get reagents from killing raid bosses in every difficulty. Higher difficulties drop more reagents per kill.

World quest rewards scale with your item level, up to Heroic dungeon item level. While these items are not very powerful, world quests are relatively low effort and can be completed quickly. On top of that, trinkets from world quests are generally strong, so if you manage to get one at a high item level, you are likely to wear it for a good while.

Keep an eye out for Emissary caches, as these can award Heroic raid item level Azerite pieces if your own item level is high enough. Such pieces will be massive upgrades for most players and can be obtained effortlessly, once unlocked.

1.2. Instanced PvE Content

Dungeons require a party of 5 players and can usually be completed within ~30 minutes of starting, depending on the dungeon. Because they are available at a wide range of difficulty settings, with scaling rewards, you can use them to gear up while leveling, and continue all the way up to Heroic raid item level when finishing high Mythic+ dungeons. You should aim to complete at least one high level Mythic+ dungeon every week, in order to get the best reward possible from your weekly chest, which can go up to Mythic raid item level.

Raids require a group of 10+ players, depending on the difficulty setting chosen, and can take a varying amount of time to complete, depending on your group's gear and experience with the encounters. Like dungeons, there are multiple difficulty settings, ranging from the automated Raid Finder tool, up to 20-man Mythic raiding, which drops the best gear in the game, but also requires the most coordination and time commitment. When raiding, you can only receive loot from your first kill of a given boss on each difficulty every weekly reset.

Warfronts are a relatively short and easy way to gear up, as they can be queued for in your faction's capital city, and award one Heroic raid item level piece of gear, once per activation cycle. These can be completed as many times as you wish, awarding a random Raid Finder item level piece of gear after each win.

While Island Expeditions are not meant to be farmed for loot, they are very important for power leveling your Heart of Azeroth Icon Heart of Azeroth, thus allowing you to use your Azerite Armor to its maximum potential.

1.3. Instanced PvP Content

Battlegrounds come in various types and sizes and provide a quick solo queue PvP experience or, in the case of Rated Battlegrounds, a 10 versus 10 challenging / rewarding experience that can award gear which scales up to slightly above Heroic raid item level, based on your rating. A weekly brawl is also usually available.

Arenas are fast paced 2v2 / 3v3 death-matches against other teams with a similar rating to yours, with gear up to slightly above Heroic raid item level being randomly awarded at the end of each match. Due to their great amount of utility (especially Wind Shear Icon Wind Shear and Purge Icon Purge), Restoration Shamans are one of the best healers to play in arenas.

By participating in one (or both) types of content, you gather both Honor and Conquest Points, which unlock various rewards. These are purely cosmetic in the case of Honor, but scale up to mythic raid item level for the weekly Conquest rewards: the War Chest and weekly 500-Conquest cap.

2. Trinkets for Restoration Shamans

The following is a draft ranking of trinkets, aimed at use in a raid environment. These rankings are formulated with all trinkets at the same item level. Due to how close in value most trinkets in each tier are, generally it is the higher item level that will decide which one is optimal. To simplify things, you can consider each trinket tier to be worth 5 extra item levels compared to the tier immediately under it.

The ranking system is as follows:

  1. S Tier: the strongest and most generally useful trinkets; these are always good choices.
  2. A Tier: these trinkets are slightly weaker than the S Tier traits, but are still solid choices.
  3. B Tier: a below-average trinket that should be picked only in the absence of an S or A Tier trinket.
  4. C Tier: a weak trinket that provides very little healing output or other utility and should be avoided if possible.

Any trinket not listed in one of the above tiers provides no increase in healing output, or significant utility, though some may increase damage dealt.

2.1. S Tier

2.2. A Tier

2.3. B Tier

2.4. C Tier

3. Best in Slot List for Restoration Shamans in Uldir

Below are the recommended items from each boss in the Uldir raid, accounting for balanced stats and recommended Azerite traits. This list does not take into account gear from sources other than Uldir. There might be better pieces of gear available from other instances, especially with the potential for titanforging.

We have also indicated which bosses you should use your bonus roll on, best of luck!

Slot Item Source
Helm Crest of the Undying Visionary Icon Crest of the Undying Visionary Zul, Reborn (Coin)
Shoulders Spaulders of Coagulated Viscera Icon Spaulders of Coagulated Viscera G'huun
Cloak Cloak of Rippling Whispers Icon Cloak of Rippling Whispers Zul, Reborn (Coin)
Chest Chainvest of Assured Quality Icon Chainvest of Assured Quality Zek'voz, Herald of N'Zoth (Coin)
Wrists Rubywrought Sparkguards Icon Rubywrought Sparkguards Taloc
Gloves Oblivion Crushers Icon Oblivion Crushers Mythrax the Unraveler
Belt Titanspark Energy Girdle Icon Titanspark Energy Girdle Zek'voz, Herald of N'Zoth (Coin)
Legs Legguards of Coalescing Plasma Icon Legguards of Coalescing Plasma Taloc
Boots Fused Monstrosity Stompers Icon Fused Monstrosity Stompers Fetid Devourer
Ring #1 Rot-Scour Ring Icon Rot-Scour Ring M.O.T.H.E.R.
Ring #2 Ring of the Infinite Void Icon Ring of the Infinite Void Zek'voz, Herald of N'Zoth (Coin)
Trinket #1 Inoculating Extract Icon Inoculating Extract Vectis
Trinket #2 Twitching Tentacle of Xalzaix Icon Twitching Tentacle of Xalzaix Mythrax the Unraveler
Weapon Tusk of the Reborn Prophet Icon Tusk of the Reborn Prophet Zul, Reborn (Coin)
Shield Vector Deflector Icon Vector Deflector Vectis
⋘Macros and Addons
Simulations⋙

4. Changelog

  • 11 Nov. 2018: Minor title / BiS table boss link fixes.
  • 22 Oct. 2018: Updated with new layout and the complete information on Battle For Azeroth loot systems.
  • 12 Sep. 2018: Updated with new trinket theorycrafting after hotifxes.
  • 26 Aug. 2018: Updated with trinket and general gear recommendations for the pre-raid period.
  • 13 Aug. 2018: Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
  • 18 Jul. 2018: Updated to reflect Soul of the Farseer now giving Echo of the Elements instead of Flash Flood.
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