Restoration Shaman Healing Gear and Best in Slot — The War Within Pre-Patch
On this page, you will find the best gear and best in slot items for your Restoration Shaman in World of Warcraft The War Within Pre-Patch.
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Restoration Shaman gear and best in slot.
- 8. Restoration Shaman Gear Upgrades in The War Within Pre-Patch
- 9. Best Items to Upgrade in The War Within Pre-Patch
- 10. Restoration Shaman Tier Set for The War Within Pre-Patch
- 11. Gear Sockets for Restoration Shamans
- 12. Trinkets for Restoration Shamans
- 13. Crafted Gear and Embellishments for Restoration Shamans
- 14. Gear Simulations for Restoration Shaman
Gearing a Restoration Shaman
Welcome to our Gearing Page for Restoration Shaman, where we will cover everything you need to know about equipping your character correctly.
For detailed information on gear stats and what you want to chase, check out our Stats page below.
Also, if you have a new piece of gear that you need gems and enchants advice for, you can find everything you need on our dedicated page below.
BiS Gear for Restoration Shaman
BiS List for Restoration Shaman
This list contains the overall best gear setup that includes gear from any source for Restoration Shaman.
As usual, prioritize Leech / Avoidance pieces and the highest item level equipment you have, regardless of its secondary stat distribution.
Slot | Item | Source/Note |
---|---|---|
Helm | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst, Tindral Sageswift, Magmorax or Raszageth |
Neck | ![]() |
Volcoross in Amirdrassil |
Shoulder | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst, Smolderon, Echo of Neltharion or Broodkeeper Diurna |
Cloak | ![]() |
Gnarlroot in Amirdrassil |
Chest | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst, Nymue, Zskarn or Kurog Grimtotem |
Bracers | ![]() |
Crafted by Leatherworking |
Gloves | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst, Igira the Cruel, The Forgotten Experiments, or Dathea, Ascended |
Belt | ![]() |
Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr |
Legs | ![]() |
Crafted by Leatherworking |
Boots | ![]() |
Algeth'ar Academy |
Ring #1 | ![]() |
Eranog in Vault of the Incarnates |
Ring #2 | ![]() |
Broodkeeper Diurna in Vault of the Incarnates |
Weapon | ![]() |
Fyrakk in Amirdrassil |
Shield | ![]() |
The Forgotten Experiments in Aberrus |
Trinket #1 | ![]() |
Broodkeeper Diurna in Vault of the Incarnates |
Trinket #2 | ![]() |
The Forgotten Experiments in Aberrus |
Mythic+ Gear BiS List for Restoration Shamans
Although raid boss loot is not present in this list, you can still get your Awakened Raid Tier set through the Revival Catalyst.
As usual, prioritize Leech / Avoidance pieces and the highest item level equipment you have, regardless of its secondary stat distribution.
Slot | Item | Source/Note |
---|---|---|
Helm | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst |
Neck | ![]() |
Brackenhide Hollow |
Shoulder | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst |
Cloak | ![]() |
The Azure Vault |
Chest | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst |
Bracers | ![]() |
Crafted by Leatherworking |
Gloves | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst |
Belt | ![]() |
Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr |
Legs | ![]() |
Crafted by Leatherworking |
Boots | ![]() |
Algeth'ar Academy |
Ring #1 | ![]() |
Algeth'ar Academy |
Ring #2 | ![]() |
Uldaman: Legacy of Tyr |
Weapon | ![]() |
Brackenhide Hollow |
Shield | ![]() |
Neltharus |
Trinket #1 | ![]() |
Neltharus |
Trinket #2 | ![]() |
Halls of Infusion |
Raid Gear BiS List for Restoration Shamans
Below is a sample list of recommended Awakened Raid items.
As usual, prioritize Leech / Avoidance pieces and the highest item-level equipment you have, regardless of its secondary stat distribution.
Slot | Item | Source/Note |
---|---|---|
Helm | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst, Tindral Sageswift, Magmorax or Raszageth |
Neck | ![]() |
Volcoross in Amirdrassil |
Shoulder | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst, Smolderon, Echo of Neltharion or Broodkeeper Diurna |
Cloak | ![]() |
Gnarlroot in Amirdrassil |
Chest | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst, Nymue, Zskarn or Kurog Grimtotem |
Bracers | ![]() |
Crafted by Leatherworking |
Gloves | ![]() |
Revival Catalyst, Igira the Cruel, The Forgotten Experiments, or Dathea, Ascended |
Belt | ![]() |
Magmorax in Aberrus |
Legs | ![]() |
Crafted by Leatherworking |
Boots | ![]() |
Council of Dreams in Amirdrassil |
Ring #1 | ![]() |
Eranog in Vault of the Incarnates |
Ring #2 | ![]() |
Broodkeeper Diurna in Vault of the Incarnates |
Weapon | ![]() |
Fyrakk in Amirdrassil |
Shield | ![]() |
The Forgotten Experiments in Aberrus |
Trinket #1 | ![]() |
Broodkeeper Diurna in Vault of the Incarnates |
Trinket #2 | ![]() |
The Forgotten Experiments in Aberrus |
Gearing Up in The War Within
There are three main paths to gear your characters in The War Within:
- World Content (crafting, reputations, quests, world bosses, world PvP);
- Instanced PvE Content (delves, dungeons, and raids);
- 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!
Best Gear To Spend Bullions On For Restoration Shaman
You can still loot and use Antique Bronze Bullions in the War Within pre-patch
period, allowing you to target specific, powerful items. Here are the best items
to spend your Bullions on in The War Within pre-patch.
Ominous Chromatic Essence;
Broodkeeper's Promise;
Seal of Diurna's Chosen;
Seal of Filial Duty;
Vakash, the Shadowed Inferno, if still missing a weapon at this point.
Restoration Shaman Gear Upgrades in The War Within Pre-Patch
The current Crest system works for all PvE gear, including crafted gear.
Enchanting can create optional reagents such as Enchanted Aspect's Awakened Crest
by using Crests looted from the Awakened raids, which rotate between Vault of the Incarnates,
Aberrus, and Amirdrassil.
You will be able to loot Flightstones and Crests from practically
all forms of content in the game. These can be used to upgrade dropped PvE gear
and Crafted Gear up to a maximum Item Level equivalent to Mythic Raid Item Level,
although the exact amount of upgrades available depends on the source of the item.
For more information on the Gear Upgrades system, check out our dedicated page for it below:
The cost to upgrade depends on the slot and increases as the Item Level goes up.
In order to create crafted gear in the War Within pre-patch, you will need Spark of Awakening,
which can be obtained from weekly quests or dropped randomly from any type of content
while you are under the current maximum cap, which rises every other week.
Gear obtained from PvP is upgradeable like before, with Conquest points earned from doing Rated PvP and other PvP activities.
You should generally be using your highest item-level 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.
Best Items to Upgrade in The War Within Pre-Patch
You will usually want to start with upgrading your weapon, followed by trinkets, and then any leech/avoidance pieces or items you won't be replacing for a long time. These would be great choices, for example:
- Highest item level weapon you have;
- Highest item level trinket(s) of S-rank you have;
- Any Leech / Avoidance pieces of high item level.
Restoration Shaman Tier Set for The War Within Pre-Patch
Restoration Shamans had their tier set bonuses swapped to the DF Season 3 ones for the pre-patch period in order to avoid conflict with some of the new specialization tree talents, thus we will be using:
Shaman Restoration 10.2 Class Set 2pc
Chain Heal,
Healing Surge, and
Healing Wave mark their initial target with a Tidal Reservoir, causing them to receive 15% of all Riptide healing you deal for 15 sec;
Shaman Restoration 10.2 Class Set 4pc
Riptide's healing is increased by 25%. If Riptide is active on the same target as Tidal Reservoir, its heal over time effect has a 6% chance of creating a new Riptide on a nearby ally.
Besides getting Tier pieces from doing the raid, you can also turn any non-profession piece of gear into a Tier piece with the Revival Catalyst, which will gain stacking charges every week.
Gear Sockets for Restoration Shamans
Only Helms, Necks, Bracers, Belts, and Rings can have
sockets. These are guaranteed for necks and rings crafted from Jewelcrafting,
and you can add up to three sockets to any neck with the Jewelcrafting item
Tiered Medallion Setting, while other sockets are randomly rolled on items
when they drop.
Engineering items also come with a special Tinker Socket where
instead of gems, you socket special Engineering perks such as Tinker: Breath of Neltharion,
Tinker: Arclight Vital Correctors, or
Tinker: Plane Displacer.
Trinkets for Restoration Shamans
Take note that a trinket's worth might vary wildly between types of content. For example, there are trinkets not listed below that are specifically created and tailored for PvP, while PvE players mostly chase stat sticks, as those improve healing (and damage) reliably, without the burst and bust characteristic of proc or on-use trinkets.
The ranking system is as follows:
- S Tier: the strongest and most generally useful trinkets; these are always good choices;
- A Tier: these trinkets are slightly weaker than the S Tier traits, but are still solid choices;
- B Tier: a below-average trinket that should be picked only in the absence of an S or A Tier trinket.
S Tier
Ominous Chromatic Essence (Aberrus);
Broodkeeper's Promise (Vault of the Incarnates);
Whispering Incarnate Icon (Vault of the Incarnates);
Screaming Black Dragonscale (Aberrus);
Rashok's Molten Heart (Aberrus);
Pip's Emerald Friendship Badge (Amirdrassil).
A Tier
Water's Beating Heart (Halls of Infusion);
Spoils of Neltharus (Neltharus);
Neltharion's Call to Dominance (Aberrus);
Ruby Whelp Shell (Ruby Life Pools);
Smoldering Seedling (Amirdrassil).
B Tier
Idol of the Lifebinder (Jewelcrafting);
Idol of the Spell-Weaver (Jewelcrafting);
Alacritous Alchemist Stone (Alchemy);
Sustaining Alchemist Stone (Alchemy).
Crafted Gear and Embellishments for Restoration Shamans
Sparks of Awakening
The Spark of Awakening is a time-gated resource used in all high-end
gear crafting, which you can find more about in our specialized guide below:
Be careful when deciding what you want to craft with these sparks, as there is no way to get them back once an item is crafted.
Embellishments
Embellishments are special effects that are either found on crafted pieces by default or can be added to crafted pieces during the crafting process. A character can have two embellishments equipped at any time. The following are our recommended embellishments:
Allied Legguards of Sansok Khan are the best embellishment option if you are a team player, as they give a large amount of Versatility to nearby allies with near-constant uptime. Their downside is taking up a tier slot and not buffing your own character as much as the other options;
Adaptive Dracothyst Armguards provide a great amount of stats with their effect and are the best embellishment for personal gain;
Venom-Steeped Stompers has a great upside, as you will be gaining a huge amount of the stat you care about the most while losing what you care about the least, making them the second-best embellishment for personal gain, but gives an overall amount of stats lower than the other top alternatives;
Elemental Lariat is a Jewelcrafting necklace with a powerful stat proc. This is a top embellishment, but only when you have at least 5 sockets on your gear due to the way the buff scales with socket amount. The stat you get from it on dual-stat gems is the lowest stat available on the gem;
- The Horizon Strider's Garments set is potentially interesting for pure DPS purposes, but ultimately, Haste is not one of our good stats;
Verdant Tether is a new embellishment that can be added to most unembellished pieces of gear and gives a decent amount of Versatility to you and a tethered ally, depending on your distance to your ally;
Blue Silken Lining grants a lot of Mastery but does require you to be healthy, which is usually not the case when you need to heal the most because everyone in the raid just took a very large hit;
Undulating Sporecloak is only useful if you value the personal shield highly, as its throughput benefit is weak, even for an embellishment;
Potion Absorption Inhibitor adds 50% extra duration to Potion uses. This amounts to a large stat increase with
Elemental Potion of Ultimate Power or extra Mana with
Potion of Frozen Focus or
Potion of Chilled Clarity;
Magazine of Healing Darts is quite weak and not worth using.
Remember to also get the Alchemical Flavor Pocket, as it does not count
towards your embellishment limit and will allow you to skip eating food after dying
in Mythic+ and other dangerous content!
Crafting Strategy
Our current recommendation is to use your first Spark to craft a one-hand weapon
with Verdant Tether, such as the
Primal Molten Spellblade from
Blacksmithing.
After that, you should get Allied Legguards of Sansok Khan and
Adaptive Dracothyst Armguards, at which point you remove the Verdant Tether
embellishment from your one-hand weapon with
Griftah's All-Purpose Embellishing Powder.
Remember that if you start with multiple sparks, the Verdant Tether
can be skipped altogether!
Gear Simulations for Restoration Shaman
Simulating your damage is mostly a thing that DPS players do, as Healers need to interweave their healing with damage, which means their damage potential is always contingent on how much healing is needed.
For the most part, all you need to think about for damage is avoiding the Mastery stat, which has no DPS value. Learn more about how to optimize your damage rotation below.
For healing, we recommend analyzing your performance in past encounters instead. Tools such as Warcraft Logs, WoW Analyzer, and QE Live are capable of giving you an accurate stat weight and tips on how to improve based on your logs.
You can find more details on how to make the most out of these tools in the specialized page below.
Changelog
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within pre-patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 26 Apr. 2024: Further updates with live data.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated with new gear, trinkets and embellishments for Season 4.
- 18 Mar. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 27 Nov. 2023: Added the wings of Dawn of Infinite where each piece of loot drops.
- 09 Nov. 2023: Various typo fixes.
- 08 Nov. 2023: Updated embellishment recommendations post Undulating Sporecloak nerf.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated with new gear, trinkets, and embellishments for Patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for 10.1.7 meta and added tabs to the best in slot gear block.
- 19 Jul. 2023: Adjustments for Echoing Tyrstone nerfs.
- 11 Jul. 2023: Further trinket list adjustments.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Patch 10.1.5 trinkets added to the list as well as a recap on what gear can be found within the new dungeon.
- 01 May 2023: Season 2 upgrade system recap, updated Embellishment recommendation, and added some trinkets.
- 23 Mar. 2023: Updated post multiple gem buffs for the Onyx Annulet making it worth using.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Added information on the new Onyx Annulet ring.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.0.5.
- 21 Dec. 2022: Revamped trinket recommendations and raid best in slot suggestions.
- 13 Dec. 2022: Added Embellishment recommendations and Primal Ritual Shell.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Shaman Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been written by Seksi, member of Arctic Avengers and healing aficionado. You can find him answering questions and discussing Restoration Shaman gameplay on the Ancestral Guidance and Earthshrine Discords.
- World First Mythic Garrosh Solo in MoP Remix
- Druid Changes in the War Within Beta Build 55789
- Alysrazor Bugged in the War Within Pre-Patch
- The War Within Pre-Patch Early Mythic+ DPS, Tank and Healer Log Rankings
- The War Within and Season of Discovery Hotfixes, July 25th
- Game Time Incoming for Players on North American Realms
- Demon Hunter Changes in the War Within Beta Build 55789
- Molten Core Trash Mob Immunity Hotfix