Restoration Shaman Healing Guide — Dragonflight 10.0.7

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

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.

Shamans can be quite mobile with Spiritwalker's Grace, Spirit Walk, and Gust of Wind, and deal decent damage with Flame Shock and other spells, but they cannot heal while dealing damage, which is one of the major weaknesses of the specialization.

Also, 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.

We are maintaining a list of changes for Shamans, so you can see what changes with every patch of Dragonflight.

Restoration received massive changes with Patch 10.0.7:

• Many talents have had their positions changed in the tree, generally allowing for easier connections and more paths available to take them;
• Focused Insight was removed and Ancestral Wolf Affinity was added in its place;
• Call of Thunder and Improved Lightning Bolt were removed and their damage increases were added to Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning baseline;
• Acid Rain's damage was nerfed by 20%, but it can now be taken alongside Overflowing Shores;
• Multiple new talents were added to the Restoration tree: Tidebringer, Spiritwalker's Tidal Totem, Current Control, Tide Turner, and Resonant Waters;
• Multiple talents were removed from the Restoration tree: Ever-Rising Tide, Nature's Focus, and Call of Thunder;
• All healing done was increased by 8% and Water Shield is now baseline;
• Flow of the Tides gives Chain Heal an extra bounce on top of its current effect;
• Earth Shield healing has been increased by 60% and Earthen Harmony now reduces the damage taken by its target by up to 6%;
• Wellspring's healing was reduced by 30%, but Unleash Life now converts 40% of its overhealing into a shield;
• Ancestral Awakening had its healing improved by 10% when fully talented;
• Improved Earthliving Weapon had its healing benefit and health threshold at which it always procs improved by 10%;
• Improved Primordial Wave improves Healing Wave by 25% instead of 15% when fully talented.
• Swirling Currents now increases Healing Stream Totem and Cloudburst Totem healing by 20% instead of buffing single target heals;
• Cloudburst Totem pops no longer cause Ancestral Guidance healing, but the totem will now be able to store Ancestral Guidance healing, as well as healing from Ancestral Awakening;
• Go with the Flow now reduces Spirit Walk cooldown by 10/20 seconds up from 7.5/15 seconds;
• Astral Shift duration has been extended to 12 seconds baseline, and the extension has been removed from Planes Traveler;
• Astral Bulwark now increases the damage reduction by 20% instead of 15%;
• Thunderous Paws cooldown has been reduced to 20 seconds down from 60;
• Poison Cleansing Totem now removes all instances of Poison on a target, rather than only one stack per tick;
• Earthgrab Totem now replaces Earthbind Totem when taken.

While the playstyle in Dragonflight has been enjoyable with the return of Ancestral Guidance, Gust of Wind, and the new talent trees, the tuning of Restoration Shaman has been weak, limiting its participation in the raid and Mythic+.

10.0.7 is full of buffs, alongside the occasional nerf, and is expected to make the specialization stronger in end game content, although it is likely that community perception will take a while to adjust, and Shamans will need time to get proficient with their new tools, such as Spiritwalker's Tidal Totem and Tidebringer.

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.

Once you reach max level, it can be somewhat overwhelming to completely change the way you play by suddenly implementing a large number of addons in a short space of time, especially if they have a heavy visual impact on your UI. We recommend using some of the more basic addons recommended on our Addons page below while leveling, so that you have more time to get used to them during the easier phases of playing your class.

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 over the course of 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.

Starting off can look very different from end-game pursuits. Our Mythic+ Dungeon and upcoming Raiding guides can guide you to performing as well as possible, regardless of your favored focus in end-game content.

While you will be primarily focused on healing, being able to consistently deal damage when healing is not required is what separates good players from great players. Learn more on this subject in our specialized page below!

If you are finding your performance lackluster, but are not sure where you are going wrong, you can check out the pages below for potential tips, or answers to questions you may have.