Restoration Shaman Healing Guide — Dragonflight 10.2

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.

Shamans can be quite mobile with Spiritwalker's Grace, Spirit Walk, and Gust of Wind, and deal good damage when focusing on it, but for the most part, cannot heal at the same time as they deal 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.

Strengths

• Great healing, especially when your group can stack inside Healing Rain;
• Can often cast while moving with Spiritwalker's Grace and jump around with Gust of Wind;
• Excellent survivability with Astral Shift, Earth Elemental, and passives such as Brimming with Life;
• Unique, powerful healing tools such as Spirit Link Totem and Ancestral Protection Totem;
• Great non-healing tools such as Reincarnation, Wind Rush Totem, Wind Shear, Purge, Tremor Totem, and Capacitor Totem.

Weaknesses

• No teleport or immunity capabilities;
• No raid buff or significant tank cooldowns;
• Cannot deal damage at the same time as it heals;
• Loses healing potential in situations that force a group to spread;
• Non-cooldown healing is Mana inefficient or tied to high cast times.

With the release of Patch 10.2, there are several important changes to Restoration Shaman, with impacts on talent and gameplay preferences:

• All healing increased by 3%;
• Ascendance now duplicates 80% of all healing done (was 100%). There was a general push to nerf major healing cooldowns this patch, and Ascendance was one of the victims, although the base spells that get duplicated are now also generally stronger to compensate;
• Resurgence now restores 20% less Mana;
• Mana Tide Totem now increases Mana regeneration by 80% (was 100%);
• Mana Spring now restores 150 Mana for Restoration Shamans, down from 350. This makes it even weaker than before, and we are likely to take a different talent now;
• Chain Heal healing increased by 20%;
• Chain Heal now costs 5.6% of base Mana (was 6%). These Chain Heal buffs are meant to compensate for lower Mana sustain, and you will still be using it when High Tide is available;
• Healing Stream Totem healing increased by 20%;
• Cloudburst Totem now accumulates 20% of your healing done (was 30%). We will still be using Cloudburst for the most part, but these two changes make the alternative Living Stream much closer in value, while being easier to use;
• Unleash Life healing increased by 40%;
• Healing Surge healing increased by 30%;
• Healing Wave healing increased by 30%;
• The initial heal of Riptide was increased by 30%;
• Primordial Wave replicates Healing Wave at 40% effectiveness (was 60%). These are the main buffs of the patch and make our spot healing much stronger than before. The Primordial Wave nerf is there to counteract the Healing Wave buff on the replicated heals;
• Ancestral Awakening heals for 10/20% of healing done (was 15/30%);
• Ancestral Awakening now prefers to heal injured players instead of always healing the lowest-health player. While understandable in the light of the base spells that proc this being buffed, the double nerf is very heavy, and we are unlikely to be using Ancestral Awakening anymore;
• Primordial Wave can no longer be used to damage an enemy target; it is now only a healing spell for Restoration Shamans.

In light of these significant changes, most pages have been updated, and it is well advised to read through the whole guide again in order to make sure to have the latest information!

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+.

10.2 has multiple minor changes to all healers, and thus Shaman is expected to be decent, but not overly strong in comparison to the other healers in Season 3 of Dragonflight.

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 the 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.