Restoration Shaman Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

While these are the baseline recommended talents, feel free to swap to different utility talents to suit your group composition, target dungeon, and active weekly affixes.

The idea behind these talents is to give you high baseline healing and utility, and we include the Acid Rain talent for its ability to make Healing Rain do both healing and DPS, which is at a premium in small group environments.

Unleash Life allows for near-permanent uptime of one Ancestor, and is a mandatory talent in Farseer builds, which tend to have better spread healing due to stronger Healing Wave casts with Maelstrom Supremacy and Windspeaker which turn into more Whispering Waves cleave healing.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!

While these are the baseline recommended talents, feel free to swap to different utility talents to suit your raid setup and boss-by-boss needs.

This build is made to support Whispering Waves as well as possible, and thus skips all Chain Heal support talents, as you will not be using any Chain Heals due to its high Mana cost and low baseline healing.

Despite the buffs, Healing Rain is not generally worth casting in Manaforge Omega, especially in the final bosses as they are especially movement heavy, making it very difficult to have rain hit its maximum targets on every cast. Ancestral Vigor is a suitable replacement for rain talents, and Ancestral Awakening is also recommended, as it does a large amount of healing when you are casting Healing Wave non-stop.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!

While these are the baseline recommended talents, feel free to swap to different utility talents to suit the kind of Delve you are entering and its specific challenges.

While Restoration is not particularly fast at clearing Delves in general, it has the advantage of being able to do it while keeping itself healthy without much effort through beefy self-healing with Healing Wave and multiple cooldowns that work surprisingly well when healing only yourself, and perhaps also a handful of allies such as your Delve companion.

Reactive Warding is actually quite nice when you know you will be the main target of enemy attacks constantly, and thus be able to get a lot of value from low count shield refreshes. It is also much easier to refresh with the new Instinctive Imbuements, which refreshes all of your shields and buffs whenever you refresh Water Shield.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!

While these are the baseline recommended talents, feel free to swap to different utility talents to suit your group composition, target dungeon, and active weekly affixes.

The general idea behind these talents is to give you high baseline healing and utility, including picking Acid Rain for high passive DPS. Ancestral Vigor is a good alternative talent for high keys where one shots become a recurring issue, but can otherwise be safely swapped out for healing talents when doing weekly keys.

Healing Tide Totem works better with Totemic also, due to the new additional effect of Splitstream and new Primal Catalyst talent. First Ascendant is the favored way to boost it in this talent build, as we are skipping Deeply Rooted Elements in favor of Downpour since relying on random healing procs for healing checks can be deadly when you are solo healing the key.

Chain Heal and its support talents combo well with Totemic Hero talents as you will be able to cast many of them for free with Lively Totems whenever you use Healing Stream Totem, which has a reduced cooldown thanks to the new Totemic Momentum talent.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!

While these are the baseline recommended talents, feel free to swap to different utility talents to suit your raid setup and boss-by-boss needs.

Healing Tide Totem works better with Totemic than Ascendance due to the new additional effect of Splitstream and new Primal Catalyst talent but Deeply Rooted Elements still activates Ascendance, which is the main reason for picking Riptide support talents and Preeminence, as they will be useful whenever you enter Ascendance.

Chain Heal and its support talents combo well with Totemic Hero talents as you will be able to cast many of them for free with Lively Totems whenever you use Healing Stream Totem, which has a reduced cooldown thanks to the new Totemic Momentum talent.

Finally, Improved Earthliving Weapon combos well with Earthsurge and is a much stronger talent now, as it will always apply the Earthliving heal over time effect with Healing Wave, which should be your number one cast, even as Totemic.

Be sure to make use of the 'Export Talents' button to import the build directly into your game!

We will not discuss every talent on this page, as this is done in the dedicated spell summary guide, instead:

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Call of the Ancestors	CA	Allows you to summon Ancestor-friendly NPCs with Unleash Life which help you heal by casting damage spells, single target heals, or area heals depending on the spells you cast while they are active.
Latent Wisdom	LW	Causes your Ancestor spells to be more powerful.
Ancient Fellowship	AF	Ancestors will occasionally call a new Ancestor to aid you when their duration expires.
Offering from Beyond	OfB	Whenever you summon an Ancestor, you will also reduce Riptide's cooldown.
Natural Harmony	NH	Reduces the cooldown of Nature's Guardian and causes it to heal you for an extra percentage of your maximum Health.
Earthen Communion	EC	Increases the maximum charges of Earth Shield and makes it heal you for more. This has good synergy with Reactive Warding.
Heed My Call	HMC	Makes Ancestors last longer.
Routine Communication	RC	Causes Riptide to have a small chance to summon an Ancestor.
Primordial Capacity	PC	Increases your maximum Mana.
Maelstrom Supremacy	MSup	Significantly increases the healing done by Healing Wave, Downpour, and Chain Heal.
Elemental Reverb	ER	Lava Burst and Riptide damage and heal for more and gain an extra charge.
Spiritwalker's Momentum	SwM	Using spells with a cast time increases the duration of Spiritwalker's Grace and Spiritwalker's Aegis, up to a maximum amount.
Final Calling	FC	When an Ancestor expires, it will cast a small absorb shield on a nearby injured ally that steadily decays over a short duration.
Ancestral Influence	AInf	Your Intellect is increased by a small percentage for each active Ancestor.
Windspeaker	Wspkr	Reduces the cast time of Healing Wave, Chain Heal and Lava Burst by a significant amount.
Mystic Knowledge	MK	After using Ancestral Swiftness (or Nature's Swiftness) your Riptide recharges faster for a short period and Lava Surge becomes permanently more likely to proc.
Ancestral Swiftness	AS	Replaces Nature's Swiftness and causes your next healing or damage spell to have an increased effect, on top of being free and instant cast. If you also know Nature's Swiftness it will also summon an Ancestor for a short duration when used.

Ability	Abbreviation	Description/Effect
Surging Totem	ST	A longer duration, higher impact Healing Rain replacement.
Totemic Rebound	TReb	A passive Chain Heal boost that makes your Totems do an additional, less powerful Chain Heal of their own.
Oversized Totems	OToT	Makes your totems larger in both size and radius and increases their Health.
Swift Recall	SR	Causes some of your support totems, such as Poison Cleansing Totem, to have a reduced cooldown after performing their duties.
Imbuement Mastery	IM	Increases the duration of Earthliving Weapon's heal over time proc.
Amplification Core	AC	Increases your damage and healing by 3% while Surging Totem is active.
Oversurge	OS	Makes Surging Totem much more effective while Ascendance is active.
Wind Barrier	WB	Grants a large absorb shield periodically if you have any totem active.
Pulse Capacitor	PC	Increases the healing of Surging Totem significantly.
Supportive Imbuements	SI	Allows you to imbue your shield to increase all of your healing by a minor amount and extends the duration of Healing Stream Totem by a small amount.
Lively Totems	LT	Causes your Healing Tide Totem, Spirit Link Totem, and Healing Stream Totem to cast an instant free Chain Heal that benefits from all of your Chain Heal talents.
Splitstream	Sstr	Makes your Healing Stream Totem heal a second target at reduced effectiveness and increases the healing done by Healing Tide Totem significantly.
Totemic Coordination	TCord	Causes the Chain Heal effects cast by totems to be significantly more effective.
Earthsurge	ESurge	Increases your healing by a decent amount on allies affected by your Earthliving Weapon heal over time proc.
Totemic Momentum	ToMom	Reduces the cooldown of Healing Stream Totem by a small amount.
Elemental Attunement	EleAtu	Increases your Mastery by a minor amount.
Primal Catalyst	PriCat	Causes Healing Stream Totem and Healing Tide Totem to have a decent chance to apply the Earthliving Weapon proc when healing allies.
Whirling Elements	WE	Using Surging Totem grants you 3 motes with special effects: the Water mote causes your next Healing Wave to also heal a different ally within the Surging Totem effect for a reduced amount; the Air mote reduces the cast time of your next heal significantly, and the Earth mote causes your next Chain Heal to apply a significantly more powerful Earthliving Weapon proc effect on all targets hit.

Ability	Description/Effect
Chain Heal	One of the few no-cooldown multi-target heals in the game, and its healing jumps prioritize the most injured players in range, making it a smart heal. As one of the core spells of a Restoration Shaman, there are many talents that interact with it, such as Unleash Life, Nature's Swiftness, and Flow of the Tides.
Astral Shift	Your main defensive cooldown and an important talent that provides a a lot of defensive power, especially in the hands of an experienced player.
Wind Shear	The only healer interrupt currently in game, and a good one as it is a ranged interrupt with a relatively short cooldown. In Mythic+ or whenever you are going to fight enemies with casts that can be interrupted, you should take this.
Planes Traveler	An excellent way to increase your Astral Shift uptime, and generally the most valuable talent in this choice node.
Astral Bulwark	A good alternative to Planes Traveler if you cannot get good value from a lower cooldown, as it will make you much harder to kill while active.
Static Charge	Allows you to use Capacitor Totem more often, which can be valuable if you are able to use it on cooldown effectively. This is mostly the case in Mythic+.
Earth Shield	Provides a lot of healing for the single global it takes to cast, and also increases your healing on the target.
Elemental Orbit	Allows you to have Earth Shield on yourself at the same time it is on another target of your choice. This can be great when used alongside Earthen Harmony.
Healing Stream Totem	Must-have, as it contributes significant healing for minimal time and Mana investment.
Brimming with Life	Excellent talent which increases your health significantly in most situations, and allows you to use Reincarnation much more often.
Spirit Walk	Excellent mobility tool that allows you to cover large distances quickly with its effect and avoids the landing position issues Gust of Wind can have. While it does not help you against knockback mechanics or against long falls, it will remove roots and movement-impairing effects, which can occasionally be required for encounter mechanics.
Gust of Wind	Low cooldown mobility tool that allows you to quickly reposition at a fixed distance in front of your character. While the added mobility is nice, what really makes it stand out is that it allows you to break knockback effects, cross gaps, and avoid fall damage, making it a powerful situational spell.

Ability	Description/Effect
Elemental Resistance	Reduces Fire, Frost, and Nature damage taken by players healed by Healing Stream Totem for a short duration and small amount. This damage reduction is especially useful in Mythic+ dungeons, but this talent is always very helpful.
Wind Rush Totem	Great for raiding, and you should take it whenever your group's strategy involves getting a speed boost to go from point A to point B unless someone else is already providing this effect.
Ascending Air	Making Wind Rush Totem lower cooldown can be excellent for specific encounters, as can the added duration.
Jet Stream	Becoming even faster and having Wind Rush Totem remove snares can also be great, making this the most generally useful of the two Wind Rush Totem nodes.
Totemic Focus	Increases your totem duration and radius. As you rely on multiple totems for both healing and utility; this is a great talent for Restoration Shamans.

Ability	Description/Effect
Totemic Projection	Great when used alongside Spirit Link Totem and the upcoming Surging Totem, in order to make sure the right targets are hit by these support totems.
Totemic Surge	Great for Restoration, as you rely heavily on multiple totems, from the short cooldown Healing Stream Totem to the long cooldown Spirit Link Totem.
Mana Spring	Decent Mana generator for a large raid group with multiple healers.
Spiritwalker's Grace	Great movement tool, which allows you to move while casting for a short duration.
Graceful Spirit	Reduces the cooldown of Spiritwalker's Grace by a significant amount and increases your movement speed by a decent amount while it is active.
Therazane's Resilience	Causes Earth Shield and Water Shield to never run out of charges and be decently more effective. This is a good quality of life talent which allows you to never have to refresh your shields, saving you Mana and time in the process.
Reactive Warding	This talent will heal your Earth Shield target when you refresh the shield, with the heal being higher the more stacks your target is missing when refreshed. You will also gain Mana when refreshing Water Shield with the amount being higher if you refresh it at low stacks. While this can theoretically be a decent talent if you always remember to refresh just as stacks are running out, you will get no benefit if you let the shields run out, so make sure to track its effect if you take this talent.
Instinctive Imbuements	This talent causes Water Shield to increase your Intellect by a small amount and also makes Water Shield apply Earth Shield and Earthliving Weapon to yourself if they are known.

Ability	Description/Effect
Riptide	Core ability that is Mana efficient and provides high healing on a short cooldown.
Healing Stream Totem	Must-have talent that contributes significant healing, especially with Totemic hero talents and Living Stream. If you took the talent with the same name in the general tree, you would have two charges of this spell.
Healing Rain	Low cooldown, high-efficiency spell, with multiple modifiers that allow it to also contribute significant damage ( Acid Rain), do instant healing ( Overflowing Shores), and be faster to cast and more powerful ( Soothing Rain).
Acid Rain	Turns your Healing Rain into a heal that also deals significant damage. This is a must-use talent for DPS purposes and works especially well against multiple targets that stand inside the Rain for its whole duration.
Ascendance	Causes a healing burst when used and massively increases your healing while active. Provided you save your strongest healing spells and have multiple heals over time running when used, it can do a huge amount of healing.
Healing Tide Totem	Provides high healing over a period of time and can be used while moving, which allows you to use it while doing fight mechanics or casting other healing spells. Works better with Totemic due to the large boost provided by the Splitstream and Primal Catalyst hero talents. It will do its maximum healing at 5 targets or above, making it good for Mythic+ and small group content as well!
First Ascendant	Reduces the cooldown of Ascendance or Healing Tide Totem by a huge amount, which is essential when trying to cover big damage events that occur in shorter intervals.
Preeminence	Increases your Haste during Ascendance or Healing Tide Totem and their duration, making them even stronger cooldowns. Great in fights where you cannot get value from a shorter Ascendance or Healing Tide Totem cooldown.
Ancestral Vigor	Good talent that works well in any situation. Your highest priority with this talent is to ensure it is running on the tanks and other priority targets at all times to grant them additional survivability.
Resurgence	Significant Mana sustain talent, which will return a huge amount of Mana to you throughout a fight. Logically, if Mana is not an issue, then this talent loses some value, but it is a very important talent whenever extra Mana is valuable.

Ability	Description/Effect
Living Stream	Causes Healing Stream Totem to heal for 100% more, decaying over its duration. This allows Healing Stream to pack a much bigger punch when it is dropped, making it a strong reactive healing tool. It also has strong synergy with the Totemic hero talent Splitstream.
Ancestral Reach	Increases the healing of Chain Heal slightly and causes it to bounce one extra time. Its unconditional nature makes it attractive to newer players, or when maintaining Riptide uptime is of critical importance.
Flow of the Tides	Also causes Chain Heal to bounce one extra time but has a higher healing increase, which is conditional on casting on a target with Riptide. While the extra healing is very welcomed, it requires jumping through extra hoops and it can be a healing loss if used on the wrong Riptides, so use it with care.
Unleash Life	An extra instant heal and a strong boost to your next Riptide, Healing Wave, or Chain Heal in the form of higher healing and reduced cast time.
Earthen Accord	Makes Unleash Life stronger by increasing its direct healing significantly and also significantly increasing its bonus healing effect.
Echo of the Elements	Provides an extra Riptide and Lava Burst charge. While the Lava Burst charge is only a small damage increase, the extra Riptide charge allows you to perform your rotation without needing to constantly worry about losing potential Riptide casts, and as Riptide is the centerpiece of all Shaman healing, it also makes this talent next to mandatory unless you already have the Farseer Elemental Reverb talent.
Earthliving Weapon	A weapon imbue that causes some of your healing spells to have a significant chance to activate a small heal over time on the target. While Riptide ticks can proc it, Healing Rain ticks will not. While each heal is weak, the overall effect is a strong healing increase.
Improved Earthliving Weapon	Causes Healing Wave to be guaranteed to create an Earthliving Weapon heal over time effect on the target and increases the benefit this heal over time has from Mastery by a large amount.

Ability	Description/Effect
Spirit Link Totem	Iconic Restoration Shaman ability, which has excellent life-saving potential due to instantly restoring the life of whoever is most injured inside your group.
Spouting Spirits	Excellent talent which increases the damage reduction of Spirit Link Totem and causes it to massively heal everyone inside its effect after a small delay, making it a much stronger ability than it has been in the past few years.
Primal Tide Core	Provides extra free Riptides that have the same initial burst healing of hard-casted ones. While it will not create an additional Riptide if your 4th cast target has no allies nearby, the effect will try to proc in every following cast until it works.
Tidewaters	Causes Healing Rain to also do high healing to players with Riptide active when cast.
Whispering Waves	Causes Healing Waves from yourself and Ancestors to replicate a decent amount of their healing on players with Riptide. This accumulates over time to a large amount of healing and is generally a strong talent.
Undercurrent	This talent can be a decent healing increase, especially in periods where you have a high amount of Riptides active but requires 2 talent points.
Downpour	This ability is enabled after casting Healing Rain and heals multiple injured targets inside the Healing Rain for a decent amount.
Double Dip	Allows you to use Downpour twice for each Healing Rain cast.
Ancestral Awakening	Causes your single target heals to have a chance (doubled if you critically hit) to heal another nearby ally for a portion of their effect.
Earthen Harmony	Causes your Earth Shield to reduce incoming damage and restore additional health the lower its target is.
Deeply Rooted Elements	This talent can make a large difference in your healing if you get Ascendance procs at the correct times during a fight. This makes it a strong choice in fights where damage is constant, and healing is almost always valuable, and a weak talent in fights where you only care about healing within very narrow periods. Taking Preeminence along with it will grant you the extra Haste on procs, but not the extra duration.