Restoration Shaman Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents in Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.0.1
Table of Contents
General Information
On this page, we present the viable talent choices for Restoration Shamans in World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth 8.0.1. We detail what each of the talents do and in which situations they should be taken.
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. Talent Choices for Restoration Shaman
| Level | Choices | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 |
✔
Torrent
|
✔
Undulation
|
✔
Unleash Life
|
| 30 |
✔
Echo of the Elements
|
✘
Deluge
|
✔
Earth Shield
|
| 45 |
?
Spirit Wolf
|
?
Earthgrab Totem
|
?
Static Charge
|
| 60 |
✔
Ancestral Vigor
|
✔
Earthen Wall Totem
|
✔
Ancestral Protection Totem
|
| 75 |
✔
Nature's Guardian
|
✔
Graceful Spirit
|
✔
Wind Rush Totem
|
| 90 |
✔
Flash Flood
|
✔
Downpour
|
✔
Cloudburst Totem
|
| 100 |
✔
High Tide
|
✔
Wellspring
|
✔
Ascendance
|
Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area
(such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, 
Tome of the Tranquil Mind
and 
Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow
players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of
combat.
2. Talent Cheat Sheets for Restoration Shaman
While optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, the talent builds listed below work great for specific purposes.
2.1. Raid / Large Group Talents
The talent setup below is a good starting point for raiding. It is highly recommended you read the individual talent points as this specialization, in particular, is highly situational with respect to talent choices.
- Level 15:
Unleash Life - Level 30:
Echo of the Elements - Level 45:
Spirit Wolf - Level 60:
Earthen Wall Totem or 
Ancestral Vigor - Level 75:
Nature's Guardian or 
Graceful Spirit - Level 90:
Downpour or 
Cloudburst Totem - Level 100:
High Tide or 
Wellspring
2.2. Dungeon / Small Group Talents
The talent setup below is a good starting point for dungeons. The optimal setup depends on both your group composition and the dungeon you are clearing.
- Level 15:
Undulation - Level 30:
Earth Shield - Level 45:
Static Charge - Level 60: Earthen Wall Totem or Ancestral Vigor
- Level 75: Nature's Guardian or Graceful Spirit
- Level 90:
Flash Flood - Level 100:
Ascendance
3. Level 15 Talents for Restoration Shaman
|
✔
Torrent
|
✔
Undulation
|
✔
Unleash Life
|
Level 15 talents offer a boost to sustained healing.
Torrent increases the initial heal from Riptide by
30%.- Undulation causes every third Healing Wave or
Healing Surge to heal for an additional 50%. - Unleash Life heals a friendly target for a moderate amount
and increases your next direct heal's potency by 45%.
Torrent is a fine choice for all situations, as it gives your
Riptide a little more direct healing. It can be helpful for quickly
getting low health group members back up to safe levels, and given
Riptide is already one of your most efficient heals, odds are you
are casting a lot of Riptide already. The only problem with this
talent is that it is not as powerful as the other two in their niches.
Undulation's performance depends on how much of your total
throughput consists of Healing Wave /
Healing Surge casts. If these 2 spells are your
main healing source, then this talent is easily the best choice on the tier,
otherwise you should probably take a different talent in this row. This is the
best talent on the tier for single target healing.
Unleash Life provides an extra instant heal and strong boost to
your next direct heal. This should usually be used on 
Chain Heal, as
you can reliably increase Chain Heal output by 45% with a single global cooldown
/ negligible Mana cost. This ability should be used on cooldown — note
that it can be used in 
Ghost Wolf without transforming you back
— and its buff spent on Chain Heal whenever possible. If the buffed
Chain Heal would cause heavy overheal, you should instead use it on
Healing Surge or Riptide, as it
improves its healing over time component as well as its direct heal. This is
the best talent on the tier for group healing and quite decent for single target
as well.
4. Level 30 Talents for Restoration Shaman
|
✔
Echo of the Elements
|
✘
Deluge
|
✔
Earth Shield
|
Level 30 talents also offer a boost to sustained healing.
- Echo of the Elements grants an additional charge to
Riptide,
Healing Stream Totem (or Cloudburst Totem, when
talented), and 
Lava Burst. 
Deluge causes 
Chain Heal to heal for 20% more on
targets that have Riptide or are standing within
Healing Rain.- Earth Shield places a buff on the target that automatically
heals them, up to 9 times per Earth Shield cast, whenever they take damage. It
also increases your healing on the target by 10% but cannot be active on more
than one target at once.
Echo of the Elements allows you to save instant spells for movement
periods without losing throughput. The extra 
Lava Burst charge makes
Lava Surge nearly always grant you an extra Lava Burst
rather than just shortening its remaining cooldown and making it instant, thus
increasing your single target DPS. It also allows you to place up to three
Cloudburst Totem in a row, although only one can be active at a given
time. This is a great all around talent that works in all situations.
Deluge empowers your Chain Heal significantly, as
long as the beams hit allies inside your 
Healing Rain / with
Riptide. While that makes it potentially great for group healing,
both Healing Rain and Chain Heal have significant Mana costs and positioning
restrictions. All considered, this talent is not currently recommended in any
situation.
Earth Shield can be thought of as a very long duration
Riptide that can only be on one target at a time and also boosts
your healing on the target. This means you should use it whenever your focus is
on healing single targets that are taking a lot of damage, usually the case in
dungeons and PvP.
5. Level 45 Talents for Restoration Shaman
|
?
Spirit Wolf
|
?
Earthgrab Totem
|
?
Static Charge
|
Level 45 talents offer / enhance utility tools.
- Spirit Wolf causes you to gain 5% increased movement speed /
damage reduction every second while transformed into
Ghost Wolf,
stacking up to 20% of each. 
Earthgrab Totem places a totem up to 30 yards away that lasts
for 20 seconds and roots enemies within 8 yards for 8 seconds. Enemies that
were previously rooted by the totem are slowed by 50% instead, while inside its
effect.- Static Charge reduces the cooldown of Capacitor Totem
by 5 seconds for each enemy it stuns, up to a 20-second cooldown reduction
maximum.
Spirit Wolf is a good choice whenever you need that little extra
damage reduction / speed to deal with encounter mechanics or when extra crowd
control is not required. Due to its general flexibility, it is the recommended
talent to take when you don't have a specific use for the other options.
Earthgrab Totem allows you to root enemies for a long duration.
This is very helpful against melee non-boss enemies or when dealing with
certain encounter mechanics.
Static Charge allows you to stun large groups of enemies more
often, which is typically useful in dungeons or large scale PvP.
6. Level 60 Talents for Restoration Shaman
|
✔
Ancestral Vigor
|
✔
Earthen Wall Totem
|
✔
Ancestral Protection Totem
|
Level 60 talents are a mix of throughput and utility tools.
- Ancestral Vigor causes targets healed by
Healing Wave, Healing Surge,
Chain Heal — any bounce hit counts — and
Riptide's direct heal to grant their targets 10% increased maximum
health for 10 seconds.
- Earthen Wall Totem can be placed up to 30 yards away and
redirects a flat amount of damage taken from nearby allies to the totem, which
has the same total amount of health as you. It has a 1-minute cooldown.
Ancestral Protection Totem can also be placed up to 30 yards
away, lasts 30 seconds and grants two effects to allies within 20 yards of the
totem: 10% increased maximum health and the ability to reincarnate at 20%
health and Mana by consuming the totem. Players who took over 200% of their
maximum health in damage as the killing blow cannot reincarnate with this totem
and reincarnating does not count towards the combat resurrection limit.
It has a 5-minute cooldown.
Ancestral Vigor is the most flexible choice of this row and 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.
Earthen Wall Totem is good for reducing frequent incoming damage
on a stacked group of allies. Since it only absorbs a small, fixed amount of
each individual attack, it is not recommended to use against enemies that deal
slow, powerful attacks.
Ancestral Protection Totem is the best choice whenever you plan to
intentionally have one ally die to bypass encounter mechanics, just be mindful
of the 200% maximum health killing blow limit. It should also be picked
whenever your group is consistently struggling to keep everyone alive through a
short, specific part of an encounter, as its effect is extraordinarily
powerful.
7. Level 75 Talents for Restoration Shaman
|
✔
Nature's Guardian
|
✔
Graceful Spirit
|
✔
Wind Rush Totem
|
Level 75 talents offer / enhance utility tools.
- Nature's Guardian heals you for 20% of your maximum health
whenever your health falls below 35% — this happens before the hit
that takes you below 35% health — with a 45-seconds cooldown between
activations.
- Graceful Spirit makes your
Spiritwalker's Grace
a 1-minute cooldown and increases your movement speed by 20% while
Spiritwalker's Grace is active. 
Wind Rush Totem summons a totem up to 30 yards away for 15
seconds that increases the speed of allies within 10 yards by 60% for 5
seconds. The speed buff is continually refreshed as long as they are within
range. It has a 2-minute cooldown.
Nature's Guardian is a small, but completely passive self-healing
ability that can potentially save your life if you expect to be taking large
hits while above 35% health — keep in mind it will never save you from
hits that deal your maximum health in damage or higher due to the heal
happening before the damage event. It can also heal you when you are,
otherwise, unable to do so — due to being crowd controlled in PvP, for
example.
Graceful Spirit should be your go-to talent in situations where
you need to be able to move while healing more often than once every 2 minutes,
and if you do not require any of the other two talents to survive / deal with
group movement.
Wind Rush Totem should be your go-to talent in situations where
your group requires a group movement speed buff, typically while raiding.
8. Level 90 Talents for Restoration Shaman
|
✔
Flash Flood
|
✔
Downpour
|
✔
Cloudburst Totem
|
Level 90 talents offer a boost to burst healing.
- Flash Flood reduces the casting time of your next healing spell
by 20% after you consume a charge of
Tidal Waves. - Downpour heals up to 6 allies in a large targeting circle when
cast. It has a variable cooldown that ranges from 5 seconds (hit nothing / no
effective healing done on hits) to 35 seconds (6 hits with effective healing
done).
- Cloudburst Totem replaces Healing Stream Totem when
talented and places a totem beneath you that stores 30% of all spell healing and
overhealing done while active. This healing is released up to 40 yards around
you — not the totem — at the end of its 15-second duration, with a
30-second cooldown on the totem itself.
Flash Flood significantly increases your average casting speed as
long as you are spending your 
Tidal Waves regularly. This is very
beneficial for both single target and group healing, but will require more Mana
to achieve the same group healing benefits as the other two talents.
Downpour does very strong stacked group burst healing and is the
best option of this row whenever you can reliably heal 6 allies with it on
cooldown and Mana is not a problem.
Cloudburst Totem's power depends exclusively on your ability to
grow its stored healing with your other spells — items and Azerite trait direct
healing does not count towards the stored healing (although Azerite traits
that boost your baseline spells will contribute). Since it splits the stored
healing evenly among hurt allies when destroyed, you want to try and destroy it
manually ahead of the 15 seconds limit when not doing so will result in heavy
overhealing. Due to replacing 
Healing Stream Totem, Echo of the Elements
causes you to have 2 charges of Cloudburst Totem, which can be used, for example,
to ensure every Wellspring cast contributes to a Cloudburst Totem's
stored healing.
9. Level 100 Talents for Restoration Shaman
|
✔
High Tide
|
✔
Wellspring
|
✔
Ascendance
|
Level 100 talents offer a boost to burst healing.
- High Tide allows Chain Heal to bounce to 1 additional
target, and decreases the falloff penalty with each bounce by 50%.
- Wellspring creates a wave of healing which hits all allies up
to 30 yards in front of you, in a wide arc, with a 20-second cooldown.
- Ascendance lasts 15 seconds and causes all of your
non-totem healing to be duplicated and evenly split between allies up to 20
yards around you.
High Tide is the best choice for a reactive group healing
playstyle based on Chain Heal. As a powerful stacked group healing
spell without a cooldown, Chain Heal allows you to quickly spend your
Mana pool to do massive group burst healing when needed.
Wellspring allows for widespread group healing, a limitation
Restoration often struggles with. With its low 20-second cooldown,
Wellspring works best when the encounter's damage pattern allows you
to cast it on cooldown without heavy overhealing.
Ascendance is the most versatile talent on this tier.
As its duplicated healing is only spread into injured allies, you can use it to
rapidly heal a single target, when needed, or as a group healing cooldown when
combined with your other group heals.
10. PvP Talents (War Mode)
In Battle for Azeroth, there will be the option to go into "War Mode". Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:
- PvP talents that can be used in the outdoor world.
- 10% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
- 10% more experience gained while leveling.
- Ability to earn Conquest Points in the outdoor world, which can reward powerful gear every week.
While War Mode can be beneficial to your character progression speed, it also brings significant risks of getting delayed by PvP combat, especially when venturing into the enemy faction's continent. This means that, after the initial leveling phase — where it is almost always beneficial since you mostly level in your faction's continent — you should only have it enabled if you do not mind being dragged into outdoor PvP regularly.
10.1. Restoration Shaman War Mode Talents
In this section we will explain the PvP talents and rank them on their leveling and solo / small group PvE content usefulness.
10.1.1. General PvP Talents
Relentless reduces the duration of crowd control effects by
20%. This is very useful in general and especially so when dealing with
multiple enemies with similar crowd control abilities, which tends to be the
case when leveling / soloing / small group PvE content in the outdoor
world.
Gladiator's Medallion is an on-use ability that removes all
movement impairing effects and all loss of control effects. Good for
emergencies , but not ideal when dealing with multiple enemies with crowd
control abilities.
Adaptation automatically removes loss of control effects with a
duration equal to or over 5 seconds. There are very few abilities in the game
that cause Adaptation to activate, thus its strong potential is
rarely realized.
10.1.2. Restoration Shaman PvP Talents
Skyfury Totem creates a totem beneath you that increases the
critical effect damage and healing of your spells by 20% for 15 seconds, on a
40-second cooldown. This totem is great to both increase your healing output
and damage output of your group members on a short cooldown.
Rippling Waters grants you an extra charge of
Riptide and causes it to heal the target when its healing over time
component ends, is dispelled or refreshed. Taking this talent allows you to use
Earth Shield while keeping 2 charges of Riptide and
makes Riptide stronger.
Counterstrike Totem creates a totem beneath you that reflects
100% of the damage caused on allies within 20 yards of the totem back to
enemies for its 15 second duration. It has a 45-second cooldown. This totem
allows you to contribute significant area of effect DPS when your allies pull a
lot of enemies or during PvP situations.
Swelling Waves, 
Voodoo Mastery,
Electrocute, , 
Grounding Totem, 
Spirit Link,
Purifying Waters, Tidebringer,
Calming Waters, and 
Spectral Recovery have their own
niches, but are not as generally useful when leveling / doing World Quests with
a group as a Restoration Shaman. It is not recommended that you try to
solo level and / or do World Quests, as the specialization's talents and
ability to DPS is weak, slowing you down considerably.
11. Changelog
- 11 Nov. 2018: Changed Cloudburst Totem to recommended for the raiding build and Spirit Wolf to situational so it is clear that its talent row is completely situational.
- 22 Oct. 2018: Changed Deluge to not recommended, Wind Rush Totem to recommended and minor talent recommendation tweaks.
- 28 Aug. 2018: Changed dungeon-recommended talents.
- 13 Aug. 2018: Updated for Battle for Azeroth launch.
- 07 Aug. 2018: Updated Cloudburst Totem storing 30% of healing after the latest hotfix and clarified items / Azerite traits do not count towards stored healing. Small note on Unleash Life: it can be used in Ghost Wolf.
CONTENTS
FROM THE SHAMAN FORUMS
- Elemental - mastery
- Your experience with resto shamans in mythic +
- Thinking of going with Enhance Shaman
- Macro Helps...
- Help with Enhancement
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