Restoration Shaman PvP Rotation and Playstyle — The War Within (11.0.7)
PvP requires you to perform various actions in the course of a duel, match, or battleground: interrupting/silencing enemies, healing your teammates and yourself, defending yourself, keeping yourself alive, etc.. It is a game mode that fully utilises your kit, especially spells that are rarely used in PvE. On this page, we go through all the spells you need to use in PvP as a Restoration Shaman, how you should use them, and we explain what your playstyle should be.
This page is part of our Restoration Shaman PvP Guide.
Playstyle for Restoration Shaman
The main role for a Restoration Shaman, besides keeping your team alive, is to use your utility to disrupt and stop incoming spells or damage. Restoration Shamans have the Mana and the Mastery to sustain a team for a very long time. It is rare to lose a game because you are out of Mana.
Restoration Shaman's Riptide is very powerful and should be used
on cooldown to keep your team healed.
To disrupt the enemy team, you will want to take advantage of a few spells.
Grounding Totem is important to utilize. This can absorb any spell that
is about to be completed. You will want to use
Wind Shear on any
meaningful
spell that you can. This includes crowd control or big damaging abilities.
Before Gates Open
Before the gates open, you should use Earth Shield on a teammate
that might be the kill target for the enemy team. It has a short cooldown, so
it is acceptable if the enemy team swaps their target, but it is important to
keep it active on the teammate that the enemy team is focusing.
Use Water Shield on yourself for passive Mana regeneration. You
should also put Earth Shield on yourself to make use of the
Surging Shields
Shaman tree talent. Use
Earth Shield on yourself. Cast
Skyfury
to buff your team.
Set your focus target to the main enemy team member who will be likely
using crowd control like Polymorph or
Fear. This will allow
you to know when to use
Wind Shear and
Grounding Totem to stop
the crowd control.
Make sure your team has a plan for crowd control; Hex is a
strong crowd control that can be used on a healer
without a trinket. However, do not make it your primary focus to
Hex a healer. Your job is to keep your team alive.
The Opener
The other team is going to try to force your trinket in the opener so they
have an advantage later in the game. Use Grounding Totem to try to
avoid incoming crowd control on you, and hold on to your trinket for as long as
you can.
Healing Techniques
Burst Healing
Use this if the enemy team uses their cooldowns to try to kill a teammate.
- If one of your teammates is taking strong single-target damage:
- Make sure
Earth Shield is on the party member taking the most damage.
- Use
Unleash Life, which creates an Ancestor for increased healing.
- Use
Ancestral Swiftness/
Nature's Swiftness to be able to instantly cast a casted heal.
- Use
Healing Surge/
Healing Wave for direct single target healing.
- Use
Healing Stream Totem for passive healing.
- Use
Riptide, which also generates
Tidal Waves.
- Use
Primordial Wave on cooldown.
- Use
Earthen Wall Totem as a significant cooldown, which absorbs a small amount of damage from each ability the enemy team uses. This is particularly effective against damage over time spells. Use
Totemic Recall after using Earthen Wall Totem to reset the cooldown.
- Use
Healing Surge for a fast heal, or
Healing Wave for maximum healing output. This puts
Tidal Reservoir on the target, to further benefit from Riptides.
- Use
Riptide on cooldown.
- Use
Mana Tide Totem, with
Spiritwalker's Tidal Totem, which allows you to cast multiple
Healing Surge, as a last resort.
- Use
Spirit Link Totem as a last resort.
- Make sure
- If your entire team is taking strong spread pressure:
- Make sure
Earth Shield is on the party member taking the most damage.
- Use
Riptide, which also generates
Tidal Waves.
- Use
Earthen Wall Totem as a significant cooldown.
- Use
Totemic Recall to reset the cooldown on
Earthen Wall Totem in case it needs to be used again.
- Use
Earthen Wall Totem again, to stack these defensives.
- Use
Healing Tide Totem for more significant passive AoE healing, especially with the
Living Tide talent.
- Use
Healing Stream Totem for passive healing.
- Use
Riptide, which also generates
Tidal Waves.
- Use
Primordial Wave.
- Cast
Healing Wave for single target healing or with
Primordial Wave spreading the Healing Wave to the whole team, if all have the
Riptide heal over time applied.
- Cast
Healing Surge if a fast heal is needed on one teammate.
- Use
Ascendance as a last resort.
- Use
Spirit Link Totem as a last resort.
- Make sure
Sustained Damage Healing
Use this to heal sustained damage throughout the match (damage done when the other team does not have burst cooldowns available).
It is important to note that there are multiple ways to keep your team alive to heal through sustained damage.
- Maintain
Earth Shield on the teammate taking the most damage.
- Use
Riptide on cooldown, which also generates stacks of
Tidal Waves.
- Use
Healing Stream Totem for the
Swirling Currents buff and passive healing.
- Use
Unleash Life to increase the heal of your next direct heal.
- If your team is stacked and taking heavy spread or single target pressure,
Earthen Wall Totem should be the first cooldown you use. This will give you time to heal your teammates even if you get interrupted on a cast.
- Cast
Healing Wave when you have 1-2 stacks of
Tidal Waves.
- Cast
Healing Surge on yourself if you are using
Swelling Waves.
Totems
It is hard to find a place for every totem a Restoration Shaman has. Below are all of the totems you have and the best time to use them.
Healing Stream Totem: this is a strong passive heal and should be used often during an Arena match.
Healing Tide Totem: this is the best spread healing ability when also using the
Living Tide PvP talent.
Earthgrab Totem: this is a Totem roots all enemies within the impacted area. This can be especially effective when rooting melee enemies out of the line of sight of their healer.
Earthbind Totem: this is a Totem that slows an entire team. The best time to use this is when enemies are focusing on you. You can easily place this on one side of a pillar and use
Ghost Wolf to quickly get to the other side.
Earthen Wall Totem: this is a major defensive ability with a short cooldown. It should be used when the enemy team is dealing strong, sustained damage, and you need time to cast healing spells.
Tremor Totem: removes Fear, Charm and Sleep effects from party and raid members within 30 yards. You should use this totem before you get feared. This will make the enemy players waste their important crowd control.
Capacitor Totem/
Earthgrab Totem: you can use either of these when the enemy team is stacked. The
Earthgrab Totem is best used when enemy teams will likely be focusing on you.
Capacitor Totem is great against teams that will be far away. It gives the enemy team another ability to deal with.
Earthgrab Totem is baseline, so something you can do is root an enemy and place a
Capacitor Totem to get a full stun.
Spirit Link Totem: this is your strongest totem. It will keep your entire team alive as long as it is active. It is best used when someone is about to die, and you do not have the time to cast spells. You will want to pair it with
Healing Tide Totem.
Mana Tide Totem: this will provide Mane back for the Restoration Shaman giving him the ability to keep ahead on Mana.
Defensive Techniques
Astral Shift is your only real defensive for yourself. This cannot be
used while stunned, so it is best used when the team is about to stun you or if
they are using burst cooldowns.
Burrow an immunity, similar to
Dispersion from a Shadow Priest.
While under the ground, you can be healed and can move at full movement speed. This
is particularly useful if the Shaman does not have
Astral Shift available.
Stone Bulwark Totem is a useful totem providing an absorption
shield to the Shaman. This can be reset with
Totemic Recall to be used
back to back. In addition the actual totem can be relocated with
Totemic Projection
to avoid it being focused.
Earthgrab Totem this ability can significantly assist your team with
disengaging the other team's offensive plays or allow your team to reach your
opponents easier.
Ghost Wolf becomes a very strong defensive ability when trying to get
away from enemies. While it is active, you cannot be snared, and it will help you
create
distance between you and the enemy team.
Spiritwalker's Grace is not a direct defensive, but it will help you
avoid damage. Instead of standing still and trying to cast, this cooldown gives
you the ability to run away from the enemy team and still have the ability to
cast spells. It also makes you immune to interrupts and silences afterward if
you are using the
Ancestral Gift PvP talent.
Nature's Guardian gives you a tool to survive stuns, something
that Restoration Shamans are normally weak at. If a team is able to make this
go off, play extra defensively until you are able to use
Nature's Guardian again.
Changelog
- 15 Dec. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.7.
- 21 Oct. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Reviewed for The War Within Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for TWW Launch.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for TWW pre-patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Dragonflight Season 4.
- 19 Mar. 2024: Updated for Dragonflight 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Updated for Dragonflight 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.1.5.
- 23 May 2023: Updatedfor Dragonflight 10.1 start of season.
- 07 May 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.1.
- 21 Mar. 2023: Updated for Dragonflight 10.0.7.
- 04 Feb. 2023: Updated for 10.0.2 updates.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 22 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
- 31 Jul. 2022: Updated for Shadowlands Season 4.
- 31 May 2022: Reviewed for Patch 9.2.5.
- 27 Feb. 2022: Updated for Patch 9.2 of Shadowlands
- 17 Nov. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1.5 of Shadowlands.
- 04 Jul. 2021: Updated for Patch 9.1 of Shadowlands.
- 19 Mar. 2021: Updated based on Patch 9.0.5 for Shadowlands.
- 02 Dec. 2020: Updated to prepare for Shadowlands first PvP season.
- 19 Oct. 2020: Updated for Shadowlands Pre-Patch 9.0.1, and new author.
- 12 Jul. 2020: Updated Burst and Sustained Healing rotations.
- 20 Jan. 2020: This page was checked for Patch 8.3 and no update was deemed necessary.
- 16 Dec. 2019: Page added.
Other PvP Guides
This guide has been written by Tiqqle, a PvP enthusiast who has repeatedly achieved 2400 rating. You can watch his stream on Twitch, and you can also check out his YouTube channel.
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