PvE Restoration Shaman healing guide 5.2

by **Design** Fri Mar 29, 2013 4:58 pm

Stats are the core of your character and how you choose to balance those stats will greatly impact the effectiveness of your Restoration Shaman. Use this guide to select the stats that are the most important for your Shaman and learn how to prioritize those stats to optimize your performance.

Stat Priority

Spirit > Intellect > Haste (Breakpoint) > Mastery (50%) > Crit

Stat Summaries

Spirit Increases the rate of your Mana regeneration. Spirit is the best stat for Mana efficiency. Only stack enough Spirit to to have just enough Mana for an encounter.

Intellect Increases the power of your heals and slightly improves your spell critical chance.

Haste Decreases cast time, GCD, and speeds up HoT ticking. Assuming normal raid buffs and Ancestral Swiftness, the 1st breakpoint is at 871 Haste Rating from your gear and adds 1 extra tick to Riptide, Healing Rain, and Earthliving Weapon. The 2nd breakpoint is at 3764 Haste Rating from your gear and adds 1 tick to Healing Tide Totem and a 2nd tick to Healing Stream Totem. The 3rd breakpoint is at 5676 Haste Rating and adds a 2nd additional tick to Riptide.

Mastery Mastery: Deep Healing increases the strength of your heals against targets based on their health. Lower health targets received additional healing. You only want to stack Mastery to 50% total buffed or about 5400 Mastery Rating from gear.

Crit Increases the chance for direct heals and HoTs to crit for additional healing. Also, thanks to Resurgence, critical heals return Mana.

Talent build & Glyphs

Follow this build : http://www.wowhead.com/talent#syJE|

Build Details

This is the base Healing spec for Restoration Shaman. Astral Shift, Earthgrab Totem, and Call of the Elements all provide great utility, but may be swapped for other talents in the same tier. Ancestral Swiftness, Healing Tide Totem, and Unleashed Fury boost your healing output.

Major Glyphs

Glyph of Riptide Required. Increased uptime on Tidal Waves. Details
Glyph of Healing Wave Recommended. Boost to survivability and slight Mana savings.
Glyph of Chaining Optional. Improved AoE healing if raid is spread out.
Glyph of Cleansing Waters Optional. Good for frequent dispels.
Glyph of Healing Stream Totem Optional. Good if no resistance buffs.
Glyph of Telluric Currents Optional. Improved Mana efficiency if you can attack.
Glyph of Water Shield Optional. Improved Mana efficiency in some fights.

Rotation

Single Target Rotation

Buffs: Maintain these buffs at all times.

Water Shield
Earthliving Weapon

Healing Priority: Use this spell priority for single target healing.

Earth Shield Maintain on the target taking the most damage.
Riptide Maintain on as many targets as possible. Provides Tidal Waves.
Healing Wave Use to heal low to moderate damage.
Greater Healing Wave Use to heal moderate to high damage.
Unleash Elements Combine with Greater Healing Wave for a very large, efficient heal.
Healing Surge Emergency heal to save players facing death.

Restoration Shaman single target healing follows the priority above. Maintain Earth Shield on the target taking the most damage and use Riptide or Healing Wave as much as possible. Work your way down the priority list based on the amount of damage received by your target. Unleash Elements provides Unleash Life which is best paired with Greater Healing Wave for a more Mana efficient large heal. Consume Tidal Waves charges with Healing Wave or Greater Healing Wave based on the amount of healing required.

What are the best totems?: The most relevant totems to Restoration Shamans are all used as healing cooldowns and are discussed in the cooldown section of the this guide. However, you should keep Searing Totem up at all times for a slight DPS gain.

Telluric Currents: If you have Glyph of Telluric Currents, then you should try to cast Lightning Bolt when possible for some extra Mana.

AoE Rotation

Riptide Maintain on as many targets as possible. Provides Tidal Waves.
Chain Heal Use to heal moderate to high damage. Provides Tidal Waves.
Healing Rain Use to heal heavy raid damage.

Chain Heal should be used when a nearby group of ~3 players need healing. Try to cast Chain Heal on targets with Riptide or Earth Shield for additional healing. It is often most effective to cast Chain Heal on the tank to heal the melee or any one else around.

Healing Rain should ideally be used when it is going to affect at least 5-6 people. For this reason, it may be more beneficial in a 25M raid as opposed to a 10M raid setting.

Effective Cooldowns

These effective cooldowns are available if you chose them in your talent build.

Ancestral Swiftness Combine with Greater Healing Wave for a large emergency heal.
Healing Tide Totem Use for emergency group healing.
Unleashed Fury Best used with Greater Healing Wave or Riptide.

These are effective cooldowns to try and incorporate into most all encounters.

Ascendance Use for emergency raid healing with Healing Rain and Chain Heal.
Bloodlust Epic group cooldown. Use as directed by your party/raid leader.
Earth Elemental Totem Emergency cooldown to try and save yourself or group members.
Healing Stream Totem Use on cooldown for passive smart healing.
Mana Tide Totem Use for raid/party wide Mana regeneration.
Spirit Link Totem Use for emergency group healing.
Spiritwalker's Grace Use during periods of high movement to maintain healing.
Stormlash Totem Use as directed by your party/raid leader. Stack with Bloodlust.