Shaman - Restoration

The restoration shaman is, contrary to some opinions thrown around early WotLK, still a very potent healer. In TBC Restoration Shamans were the top raid healers. As other classes were given new multi-target smart heals, the importance of Shaman Chain healing has waned and opened up additional opportunities for shaman players.

With a little less focus on raid healing, and a little more viability for tank healing, the class was rounded off from being a great raid healer and supporter to a still great raid healer, a decent tank healer and, of course, we still provide support from totems, defensive and offensive dispels and the ever in demand Bloodlust/Heroism.

Purpose

As a resto-shaman, you'll often find yourself on raid healing duty. What this means, however, is that you're prioritizing the raid, but you'll often find yourself just standing around - a perfect time to regen mana through the massive MP5 that raiding shamans will quickly accumulate, do some tank healing, DPS a little or just plainly charge and cancel chain heals should the need for a quick heal arise.

I have seen all the content currently in the game, including Sartharion with his 3 drakes left up when engaging the boss, and I can count the healing intensive fights on the totems in my bag, these include:

Sartharion with 3 (2) drakes
Malygos, during the bubbles and immediately after a vortex
Sapphiron
Kel'Thuzad, when you save people chaining the ice block thing by chain healing and hitting them all (Feels great knowing you've made a difference)

The rest, at least in 25 man versions, quickly become dull once your raid has placed the boss on farm status. Some fights, like Thaddius and Loatheb, you can spend DPSing almost all the time.

As of 3.1 Resto has also been a very powerful tank healing spec through the glyph of lesser healing wave∞ due to the new glyph and the difficulties getting maximum usage of chain heal in Ulduar.

Talents

There's not that much room for creativity here, in my opinion. I'll show you my spec:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#hZ0xxIZx0ezIeoxkrIRt:ALqcMm∞

If you want to spec for Chain Heal (A better idea for newer shamans and for Naxx) you can swap the glyph of lesser healing wave∞ for a Chain Heal one.

Ability Rotation

You're a healer, you have to know your spells and what their strengths are. As a shaman, your mana will be strained if you're forced to spam heal and utilize your full potential at all times, which is a factor when choosing spells. Something that has changed is the value of chain heal. Until patch 3.08, priests were at the forefront of raid healing. With a spammable instant cast smart heal they were pushing shamans off of the top of the healing meters.

Now that is changing, as a six second cooldown is being placed on both Wild Growth (Druids) and Circle of Healing (Priests). Raids will need to be healed. Splash damage encounters are where the abilities of a well-played shaman really shine.

Quick list of your spells:

Earth Shield - Use it on the main tank (Or your designated tank, if several resto shamans are present, talk to them about who shields who). Earthshield + Lesser Healing Wave Glyph can be very mana efficient for single target healing, which you are rarely assigned to do. Spot healing the tank during a lull in raid damage is never a bad idea.

Riptide - Very good for spot raid healing (And the lazy mans best friend), if someone has dropped around 3k HP, one of these babies will bring them back to full instantly. Also with proper talents you can quickly spam single target heals. With proper gearing, a Riptide -> Lesser Healing Wave (LHW) -> LHW can quickly save an attempt by bringing back a tank from the brink of death.

Drawback is that it doesn't heal for a lot when tank healing, but it does place a HoT on the tank that can help out on encounters involving a silence or stun affect.

Healing Way - This may be a little controversial, but... This may not be the best tank-healing spell that you have. LHW is laregely regarded as more efficient and less wasteful. In a raiding environment there will often be multiple players healing the same raid member. The long cast time of HW could send all of your mana straight to overheals.

Creating a Natures Swiftness -> Healing Way macro can be a great life saver as well.

Lesser Healing Wave - The new bread and butter. Great for tank healing (When glyphed), great for raid healing, great for self healing, great for... just about anything. It's even more mana effective than chain heal, if you're healing a single target!
Though the mana return on critical heals with this spell is being reduced in 3.08, this is still going to be your spell of choice for spot healing.

Chain Heal - The old Shaman signature spell is still great and VERY useful. If you know you'll hit at least two targets, it's instantly better than LHW. Drawbacks is its slow casting speed compared to other smart heals from other classes. It has a large mana efficiency and healing output if you know you will hit at least two targets that need the heals.

That covers your heals, you still got your Cleanse Spirit and your totems, but those you will figure out yourself. One note, make sure the rest of the group wants Mana Tide too, and use it as early as you can and you might be able to use it twice.

Key Cooldowns

Mana tide, Bloodlust and Natures Swiftness is your most important cooldowns (Tidal Force is good too, either when tank healing, or combo with NS and Chain Heal to bring 4 people up very quickly).

I've mentioned Mana Tide earlier, Bloodlust should be used asap, BUT ONLY at the direction of the raid leaders. It is better if you can get a DpS Shaman to do this to save you the mana and global cooldown. The raid leaders often coordinate bloodlusts/heroisms for the most optimum time frame. Trust in their wisdom and always wait for it to be called in guild raids.

Stats (In Order of Importance)

There is a large debate going on within the shaman community at to the “BEST” stat to push for. The problem is that each stat shines in a certain encounter and other encounters requirements may be different. One encounter might require throughput (haste + spellpower) another encounter might require longevity (Mp5 + crit).

Fortunately, we can make several assumptions given that we are discussing raid healing. In a raiding environment the best stat to shoot for is all of them. The alternative is to carry 2-3 pieces of equipment with you in order to constantly swap in new items for each boss encounter.

Generally speaking you need enough MP5 so that you are not running out of mana before the encounter is over. However, gemming for Mp5 is not the way to go. On a point for point basis you will get more Mp5 out of an Intellect gem than an Mp5 gem. Due to the nature of replenishment in raids and mana tide totem, every point of Int can be calculated to be .5 Mp5 on any encounter that lasts less than 10 minutes.

Thus under current mechanics you get more Mp5 out of an int gem than taking an MP5 gem, assuming that you have a class that can provide the replenishment buff in the raid. Also Int provides additional spellpower and additional critical strike rating.

If you want to go the Lesser Healing Wave route you will want to get intellect as well.

Spirit is wasted on resto-shamans and you should avoid the cloth gear that comes loaded with spirit. We have no talent that converts spirit to Mp5 while casting, like some other classes do.

Recommended Glyphs

Glyph of Riptide∞
Glyph of Earth Shield∞
[[http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41535∞ Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave][ or Glyph of Chain Heal∞


These are the three that you want to get for major glyphs.

For minor glyphs, grab the Water Shield glyph∞ that will give your water shield four orbs instead of just three. To save yourself some dough you can grab Glyph of Renewed Life∞

Recommended Enchants

Head: Arcanum of Burning Mysteries∞ Requires Revered with the Kirin'Tor
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Crag∞ or Lesser Inscription of the Crag∞ Required rep with The Sons of Hodir
Cloak: Greater Speed∞ or Speed∞, Lightweave Embroidery∞ if you are a Tailor
Chest: Powerful Stats∞ or Super Stats∞ or Greater Mana Restoration∞ if you need MP5
Wrists: Superior Spellpower∞ or Greater Spellpower∞
Hands: Exceptional Spellpower∞
Belt: Eternal Belt Buckle∞
Legs: Sapphire Spellthread∞ or Azure Spellthread∞
Feet: Tuskarr's Vitality∞
Weapon: Mighty Spellpower∞ or Exceptional Spellpower∞
Shield: Greater Intellect∞

Recommended Gems

Meta: Ember Skyflare Diamond∞
Red: Runed Scarlet Ruby∞ or Luminous Monarch Topaz∞
Yellow: Luminous Monarch Topaz∞ or Brilliant Autumn's Glow∞
Blue: Royal Twilight Opal∞ or Lustrous Sky Sapphire∞

Recommended Consumables

I use Flask of Pure Mojo. Flask of the Frost Wyrm. Use Mojo until you find yourself no longer concerned with mana on an encounter and then switch over to Frost Wyrm.

Int or Mp5 food is preferred. Spellpower, haste, and crit food are all useful as well but generally won’t provide as much benefit to you as int or Mp5 food will.

Additional Tips

Make sure you plan your mana usage. Mana tide is always better than Mana pot as its cooldown renews itself, but don't be afraid to pop a potion, either. Also, if you have the mana, never hesitate to overheal. Rather let the heal off, and overheal, than cancel it and killing someone.

Get the addons Grid and Clique. Using both will vastly improve your gameplay. Grid is a raid frame that is color class coded and it will show you who needs to be cleansed, who needs heals, who has aggro, as well as heals currently being cast on a player by other raid members.

Clique allows you to assign spells to be cast by simply clicking your mouse and holding down a certain key. It is very easy to configure. It will allow you to keep a primary healing target while tossing out heals to other raid members.

My setup which I find works well is:

Alt + Left Click : Chain Heal
Alt + Right Click: Riptide
Shift + Left Click : Lesser Healing Wave
Shift + Right Click: Cleanse

Sources and Other Resources

At the time of writing this, I'm the first one to have written here, I'm Erlâk of Stormreaver, in the guild S T O R M, thanks for reading.
Additional changes and updated to current theory craft by Hexxar of Azshara. Please feel free to contact me in game should you need any additional advice. You can reach me on my blog @ www.seriouslycasual.wordpress.com
This guide has been updated to patch 3.1 by Snorlax∞ of Bladefist US

A good Blog to check on the topic of Resto Shamans can be found on Ensidia's site:
http://ensidia.com/community/blogs/1/∞