[PVE Guide] Restoration Shaman 6.0.3

[Barrun]

Preface: Not going to waste anybody’s time restating tooltips and explaining every ability, what follows is intended to cover the most common questions asked on these forums. Guides are always subject to personal opinions and this one is no different, if you have a difference of opinion please feel free to discuss it. This is written from the perspective of someone primarily interested in Mythic raiding and should not necessarily be considered for other types of content, especially PvP. If you want anything added or explained in more detail please send me a PM or post below and I'll respond directly as well as modify this post with more detail if requested. If you disagree with something in the guide please provide a constructive response in this thread with meaningful discussion so that readers can get multiple perspectives, simply stating one talent/gylph/stat/etc is better than another without any rationale is meaningless so please provide a thorough and well thought out response.

Talents

Level 15 Talents: Astral Shift is my default choice of this tier, the benefit of having a potentially life-saving 40% damage reduction outweighs the damage absorption of Stone Bulwark Totem, while Nature’s Guardian offers comparatively little benefit in PVE. Astral Shift can and should be used preemptively for large damage spikes and in a raiding environment its usage can usually be planned in advanced.

Level 30 Talents: This tier is very situational and really depends upon the encounter, Windwalk Totem is very useful on encounters which have movement impairing effects and should be taken for any encounter where it can be put to use.

Level 45 Talents: Totemic Projection is my default choice of this tier largely out of convenience, it makes using Capacitor Totem and Spirit Link Totem much easier to use as you can simply move them to where they need to be, it also effectively allows you to heal targets greater than 40 yards away by projecting healing totems away from oneself. Totemic Persistence has its time and place and is very situational, I use it on a number of fights where I know I won’t need projection. Call of the Elements is again very situational, with regards to using it for an extra HST the absolute most you can get out of it is an extra HST every 6 minutes, underwhelming at best. If there’s a situation where you need back to back usage of utility totems it’s a great choice but I’ve yet to find an encounter in 6.0 where it’s worth taking over Projection or Persistence.

Level 60 Talents: Ancestral Swiftness and Elemental Mastery are both great choices each offering a total throughput gain not offered by Echo the Elements. Elemental Mastery offers the shaman an additional throughput cooldown that works as a mini Bloodlust; to get the most out of EM pair it with Healing Tide Totem to get a nice 30% boost to our already greatest utility. While if used properly EM can allow for the shaman to gain more overall throughput than with AS but you lose out on the utility of an instant spell cast every 90 seconds, ultimately this tier comes down to personal preference and should vary by encounter depending upon the damage pattern and if having a 30% boosted HTT is more beneficial than what AS offers. EotE is very niche talent in that it allows for back to back Spirit Link Totems and some flexibility with Riptide and Unleash Life usage, it offers no direct throughput gain like EM and AS so it should only be taken in situations where your raid group needs the extra SLT. This talent tier has been discussed more thoroughly here.

Level 75 Talents: Rushing Streams is my default choice of this tier. All three talents are viable and really depends on the fight, I haven’t seen a fight this tier that I prefer AG over the other two but that doesn’t mean it won’t possibly have its uses at some point. Conductivity is great on encounters where you won’t need to reposition Healing Rain very often as it prevents you from having to recast Healing Rain as often, saving mana and allowing for the usage of other spells in that time, but Rushing Streams is generally more reliable and easier to use.

Level 90 Talents: Elemental Blast is my default choice of this tier. The spirit provided by EB is huge, currently mana is the limiting factor on our throughput so while the direct throughput buff provided by EB isn’t as good as Primal Elementalist, the total throughput gained from the mana provided by EB more than makes up for it. PE is a good choice only if you aren’t limited by mana which at current gear levels should rarely be the case in a raiding environment (CMs are a different story), Unleashed Fury is generally underwhelming simply because EB is so powerful, and the greater on-demand throughput and damage reduction utility granted by PE generally outweighs the benefits of UF.

Level 100 Talents: High Tide is my default choice of this tier, Chain Heal should in most encounters be our number one heal, it’s already a powerhouse of a spell and High Tide just makes it that much better. Cloudburst Totem is clunky and generally underwhelming, it has a few niche uses, particularly in circumstances where you won’t be casting many Chain Heals (CMs) but High Tide will almost always far outperform Cloudburst. Storm Elemental Totem is currently complete trash for PVE and should be avoided.

Glyphs

Resto shaman have many great situational but self-explanatory glyphs, the two glyphs that seem to cause the most controversy and most people are unsure of are Glyph of Chaining and Glyph of Riptide. Other particularly useful glyphs that find common play are Glyph of Healing Stream Totem, Glyph of Spiritwalker's Focus, and Glyph of Spiritwalker's Grace.

Glyph of Chaining – This is one of my default glyphs as it generally increases the throughput of Chain Heal. The increased jump range allows it more choice in who it will bounce to, causing it to choose lower health targets that would likely be out of range of the un-glyphed counterpart, by having more choice of targets overhealing is minimized and throughput gains from our mastery are maximized. While the cooldown the glyph incurs is inconvenient, mana is generally the limiting factor on the amount of Chain Heals we can cast so unless you need to spam Chain Heal the cooldown turns out to be pretty inconsequential.

Glyph of Riptide – I feel like this glyph is essential for a raiding environment, this glyph allows flexibility in being able to cast what you want, when you want to. It provides something to do while moving, but most importantly it allows for “frontloading” of Riptides. Chain Heal should generally always be cast off of a target with Riptide on it, this glyph allows you to preemptively place Riptide on a handful of people you know will be good candidates to cast Chain Heal off of so that when the big damage comes and you need to be casting Chain Heal you have a number of options of who to cast if off of. If reaching anywhere near your shaman’s maximum potential the total contribution to your overall healing from Riptide’s initial heal will be ~5%, while the glyph causes a loss in efficiency of Riptide, the flexibility it provides in how you heal should ultimately increase your overall healing by virtue of allowing you to get more out of our mastery as you won’t be tied to using GCDs on Riptide while people are low on health. Note that the intent behind this glyph is not to blanket the raid in Riptide, rather to preemptively Riptide people to Chain Heal off of during high damage moments. For a more thorough discussion of this glyph refer to here.

Glyph of Spiritwalker's Focus - This glyph allows for more frequent use of Spiritwalker's Grace which can help a lot on fights with frequent movement, the majority of encounters you won't be needing the full 15 seconds provided by unglyphed Spiritwalker's for movement so having the ability available more frequently is very useful.

Glyph of Spiritwalker's Grace - Some encounters require less frequent movement but for a longer duration, if you need to be moving for longer than 15 seconds at a time this glyph can help out tremendously.

Glyph of Healing Stream Totem - While the 10% damage reduction provided by this glyph may seem underwhelming many bosses have very hard hitting Fire/Frost/Nature damage abilities. Compared to our other glyph options the damage mitigation provided by this glyph is quite significant and should be considered on fights with the appropriate damage type, when trying decide between this glyph or the commonly used alternative Glyph of Healing Wave the damage reduced by this glyph will generally far exceed any healing gained by Glyph of Healing Wave.

Stats

Stat priorities are subjective as some of it comes down to personal preference but there are some things to keep in mind when choosing a stat priority.

Mastery – Throughput gains from mastery are highly variable and changes dynamically with the targets health, because of this it’s hard to quantify its value relative to other stats without making lots of assumptions and doing some hand-waving, in general however the communities general consensus is that mastery is our most effective secondary stat.

Crit and Multistrike – These two stats provide the exact same amount of throughput per stat point, multistrike however is more reliable as the chance to multistrike per stat point is greater than that to crit. Crit comes with the added benefit of providing mana from Resurgence, these two stats really come down to personal preference and whether you want slightly more reliability or the extra mana. *Critical multistrikes do not trigger Resurgence.

Haste – Haste provides greater throughput than crit or multistrike because it allows for more casts within a given window of time, haste also provides a straight boost to Riptide and healing totems. The downside of haste that must be considered is the increased mana expenditures necessary to meet the throughput provided by crit or multistrike, while the throughput potential from haste is greater than that of crit or multistrike it only boosts the efficiency of Riptide and healing totems while the other stats increase all of our abilities.

Spirit – With current gear levels our throughput is restricted by our mana, because of this I always prioritize spirit over other secondary stats.

Taking all things into consideration the stat priority I prescribe to is Intellect > Spirit > Mastery > Haste > Multistrike => Crit > Versatility.

Macros

Mouseovers – Mouseover macros are handy as it allows you to hover your mouse over a unit frame and cast the spell without targeting the player. Below is an example of a common one I use, you can replace the spell name with whichever spell you want it to cast. There are many variations to the general mouse over macro, below is the one I use.

“#showtooltip Chain Heal
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Chain Heal
/cast Chain Heal”

Friendly/Offensive – Heres a macro I use to put Healing Wave and Lightning Bolt on the same key, while targeting a friendly target it casts Healing Wave and while targeting a hostile target it casts Lightning Bolt.

“#showtooltip Healing Wave
/cast [harm, nodead] Lightning Bolt; [help, nodead] [@player] Healing Wave”

Wind Shear – This macro will set the target as your focus, stop whatever you’re casting, and cast Wind Shear instead, if another target is already set as the focus this macro will not work.

“#showtooltip Wind Shear
/focus [@focus,noexists]
/stopcastingg
/cast [@focus] Wind Shear”

Primal Elementalist – I use these macros for Fire Elemental and Earth Elemental Totems so when I’m spec’d into Primal Elementalist I can hit the key twice and have them channel their respective buff on me.

“#showtooltip
/cast Earth Elemental Totem
/cast Reinforce”
And
“#showtooltip
/cast Fire Elemental Totem
/cast Empower”

Primal Elementalist (One Button) – Here's an alternative Primal Elementalist macro if you want both elementals bound to the same key.

"#showtooltip Fire Elemental Totem
/cancelaura Empower
/cancelaura Reinforce
/cast [@pet,exists] Empower
/cast [@pet,exists] Reinforce
/castsequence reset=300/combat Fire Elemental Totem, Earth Elemental totem"

Elemental Blast 1 - This macro casts Elemental Blast on your focus target, if you don't have a focus then it casts on your current target.

"#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus, exists] Elemental Blast; Elemental Blast"

Elemental Blast 2 - Another very handy EB macro, "this will blast your current target if it's an enemy (then switch back to your last healing target) or auto select an enemy to blast without changing your target. Cast this targeted when you want to make sure it won't break CC." -HeartOfZen

"#showtooltip Elemental Blast
/targetenemy [noharm]
/cast Elemental Blast
/targetlasttarget"

Trinket Macro – This will cast an on use trinket before casting the ability used in the macro, /use 13 and /use 14 are what activates trinkets.

“#showtooltip Healing Tide Totem
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/use 13
cast Healing Tide Totem
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear(); UIErrorsFrame:Show()”

Suggested Addons

Vuhdo - My unit frames of choice, by far the most customizable of the available options out there, it's a bit of a doozy to learn, but taking the time will pay off. The basic look it starts with is not very attractive but you can customize it to look like any other addon out there, only better.

Clique - Allows for click-casting and hover-casting keybinds, I love this addon for doing dispels. It's simple and easy to use, and Vuhdo even has an option to sync with it.

Hermes - Allows you to track raid cooldowns, lots of different display options, can really help with maximizing your raids cooldown usage.

Bartender4 - One of my all time favorites, allows you to customize the look and arrangement of your ability bars. Easy to use and really cleans up the UI.

Tidy Plates - Customizes the look and functionality of nameplates, I use it to see enemy cast bars over the mobs head which can really help with interrupting random targets.

Deadly Boss Mods - Pretty essential addon for anyone wanting to raid, provides timers and alerts for boss abilities and all the fundamentals one can expect from a boss mod.

WeakAuras 2 - By far the most powerful and versatile addon currently out there, it allows for custom made on screen alerts for anything you can dream of, the possibilities with weak auras are limitless, from tracking raid debuffs to ability cooldowns it can do anything and you can make it look like whatever you want. I use it primarily to track the durations of my totems and Healing Rain, and the cooldown of my dispel. I also get a lot of use out of it for specific boss ability alerts which aren't covered by DBM or BigWigs. If new to using it I'd suggest finding a quick tutorial on YouTube to get you started, it can be a bit intimidating when first learning how to make a weak aura.

mack2887 made some great Weak Auras available to everyone in his thread here. I haven't tried them personally but they look great and might be a good starting place for someone new to Weak Auras just looking for a nice resto shaman package.

Encounter Advice

Gruul - Glyph of Chaining can help alleviate some of the range issues on this fight, by using this glyph and chaining off of the tanks you can often reach people on the opposite side of the room greatly increasing your effective healing range. Glyph of Spiritwalker's Grace is also very nice on this fight during his Overhead Smash phase as the majority of the fight is pretty low movement otherwise. Watch Gruul's cast bar and try to time your Chain Heals so that they land directly after he finishes casting Inferno Slice.

Oregorger - Try to time Chain Heal to land immediately after Acid Torrent hits the group, watching his cast bar can help with getting the timing right. Spirit Link Totem can be a life-saver on this fight as Acid Torrent will occasionally land very shortly after a Retched Blackrook pool goes out, dropping a Spirit Link as people are moving away from the pool can help level out the health bars of people that were slow to move and prevent them from dying to the Acid Torrent. Don't forget you can help interrupt his Blackrock Barrage using Wind Shear.

Beastlord Darmac - While it's tempting to pad the meters early on this fight the last 10-20% are really what matters, don't fall into the trap of healing people up quickly and waste your mana, this is an endurance fight and mana should be spent sparingly early on in the encounter. Glyph of Chaining helps with the spread out nature of this fight and is essential to increasing your efficiency. Capacitor Totem can be used to stun the pack beasts if they are staying alive for too long, don't stun without your raid leaders permission however. Windwalk Totem can be used to prevent/remove the slow from Faultline's "Unsteady" and can help people get out of Cannonball Barrage and Superheated Shrapnel when they do line up.

Hans'gar & Franzok - I like to take Glyph of Spiritwalker's Grace for this encounter for use during the Smart Stamper phases, SWG paired with Ascendance can carry the raid during the heavy damage/heavy movement periods, try and preemptively place get several Riptides out going into Smart Stampers so you can focus entirely on Chain Heal while SWG is active. If you don't have SWG available time Chain Heal such that it goes off right as they land a Body Slam. SLT should be used with caution on this fight, if a player is hit with a stamping press and standing in SLT it can cause the raid to take a large chunk of damage they otherwise wouldn't take, because of this I prefer to save it for Smart Stampers where people can spike very low from Skullcracker damage on top of the already high raid damage.

Flamebender Ka'graz - Make sure your raid frames tracks the time left on Molten Torrent and cast Chain Heal at the appropriate time so that you it hits right as Molten Torrent lands, prioritize melee as your targets for Riptide as they'll likely be the ones soaking the damage from Molten Torrent and needing the most healing. The healing requirement on this fight is fairly low so EotE may be worth taking especially if your raid decides to stack the wolves on top of each other and have people tank them, placing a SLT on top of the people tanking them can make doing this strategy much more manageable and since you shouldn't get more than two sets of wolves you can have a SLT for each set.

Operator Thogar - Glyph of Riptide can help fill in some of the blank space in this encounter, a lot of the fight is very low damage so being able to blanket people with Riptide during this time can allow you spam Chain Heal without worrying about Riptide while Man-at-Arms are active. Timing HTT on this fight is very important for getting the most out of it, the first Iron Bellow from a Man-at-Arms shouldn't be lethal to your raid group, wait till after the second one to drop HTT while everybody is low and you can get more healing out of it. Windwalk Totem mitigates the slow from Prototype Pulse Grenade.

Iron Maidens - Since there isn't much to heal the first 80% of this fight Primal Elementalist and Elemental Mastery are both very strong choices as they allow for large burst healing needed towards the end of the fight. Shaman are strong candidates for healing the boat with Battle Medic Rogg as you can help interrupt his casts. If you have to go up on the boat with Iron Eviscerators don't forget about your crowd control abilities, Earthbind Totem, Earthgrab Totem, Capacitor Totem, and Frost Shock can all help you kite their fixate preventing a lot of damage on yourself and other players. If your raid is really struggling towards the end of the fight and you don't have enough paladins to afford you a Blessing of Protection it's worth considering letting your raid ignore Penetrating Shot if you get targeted by it as you can simply Reincarnate after being killed, saving your raid a battle res.

Blackhand - Glyph of Spiritwalker's Grace helps a lot during phase 1, Demolition deals very high raid damage and requires a lot of mobility, pairing SWG and Ascendance can help keep the raid alive and having the additional 5 seconds of movement afforded by the glyph can really help. Elemental Mastery is considering worth taking as pairing it with HTT during a Demolition can give it the extra boost it needs to keep everyone alive. Right as phase 1 ends don't forget about SLT, right before the floor breaks the raid takes a large chunk of damage from the falling Iron Star and this is a perfect time to use it. Glyph of Chaining can help alleviate some of the pains of phase 2, I'd strongly suggest this glyph as phase 2 is the most demanding part of the fight. Since we don't have any form of blink or high burst movement for getting into position if we get Marked for Death in phase 2 try and position yourself ahead of the Siege Maker as its easier to get to safety if you don't have to chase it.

Brackenspore - Positioning is very predictable on this fight and it doesn't change very often so Conductivity is one of my favorite talents here. Since Rejuvenating Mushrooms can provide a lot of mana Elemental Blast may not be necessary, on Mythic its still a really mana intensive fight so EB may be preferred by some but I personally opt for Unleashed Fury because I'm assigned to green mushroom duty. Because I spend the majority of the fight healing green mushrooms I very rarely cast Chain Heal so I take Cloudburst over High Tide, if you aren't assigned to green mushroom healing and find yourself primarily healing the raid during Infesting Spores then High Tide should be the talent of choice. Ancestral Swiftness can also be a very handy talent for topping off mushrooms quickly, I personally choose Elemental Mastery for the extra haste while spamming Healing Surge on Rejuvenating Mushrooms but both are good choices and it comes down to your personally duties on this fight. If you're having trouble healing mushrooms you can place Earth Shield on them for the additional 20% healing.

Tectus - The majority of the damage on this fight (Mythic) comes at two specific points in the encounter so talents and glyphs should be chosen to get the necessary burst healing to survive. Since the fight is very short I opt out of Elemental Blast and take Unleashed Fury instead since most of the encounter is spent healing only the tanks and having the additional single target burst after moving from an earthen pillar can be nice, if your raid is having a hard time surviving Tectonic Upheaval then Primal Elementalist should be your talent of choice here. For tier 5 talents AG can be very powerful as it provides additional burst healing for Tectonic Upheaval which is the majority of the damage in this fight, I personally opt for Rushing Streams as I find the tank healing more troublesome than the Upheavals but it will really come down to what your raid group is struggling with, both are very solid choices.

The Butcher - Conductivity is a staple for this fight, a large number of players are stacked in melee and taking continuous damage while the boss barely moves, this is quintessential type of fight for this talent. The fight is short enough that Primal Elementalist is a strong choice as raid damage really spikes sub-30%. My approach to healing this fight is maintaining Riptide on both tanks and 1 person in each soak group as 1 of them will almost always be low enough to cast Chain Heal off of without overhealing.

Imperator Mar'gok - Glyph of Chain Heal is tremendously helpful on this fight, since the primary challenge of healing this fight comes in Phase 3, and healing conservatively to get to phase 3 with enough mana to survive, the efficiency perks (less overhealing) provided by this glyph help substantially, and the majority of the raid is spread out during phase 3 so getting a full Chain Heal off without the glyph can be tricky. Because this fight is such a test of endurance some people choose EotE over the other options to avoid the loss in efficiency caused by Glyph of Riptide, I however prefer EM as HTT is such a substantial contribution to our overall healing on this encounter and if used properly the 30% boost to it should offer more overall healing than that provided by a stronger initial heal on Riptide. Phase 4 requires very little healing so managing mana to make it through phase 3 with everybody alive is the most important part of mastering this fight. During transitions using Wind Shear to interrupt the adds can help mitigate a lot of damage, if you aren't assigned as part of a cooldown rotation throw out interrupts outside of the assigned interrupt cycles.

[Deleted]

Thank you so very much for this guide!
Would be nice if you added WeakAuras and Addon tips for it aswell!

Cheers!

[Barrun]

Thanks for the feedback, I updated it and hope that covers what you were looking for. I'll try and find some more shaman specific weak auras later and find some links to their import strings.

[Soisoisoi]

You should add TellMeWhen in there alongside WeakAuras 2. Hell of a lot easier to set up too, assuming you don't just copy other peoples anyway!

[Zaite]

In the spirit of loving complicated macros - regarding your mouse over macro example, you can achieve the same as above in a single line by:

/cast [target=mouseover,exists][]Chain Heal;

You can chain conditions in order left to right before a spell and it will cast accordingly. In this case it will first check for a mouseover and then, with the empty set of brackets, it will attempt to cast as though there were no conditions applied. (so on your target if friendly, on you if not).

You can go deeper with multiple modification keys and create what I have for my main 'heal' button, where it will always cast on a mouseover first, then a the default selection set, per modification key. Its not for everyone but I figure it is worth sharing its potential for others to do with what they will! (note, I could not use the 'at' symbol or the post would not submit due to the age of my account, typically id use 'at' instead of target= to save characters).

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:shift, target=mouseover, exists][mod:shift]Unleash Life; [mod:alt, target=mouseover, exists][mod:alt]Healing Surge; [target=mouseover, exists][]Healing Wave;

This will first check for shift+mouseover, then just shift for Unleash life, then alt+mouseover, then just alt for Healing Surge and so on.

Not useful for everyone, Im sure. But just an FYI

Thanks for the read.

[Deleted]

I agree with everything apart from Elemental Mastery choice - in my experience on all bosses in Mythic Highmaul, I have never had a time where Healing Tide doesn't overheal at least 20% (granted we probably run too many healers, but even on Mythic Imperator this is the case), using Elemental Mastery would only increase this number. Other periods of high damage where it may be useful are almost always covered by other healer cooldowns in my experience.

Other than that, spot on.

[Akshak]

Awesome, thanks!

I'm going to remove the Bitten's addon and related class addons and start using Weak Auras 2 as it seems to have more support and use.

[Deleted]

I haven’t seen a fight this tier that I prefer AG over the other two but that doesn’t mean it won’t possibly have its uses at some point.

Was very helpful for me on tectus progress. AG+Ascendance+EM first upheaval, EM+HTT the second one, since there are no other healing checks on the boss.

Cloudburst Totem is clunky and generally underwhelming, it has a few niche uses, particularly in circumstances where you won’t be casting many Chain Heals (CMs) but High Tide will for the most part far outperform Cloudburst.

Another thing to note there is that our tier further pigeonholes us into High Tide and more CH usage leaving no room for even testing CBT.

Crit comes with the added benefit of providing mana from Resurgence and because of this I feel despite crit being less reliable it still comes out ahead, really it’s a matter of personal preference.

Remember that resurgence from chain heal is absolutely pitiful. Unless you are doing a long fight like Imperator, resurgence mana return will be absolutely pitiful compared to any ammount of spirit.

Should probably mention Glyph of Spiritwalker's Focus and Glyph of Healing stream totem in the glyph section, since both are really useful.

One button Primal Elementalist macro I made:

#showtooltip Fire Elemental Totem
/cancelaura Empower
/cancelaura Reinforce
/cast [@pet,exists] Empower
/cast [@pet,exists] Reinforce
/castsequence reset=300/combat Fire Elemental Totem, Earth Elemental totem

Cast EB on focus, else cast on target:

#showtooltip
/cast [target=focus, exists] Elemental Blast; Elemental Blast

Thanks for the effort, hopefully we can start filling in the advice bits

[Axelond]

Elemental Mastery, No

Glyph of Riptide, No

Level 75 Talents Conductivity on Butcher and maybe Mar'gok and brackenspore

[Cupquake]

Decent guide for people jumping into healing on a shammy. It all comes down to playstyle for myself as well as how your healing team heals with you. That greatly determines my glyphs and what not.

[Pur1tas]

Great guide but I have to disagree with 1 little point you put there. While Crit / Multi ARE the second in stat priority and do give you a very good throughput I do not suggest going for actual Mastery / Crit or Mastery / Multi Items. In theorey you should, as you get the most out of these stats but Crit / Mulit are sort of similar to how our mastery works and are not complimenting each other very well. I suggest to go Mastery / Haste and later on go either Crit / Haste or Multistrike / Haste. This is mostly due to the fact that with a huge amount of Crit and Mastery you will most likely overheal a lot essentially wasting the Crit. Haste is a stat that alows you to heal a lot more flexible and gives you possibility to react faster in the cases you need to.

So while this is only my personal opinion on Crit and Multistrike I totally see your point and they are definately the second best stats for a Resto, they just don't go well with out best stat, which is mastery.

Hope you understand what I was trying to say.

Still a great guide mate

EDIT: I just reread what you wrote and realized you put Crit => Haste. Reading this I would just mention that the combination of Crit and Mastery might result in some overheal, setting you up better with Mastery Haste or Crit Haste rather than Crit Master.

[Caziel]

Elemental Mastery, No

Glyph of Riptide, No

Level 75 Talents Conductivity on Butcher and maybe Mar'gok and brackenspore

This. Axelond gives correct information in my opinion. It doesn't take much looking at WCL data/rankings to see that Riptide is hardly ever glyphed by top shamans. The vast majority of shamans in WCL rankings use Ancestral Swiftness and Elemental Blast.

The most pertinent discussion in a resto guide imo should be the two shaman playstyles, and in what raid sizes or situations one is better than the other. Some shamans do well with mostly single target healing (Healing Wave/Surge + Cloudburst), while others use the Chain Heal/High Tide playstyle. I feel like raid size/difficulty and which healers you run with have a big impact on which playstyle you might go with (with Chain Heal/Healing Rain in general getting worse the smaller the raid gets), as well as which secondary stats you might prefer.

Based on WCL data, the "default" talents appear to be AS/RS/EB/High Tide, with Cloudburst a significant minority choice, and Conductivity used on fights like Butcher.

Glyphs seem to be HST/HW+one other. My own preference is for one of the SG glyphs (varies depending on fight). I do not think Glyph of Chaining is necessarily a default choice, because losing the ability to cast two back-to-back CHs is a big deal (obv not going to glyph it on Butcher). I tried with and without it and I didn't see my numbers go up with it, even on fights you'd expect it to.

[HeartOfZen]

A macro for EB that I use for not having to worry about focus management is:

#showtooltip Elemental Blast
/targetenemy [noharm]
/cast Elemental Blast
/targetlasttarget

This will blast your current target if it's an enemy (then switch back to your last healing target) or auto select an enemy to blast without changing your target. Cast this targeted when you want to make sure it won't break CC.

[Deleted]

Considering the effort that has gone into this guide, and the positive feedback already going on in here (whether criticing it or positive), combined with the fact the author is doing a good job editting his guide to bring in feedback. I'll sticky this. If it falls out of date (as with all guides), it will be unstickied though.

[Puupi]

The guide is alright to an extent, but as it happens - healing isn't a metric that has absolute truths considering choices between spells, talents, glyphs and whatnot.

Therefore I need to disagree with many points that the OP said in his guide.

First of all, you should have explained the three major playstyles of resto shaman at the moment. All of them are viable, but completely different.

Playstyle #1 (Chain Heal spec):

(Relevant) talent choices: Ancestral Swiftness/Echo of the Elements, Rushing Streams, High Tide, optionally with Glyph of Riptide.

In this playstyle you have high emphasis on HST and CH. Healing Rain is "a bad spell" in this toolkit, you only use it situationally when you can guarantee that at least 4 targets can stand on it full 10 seconds with 0% overheal or 6 targets with roughly 20% overheal. Use HST on cooldown and spam CH. Keep Riptide up on as many targets as meaningfully possible.

This is a high mana cost, high hps and high risk playstyle. The risk comes from the slow nature of CH (it's a considerably long cast) and randomness of the CH jumps.

Playstyle #2 (Healing Wave spec):

(Relevant) talent choices: Ancestral Swiftness, Conductivity, Cloudburst Totem, optionally (preferred) with Glyph of Chaining.

In this playstyle you spam Healing Wave and Riptide from target to target. Keep Healing Rain up (either in melee or ranged) with Conductivity. Chain Heal is a situational tool here, hence the glyphed version of it. Use Cloudburst Totem on cd, trigger it by expiring or destroying in a good spot. HST is a secondary spell in this style, too. Use it while moving/getting extra heals for certain situations.

This is a low mana cost, steady hps and low risk playstyle. It isn't as bursty as CH spec, but it is very mana efficient, good hps and precise due to direct spot heals on targets.

Playstyle #3 (Cooldown spec):

(Relevant) talent choices: Elemental Mastery, Ancestral Guidance, Cloudburst Totem, optionally (I prefer not to) with Glyph of Chaining.

In this playstyle you generally play the same way as playstyle #2, but there is a high emphasis on your cooldowns, which is the Shaman niche strength. Here the key thing is to use your cooldowns + Cloudburst Totem to their maximum potential. Outside of your cooldowns you heal very mana efficiently with Healing Wave and Riptide, but once you pop EM+AG/EM+Ascendance/Ascendance, you use Cloudburst Totem as well (obviously) and burst out as much healing as you can, basically spamming Chain Heal. With this spec you should maximize all your Cloudbursts even outside of cooldowns by spamming Chain Heal/Healing Surge. When played correctly, this is a fantastic playstyle that is very valuable for your raid.

This is a high mana cost, very bursty high hps and very high risk playstyle. It is the most difficult, but most valuable and rewarding playstyle to play. This is my suggested go-to playstyle for now, everyone should at least try it.

Until we get T17 set bonuses, I would avoid playing the Chain Heal spec. With set bonuses, it is the obvious style to play with, but until then, it's rather crap compared to the counterparts.

Talents

Level 15 Talents: Astral Shift is my default choice of this tier, the benefit of having a potentially life-saving 40% damage reduction outweighs the damage absorption of Stone Bulwark Totem, while Nature’s Guardian offers little benefit in PVE. Astral Shift can and should be used preemptively for large damage spikes and in a raiding environment its usage can usually be planned in advanced.

I would say Nature's Guardian is the default choice. Use Astral Shift only when you are very familiar with the encounter and there is a very specific need for that damage reduction CD. Automated "Last stand" every 30 seconds is by far more valuable than that 40% damage reduction for 6 secs every 90 seconds as there aren't many "hard hitters" in this tier that would require it. Ko'ragh's Expel Magic: Frost is the only one that comes to my mind, and you can't even get Astral Shift for all them (Frost hits once a minute, so you can basically take Frost #1 and #3).

Level 45 Talents: Totemic Projection is my default choice of this tier largely out of convenience, it makes using Capacitor Totem and Spirit Link Totem much easier to use as you can simply move them to where they need to be, it also effectively allows you to heal targets greater than 40 yards away by projecting healing totems away from oneself. Totemic Persistence has its time and place and is very situational, I use it on a number of fights where I know I won’t need projection. Call of the Elements is again very situational, with regards to using it for an extra HST the absolute most you can get out of it is an extra HST every 6 minutes, underwhelming at best. If there’s a situation where you need back to back usage of utility totems it’s a great choice but I’ve yet to find an encounter in 6.0 where it’s worth taking over Projection or Persistence.

Persistence is the default choice for restoration. You need to be able to put two water totems on the ground at the same time, end of story. This isn't even a topic worth discussing. Projection is default for dps specs. If you need to project SLT, adjust your own positioning or change tactics (or use TP for that specific scenario).

Level 60 Talents: Elemental Mastery is my default choice of this tier, an on-demand mini Bloodlust is amazing, pairing it with Healing Tide Totem you can get an extra 30% out of our most powerful spell. HTT is generally used in high raid damage moments where over-healing will be at a minimum, getting more out of our already greatest utility just makes it all the better. Ancestral Swiftness is also a viable choice and the on-use is convenient, but 5% static haste is generally underwhelming compared to the on-demand haste provided by EM. EotE is just plain bad and is a bit of a trap, Glyph of Riptide should be taken for Riptide coverage. This talent tier has been discussed more thoroughly here.

This tier is entirely dependent on what playstyle are you choosing. There is no default choice.

Level 75 Talents: Rushing Streams is my default choice of this tier. All three talents are viable and really depends on the fight, I haven’t seen a fight this tier that I prefer AG over the other two but that doesn’t mean it won’t possibly have its uses at some point. Conductivity is great on encounters where you won’t need to reposition Healing Rain very often as it prevents you from having to recast Healing Rain as often, saving mana and allowing for the usage of other spells in that time, but Rushing Streams is generally more reliable and easier to use.

Same as lvl 60 talents, depends on playstyle.

Level 90 Talents: Elemental Blast is my default choice of this tier. The spirit provided by EB is huge, currently mana is the limiting factor on our throughput so while the direct throughput buff provided by EB isn’t as good as Primal Elementalist, the total throughput gained from the mana provided by EB more than makes up for it. PE is a good choice only if you aren’t limited by mana which at current gear levels should rarely be the case in a raiding environment (CMs are a different story), Unleashed Fury is generally underwhelming simply because EB is so powerful, and the greater on-demand throughput and damage reduction utility granted by PE generally outweighs the benefits of UF.

QFT, because this is very important thing for everyone to understand. EB is the only option here for now.

Level 100 Talents: High Tide is my default choice of this tier, Chain Heal should in most encounters be our number one heal, it’s already a powerhouse of a spell and High Tide just makes it that much better. Cloudburst Totem is clunky and generally underwhelming, it has a few niche uses, particularly in circumstances where you won’t be casting many Chain Heals (CMs) but High Tide will almost always far outperform Cloudburst. Storm Elemental Totem is currently complete trash for PVE and should be avoided.

This depends on playstyle again with the exception of Storm Elemental Totem that should never be taken until Blizzard buffs it by 300%+ or something.

I just wanted to comment mostly on the poor talent choices and explanations in the guide, otherwise the guide is alright. Good effort by the OP nevertheless.

[Koor]

Fantastic guide and discussion. I'd like to add an issue which keeps coming up:

Many shamans come to this forum for help when they find their numbers on the meters are lower than other healers in their raid and ask how they can compete.
It's important to stress that a healer who is higher on the meters isn't necessarily the better healer. Especially when playing a shaman, our strength is in delivering strong heals when it matters.

It's perfectly fine to hold on casting your spells if they aren't needed. As a shaman you don't have to participate in the "sniping" game since you would likely loose it anyway to disc priests or druids who blanket the raid with shields and hots. Rather, you are the "safety net" of the raid, picking up whatever damage other healers let through. Save your mana, and be ready to burst with powerful spells when things get wrong. This is where you shine.

[Deleted]

Fantastic guide and discussion. I'd like to add an issue which keeps coming up:

Many shamans come to this forum for help when they find their numbers on the meters are lower than other healers in their raid and ask how they can compete.
It's important to stress that a healer who is higher on the meters isn't necessarily the better healer. Especially when playing a shaman, our strength is in delivering strong heals when it matters.

It's perfectly fine to hold on casting your spells if they aren't needed. As a shaman you don't have to participate in the "sniping" game since you would likely loose it anyway to disc priests or druids who blanket the raid with shields and hots. Rather, you are the "safety net" of the raid, picking up whatever damage other healers let through. Save your mana, and be ready to burst with powerful spells when things get wrong. This is where you shine.

True but your big CD's if used properly should shoot you straight up in meters almost to the top...

[Barrun]

The guide is alright to an extent, but as it happens - healing isn't a metric that has absolute truths considering choices between spells, talents, glyphs and whatnot.

While healing might not have absolute truths it does infact have a metric, my advice in the guide is aimed at achieving the maximum potential with respect to that metric, in many cases the talent and glyph choices are very clear in achieving that maximum potential, and in many other cases it's not so clear and one has to use their own personal judgment to determine which talent/glyph choice will allow them to achieve their best potential.

First of all, you should have explained the three major playstyles of resto shaman at the moment. All of them are viable, but completely different.

Trying to simplify the class into three distinct playstyles really doesn't do us justice, it only limits ones thinking in their ability usage and in turn their effective healing, we have a vast toolkit and all of the tools in it should always be taken into consideration when making a decision. The three "styles" you suggest might get the job done but they certainly won't get the most out of ones character; I can't in good conscience recommend any of them as it stifles the potential of our toolkit and promotes bad play. Chain Heal is our bread and butter and without moderate to heavy usage of it (barring gimmick fights like Brackenspore) our numbers (and effectiveness as a healer) will suffer tremendously.

I would say Nature's Guardian is the default choice. Use Astral Shift only when you are very familiar with the encounter and there is a very specific need for that damage reduction CD. Automated "Last stand" every 30 seconds is by far more valuable than that 40% damage reduction for 6 secs every 90 seconds as there aren't many "hard hitters" in this tier that would require it. Ko'ragh's Expel Magic: Frost is the only one that comes to my mind, and you can't even get Astral Shift for all them (Frost hits once a minute, so you can basically take Frost #1 and #3).

Nature's Guardian offers nothing in terms of healing or damage mitigation, it is completely inferior. If you need a "last stand" type effect you're doing something terribly wrong and are likely taking completely avoidable damage. Any resto shaman that wants to be competitive needs to know encounters, and in turn will know how and when to get the most out of Astral Shift, any situation where you need Nature's Guardian to keep you alive you could use Astral Shift instead. Nature's Guardian is inferior in every way.

Persistence is the default choice for restoration. You need to be able to put two water totems on the ground at the same time, end of story. This isn't even a topic worth discussing. Projection is default for dps specs. If you need to project SLT, adjust your own positioning or change tactics (or use TP for that specific scenario).

You should never "need" to put two water totems down at once, if you're using CBT then yes I would agree persistence is likely the right choice, but choosing CBT is generally a mistake to begin with; learning to manage water totems is part of learning how to play a resto shaman. Persistence offers nothing more than utility, just like projection. The primary difference is that the utility offered by persistence is usually not necessary if you're a competent player. The line of "change tactics" or "change positioning" is complete garbage, there are many circumstances where being in melee range is a liability (mines on Imperator for example) so we can't just change tactics or positioning, this is why projection tends to be far more useful.

This tier is entirely dependent on what playstyle are you choosing. There is no default choice.

People frequently come to these forums asking what to take as a default choice, hence the preface and liberal use of words that indicate it's my personal choice.

[Akshak]

I for one appreciate the info Barrun - I've never healed on a shaman much less played one as elemental as extensively as I do now (give I swapped mains from a destro lock).

[Puupi]

Trying to simplify the class into three distinct playstyles really doesn't do us justice, it only limits ones thinking in their ability usage and in turn their effective healing, we have a vast toolkit and all of the tools in it should always be taken into consideration when making a decision.

Three distinct playstyles isn't simplifying compared to your "default choice talents". (Almost) all talents have their use and choosing a certain talent promotes a different kind of playstyle.

The three "styles" you suggest might get the job done but they certainly won't get the most out of ones character; I can't in good conscience recommend any of them as it stifles the potential of our toolkit and promotes bad play.

How does it promote bad play to understand the different strengths of talent choices? Here is a good example of a specific Healing Wave playstyle usage: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports...ling&source=11 <- WL rank 1 restoration shaman on mythic Mar'gok.

Chain Heal is our bread and butter and without moderate to heavy usage of it (barring gimmick fights like Brackenspore) our numbers (and effectiveness as a healer) will suffer tremendously.

You should run some numbers if you think Chain Heal is our bread and butter right now. It's tuned for T17 set bonuses, it's quite bad without the bonuses. Chain Heal is a situational tool, it's far from bread and butter.

Nature's Guardian offers nothing in terms of healing or damage mitigation, it is completely inferior. If you need a "last stand" type effect you're doing something terribly wrong and are likely taking completely avoidable damage. Any resto shaman that wants to be competitive needs to know encounters, and in turn will know how and when to get the most out of Astral Shift, any situation where you need Nature's Guardian to keep you alive you could use Astral Shift instead. Nature's Guardian is inferior in every way.

Astral Shift offers superior damage mitigation, NG offers superior survivability. Shaman's have the lowest health pool out of all classes. NG narrows that gap quite a lot.

You should never "need" to put two water totems down at once,

HST, HTT and CBT. Yes, there are situations when you need to use two of them at the same time to maximize your effectiveness.

if you're using CBT then yes I would agree persistence is likely the right choice, but choosing CBT is generally a mistake to begin with

No it isn't, run the numbers of HT and learn to manage CBT and you see why it is a solid choice in majority of scenarios.

The line of "change tactics" or "change positioning" is complete garbage, there are many circumstances where being in melee range is a liability (mines on Imperator for example)

Traps come with a timer, those are not random.

People frequently come to these forums asking what to take as a default choice, hence the preface and liberal use of words that indicate it's my personal choice.

You should tell them that there is no default choice. You use the right tools for the right job.