Restoration Shaman Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents - Dragonflight 10.2.7 (2024)

Last updated on May 11, 2024 at 17:20by Seksixeny46 comments

This page will go over the best Dragonflight talents, explainingthem in detail. For Restoration Shaman, specifically, talents mostly change theamount of spells you want to press on cooldown or utility options to deal withspecific scenarios. Our Rotation guide will have more specific information onhow all of these talents combine with the baseline kit to create our gameplayloop:

Restoration has many situational talents, and many perform better in Mythic+,Raiding, or PvP. We have guides for content-specific talent builds below:

For a quick, all-purpose build, we recommend using the Raid talents,which focus on maximizing your healing abilities, and thus allow you to fulfillyour main role well. Use the Mythic+ talents if you want a more damage-focusedapproach to your Restoration Shaman, although high keystones might benefit fromhaving a similar healing focus in the early part of the season.

Flow of the Tides is strong in a vacuum but can also be hard to use optimally,as you need to avoid consuming Riptide too early in order for it to bebetter than Ancestral Reach and it also limits your target choice, thereforewe would only recommend it to advanced players looking for extra challenge.

Deeply Rooted Elements is still a strong choice, but swapping it and Undercurrentfor the added consistency of Improved Primordial Wave and Continuous Wavesis an equally good option.

Also, make sure to adjust these builds to include any utilityneeded for specific encounters. We will recommend different talent buildson a boss-by-boss basis on our raid tip pages, so make sure to check those out!

3.

Best Talents for Restoration Shaman

RaidMythic+Talent Details

4.

Best Raid Talent Build for Restoration Shaman

While these are the baseline recommended talents, feel free to swap to differentutility talents to suit your raid setup and boss-by-boss needs.

The logic behind the raid talents is having as much area healing as possible,including extra cooldowns such as Spiritwalker's Tidal Totem and Earthen Wall Totem,which can easily be swapped to Ancestral Protection Totem on specific fightsthat favor it.

High Tide provides consistently high healing from Chain Healwhen used alongside Unleash Life, Tidebringer, and Cloudburst Totem.Consistent Riptide usage is key to this build alongside the new tier setbonuses, and talents such as Wavespeaker's Blessing help in spreading themout as much as possible.

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the builddirectly into your game!

5.

Best Mythic+ Talent Build for Restoration Shaman

While these are the baseline recommended talents, feel free to swap to differentutility talents to suit your group composition, target dungeon, and active weeklyaffixes.

The idea behind these talents is to give you high baseline healing and utility,including many DPS talents, but without making you spend all of your time casting Lava Burst and weaving in Master of the Elements for simplicity'ssake. Stoneskin Totem is skipped for similar reasons.

Be sure to make use of the 'Copy Export String' button to import the builddirectly into your game!

6.

Talent details for Restoration Shaman

We will not discuss every talent on this page, as this is done in thededicated spell summary guide, instead:

Restoration Shaman Spells

7.

Key Class Tree Talents for Restoration Shaman

7.1.

Rows 1 to 4

Ability	Description/Effect
Chain Heal	One of the few no-cooldown multi-target heals in the game,and its healing jumps prioritize the most injured players in range, making it avery powerful spell. As one of the core spells of a Restoration Shaman, thereare many talents that can interact with it, such as Unleash Life, Nature's Swiftness, Flow of the Tides, and High Tide.
Astral Shift	Your main defensive cooldown and an important talent that provides aa lot of defensive power, especially in the hands of an experienced player.
Wind Shear	Your interrupt, and a good one as it has the lowest cooldown among rangedinterrupts, although it compensates by having lower rangeand lower lockout time. In Mythic+ or whenever you are planning to fight enemieswith interruptible casts, you should take this.
Planes Traveler	An excellent way to increase your Astral Shift uptime, and generallythe most valuable talent in this choice node.
Ancestral Defense	A great talent, providing a significant amount of valuable tertiary stats fora single point.
Static Charge	Allows you to use Capacitor Totem more often,which can be valuable if you are able to use it on cooldown effectively. This ismostly the case in Mythic+.
Earth Shield	Provides a lot of healing for the single global it takesto cast, and also increases your healing on the target by 20% and reduces damagetaken by 6% when used alongside Earthen Harmony, making it a greatpick whenever you will be casting heals on the target regularly.
Elemental Orbit	Allows you to have Earth Shield on yourself at the same time it is onanother target of your choice. This can be great when used alongside Earthen Harmony.

7.2.

Rows 5 to 7

Ability	Description/Effect
Wind Rush Totem	Great for raiding, and you should take it whenever your group's strategy involvesgetting a speed boost to go from point A to point B unless someone else is alreadyproviding this effect.
Healing Stream Totem	Must-have, as it contributes significant healing,especially when transformed into Cloudburst Totem.
Totemic Projection	Great when used alongside Spirit Link Totemand Stoneskin Totem, in order to make sure the right targets are hit bythese support totems but are generally a niche talent.
Totemic Surge	Great for Restoration, as you rely heavily on multipletotems, from the short cooldown Cloudburst Totem to the long cooldown Spirit Link Totem.
Winds of Al'Akir	Rather weak movement talent, but if you want to get Spirit Walkor Gust of Wind, you need to spend two talent points here.
Brimming with Life	Excellent talent which increases your health significantly in mostsituations, and allows you to use Reincarnation more often if you aredying often, which is exactly when you would want to reduce its cooldown.
Spirit Walk	Excellent mobility tool which allows you to cover large distances quickly withits effect and avoids the landing position issues Gust of Wind can have.Unfortunately, it does not help you against knockback mechanics and is less likelyto allow you to live when crossing large gaps or falling from high places and hasdouble the cooldown, making it a less likely pick than its counterpart.
Gust of Wind	Low cooldown mobility tool that allows you to quickly reposition at a fixeddistance in front of your character. While the added mobility is nice, what reallymakes it stand out is that it allows you able to break knockback effects, crossgaps, and avoid fall damage, making it a powerful situational spell.

7.3.

Rows 8 to 10

Ability	Description/Effect
Thunderstorm	Fantastic for solo play and PvP when you are being trained by melee enemies.You might want to use Thundershock along with it if you only want the CCaspect, but not the knockback.
Thundershock	Allows you to use Thunderstorm to CC enemies in place in PvE andreduces its cooldown, making it useful when you do not want to knock enemies away.
Mana Spring	Decent Mana generator for a large raid group with multiple healers.
Totemic Focus	Increases your totem duration and radius. As you relyon multiple totems for both healing and utility; this is a great talent forRestoration Shamans.
Totemic Recall	has the niche effect of resetting the cooldown of yourmost recently used totem with a baseline cooldown under 3 minutes, making itmostly useful with Earthen Wall Totem and Cloudburst Totem.
Creation Core	Allows you to reset the cooldown on Earthen Wall Totem and Cloudburst Totem at the same time, and is a decent option when you areusing both in close proximity.
Ancestral Guidance	A very powerful healing cooldown that you will almost always want to get inall types of content. Fortunately, the talents leading into it are also verypowerful for Restoration, so there is a natural path to it. It combos particularlywell with Spiritwalker's Tidal Totem, as it distributes their high overhealinginto targets that need focused healing.
Stoneskin Totem	Short cooldown, low-impact totem that can helpyour tank and other party members affected by physical damage survive. Whileunimpressive by itself, it is a form of damage reduction that stacks with othersources, and could be just what your tank needs to survive a particularly highspike in damage.

8.

Key Restoration Tree Talents for Restoration Shaman

8.1.

Rows 1 to 4

Ability	Description/Effect
Riptide	Core ability that is Mana efficient and provides high healing on a short cooldown.
Healing Stream Totem	Must-have talent which contributes significant healing, especially when transformedinto Cloudburst Totem. If you took the talent with the same name in thegeneral tree, you will have two charges of this spell.
Healing Rain	Low cooldown, high-efficiency spell, with multiple modifiers that allow it toalso contribute significant damage ( Acid Rain) and do instant healing( Overflowing Shores).
Stormkeeper	This talent causes your next two Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightningto deal 150% extra damage and be instant cast. If you are looking for extra damage,this is a fine talent to take, especially if burst damage is what is needed!
Tidal Waves	Causes Riptide casts to give you two charges thatreduce Healing Wave and Chain Heal cast time and increase Healing Surge critical strike chance. This is a fantastic talent thatties your kit together and boosts many of your core spells significantly.
Acid Rain	Turns your Healing Rain into a heal that also deals significant damage.This is a must-use talent for DPS purposes and works especially well againstmultiple targets that stand inside the rain for its whole duration.
Ancestral Vigor	Good talent that works well in any situation.Your highest priority with this talent is to ensure it is running on the tanksand other priority targets at all times to grant them additional survivability.
Resurgence	Significant Mana sustain talent, which will return a huge amount ofMana to you over the course of a fight. Logically, if Mana is not an issue, thenthis talent loses some value, but it is a very important talent whenever extraMana is valuable.

8.2.

Rows 5 to 7

Ability	Description/Effect
Spirit Link Totem	Iconic Restoration Shaman ability, which hasexcellent life-saving potential due to instantly restoring the life of whoeveris most injured inside a player grouping.
Cloudburst Totem	Stores some of the healing you do while it is activeand releases it all at once evenly among nearby friendly targets. This is a verypowerful talent, which acts as a multiplier on your healing, especially duringcooldown-boosted periods.
Healing Tide Totem	Provides high-spread healing over a period of time and can be used while moving,which allows you to use it while doing fight mechanics or casting other healingspells.
Ancestral Reach	Increases the healing of Chain Heal slightly and causes it to bounceone extra time. Its unconditional nature makes it attractive for newer players,or when maintaining Riptide uptime is of critical importance.
Flow of the Tides	Also causes Chain Heal to bounce one extra time but has a higher 30%healing increase, which is conditional on casting on a target with Riptide.While the extra 22% healing is very welcomed, make sure to be on top of using iton targets with low duration Riptides in order to make the most out of theeffect. Tidebringer is a must when taking this talent in order to ensurethe buffed Chain Heal jumps the maximum amount of times, even when cast on sub-optimaltargets.
Wavespeaker's Blessing	Increases the duration of Riptide by 3 seconds, which is a smallhealing increase on its own, but also has some impact for Undercurrentuptime and Primordial Wave target count.
Lava Surge	Provides a decent single target damage and quality of life increase by makingmany of your Lava Burst casts instant and allowing you to cast it more often.
Undulation	Great if you cast a lot of Healing Wave and Healing Surge.If these 2 spells are your main healing sources, such as in Mythic+, then thistalent is a great pick. Otherwise, you should probably take a different talent.
Echo of the Elements	Provides an extra Riptide and Lava Burstcharge. While the Lava Burst charge is only a small damage increase, the extraRiptide charge allows you to perform your rotation without needing to constantlyworry about losing potential Riptide casts, and as Riptide is the centerpiece ofall Shaman healing, it also makes this talent next to mandatory.
Mana Tide Totem	Grants your group a weak Mana regeneration boost, which is only worthwhilein fights where Mana is an issue, or when taken alongside Spiritwalker's Tidal Totem.
Spiritwalker's Tidal Totem	This talent causes your Mana Tide Totem to reduce the cost and casttime of Chain Heal and Healing Wave by 50% for 10-seconds. Thismakes for a strong healing cooldown on its own and can be further multiplied byactivating Ancestral Guidance at the same time!
Unleash Life	An extra instant heal and a strong boost to your next heal. The boost dependson the spell, but you will generally use this on Healing Rain while raiding,on Chain Heal, or on Primordial Wave fueled Healing Wave,as those present the highest potential healing gains.
Earthen Wall Totem	Good for reducing frequent incoming damageon a stacked group of allies. Since it only absorbs a small, fixed amount ofeach individual attack, it is not recommended to use against enemies that dealslow, powerful attacks, but is great in almost all other situations.
Ancestral Protection Totem	The best choice whenever you plan tointentionally have one ally die to bypass encounter mechanics; just be mindfulof the 200% maximum health killing blow limit. It should also be pickedwhenever your group is consistently struggling to keep everyone alive through ashort, specific part of an encounter.
Earthliving Weapon	A 1 hour imbue for your weapon that causes some of your healing spells to havea 20% chance to activate a small heal over time on the target. While each heal isweak, the overall effect is a decent healing increase.

8.3.

Rows 8 to 10

Ability	Description/Effect
Primordial Wave	A cheap instant heal that applies Riptide and makes your next Healing Wave hit all targets with your Riptide active. This effect hasno range limit, and thus provides an excellent way to heal targets that arespread out from the rest of the group. It also provides extra Riptides for Flow of the Tides.
Downpour	Heals a small area for a decent amount on a relatively shortcooldown, which is shorter if you fail to hit the maximum 6 targets. While not fantastic heal by any means; it is a decent one-pointer.
Undercurrent	This talent can be a good healing increase, especially in periods where youhave a high amount of Riptides active, but has anti-synergy with Flow of the Tides.The buff will typically be at its highest point whenever you use Primordial Wave,making it a fine contributor to the burst healing produced by the following Healing Wave.
Improved Earthliving Weapon	Increases the healing done by Earthliving Weapon and causes it to alwaysproc on low-health players. Unfortunately, the effect is still small and dealtover time, making it have low life-saving potential.
Continuous Waves	Reduces the cooldown of Primordial Wave by15 seconds. This is a significant and reliable cooldown reduction effectand allows you to burst heal with Primordial Wave much more often, making it anexcellent talent that is unfortunately too deep into the tree to see major use.
Primal Tide Core	Provides extra free Riptides that have thesame initial burst healing of hard-casted ones. While it will not create anadditional Riptide if your 4th cast target has no allies nearby, the effect willtry to proc in every following cast until it works. This talent has good synergywith Primordial Wave.
High Tide	Allows you to bank powerful Chain Heal casts tocounter incoming burst damage, or simply passively increase your throughput. Itis a strong talent in a Chain Heal focused build, and should alwaysbe taken when you are also taking Flow of the Tides and Tidebringer.
Deeply Rooted Elements	This talent can make a large difference in your healing if you get Ascendanceprocs at the correct times during a fight. This makes it a strong choice in fightswhere damage is constant, and healing is almost always valuable, and a weak talentin fights where you only care about healing within very narrow periods.
Tidebringer	Previously a PvP talent, this powerful talent drastically increases the castspeed and jump range of your Chain Heals while its buff is active. Thisbuff is automatically obtained every 8 seconds (with 2 talent points) and can stacktwice, allowing for back-to-back buffed Chain Heals.
Earthen Harmony	Causes your Earth Shield to reduce incoming damage by up to 6% anddoubles its healing if the target is under 75% health. These are fantastic bonusesto have on a tank, and you can also have it on yourself with Elemental Orbit!
Ascendance	Causes a healing burst and almost duplicates your healingfor the duration. It is strong in a small group context as its healing spreadsevenly into nearby injured allies, which means you can use it to rapidly heal asmall group.
Wellspring	Due to the introduction of Tidebringer, Wellspring is mostly a relicof the past, as Chain Heal can fulfill its role more efficiently most ofthe time while saving you 3 talent points.

Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:

• PvP talents that can be used in the outdoor world.
• 10% to 30% increase in World Quest rewards at max level.
• 10% to 30% more experience gained while leveling.
• Ability to earn Conquest Points in the outdoor world, which can rewardpowerful gear every week.

With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it isrecommended to enable the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards atmaximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open-world PvP,and the possibility to be "ganked" while leveling or doing World Questsexists. If you need advice on how to fight against other players, visit the linkbelow.

In this section, we will explain the PvP talents and rank them on theirleveling and solo / small group PvE content usefulness.

1. Counterstrike Totem replicates and reflects damage you take for15 seconds on a 45-second cooldown. This can be really strong when in a highdamage area to deal some chip damage to targets around you and convert yourhealth pool into additional damage;
2. Rain Dance makes Healing Rain instant, 45% cheaper and 30%more effective. This has great synergy with Acid Rain and also with Counterstrike Totem,as it will provide a lot of healing for you to tank mobs with while they killthemselves;
3. Skyfury Totem increases the critical effect of spells of allies within40 yards by 20% for 15 seconds, with a 40-second cooldown. It is good for solo playand excellent if you are doing outdoor content with others.

The remaining talents have their own niches but are not as generally usefulin PvE situations with War Mode active.