Restoration Shaman Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents - The War Within Pre-Patch (2024)

Raid Chain HealRaid RiptideMythic+Talent Details

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

Chain Heal is supported by very good talents such as High Tide, Tidebringer, Ancestral Reach / Flow of the Tides, and Unleash Life, makingit one of the hardest hitting heals and well worth building around. Consistent Riptideusage is also key to this build to make the most out of Primal Tide Coreand the pre-patch tier bonuses.

You will also want to have as much burst healing as possible when raiding, includinga 2-minute Ascendance that lines up perfectly with Ancestral Guidanceand many short cooldowns such as Wellspring, Unleash Life, Downpour,and Earthen Wall Totem, which can easily be swapped to Ancestral Protection Totemif needed.

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

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

With the reintroduction of the Season 3 set bonus centered around the TidalReservoir mechanic, a Riptide-centric raiding build becomes viableagain, especially as it has even stronger talent support from the revamped tree: Primal Tide Core, Tidewaters, Primordial Wave, and Wavespeaker's Blessing.

You will typically skip Undercurrent, as you need the talent pointsto invest into the 2-minute Ascendance / Ancestral Guidancecombo, as well as Wellspring, Unleash Life, and Earthen Wall Totemwhen raiding.

Thus, the idea with these talents is to skip Chain Heal usage entirelyand instead focus on consistently applying Riptide and Tidal Reservoirsto injured players in your raid while using your cooldowns as needed, allowing fora much more sustainable Mana consumption profile and better spot healing at thecost of burst area healing from Chain Heal.

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

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, such as Acid Rain and the reworked Master of the Elements,which allows you to seamlessly alternate between healing and DPS with Healing Surgeand Lava Burst, while skipping on casting Flame Shock altogether.

Undulation works well in small group settings, where single target healsare much more used than in raids, and also has significant synergy with the Primordial Wavetalent. You will also have access to a 2-minute Ascendance thatlines up perfectly with Ancestral Guidance for burst healing.

If you enjoy Chain Heal and want to use it on Mythic+, simply swap Torrentand Deeply Rooted Elements for Ancestral Reach / Flow of the Tidesand High Tide.

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

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

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 a 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.
Astral Bulwark	A good alternative to Planes Traveler if you cannot get good value froma lower cooldown, as it will make you much harder to kill while active.
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 5% 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.
Healing Stream Totem	Must-have, as it contributes significant healing,especially when transformed into Cloudburst Totem.
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 that allows you to cover large distances quickly withits effect and avoids the landing position issues Gust of Wind can have.While it does not help you against knockback mechanics or against long falls, itwill remove roots and movement-impairing effects, which can occasionally be requiredfor encounter mechanics.
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 to break knockback effects, crossgaps, and avoid fall damage, making it a powerful situational spell.

Ability	Description/Effect
Elemental Resistance	Reduces Fire, Frost, and Nature damage taken by players healed by Cloudburst Totemor Healing Stream Totem by a slight amount and a short duration. While itis not very impactful, it will usually be taken for pathing reasons.
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.
Ascending Air	Making Wind Rush Totem lower cooldown can be excellent for specific encounters,as can the added duration.
Jet Stream	Becoming even faster and having Wind Rush Totem remove snares can alsobe great, making this the most generally useful of the two Wind Rush Totem nodes.
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.
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.
Ancestral Guidance	A decent 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 Ascendance and First Ascendant, which willcause both abilities to have the same cooldown, allowing them to always be usedtogether as Ascendance's doubled healing is propagated by Guidance.

Ability	Description/Effect
Totemic Projection	Great when used alongside Spirit Link Totem and the upcoming Surging Totem,in order to make sure the right targets are hit by these support totems.
Totemic Surge	Great for Restoration, as you rely heavily on multipletotems, from the short cooldown Cloudburst Totem to the long cooldown Spirit Link Totem.
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.
Traveling Storms	This talent allows you to cast Thunderstorm on an ally within healingrange, which is often extremely valuable in encounters requiring enemy repositioning.
Mana Spring	Decent Mana generator for a large raid group with multiple healers.
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.
Stone Bulwark Totem	Long cooldown totem, which grants you a personal absorb shield that is reinforcedevery 5 seconds it stays up. While the shield is not huge, this is a decent extradefensive at your disposal.

Ability	Description/Effect
Riptide	Core ability that is Mana efficient and provides high healing on a short cooldown.
Healing Stream Totem	Must-have talent that contributes significant healing, especially when transformedinto Cloudburst Totem or with Totemic hero talents and Living Stream.If you took the talent with the same name in the general tree, you would have twocharges 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).
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.

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.
Spouting Spirits	Excellent talent which increases the damage reduction of Spirit Link Totemand causes it to massively heal everyone inside its effect after a small delay,making it a much stronger ability than it has been in the past few years.
Master of the Elements	Increases the healing of your next Healing Surge by 30% after a Lava Burstcast, stacking twice. This empowered Healing Surge will also cast Flame Shockat a nearby target, improving your rotational flow, especially in small-group contentsuch as Mythic+.
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.
Living Stream	Causes Healing Stream Totem to heal for 100% more, decaying over itsduration. This allows Healing Stream to pack a much bigger punch when it is dropped,making it a strong reactive healing tool. It also has strong synergy with the Totemichero talent Reactivity.
Healing Tide Totem	Provides high 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. It will do its maximum healing at 5 targets or above, making it good forMythic+ and small group content as well!
Ancestral Reach	Increases the healing of Chain Heal slightly and causes it to bounceone extra time. Its unconditional nature makes it attractive to 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 healing is very welcomed, it requires jumping through extra hoopsand it can be a healing loss if used on the wrong Riptides, so use it withcare.
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 Downpour or High Tide-buffed Chain Heals, as those present the highest potential healing gains.
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.It has great synergy with the Farseer talent Call of the Ancestors,as it will spawn multiple Ancestor pets if you hit many targets with the Primordial Wavereplication effect.
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 unless you alreadyhave the Farseer Elemental Reverb talent.
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 significantly reduce the costand cast time of your 3 next Healing Surges. This effect is unfortunatelyrarely worth the talent point under current tuning.
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.

Ability	Description/Effect
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.
Tidewaters	Causes Healing Rain to also do massive healing to players with Riptideactive. While this healing does not count towards Cloudburst Totem, Ascendanceor Ancestral Guidance at the time of writing, it is very significant andwell worth the talent point. When used with Totemic Surging Totemit will do double healing to account for the extra cooldown of the totem when comparedto regular rain.
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.
Undercurrent	This talent can be a decent healing increase, especially in periods where youhave a high amount of Riptides active, but requires 2 talent points whichcould otherwise be better applied at the bottom of the talent tree.
Ascendance	Causes a healing burst when used and massively increases your healing whileactive. Provided you save your strongest healing spells and have multiple healsover time running when used, it can do a huge amount of healing. Its healing willalso be counted towards Ancestral Guidance and Cloudburst Totem,making them even more powerful.
First Ascendant	Reduces the cooldown of Ascendance by 1-minute making itexactly the same as Ancestral Guidance and thus making their combo muchmore powerful.
Preeminence	Increases your Haste during Ascendance and its duration,making it an even stronger cooldown. Great in fights where you cannot get valuefrom a shorter Ascendance cooldown.
Downpour	Post rework, it is a great ability that you can activate after using Healing Rainto do massive healing to targets inside it and increase their health by 10%, stackingwith Ancestral Vigor. When used with Totemic Surging Totemit will do double healing to account for the extra cooldown of the totem when comparedto regular rain.
Tidebringer	This powerful talent drastically increases the cast speed and jump range ofyour Chain Heals while its buff is active. This buff is automatically obtainedevery 8 seconds and can stack twice, allowing for back-to-back buffed Chain Healsand lining up perfectly with High Tide.
High Tide	Allows you to bank powerful Chain Heal casts to counter incoming burstdamage, or simply passively increase your throughput. It is the strongest Chain Healtalent in the tree, especially in the context of the other support talents whichincrease the amount of targets hit and jump distance, and should always be takenif you are planning to use Chain Heal at all.
Ancestral Awakening	Causes your single target heals to have a chance (doubled if you criticallyhit) to heal another nearby ally for a portion of their effect. Not a very impactfultalent on a point-by-point basis but occasionally required for pathing purposes.
Earthen Harmony	Causes your Earth Shield to reduce incoming damage and restore additionalhealth the lower its target is. These are fantastic bonuses to have on a tank, andyou can also have it on yourself with Elemental Orbit!
Reactive Warding	This talent will heal your Earth Shield target when you refresh theshield, with the heal being higher the more stacks your target is missing whenrefreshed. You will also gain Mana when refreshing Water Shield with theamount being higher if you refresh it at low stacks. While this can theoreticallybe a decent talent if you always remember to refresh just as stacks are runningout, you will get no benefit if you let the shields run out, so make sure to trackits effect if you take this talent.
Wellspring	Post buffs, it is now a strong healing ability that you can use for added areahealing in between Healing Rain and High Tide-buffed Chain Heals.
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. Taking Preeminencealong with it will grant you the extra Haste on procs, but not the extra duration.
Improved Earthliving Weapon	Increases the healing benefit to Earthliving Weapon from our Masteryand causes Healing Surge to always proc it on the target. While it willoften be used for cheap pathing towards Wellspring / Deeply Rooted Elements,its benefit is not very strong on most encounters.