PvE Restoration Shaman Rotation & Cooldowns

Healing is always a high-intensity job, but this section is going to go over general usage guides of spells in different situations to give you a better idea. That said, healing is a lot more flexible than something like DPS, so don’t take this as a concrete rotation that should be followed 100% of the time.

Rotation & Spell Priorities

There’s going to be variance in your group comp, your healing playstyle, your gear, your talent choices, and the way each encounter plays out. Use this section to build out your knowledge so you can feel confident no matter what the scenario, but don’t limit yourself by seeing this as the only way to approach healing.

Raid Damage

AoE healing on Restoration is actually excellent, the one caveat being you really want people to be stacked or as close as they possibly can be to one another. Also you should apply an Earth Shield to a target that’s going to take consistent damage over the course of a fight before the pull, like a tank, and check in every so often to refresh it when it’s out of charges. For one GCD it’s generally worth keeping up at all times.

1. Keep Riptide up on 2-3 priority targets that are taking consistent damage. Tanks are safe targets, usually.
   • Try not to overwrite the HoT as it’s mana inefficient unless you desperately need an instant-cast small heal on someone.
   • If you’re running Glyph of Riptide and don’t fear running out of mana (or people dying in the short-term), you can blanket the raid with Riptide.
2. Keep Healing Stream Totem up as much as possible.
   • It’s a 30-second cooldown that lasts 15 seconds, so it should have a 50% uptime minus the extra cast or two you’ll get out of Call of the Elements (tier 3 talent) if you took it.
3. Start using Chain Heal if people are close enough for the beam to jump.
   • Prioritize those who have an active Riptide, as you’ll gain 25% increased healing if your primary target has the HoT on them (but don’t waste your heal on a full or nearly full target for this purpose).
4. If a large chunk of players are stacked then Healing Rain is a powerful tool to keep up.
   • You can empower this spell and increase the efficiency of it if you have time to cast an Unleash Elements right before casting Healing Rain.
   • This is an expensive spell, so try to use it where it matters and is hitting at least a few party members.
5. Healing Wave should be used to spot heal low amounts of damage on singular targets.
6. Greater Healing Wave is an efficient way of healing a large amount of damage, but has a longer cast time so make sure your target is healthy enough to live for at least 2-3 seconds.
   • If you cast Riptide before this you’ll have two charges of the Tidal Waves passive to reduce the casting time considerably. Try to have an idea of when big single-target damage is going to come out and plan ahead so you can avoid using more expensive spell options.
7. Healing Surge is a spot heal for emergencies only as it’s extremely expensive. This is your tool to spot heal with an extremely fast cast if someone is in immediate danger of dying.
   • You can use Riptide on the target beforehand for a small burst of healing and to activate the Tidal Waves passive which will give you a bonus 30% critical chance on your Healing Surge. This will take up a GCD worth of time, though, so if they’re going to die just full send the unbuffed Healing Surge.

Tank Damage

While Restoration really shines in heavy AoE situations, the single-target healing is nothing to be sneezed at and you’ll have no trouble keeping tanks up or delivering important spot healing when the situation calls for it. Again, pick a target before the pull to apply Earth Shield to (preferably a tank) and check in during the fight to keep the buff active.

1. Keep Riptide up on 2-3 priority targets that are taking consistent damage. Tanks are safe targets, usually.
   • Try not to overwrite the HoT as it’s mana inefficient unless you desperately need an instant-cast small heal on someone.
2. Healing Wave should be used to spot heal low amounts of damage on singular targets.
   • This is your most mana efficient single-target heal and should be used as your bread and butter unless the situation becomes more urgent.
3. Greater Healing Wave is an efficient way of healing a large amount of damage, but has a longer cast time so make sure your target is healthy enough to live for at least 2-3 seconds.
   • If you cast Riptide before this you’ll have two charges of the Tidal Waves passive to reduce the cast time considerably. Try to have an idea of when big single-target damage is going to come out and plan ahead so you can avoid using more expensive spell options.
4. Healing Surge is a spot heal for emergencies only as it’s extremely expensive. This is your tool to spot heal with an extremely fast cast if someone is in immediate danger of dying.
   • You can use Riptide on the target beforehand for a small burst of healing and to activate the Tidal Waves passive which will give you a bonus 30% critical chance on your Healing Surge. This will take up a GCD worth of time, though, so if they’re going to die just full send the unbuffed Healing Surge.
5. Keep Healing Stream Totem up as much as possible.

DPS Rotation

Whenever there’s downtime you should be weaving in some damage. Not only does this add up and potentially make the difference between a 1% boss wipe and a kill, it also allows you a way to generate some mana back with the Glyph of Telluric Currents synergy for casting Lightning Bolt. As a Restoration Shaman you have a passive, Spiritual Insight, that essentially gives you the spell hit cap for free with no investment into Hit as a stat – so no need to worry about missed spells.

1. Cast Elemental Blast (Tier 6 talent) when off cooldown if talented into it.
2. Cast Lightning Bolt repeatedly if running low on mana and using Glyph of Telluric Currents.
3. Keep Flame Shock active on at least your primary target.
4. Keep Searing Totem down and in range of your targets for passive damage.
   • Make sure not to have this overwrite your Fire Elemental Totem if it’s active.
5. Cast Lava Burst when off cooldown at the target with your Flame Shock applied.
   • Targets with Flame Shock cause Lava Burst to have 100% critical strike chance.
6. Cast Lightning Bolt as filler.

Cooldowns

Throughput Cooldowns

• Ascendance: This is a powerful healing cooldown that will duplicate and distribute your heals throughout the group/raid. Best when combined with some way to increase your throughput like a buff to your Intellect or Spell Power. Keep in mind that if you’re going to be spamming heals while this is active you’ll still be draining your mana considerably. Make sure to have things like Healing Stream Totem and other upkeep spells taken care of beforehand so you’re not wasting GCD’s during the short period this buff is active.
• Healing Tide Totem: This totem will output a massive amount of healing and should be treated as a raid cooldown for periods of heavy group-wide damage. Keep in mind it is a water totem and will share the totem slot with your Healing Stream Totem – so try not to overwrite one with the other. You can use certain large Haste buff cooldowns before casting this to squeeze out extra ticks from the totem for a large throughput increase. Reference the Haste threshold chart in the Stat Priority & Reforging section.
• Elemental Mastery (Tier 4 Talent): This is a 1.5 minute CD that gives us essentially a mini-Bloodlust. You should attempt to overlap this cooldown with other strong benefits like Ascendance when it’s up, Synapse Springs or other large stat boosts, and even racial abilities such as Blood Fury if you’re an Orc.
• Fire Elemental Totem: This is a strong DPS and healing cooldown, just make sure not to overwrite this with a Searing Totem or other fire totem as you can only have one up at a time. You should use this cooldown often when you have Primal Elementalist talent and/or the Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem. With Primal Elementalist you can turn this into a 10% buff to your healing and a 5% buff to your damage by making your pet Fire Elemental cast Empower on you (although this is a channel and if you just want the DPS from the elemental then letting it auto something will be better).
• Earth Elemental Totem: Considerably weaker damage than its fiery counterpart, but it offers the same amount of healing bonus if you have Primal Elementalist and use Reinforce. Reinforce will also have the bonus effect of giving you a 20% reduction to damage taken for the channel duration, meaning it serves as a defensive cooldown for yourself as well. Do keep in mind in non-raid group content it will attempt to taunt targets, which can be a detriment to the tank at times.
• Ancestral Guidance (Tier 5 Talent): When this is active it converts a large chunk of your healing and damage done into raid-wide healing that’ll smart-target the most injured group members around you. This is a powerful enough cooldown that it can be used as a raid-wide healing CD, although it shares a similar role as our Ascendance and can be redundant.
• Bloodlust / Heroism: Iconic, and a spell you should be extremely familiar with at this point. It gives your entire raid/group a massive 30% Haste buff. While this has a 5-minute cooldown there’s a 10-minute debuff applied so you cannot benefit from it any more than once every 10 minutes. Coordinate with your group/raid on when it’s best to press this, and make sure to have some big cooldowns lined up to maximize the uptime of this enormous buff.

Defensive Cooldowns

• Reinforce: This is actually a pet ability of your Earth Elemental when you take the Primal Elementalist talent which makes the elemental channel on you so you take 20% reduced damage and do 10% more healing. Considering the Earth Elemental Totem is not a major DPS cooldown, it could serve better used as a defensive cooldown in certain fights.
• Stone Bulwark Totem (Tier 1 Talent): An earth totem on a 1-minute cooldown that will provide you an absorb shield on cast and further pulses of absorbs every 5 seconds for its duration.
• Astral Shift (Tier 1 Talent): A flat 40% damage reduction for 6 seconds on a 1.5-minute CD. With a rather short duration you’ll need to have a good idea of when to press this during encounters to make the most use of it.

Utility Spells

These cooldowns are going to be more situational and offer you tools to help out your raid/group. Getting the hang of what tools you have available and remembering to use them in the moment will really up your game and make you an essential asset to your raid or group.

• Spiritwalker’s Grace: This is a powerful tool to continue to let you pump out heals while on the move. A valuable tool for a healer to reposition while maintaining heals on their teammates.
• Windwalk Totem (Tier 2 Talent): An air totem you can summon on a 1-minute cooldown that provides movement impairing cleansing and immunity for its duration for the whole raid/group within 40 yards of the totem.
• Earthbind Totem: This is a great kiting tool and slows the movement speed of enemies down in an area where you place the totem for its duration.
• Earthgrab Totem (Tier 2 Talent): This replaces Earthbind Totem and upgrades it to pulse every 2 seconds, snaring in vines any enemies within its range that aren’t immune. When a mob has already been snared, secondary pulses of the totem will apply a large slow instead.
• Call of the Elements (Tier 3 Talent): This is a 3-minute cooldown that’ll immediately make all of your totems with a 3-minute or lower base cooldown come off cooldown. A lot of your utility package is tied up in totem cooldowns, so this will essentially give you the ability to recast them immediately. This is especially useful for refreshing the cooldown of your Healing Stream Totem to get an extra few casts out during the course of a fight.
• Totemic Projection (Tier 3 Talent): This talent is situationally useful for Restoration as it can reposition totems that normally cast at your feet to locations at range without moving. Things like Magma Totem or Capacitor Totem are examples of totems that’ll be useful to move around as a ranged character to make things a bit less awkward or dangerous.
• Capacitor Totem: This is a new totem that’s going to stun targets in a wide range around it after a few seconds. This is cast at your feet, so your options are going to be to dip into melee to stun targets with it, or to use Totemic Projection to relocate the totem after casting to wherever you desire. Do keep in mind that many mobs are stun-immune, so make sure to use it on mobs you can actually CC.
• Stormlash Totem: A new raid-wide totem with a 5-minute CD that will enhance everyone’s spells and attacks with an additional burst of nature damage. This is best used when the raid has maximum uptime to attack the boss, and especially so when Bloodlust / Heroism is active.
• Tremor Totem: This totem will pulse and remove any fear debuffs on friendlies within range. Situationally useful as not all encounters have a fear mechanic, but as fears can easily cause wipes this is quite useful when it is relevant.
• Wind Shear: This is worth mentioning even though it isn’t a large cooldown as a ranged interrupt on a short cooldown is essentially unheard of for healers and is a very strong tool to have at your disposal. Definitely don’t be afraid to pitch in for interrupts when this spell is off cooldown as it also is not on your GCD.
• Hex: This is mainly only going to be used in 5-man content, but you do have a CC available to you if there are troublesome humanoid enemies in a pack into a frog.