Quick Guide

Raid

Talents

Class Tree

• A lot of the points are utility nodes and can be moved around as needed, like Earthgrab Totem, Improved Purify Spirit, Winds of Alakir, and Wind Shear.
• Earth Elemental and Primordial Bond are an option if you need an extra defensive.
• Thunderous Paws is an option if you need to clear snares, Spirit Wolf is generally stronger as a defensive.

Spec Tree

• Healing Rain is worth using as long as you can get people to stand in it which shouldn't be very hard on a raid. Part of its value does come from extra Deluge targets.
• Calm Waters is a good talent but overall it is a smaller increase than other alternatives you can put the point in.
• Ancestral Reach and Flow of the Tides are both good but Ancestral Reach is easier to get value of during raids and requires less focus.
• Ancestral Awakening is very strong and heavily plays into Ascendance when you want to cast a lot of Healing Wave.

Rotation

Normal Gameplay

1. Use all Stormstream Totem procs you get
2. Keep Riptide on cooldown. Prefer targets that don't already have it
3. Use Ancestral Swiftness on cooldown
4. Cast Unleash Life. It doesn't matter too much what spell you consume the buff with
5. Keep Healing Rain active
6. Use Healing Stream Totem. Keep it on cooldown all the time
7. Fill with Chain Heal or Healing Wave. Chain Heal does more overall healing but worse single target healing and costs more mana

Ascendance

1. Cast Riptide twice to get two Tidal Waves stacks
2. Use Unleash Life to activate the buff
3. Press Ascendance
4. Cast Healing Wave once
5. Use Ancestral Swiftness
6. Use Healing Wave repeatedly while Ascendance is active

Stats

All stats are good for Restoration Shaman and your goal should be getting higher item level pieces to get the most amount of stats in general rather than focusing on any one specific piece. For deciding between pieces of the same level you can use this rough priority as a tie-breaker:

1. Haste = Critical Strike
2. Versatility = Mastery

For more details on how to optimize your gameplay for raids, check the raids page of the guide.

Mythic+

Talents

Class Tree

• A lot of the points are utility nodes and can be moved around as needed, like Earthgrab Totem, Improved Purify Spirit, and [Purge]. Poison Cleansing Totem and Tremor Totem can be good pickups depending on the dungeon.
• Earth Elemental and Primordial Bond are an option if you need an extra defensive.
• Thunderous Paws is an option if you need to clear snares, Spirit Wolf is generally stronger as a defensive.

Spec Tree

• Ancestral Reach and Flow of the Tides are both good but Flow of the Tides will result in higher healing if you properly play around it.

Rotation

Normal Gameplay

1. Use all Stormstream Totem procs you get
2. Keep Riptide on cooldown. Prefer targets that don't already have it
3. Use Ancestral Swiftness on cooldown
4. Cast Unleash Life. It doesn't matter too much what spell you consume the buff with
5. Use Healing Stream Totem. Keep it on cooldown all the time
6. Fill with Chain Heal or Healing Wave. Chain Heal does more overall healing but worse single target healing and costs more mana

Ascendance

1. Cast Riptide twice to get two Tidal Waves stacks
2. Use Unleash Life to activate the buff
3. Press Ascendance
4. Cast Healing Wave once
5. Use Ancestral Swiftness
6. Use Healing Wave repeatedly while Ascendance is active

Stats

All stats are good for Restoration Shaman and your goal should be getting higher item level pieces to get the most amount of stats in general rather than focusing on any one specific piece. For deciding between pieces of the same level you can use this rough priority as a tie-breaker:

1. Haste = Critical Strike
2. Versatility = Mastery

For more details on how to optimize your gameplay in keys, check the mythic+ page of the guide.