ATTENTION: This is OLD! It is not relevant any more, and even when it was relevant, it sucked! Either make a new guide, or go to Elitist Jerks forums.

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So you want to play a resto shaman, huh? Start by taking away the “cool” factor, because what you’ll do is very helpful to your raid, but it won’t be cool. A resto shaman is not an easy build to play, but it can be interesting, challenging and fun.

I wrote this guide, or better this list of hints on how to play a resto shaman, because I couldn't find one. I'm not a perfect healer (far from it) so the main thing that I'm trying to achieve is to initiate a discussion and listen to other, more experienced, shamans' point of views.

This guide mainly refers to healing in a raid.


Not just healing

Resto shamans must be grouped with other spell casters, and preferably healers. Your Mana Tide totem restores 24% of each party member’s mana (over 12 sec). That’s a lot! Druids' innervate only affects one person, so Mana Tide is a big deal and a big help to your party. If you stick a shadow priest in the same group, you are guaranteed to go through most of the fights without any mana issues.

Make sure your party has a few DPS spellcasters as well. Hit heroism once the tank has aggro and the boss will go down, fast. If your party has healers only, use heroism when a boss gets enraged or for some reason does more damage (ex. Curator at last 5-10%, Gruul at 13-14th Grow). Your heals will be faster and your chance to save the tank will be greater.

Most of the time you can use Wrath of Air to give a bonus to the group and Mana Spring totem when Mana Tide is not up. The only exception to this can be the beginning of a boss fight, when the MT does not have a good hold on the mob, but is still taking damage and needs healing. A Tranquil Air totem would be more appropriate, until the tank can build enough threat.

Depending on the fight you might have to put down resistance totems or tremor totem for fears. Also, Mana Spring is useful in long, mana-demanding fights. If the fight is not intensive, and particularly when you have your group taking AOE damage, you probably want to use a Healing Stream totem instead. The Healing Stream totem is affected by your +healing equipment so when you become better equipped the effect will be better.

One important point is that, given that healing requires a high amount of focus, it’s easy to forget about the totems. Don’t do that. You wouldn’t go to the fight without buffs, likewise you must renew your totems when they expire. Pick your moments (don’t let the tank die) but get into the habit to pop your totems out when they expire.

Put the extra points on the reincarnate talent (Improved Reincarnation) so that you can use it every 40 minutes and come back with more health and mana. A nearly dead and out of mana shaman is useless to the group. The talent will allow you to get back in the game. I’ve heard about people dying on purpose when they run out of mana. I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you are with zero mana and getting hit by a mob, I wouldn’t fight it either.


Talent Build

Not much to say here. Hop on the resto tree, and only consider putting some points on Ancestral Knowledge from Enhancement for the extra mana.


Equipment

What you need is: Intellect, Stamina, +Heal, Mp5 – Not Spirit! Spirit is useless to shamans. We heal all the time and we never take advantage of the 5-second rule. We need a lot of Mp5, but no spirit. Make sure all your items have all these stats. It is possible to find them, but if you can’t, use gems to close the gap. Karazhan alone has excellent (after the patch) items for resto shamans. You should be able to find all the items you need.


Before the Fight - Updated!

I've seen a few discussions on whether you need to use Earthshield on yourself or the tank (or someone else entirely). I think that you need to make a decision depending in the situation you're in. In most of the non-heroic instances you need the earthshield yourself. It will save you from bad pulls and loose mobs (bad tanks).

In heroics, and raids, when the tank may take sudden big bursts of damage, I use earthshield on him. It has the very nice (and important) added benefit of helping the tank get more threat from the boss (given that the healing done is considered to be performed by the tank). Just make sure you renew it during the fight.

Keep in mind that, if you put Earthshield on the tank, you can put Water Shield on yourself.

Also, you might want to throw a few Healing Waves of rank 1 on the MT. That will give him the two buffs which will guarantee that he will start the fight with 25% more armor, and your first Healing Wave spells will be increased by 18%.


Healing single target

In other words, healing the main tank. You never stop healing, you use your nice Healing Wave (which you essentially spam on the MT) and you are more mana efficient. At the same time you give the tank the 25% armor increase buff from you crits (from the Ancestral Healing talent), and your own heals are also bigger due to the Healing Way talent which stacks up and increases your healing by up to 18%.

Keep in mind that although you can do a good job, paladins are better at this. You will run out of mana pretty fast while they can keep healing for a bit longer. And most importantly, if you take on this role, you will not be doing what you're actually much better at, chain healing people!


Healing multiple targets

Often you will be given the role to heal the raid. This is the time to get the chain heal out let it shine! In order for chain heal to work well you need to have a lot of people who are taking damage close together. The efficiency of CH is simply amazing, much-much better than anything else we have at our disposal.

In most raids you'll have the tanks and the rest of the melee close together. This is a good example where Chain Heal will do a great job. The tanks do not count on you to stay alive but what you can do is to spam it on the melee who has taken the most damage and then let it jump around and benefit the others (including the tanks).

It's not easy to use, and you will have to switch between CH and your other healing spells, depending on the situation. If a player is taking damage fast, you need a Lesser Healing Wave. You have a split second to evaluate the rate at which the character is taking damage (in other words how fast your spell must be) and make the rigth choice. Any delay on this decision and poof, you have a dead guy in your raid.

If you haven't been a big fan of CH, put it on your cast bar, try to use it as much as possible and you'll understand why it is the best weapon we have in our shaman's arsenal!


Overhealing

In some fights you can have good coordination with the other healers. In others, you won’t. You’re destined to overheal and you shouldn’t be afraid of it. If you have a mana issue you’re probably not the main healer anyway. In that case save your mana for the hard part of the fight (and go get yourself better gear). If you don’t, just do it. You can stop the heals if the fight is not too hard, but stopping and starting again takes time. During that time the tank might die. If you anticipate the tank to take some damage, just throw the heal anyway.

A good way to understand where you’re standing is by using Heal Meters (same mod as Damage Meters).


How can you be a great healer – Start and Stop your heals

This is fairly simple but few people practice it. You’ll find yourself in a situation where your tank is not adequately dressed, or he is simply taking too much damage. The only way to save him is by starting and stopping your heals. You start a healing wave, let it run its course for 2secs and – if the tank has taken damage you let it complete – if it hasn’t, you stop it by hitting escape. And then you start the next one.

This is going to drive you crazy (that’s why people don’t do it :p) as you need to be always on the edge. You can’t relax. Sometimes the tank will be lucky, he will dodge and parry and won’t take any damage. And you’ll start letting go. You’ll stop starting and stopping your heals. You’ll sit back in your chair. And then he’ll take two 8K hits and he’ll die. There are a lot of fights where this is the only way to save the tank. Get used to it.

Note: Don’t use jump, or move to stop your heals, only Escape. Jump takes too much time, and move can cause problems (Karazhan – Aran – Flame Wreath).


How can you be an amazing healer – Anticipate what comes next

This is very difficult to do and it means that you can watch several things in the fight, concurrently. You must keep your eye on the health bar of the tank, you can’t stop even for a second. You must make sure you have all your totems out – and renew them when it’s time. You need to make sure you avoid any AOE that is coming your way – and avoid dying. It’s hard enough to do all that. But if you want to be an amazing healer, you have to watch the others, too.

Good luck!

NIce guide, only other thing I can reccomend in addition is to prepare for combat by spamming rank 1 HW on your tank to:
a) build up 3 stacks of healing way
b) let him go in with a nice 25% armour bonus.
It costs virtually nothing to do and is great against high output bosses where the delay for healing way to build up is not at all desirable.

Tote

Often i also notice that Resto shamans put Earth shield on themselves, while i'd rather put Earth shield on the Tank and Water shield on myself.

Not sure whether i'm missing something and being plain silly, or whatever

Chain heal is very good to keep rogues alive. They are close together with a tank. Works wonders.

Completely forgot earthshield. I'll make some additions, along with some of the things you said guys.

You're the first person to say we're good in single target healing and bad in multi target. Why are you going against the accepted belief?

Snorkle

Is it me who is doing something wrong then? I feel i'd rather use chain heal over healing wave in most situations.

I just <3 CH?

Things to add.

Chain heal is invaluable for raid healing... trash before Mag, the Gruuls lair trash that goes on rampages throughout the raid, healing MT and OT at the same time at Gruul, as well as melee dps.

9/10 when raid healing chain heal should be your most used spell.

LHW, and it's use... basically for quick fixes (after silence at gruul, repentance at maiden, when someone is at dangerously low health when raid healing) never, ever....ever spam LHW as a healing tool.


Downranking, once you get to around 1500 heals you can down rank HW to around rank 8, same mana cost as LHW, slightly more healing power, better mana efficiency. With new improved Healing Way rank 7 (my preferred choice) cost around 350 mana and with healing way heals for 2.5-3k. This is what lets you end a fight with mana, rather than desperatly staring at your mana bar willing it to fill slightly. Keep max rank on toolbar though for those oh sh!t moments and a juicy 7-8k NS+HW crit as a raid saver.

Downranking CH, if raid is taking light AoE dmg, maybe rank2 or 3 CH is a better option for mana efficiency.

Trinket Boosting Earth shield. Basically get your hands on a pure + heals on use trinket, and a + dmg and heals. Best current 2 are Essence of the Martyr (41 Badgers of justice) and Zandalarian Hero Charm from ZG.

As far as single vs multiple target healing, I don't see how you can heal multiple targets without HoTs or AoE heal.

I honestly do not find chain heal that useful. In situations where the targets are close together and they both take damage, but not too much, it works well. But in cases where you either need a big heal on a single target, or a fast small heal, CH does not do the job. The latter cases are by far more common in raids.

Am I missing something?

Downranking the Healing Wave sounds sensible so I'll try it tonight.

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Q u o t e:
Am I missing something?

Downranking the Healing Wave sounds sensible so I'll try it tonight.

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Yes you are. It sounds to me like you are used to healing heroics or Karazhan. Neither place is a good place for chain heal, due to lack of targets.

In 25-mans you usually have 2-6+ targets close to the boss, and in most fights there is steady damage taken to the entire raid. This is where chain heal shines. It's benefit form +healing is great, it makes fairly intelligent jumps, thus minimizing some overhealing, and downranked it will still be enough to top everyone off before the next wave of damage comes.

Leave the single target spam healing to paladins. That is what they are good at. Far superior to shamans.

A shaman that is assigned to keeping melee dps up, will be right there in the top 1-3 in effective healing done, but if you want to compete with a paladin at single target healing, you will be outhealed by probably 30% if not more.

Refresh ES whenever it's worn off? that's almost 1k mana yer throwing away that could go to people that need that heal more then the one that just got the shield.

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Q u o t e:
As far as single vs multiple target healing, I don't see how you can heal multiple targets without HoTs or AoE heal.

I honestly do not find chain heal that useful. In situations where the targets are close together and they both take damage, but not too much, it works well. But in cases where you either need a big heal on a single target, or a fast small heal, CH does not do the job. The latter cases are by far more common in raids.

Am I missing something?

Downranking the Healing Wave sounds sensible so I'll try it tonight.

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Yes, yes, let me point out the important part of this. YOU do not find chain heal that useful. It's the best health/mana and health/time heal you'll get in raid situations for AOE damage. What's your alternative? 5 lesser healing waves? 5 flash heals? 5 flash of lights ? 5 renews and pray they don't die before the dot heals them up? 5 regrowths?

All the alternatives are much slower, and much less mana efficient. Everyone but you understands how invaluable chain heal is. I do think this is possibly almost the most used spell by shamans in 25man raids. It scales very well with +heal, much better than most spells, max rank costs less than LHW and heals for more just on the first target, I mean, is it really that rare that multiple people get tangled up in aoe damage in your raids?

There really isn't any competition when it comes to this. CH is by far the best heal for it's job. Priest's prayer of mending isn't controlable and is less mana efficient. Druid's hots take too long, and if they need to heal for more per time, they become way too mana inneficient. Paladins? Don't even need to speak do I?

The only, and I do mean only way I can understand your point of view is if your point of view is only from 5-mans, and if it is, frankly, you don't have any reason to try and make a guide for a class' job.

Other than that, in single target healing, we are still (even with the HW buff) less mana efficient than other classes and will still have more mana conservation problems. It's allways been our weak spot, and even if now we've caught up a bit with 2.1.0, we're still beaten by other classes there... Not in health per time, but in health per mana, and health/time demanding encounters are apparently rare so far in TBC.

EDIT: avernus, do you mean to say there are people that will need heals more than the tank? FASCINATING. So why aren't they tanking?

Snorkle

Salchow, I think you hit the heart of the problem. Yes, indeed I am used to healing Karazhan, and heroics. I've healed in Gruul's but the thought of using chain heal on melee never crossed my mind (probably due to its ineffectiveness in kara). I'll change my tactics and take on the healing of the melee for our next raid and see what's what. Thanks, that was very helpful!

Snorkle, your tone seems a bit upset. Let me explain what I meant. I didn't find chain heal useful not because it's not efficient (it is), not because there are better ways to heal 2-3 people at the same time (there aren't), but because I haven't found a lot of places where I can use it.

Yes, my raid of course takes AOE damage, but usually the players are not located close to each other for CH to work properly. The case of Gruul that Salchow mentioned is actually a very good example that I hadn't thought of before (chain healing the melee). It's probably because of the fact that I haven't yet done a lot of 25man raiding.

So even though it is very efficient, you need actual situations where it will work well. I am now doing more 25man raiding so I may end up falling in love with it and never using anything else - who knows?

FYI you keep saying that everyone understands how important it is (and I'm not saying that's not the case) but: 1. I didn't find it very useful, and personal experience for me is very important, 2. I've searched the net for resto shaman guides and I couldn't find any examples on situations where it could be used.

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Q u o t e:
Snorkle, your tone seems a bit upset. Let me explain what I meant. I didn't find chain heal useful not because it's not efficient (it is), not because there are better ways to heal 2-3 people at the same time (there aren't), but because I haven't found a lot of places where I can use it.

Yes, my raid of course takes AOE damage, but usually the players are not located close to each other for CH to work properly. The case of Gruul that Salchow mentioned is actually a very good example that I hadn't thought of before (chain healing the melee). It's probably because of the fact that I haven't yet done a lot of 25man raiding.

So even though it is very efficient, you need actual situations where it will work well. I am now doing more 25man raiding so I may end up falling in love with it and never using anything else - who knows?

FYI you keep saying that everyone understands how important it is (and I'm not saying that's not the case) but: 1. I didn't find it very useful, and personal experience for me is very important, 2. I've searched the net for resto shaman guides and I couldn't find any examples on situations where it could be used.

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Try to teach your raidmembers to stick together. Most alliance players scatter like a bag of marbles falling on the ground, especially ranged damage dealers. You will notice how good CH will become when they get used to huddle up. (Not advisable to do on every fight, though.) It will reduce the frustrations you might have in totemdropping too. :)

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Q u o t e:
Refresh ES whenever it's worn off? that's almost 1k mana yer throwing away that could go to people that need that heal more then the one that just got the shield.

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Like, erm, the tank? You *do* know that it's free threat for the tank, right? And that it only lasts around 40 seconds or something in a fight. On top of that, it's one of the cheaper spells we have hp/m wise. (Can I have more that scale 300% with gear, please?) I can hardly call using it 'throwing yer mana away'.

The Curator in Kara is a great example of how great CH really is, the melee dps there takes alot of damage, but they remain inrange for one CH which makes it ideal for that fight. :P

Nice guide! Sticky please =).

I cant imagine how was able the alliance raid without shamans and chain heal. Its the best raid heal ability in the game. You have to learn a lot more about the shamans role in the raid and how to heal with it.

This guide is full with false informations, but perfect for priests and druids. Thats how they heal.