Restoration Shaman The War Within 11.1 Guide

This guide was written by Riku.

Riku or ‘Rikuxd’ is a Restoration Shaman and Druid main player, who sometimes dabbles in some Priest gameplay on progress. He is an officer and healer in the raiding guild ‘Honolulu’.

Restoration Shaman is a utility and throughput-rich healer, with access to numerous crowd control spells, damage, raid damage reduction, movement buffs and protection spells. This makes Restoration Shamans an always-desirable pick for any raid composition or m+.

What to expect from Restoration Shamans in m+: A strong and multi-purpose reactive healer, that has the widest toolkit of spells out of all healers perhaps. Shaman brings tools such as Bloodlust/Heroism, Spirit Link Totem, Wind Rush Totem, Capacitor Totem etc. They also have the ability to deal significant damage on both single target and aoe.

What to expect from Restoration Shamans in raids: A utility or throughput machine, that has the ability to swap talents and playstyle to fit any encounter. With spells such as Ancestral Protection Totem, Healing Tide Totem, Ascendance etc. they can fill any role needed as a healer in raids. Restoration Shamans can single handedly carry the whole raid’s health for a long period of time if need be. They are also excellent spot healers due to Healing Surge and Healing Wave.

Patch 11.1 Resto Shaman Changes

With the changes in Patch 11.1, the playstyle of Restoration Shaman stays the same. Many talents were optimized to make room for better choices. Some talents were moved, to free up keybinds or make way for easier choices in the talent tree. Farseer was balanced for m+ purposes and the ancestors ‘copy’ abilities was changed to correspond to correct spells. Shaman received a last minute 5% all healing buff. This helped us to some extent, however we are still a bit behind other healers when it comes to raw numbers. Restoration Shaman still finds use in many upcoming scenarios.

Here is a list of the changes:

• New Talent: Mana Tide – Healing Tide Totem now additionally grants 80% increased mana regeneration to allies.
• New Talent: Therazane’s Resilience – Earth Shield and Water Shield no longer lose charges and are 115% effective.
• New Talent: Whispering Waves – 10% of Healing Wave’s healing is duplicated onto each of your targets with Riptide.
• Healing Wave is now learned at level 11 (was a talent).
• Wavespeaker’s Blessing now additionally increases the periodic healing of Riptide by 10/20%.
• Spiritwalker’s Tidal Totem now triggers after casting Healing Tide Totem.
• Downpour now overrides Healing Rain for 8 seconds (was 6 seconds).
• Ancestral Vigor is now a 2-point talent.
• All healing increased by 5%.
• Acid Rain damage increased by 25%.
• Master of the Elements now lasts 30 seconds (was 15 seconds).
• Farseer
• All Ancestor healing now benefits from Mastery: Deep Healing.
• All Ancestor healing reduced by 15%.
• Ancestors now cast Healing Wave when the Shaman casts Healing Wave. Healing Wave heals for slightly more than Healing Surge.
• Whispering Waves now also duplicates Healing Wave healing done by Ancestors.
• Maelstrom Supremacy now increases the healing of Healing Wave, Healing Surge, Wellspring, Downpour, and Chain Heal by 15% (was 8%).
• Elemental Reverb now increases Riptide healing by 10% (was 5%).
• Totemic
• Downpour now overrides Surging Totem for 22 seconds (was 12 seconds).
• The following talents have been removed:
  • Healing Wave (now learned at level 11)
  • Mana Tide Totem
  • Primordial Wave