Restoration Shaman Midnight Playstyle and Rotation Guide

As this is a healer guide, a rotation isn't really in order instead here is a priority list. Following the order of importance shown in this list will help you maximise your healing done as a Restoration Shaman.

Resto Shaman Priority List:

1. Keep Surging Totem active.
2. Keep Healing Stream Totem on cooldown.
3. Use Downpour before your current Surging Totem expires.
4. Use Riptide. Prioritize targets that don't already have it.
5. Use Unleash Life on cooldown.
6. Fill with Healing Wave or Chain Heal depending on how many targets need healing.

DPS Opener for Restoration Shaman:

1. Lava Burst on 2s Timer
2. Flame Shock on 0
3. Surging Totem
4. Lava Burst on cooldown
5. Fill with Lightning Bolt / Chain Lightning depending on ST/AoE

General Playstyle

In this section I will deep dive more into the difference between the playstyles of Totemic and Farseer.

Totemic Playstyle

Resto Shaman is all about keeping your abilities on cooldown as much as possible.

Use Surging Totem on cooldown.

Use Riptide on cooldown.

Priority list for Totemic Shaman:

1. Use Healing Rain
2. Use Unleash Life
3. Use Downpour if talented
4. Cast Chain Heal or Healing Wave depending on situation

Keep Earth Shield up on a Tank if talented.

Cast Chain Heal or Healing Wave as filler depending on damage intake.

Weave in instant Lava Bursts through Lava Surge whenever you can spare the GCD on doing damage.

Use your big cooldowns like Healing Tide Totem, Ascendance or Spirit Link Totem where assigned. Try not to overlap with other healers if it isn’t needed, as this can drastically reduce the effectiveness of your cooldown and leave you without any raid healing cooldowns when you really need them.

Farseer Playstyle

In Raid, our rotational spells are very easy to play with.

The following is an example of how to play for a damage event:

1. Riptide on cooldown (important to not overcap this ability)
2. Healing Stream Totem
3. Ancestral Swiftness
4. Riptide x2
5. Healing Wave spam on people that don't have full health

Very easy and very simple. Of course, depending on how much damage your raid is about to take, weaving in Ascendance and/or Healing Tide Totem is good; and Spirit Link Totem if you are about to die.

Cooldowns

To get the most out of Restoration Shaman, you want to use your cooldowns as often as possible (to always have them on cooldown) and when they will have the most impact. Knowing when to use cooldowns such as Ascendance, Healing Tide Totem or Spirit Link Totem in the raid boss fight or dungeon is important to not waste them and to tie healing output to when its most needed; focusing on not overlapping with other healer / defensive cooldowns when it isn't necessary.

Restoration Shaman has a number of very recognisable and powerful cooldowns available to them. You can read more about them in the Spec Talents Discussion section on the Talents page of this guide.

Spirit Link Totem - Summons a totem that reduces all friendly targets' damage taken by 10% within 13 yards for 6 seconds and redistributes the health of all players within it evenly to each other until the Totem expires. Getting the most out of this cooldown does require the Raid or M+ party to be stacked enough for players to be stood within the 13 yard range, but it can be a significant cooldown where mechanics allow for that.

Ascendance - When you cast Ascendance, all injured allies within 20 yards are instantly healed. This heal has a fixed total value that is evenly distributed among all affected targets, ensuring consistent group-wide recovery regardless of raid size within range.

As mentioned before, it's important to avoid overlapping these with other healer cooldowns when possible, or if the overlap isn’t required to handle the amount of damage.

Defensives

Resto Shaman has 2 different Defensives available in Midnight.

Astral Shift - A very strong defensive with a baseline of 1.5 minute cooldown with a 40% damage reduction that can be talented to be either 1 minute (Planes Traveler) or 60% Damage Reduction (Astral Bulwark). With a 12 second duration, it’s a very strong wall compared to other classes. Make sure to plan out when you use it during Raid / Mythic+ encounters to get a good use every time.

Earth Elemental - If talented, Primordial Bond causes Earth elemental to increase your maximum health by 15% for 30s. It’s a very long duration defensive that should be used sparingly, as it has a very long cooldown.

Utility & Movement

Wind Shear is probably one of the most important spells to start with, as Resto Shaman will be the only Healer spec in Midnight to have a kick interrupt.

The Shaman toolkit of different Totems gives you a number of great utility that you offer to the raid and M+ group. Resto Shaman Totems offer a range of utility that your group might need:

• Capacitor Totem has a 60 second cooldown, it is a stun totem that you place, then after 2 seconds it stuns everything in an 8 yard radius of it.
• Poison Cleansing Totem has a 2 minute cooldown. This is a totem that dispels a poison debuff from a party member every 1.5 seconds over 6 seconds. It is very useful in dungeons like Windrunner Spire, where there are multiple poison applications.
• Wind Rush Totem has a 2 minute cooldown. It’s a group-wide movement totem that when placed creates a circle around it, anyone in your raid or party that comes in contact with it gets a 40% movement speed increase for 5 seconds.

As for movement, Resto Shaman has Gust of Wind and Ghost Wolf.

Gust Of Wind - This ability will jump you forward over a short distance. It’s your preferred form of extra movement as you can start casting again once you land without having to shift out of a form.

Ghost Wolf - Lets you transform into a Wolf form that has an increased movement speed, but you can’t cast anything whilst in this form; you can stay in this form permanently, so you need to switch in and out of it. Because of the fact you can’t cast in Ghost Wolf form, you should only use it when it's urgent and when Gust of Wind won’t be enough or is on cooldown.