In this article, we present you the viable talent and glyph choices for your Restoration Shaman (WoW MoP 5.3). We detail what each of the talents and glyphs do and in which situations they should be taken.

The other articles of our Restoration Shaman guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

For 10-man raiding, this guide has been reviewed and approved by Zetian, who raids in MCO, one of the most efficient 10-man guilds in the world (top 100 with a 13-hour a week schedule).

For 25-man raiding, this guide has been reviewed and approved by Sonie, one of the best Restoration Shamans in the world, who raids in Method. You can watch his stream on Twitch.

1. Talent Choices↑top

• Performance-enhancing
• Survival
• Crowd Control
• Movement
• Utility
• Situational

There is no longer such a thing as a default build. Most of the talents are now viable. They can easily be changed, thanks to Dust of Disappearance (and Tomes of the Clear Mind from level 86 to 90). You will frequently find yourself changing talents and glyphs between encounters, in order to adapt your play style to different mechanics. Therefore, it is important to understand what each of your talents does and how they affect your play style.

2. Tier 1 Talents↑top

Tier 1 talents have been designed with your own survival in mind.

• Nature's Guardian will proc every time you receive a damaging attack that brings you below 30% health (although not more often than every 30 seconds). When Nature's Guardian procs, it immediately reduces your threat towards your attacker and increases your maximum health by 25% for 30 seconds (when the effect ends, your health percentage is preserved).
• Stone Bulwark Totem is an Earth totem on a 1-minute cooldown that grants you an absorption shield for 30 seconds.
• Astral Shift reduces damage taken by 40% for 6 seconds. It has a 2-minute cooldown.

Stone Bulwark Totem and Astral Shift are your two main choices here. Use Astral Shift when you need a stronger survival cooldown every 2 minutes.

3. Tier 2 Talents↑top

Tier 2 talents have been designed with crowd control and utility in mind.

• Frozen Power causes your Frost Shock to also root the target for 5 seconds.
• Earthgrab Totem summons a totem that remains in place for 20 seconds, rooting every enemy within 10 yards for 5 seconds, after which time their movement speed is reduced by 50% (for as long as the totem is up and the enemies are within 10 yards).
• Windwalk Totem grants immunity to movement-impairing effects to all party and raid members within 40 yards. The effect lasts 6 seconds. Note that it also removes movement-impairing effects that are already applied on players.

Earthgrab Totem and Windwalk Totem are the best choices, depending on which one will be the most useful to your raid. Windwalk Totem is basically a raid-wide version of Hand of Freedom and can be useful on many encounters. There often are other classes that can do a better job than Earthgrab Totem, so the opportunities to use it are rather limited.

Frozen Power suffers from only being useful on a single target, but in that particular case (rooting a single enemy) the short cooldown of Frost Shock makes Frozen Power better than Earthgrab Totem.

4. Tier 3 Talents↑top

Tier 3 talents have been designed with totem cooldown and mobility in mind.

• Call of the Elements, which does not trigger the global cooldown, resets the cooldown of your totems that have a base cooldown shorter than 3 minutes:
  • Grounding Totem: 25-second cooldown;
  • Earthbind Totem: 30-second cooldown;
  • Earthgrab Totem: Tier 2 talent with a 30-second cooldown;
  • Healing Stream Totem: 30-second cooldown;
  • Capacitor Totem: 45-second cooldown;
  • Stone Bulwark Totem: Tier 1 talent with a 1-minute cooldown;
  • Tremor Totem: 1-minute cooldown;
  • Windwalk Totem: Tier 2 talent with a 1-minute cooldown.
• Totemic Restoration reduces the cooldown of your totem proportionally to the duration that remained on them before they were destroyed or replaced, up to a maximum of 50% of the full cooldown. This description is very misleading. What happens is that when your totem is destroyed with, let's say, 20% remaining on its duration, then the remaining cooldown on your totem is shortened by 20% (the remaining duration on your totem) multiplied by 50% (the maximum amount the talent allows you to remove from your totem's cooldown), which means the cooldown of your totem is shortened by 10%. To make things clearer, we take the example of your Fire Elemental Totem (60-second duration, 300-second cooldown).
  • If it is destroyed after 15 seconds, then 75% of the duration remained on the spell and you remove 75% of 150 seconds off the cooldown, which equals to 112.5 seconds.
  • If it is destroyed after 30 seconds, then 50% of the duration remained on the spell and you remove 50% of 150 seconds off the cooldown, which equals to 75 seconds.
  • If it is destroyed after 45 seconds, then 25% of the duration remained on the spell and you remove 25% of 150 seconds off the cooldown, which equals to 37.5 seconds.
• Totemic Projection enables you to relocate your totems to a new location. Casting this spell does not trigger the global cooldown.

Call of the Elements will be the default choice when neither of the two other talents can apply, although it will not work on totems that have a 3-minute cooldown. So you will mostly cast it for Tremor Totem, and Healing Stream Totem, or Windwalk Totem, in order to use them twice in a row.

Totemic Projection is very useful for dropping your totems at a different location than where you are standing. For example, if the raid is spread out, you can place Stormlash Totem, Healing Stream Totem, or Healing Tide Totem in the middle so that everyone benefits from it.

Totemic Restoration is rather disappointing. On the paper, it looks as if it gives you a relative freedom to use your totems with a long cooldown for exactly the amount of time you need them for. While it does give you a bit of freedom, this freedom comes with a huge penalty on the cooldown of your totems.

That said, there are situations where Totemic Restoration can be beneficial, for example if you need to use Spirit Link Totem twice for a 3-second duration within 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

5. Tier 4 Talents↑top

Tier 4 talents have been designed to improve your performance.

• Elemental Mastery increases your haste by 30% for 20 seconds. It has a 90-second cooldown.
• Ancestral Swiftness gives your next Nature spell an instant cast. It has a 1-minute cooldown. Ancestral Swiftness also passively increases your spell haste by 5% and your melee haste by 10%.
• Echo of the Elements gives you a chance to duplicate your spells that do direct damage or healing.

Ancestral Swiftness is one of two possible choices for Restoration Shamans, as you can combine it with Greater Healing Wave to create an emergency heal (see our Ancestral Swiftness macro). Also, it greatly helps with reaching the higher haste caps.

If you are going for the 12.5% haste cap, you can forsake Ancestral Swiftness and choose Elemental Mastery. Elemental Mastery can be used to give you an additional tick ofi Healing Tide Totem if you macro those two abilities together.

Echo of the Elements does not give you enough control over the additional healing that it provides and should therefore be avoided.

6. Tier 5 Talents↑top

Tier 5 talents give you a new healing cooldown or a new healing mechanics.

• Healing Tide Totem heals the 5 most injured nearby players every 2 seconds for 10 seconds. It has a 3-minute cooldown.
• Ancestral Guidance causes you to heal up to 3 nearby injured party or raid members for 60% of the direct damage or healing you do for 10 seconds. This ability has a 2-minute cooldown.
• Conductivity is a passive ability that causes you to both increase the healing you do with direct spells to allies standing in your Healing Rain and heal nearby allies standing in your Healing Rain every time you damage an enemy.

Healing Tide Totem is the best choice here. It performs better than Ancestral Guidance and heals more friendly targets.

Conductivity does not seem very appealing to us. It increases your healing throughput from single-target spells by 20% for 10 seconds, at the expense of casting a 2-second cast spell whose area of effect lasts 10 seconds. If it had worked with Chain Heal, it would have been a solid talent, but it does not.

7. Tier 6 Talents↑top

Tier 6 talents have been designed to give you a choice between doing more healing or contributing more DPS to your raid.

• Unleashed Fury upgrades your Unleash Elements by making it further increase the effectiveness of your next single-target heal by 50%. Technically, it applies a buff on your target, Unleashed Fury, which increases the efficiency of your next single-target heal by 50%. It is different than Unleash Life, which Unleash Elements applies on yourself. If you combine the two effects (i.e., if you cast your next single-target spell on the same target as Unleash Elements), your next single-target heal will be 95% more powerful.
• Primal Elementalist causes your Earth Elemental Totem and Fire Elemental Totem to deal 80% more damage. They become regular pets (although they are not permanent) with abilities.
  • The Earth Elemental automatically casts Angered Earth, Pulverize, and Harden Skin. If you instruct it to, it will channel Reinforce on you, which will decrease the damage you take by 20% and increase the healing you do by 10%.
  • The Fire Elemental automatically casts Fire Blast, Fire Nova, and Immolate. If you instruct it to, it will channel Empower on you, which will increase the damage you deal by 5% and increase the healing you do by 10%.
• Elemental Blast is on a 12-second cooldown and will enable you to maintain a 66% uptime on a buff that changes randomly each time you refresh it: +3500 Critical Strike Rating, +3500 Haste Rating, or +3500 Mastery Rating. For Enhancement Shamans, the buff can also be +3500 Agility. The ability also deals a bit of damage every time you use it.

Primal Elementalist is the only real choice here. The Reinforce and Empower buffs are extremely good. Make sure to use macros to ensure high uptime on these buffs.

8. Major Glyphs↑top

The 3 following glyphs will often come in handy.

• Glyph of Healing Stream Totem adds a damage reduction component to your Healing Stream Totem spell, which can be useful if your raid will be taking Fire, Frost, or Nature damage when you need to use Healing Stream Totem. This glyph is recommended for so many fights that it could be considered to be a mandatory glyph.
• Glyph of Totemic Recall causes Totemic Recall to return the full mana cost of any recalled totems. This can be very useful to recall your Healing Stream Totem for a free totem.
• Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem allows you to benefit from your Fire Elemental Totem more often (albeit for a shorter duration), which can be very useful if you are using Primal Elementalist (which you should).

There are 2 other glyphs that you may find yourself using in certain situations.

• Glyph of Chaining causes your Chain Heal spell to have a 4-second cooldown but to jump twice further. This glyph can be useful when the raid is very spread out and you do not need to spam Chain Heal.
• Glyph of Water Shield increases by 50% the amount of mana that your Water Shield grants you when you take damage, but it reduces by 15% the amount of mana your Water Shield passively regenerate. This glyph increases your mana regeneration when your shield procs more than 3.7 times per minute.

In addition, there are several major glyphs that can improve your healing throughput (or your DPS) in very specific situations.

• Glyph of Cleansing Waters causes you to also heal the target for 4% of your maximum health after dispelling a harmful Magic or Curse effect. This glyph will be useful when you have to decurse or dispel players.
• Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem reduces the cooldown and duration of your Fire Elemental Totem by 40%. This means that your Fire Elemental Totem will have a duration of 36 seconds (down from 1 minute) and a cooldown of 3 minutes (down from 5 minutes). This is extremely potent if you choose Elemental Mastery as your Tier 4 talent, because you will be able to combine your Fire Elemental and Elemental Mastery for every other cast of Elemental Mastery.
• Glyph of Grounding Totem turns Grounding Totem into a damaging ability that reflects a harmful spell back to its caster. We have yet to see how many boss abilities will be allowed to be reflected back with this totem.
• Glyph of Healing Wave causes your casts of Healing Wave to also heal you for 20% of the healing they do. This glyph might be useful early on in the expansion when your mana regeneration will too low to enable you to spam anything else than Healing Wave.
• Glyph of Riptide removes the cooldown on Riptide but decreases the initial healing it does by 90%. This glyph is only useful on fights where the raid is very spread out. Otherwise, this glyph is a HPS loss (not to mention that spamming Riptide is very expensive).
• Glyph of Telluric Currents restores 2% of your mana when you cast Lightning Bolt. Note that thanks to your Spiritual Insight passive ability, your Lightning Bolt will never miss. This glyph is mostly useful when you want to deal a lot of damage on the boss.

Finally, there are major glyphs that bring more utility to your spells.

• Glyph of Capacitor Totem reduces the charging time of your Capacitor Totem by 2 seconds. This means that it will stun all enemies within 8 yards after 3 seconds (instead of 5 seconds, without the glyph). This can be useful if a pack of enemies needs to be controlled rapidly.
• Glyph of Ghost Wolf makes you less susceptible to movement-hindering effects while in Ghost Wolf form. This glyph can be useful in fights where you have to travel through areas that slow your movement speed.
• Glyph of Healing Stream Totem adds a damage reduction component to your Healing Stream Totem spell, which can be useful if your raid will be taking Fire, Frost, or Nature damage when you need to use Healing Stream Totem.
• Glyph of Hex reduces the cooldown of Hex by 10 seconds, which can be useful if you are assigned to crowd-controlling adds.
• Glyph of Purge causes your Purge spell to remove 1 additional Magic effect from an enemy target, but adds a 6-second cooldown. It can come in handy if your raid ever needs to simultaneously remove 2 Magic effects from a boss. Note that in most cases, it may be better to just let Mages Spellsteal the effects.
• Glyph of Spiritwalker's Grace increases the duration of Spiritwalker's Grace by 5 seconds, making it last 20 seconds in total. You will want to use this glyph when an encounter has periods of movements that last longer than 15 seconds.
• Glyph of Wind Shear increases the cooldown of Wind Shear by 3 seconds, but increases the school lockout duration it causes on the target. This glyph can be useful if having a 15-second cooldown on Wind Shear will not hinder your interrupting duties.

9. Minor Glyphs↑top

Minor glyphs are mostly cosmetic. Only Glyph of the Lakestrider might come in handy, as it enables you to walk on water while you are in Ghost Wolf form.

10. Changelog↑top

• 19 May 2013: Patch 5.3 update: nothing to change.
• 22 Apr. 2013: Greatly improved the page following reviews from Zetian and Sonie.
  • Improved the advice for choosing your talents for almost every tier.
  • Improved the advice for choosing your major glyphs. We now recommend 3 glyphs that you should use in most situations and 2 other that will be situationally useful. We still list the other glyphs that have very very situational uses, for completeness' sake.
• 04 Apr. 2013: Update following Purge's review of our Enhancement Shaman guide.
  • Fixed description of Nature's Guardian (the initial description was correct, but the discussion on the Tier 1 talents was still mentioning that the healing is taken back when the spell expires, which is no longer the case).
  • Added more information to help people decide between Astral Shift and Stone Bulwark Totem for their Tier 1 talent.
  • Improved advice for when to choose Frozen Power as your Tier 2 talent.
  • Added more information on the synergy between Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem and Elemental Mastery.
  • Added Glyph of Hex, Glyph of Healing Stream Totem, and Glyph of Wind Shear.
• 27 Mar. 2013: Updated description of Nature's Guardian to properly reflect the Patch 5.2 change.
• 09 Mar. 2013: Patch 5.2 update.
  • Updated Elemental Mastery's cooldown, which is now 90 seconds (down from 2 minutes).
  • Updated Conductivity explanations (enemy no longer needs to be standing inside Healing Rain).
  • Updated Ancestral Swiftness explanations (now increases melee haste by 10%, up from 5%).
  • Glyph of Purge now adds a 6-second cooldown to Purge.
  • Updated Ancestral Guidance explanations, as this spells now copies 60% (was 40%) of the amount healed.