Cataclysm Classic Restoration Shaman Rotation and Cooldowns

If you have not already, we recommend going through the Spell Summary guide first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the rotation suggestions below.

Make sure to keep your buff totems active and in range of party members at all times, use the Earthliving Weapon weapon imbue and keep Earth Shield active on the tank and Water Shield active on yourself.

Assuming all spells do zero overhealing, this is their efficiency ranking (healing done divided by Mana cost) with the low gear values expected from recently leveled characters:

1. Healing Rain (best heal in game if 6 injured targets are inside for whole duration);
2. Riptide (most of the efficiency is on the heal over time);
3. Chain Heal (top efficiency requires hitting 4 injured targets, even better if you can consume Riptide as well);
4. Greater Healing Wave (less efficient than Healing Wave at high gear levels);
5. Healing Wave (health gained per time spent casting is atrocious as well);
6. Healing Surge (more efficient with Tidal Waves but never enough to not be the most inefficient heal of all).

Highly geared characters shouldn't have to worry about Mana efficiency at all, so feel free to spam anything you want to your heart's content!

Thus, the rotational logic for Restoration Shaman is as follows:

1. Use Healing Surge for emergency healing only;
2. Use Healing Rain if multiple allies are injured and will be able to stay inside the rain for most of its duration;
3. Use Unleash Elements on an injured ally;
4. Use Riptide on cooldown for efficient healing and Tidal Waves;
5. Use Chain Heal to heal group damage, consuming a low duration Riptide buff if available for extra healing;
6. Use Greater Healing Wave (highly injured target) or Healing Wave (lightly injured target) to heal single-target damage;
7. Use Lightning Bolt to DPS during downtime in order to recover Mana through Telluric Currents.

Nature's Swiftness is great to respond to emergency damage with Greater Healing Wave or just for extra mobility with your regular rotational spells.

Spirit Link Totem will stabilize the health of anyone within its radius, and is especially powerful against mechanics that hit targets inside a clump of players for deadly damage, as it will spread that damage across the whole clump evenly, making it easy to heal with area heals.

Remember to use your utility abilities as well:

• Bloodlust / Heroism for a massive temporary raid Haste buff;
• Spiritwalker's Grace if you need to move while casting heavy healing spells;
• Mana Tide Totem to recover Mana once your group is at 80% or less;
• Earthbind Totem to slow nearby enemies and allow for kiting;
• Wind Shear to help interrupt important casts.