Restoration Shaman PvP Guide for Cataclysm Classic

Restorations has many instant healing tools such as Riptide, Earth Shield, Healing Stream Totem, Earthliving Weapon, and the new Unleash Life.

It can also heal targets of its new Magic dispels through the Cleansing Waters talent, making it a very efficient healer, especially when also considering its new Mastery stat, Deep Healing, which boosts healing on low health targets, allowing you to easily catch up on healing.

Besides its healing capabilities, Restorations also has a lot of utility they can put to good use in the Arena, such as Tremor Totem, Purge, Grounding Totem, Hex, Wind Shear, and the new Spirit Link Totem, making it the most well rounded healer in Cataclysm!

Strengths

• Strongest emergency healing with plenty of instant casts and the Deep Healing mastery
• Strong defensive cooldowns such as Spirit Link Totem and Nature's Swiftness
• Offensive dispel with Purge and defensive dispel with Improved Cleanse Spirit
• Wide array of spells and totems available, with most being instant cast and thus not interruptible

Weaknesses

• Usually gets focused in arenas as the only defensive cooldown is Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem
• If faced with high pressure from enemy team becomes vulnerable to interrupts as all healing is from the Nature spell school and casted heals do much more healing than the instants available

• Glyph of Water Shield — increases the passive Mana regeneration bonus from Water Shield by 50%, granting you a lot of extra regeneration over time.
• Glyph of Riptide — grants a huge increase to total Riptide healing over time.
• Glyph of Earth Shield — another passive boost, this time to your Earth Shield healing.

• Glyph of Hex — reduces the cooldown of Hex by 10 seconds, making it usable more often.
• Glyph of Healing Stream Totem — removes the need for using Elemental Resistance Totem by baking its power into Healing Stream Totem.
• Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem — converts your Stoneclaw Totem into a strong personal cooldown.

• Glyph of Water Walking — allows you to cast Water Walking without a reagent, saving gold in the process.
• Glyph of Water Breathing — removes the reagent requirement from Water Breathing, saving some more gold over time.
• Glyph of the Arctic Wolf — a purely cosmetic option, but there are no other glyphs with any PvP impact.

If you have not already, we recommend reading the Spells Summary page first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the topics discussed on this section. In PvP you will need to react and adapt to different situations, meaning you will not always follow the recommended rotation below. Aim to do whatever allows you to stick on your target the most while dealing as much damage as possible.

1. Keep your totems active with Call of the Elements as they will buff your allies and provide extra healing through Healing Stream Totem;
2. Make sure Earth Shield is active on the player taking the most damage on your team;
3. Dispelling with Cleanse Spirit will reduce enemy pressure and also heal the target through Cleansing Waters;
4. Use Unleash Elements on an injured ally;
5. Use Riptide on cooldown for efficient healing and Tidal Waves;
6. Use Greater Healing Wave on highly injured targets as a last resort, hopefully not getting interrupted in the process.

Nature's Swiftness is great to respond to emergency damage with Greater Healing Wave.

Spirit Link Totem will stabilize the health of anyone within its radius, and is especially powerful in PvP since enemy players will usually be focusing a single player on your team, rather than the whole team at once. It can also bypass Smoke Bomb's effect, making it even more effect against Rogue teams!

In addition to your main spells and cooldowns, you also have many utility spells that can be game-changing when used in the proper scenario. Make sure you understand each of the spells listed below to fully take advantage of your entire spellbook.

• Strength of Earth Totem / Wrath of Air Totem and similar totems should be used to heavily boost ally damage;
• Use Spiritwalker's Grace if you need to move while casting heavy healing spells;
• Mana Tide Totem can be used to recover Mana during a match;
• Earthbind Totem to slow nearby enemies and allow for kiting;
• Tremor Totem can now be used while you are affected by Fear or other effects it can remove, making it an excellent button to break such effects instantly on yourself and your team;
• Grounding Totem should be used to nullify enemy CC and other important casts;
• Wind Shear can also be used to disrupt caster enemies, by interrupting their casts directly;
• Purge can be used to remove enemy buffs, such as Druid heals over time or Priest shields;
• Hex is a hard crowd control spell which can be used to disable an enemy for an extended duration. Take note that it is a Curse effect, making it harder to dispel for some classes, but easier for others.

If you are looking to maximize the potential of your Restoration Shaman in Cataclysm PvP, these are the recommended professions:

1. Blacksmithing — Gives you two additional sockets with Socket Bracer and Socket Gloves, enabling you to stack more Resilience in this season.
2. Jewelcrafting — Gives you three powerful gems, in this case Mystic Chimera's Eye, which can boost your Resilience even higher.

The list linked below includes the best possible gear setup for a Restoration Shaman in PvP.

When it comes to evaluating Restoration Shaman's place within the Arena, we have created a number of guides devoted to listing a variety of popular team compositions which you can find below.