WoW Classic Restoration Shaman Leveling Guide 1-60
On this page, you will find our Level by Level Restoration Shaman leveling guide for WoW Classic. Make sure to use the slider to make the guide adapt to your level. For more general leveling information, please refer to our Shaman leveling guide. We also have an Elemental Shaman leveling guide and a Enhancement Shaman leveling guide.
If you were looking for TBC Classic advice, please refer to our TBC Classic Restoration Shaman leveling guide.
Restoration Shaman Leveling Rotation, Talents, and Trainer Skills
Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!
Leveling Talent Tree & Build
Your first talent unlocks at Level 10.
- Levels 10 to 14 — 5 points in Improved Healing Wave
- Levels 15 & 16 — 2 points in Improved Reincarnation
- Levels 17 to 19 — 3 points in Ancestral Healing
Improved Healing Wave makes your main healing spell faster to cast. Maximizing Improved Reincarnation will make you more likely to be able to self-resurrect when needed. Finally, Ancestral Healing will give a large armor bonus to whoever you critically heal, which is great in dungeons.
- Levels 20 to 22 — 3 points in Nature's Guidance
- Level 23 — 1 point in Totemic Mastery
- Level 24 — 1 point in Healing Focus
- Levels 25 to 29 — 5 points in Tidal Mastery
Nature's Guidance provides a much needed hit boost, which will increase your damage. Totemic Mastery improves the range at which your allies can benefit from your totems. Healing Focus will, for now, provide a small chance not to be interrupted when casting healing spells. Finally, Tidal Mastery is both a damage and a healing boost.
- Level 30 — 1 point in Nature's Swiftness
- Levels 31 to 34 — 4 points in Restorative Totems
- Levels 35 to 39 — 5 points in Purification
Nature's Swiftness provides a great emergency cooldown that easily save someone's life. Restorative Totems improves the effect of your Mana Spring Totem slightly. Finally, Purification improves your general healing significantly.
- Level 40 — 1 point in Restorative Totems
- Level 41 — 1 point in Mana Tide Totem
- Levels 42 to 46 — 5 point in Convection
- Levels 47 to 49 — 3 point in Call of Flame
Finish Restorative Totems, and proceed to Mana Tide Totem, which will give you a burst of Mana regeneration, albeit with a large cooldown. Convection will make your main damage spells more Mana efficient, allowing you to go longer without drinking, and Call of Flame will improve your Searing Totem's damage significantly.
- Levels 50 & 51 — 2 points in Concussion
- Level 52 — 1 point in Elemental Focus
- Levels 53 to 55 — 3 points in Concussion
- Level 56 — 1 point in Reverberation
- Levels 57 to 59 — 3 points in Elemental Devastation
- Level 60 — 1 point in Reverberation
At this point we will be looking to maximize Concussion to increase damage output, Elemental Focus for more Mana efficiency when DPSing, Reverberation for slightly more DPS from shocks and Elemental Devastation for a slight damage boost to your melee attacks from your shock critical strikes.
These talents are great if you are mostly soloing and went Restoration for added sustainability. If you are leveling in a group, you might want to play with a pure healing spec instead, such as the ones we list in our Restoration Talents page. Also, if you are leveling with a group, remember to buy and use all ranks of Windfury Totem and Strength of Earth Totem, which increase leveling speed a lot when used in melee groups.
Leveling Rotation
Good usage of Earthbind Totem can help you avoid a lot of damage. Place it between yourself and your enemies to slow them and give yourself at least one extra Lightning Bolt cast before taking any damage.
Windfury Weapon is a strong weapon enchant that can allow you to one shot an enemy out of nowhere, but is generally outclassed by Rockbiter Weapon during leveling, which does more overall damage and also has less potential to waste damage when an enemy is low health.
- Make sure to always heal yourself with Healing Wave if you are low health after a pull, this will allow you to quickly get back to action with minimal downtime, as you will be able to regenerate that Mana until you next need to heal again.
- Make sure Rockbiter Weapon is active on you at all times, to maximize your potential damage output.
- Make sure both Rockbiter Weapon and Lightning Shield are active on you at all times, to maximize your potential damage output.
- Use Searing Totem before you start fighting enemies, for the extra damage.
- Use Mana Spring Totem and Searing Totem before you start fighting enemies, for the extra Mana regeneration and damage, respectively.
- Use Mana Spring Totem and Searing Totem before you start fighting enemies, as they will slowly contribute to your Mana regeneration and damage, respectively. Also, remember to use Mana Tide Totem whenever possible, to regenerate a significant amount of Mana.
- Nature's Swiftness causes your next spell to become instant cast. Use it alongside Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt for additional damage, or as an emergency heal with Healing Wave.
- Use Lightning Bolt to initiate combat, and use a Flame Shock once the target is in range (typically you will have time to cast two Lightning Bolts before the Flame Shock). Keep casting Lightning Bolt until the enemy is close enough that you will not have time to cast another one before you get hit in melee range.
- Use Lightning Bolt (single-target) or Chain Lightning (multiple-targets) to initiate combat. Mix in a Flame Shock once the target is in range. Keep casting Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning until the enemy is close enough that you will not have time to cast another one before you get hit in melee range.
- Auto-attack the enemy until he dies. The idle time you get here will allow you to regenerate some Mana, as you will not be casting any more spells until you are pulling the next enemy. Consider using Earth Shock to deal damage and interrupt enemies, when applicable, but be aware of its high Mana cost.
List of Trainer Skills to Buy
Strength of Earth Totem, Windfury Totem and Ancestral Spirit are examples of very powerful skills that should always be bought if and when you start playing in a group. These skills, among others, will not be listed below because they are of limited usefulness for the average solo / questing player but feel free to buy them if you ever play in a group or do dungeons.
- At Level 1, as soon as you have the copper, buy Rockbiter Weapon. It provides a significant damage boost that lasts for 5 minutes. Also, buy Healing Wave, allowing you to heal, when needed.
- At Level 4, buy Earth Shock. Earth Shock is an instant, high damage spell that also interrupts any casts the target was doing when it hits. You will be using it to interrupt enemies and activate Elemental Focus in the process throughout your leveling.
- At Level 6, buy Earthbind Totem and Rank 2 Healing Wave. Earthbind Totem slows enemies around itself, enabling kiting strategies.
- At Level 8, buy Lightning Shield, Rank 2 Lightning Bolt, Rank 2 Earth Shock and Rank 2 Rockbiter Weapon. Lightning Shield is a Mana-efficient way to damage enemies you are in melee combat with, and should always be kept up on yourself.
- At Level 10, buy Flame Shock, Searing Totem and Strength of Earth Totem. Flame Shock is an instant damage spell that also leaves a damage over time effect on the target, generally dealing more overall damage than Earth Shock, for the Mana cost. Searing Totem slowly deals damage to enemies around it, contributing significant damage in prolonged fights. Finally, Strength of Earth is meant to be used when in a group with melee damage dealers.
- At Level 12, buy Rank 3 Healing Wave.
- At Level 14, buy Rank 3 Lightning Bolt and Rank 3 Earth Shock.
- At Level 16, buy Rank 2 Lightning Shield and Rank 3 Rockbiter Weapon.
- At Level 18, buy Rank 4 Healing Wave and Rank 2 Flame Shock.
- At Level 20, buy Ghost Wolf, Rank 4 Lightning Bolt and Rank 2 Searing Totem. Ghost Wolf allows you to transform into a Wolf while outdoors which moves much faster than your normal run speed. Use it to speed up your leveling, especially before a mount is available.
- At Level 24, buy Rank 3 Lightning Shield, Rank 2 Strength of Earth Totem, Rank 5 Healing Wave, Rank 4 Rockbiter Weapon and Rank 4 Earth Shock.
- At Level 26, buy Mana Spring Totem and Rank 5 Lightning Bolt. Mana Spring Totem should be kept up whenever you are fighting enemies, as it grants you some Mana regeneration.
- At Level 28, buy Rank 3 Flame Shock.
- At Level 30, buy Reincarnation, Astral Recall and Rank 3 Searing Totem. Reincarnation allows you to recover instantly from dying, saving time in the process. Finally, Astral Recall allows you to get a second Hearthstone, but with half the cooldown, allowing for a lot of extra mobility.
- At Level 32, buy Chain Lightning, Rank 6 Healing Wave, Rank 4 Lightning Shield and Rank 6 Lightning Bolt. Chain Lightning is our strongest damage spell, even for single-target, but also has a massive Mana cost, so try to save it for AoE situations.
- At Level 36, buy Rank 5 Earth Shock and Rank 2 Mana Spring Totem.
- At Level 38, buy Rank 3 Strength of Earth Totem and Rank 7 Lightning Bolt.
- At Level 40, buy Rank 2 Chain Lightning, Rank 7 Healing Wave, Rank 5 Lightning Shield, Rank 4 Flame Shock, Rank 4 Flame Shock and Rank 4 Searing Totem.
- At Level 42, buy Grace of Air Totem Grace of Air will not generally be useful to you, personally, but its amazing for the physical damage dealers in your group!
- At Level 44, buy Rank 8 Lightning Bolt.
- At Level 46, buy Rank 3 Mana Spring Totem.
- At Level 48, buy Rank 3 Chain Lightning, Rank 8 Healing Wave, Rank 6 Lightning Shield, Rank 6 Earth Shock and Rank 2 Mana Tide Totem.
- At Level 50, buy Rank 9 Lightning Bolt, Rank 5 Searing Totem and Rank 5 Searing Totem.
- At Level 52, buy Rank 4 Strength of Earth Totem and Rank 5 Flame Shock.
- At Level 56, buy Rank 4 Chain Lightning, Rank 9 Healing Wave, Rank 2 Grace of Air Totem, Rank 7 Lightning Shield, Rank 10 Lightning Bolt and Rank 4 Mana Spring Totem.
- At Level 58, buy Rank 3 Mana Tide Totem.
- At Level 60, buy Rank 7 Earth Shock, rank 6 Searing Totem and rank 6 Flame Shock.
Shaman Macros and Addons
By setting yourself up with an upgraded user interface and macros from the get go, you will make your leveling process much easier. Check out our Restoration Shaman Macros and Addons guide in the link below for the full list.
Restoration Shaman Quests and Weapons
While leveling, you will need to keep open for weapon opportunities. You will also need to complete various class quests for the baseline totems which allow you to use key totems for Restoration, such as Mana Spring Totem. To help you with that, we have made two dedicated guides.
How to Advance your Restoration Shaman at Level 60
Once you hit maximum level, we suggest you to read the Healer Shaman Guide, which covers all there is to know about healing on your Shaman at level 60.
Some of the most relevant pages to skim over are:
- The Healing Shaman Talent builds guide has multiple builds for Healing Shamans. Some are purely healing oriented, with a heavy investment on the Restoration tree, others mix in Enhancement talents for extra powerful totem support;
- Our PvP Shaman guide is where you can find the various recommended PvP builds. While healing will surely be a big part of your duties, you can expect to find some damage dealing builds in there as well;
- Goldmaking Guide for Healing Shamans exists to explain to you some simple techniques you can employ to farm gold quickly at level 60, even while on a healer specialization;
- Our Healing Shaman Rotation guide teaches you how to actually heal in a variety of situations, and you can find some advanced tips on how to manage your totems and specialty skills here as well;
- Browse Healing Shaman Stats guide if you wish to learn more about your different stats and how they affect your gameplay;
- Finally, the Gear guide for Healing Shamans will tell you which gear pieces to farm at level 60 and where you can farm them at. There is also a section for special gear that will help you and your group in interesting ways.
Changelog
- 18 Nov. 2024: Page updated for Classic Anniversary.
- 28 Feb. 2021: Changed the slider starting point to maximum level.
- 05 Jan. 2020: Added a Macros and Addons section.
- 23 Sep. 2019: Added a final section with useful links for players who just hit 60.
- 14 Sep. 2019: Guide added.
Classic Dungeon Guides
Classic Profession Guides
Classic Race Guides
Classic Class Overviews
This guide has been written by Seksi, original vanilla player and multi-class player, currently playing on Gehennas Horde. You can find him on the Classic Warrior, Mage and Shaman Discords, as well as the Icy Veins Discord.
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