Restoration Shaman Leveling Guide from 1 to 80 — The War Within (11.1.0)

As a healer, Restoration Shaman is slower than DPS or Tank specializations when solo leveling, and recommended to be played in a group through the dungeon finding queue or as part of a group farming specific enemies in the world for experience.

You should still be contributing whatever DPS you can through Acid Rain, Chain Lightning and your single target damage spells, as healing requirements while leveling are usually low.

When leveling up, you should always choose the piece of loot with the highest item level. The only exception to this rule is if you have a Ring or Necklace with a slightly lower item level, but two secondary stats on it instead of one.

Also, once you reach the max level it can be overwhelming to change the way you play by suddenly implementing a large number of addons in a short space of time, especially if they have a heavy visual impact on your UI. Thus we recommend using some of the more basic addons recommended on our Addons page below while leveling so that you have more time to get used to them during the easier phases of playing your class.

Your first talent row unlocks at Level 10.

Your talent setup should be as follows, with the order listed being a suggestion but not a mandatory thing: feel free to pick talents up in the order you feel suits your playstyle best!

To keep things simple while leveling and learning the spec, use the slider to select your level, and watch as the leveling rotation grows with each level!

Move the slider below to make the guide update to your level!

Starting at Level 1, you only have one main damaging ability: Lightning Bolt. This will change at level 10 when you select Restoration as your specialization and unlock other abilities. Until then, use Lightning Bolt to kill targets and make use of Flame Shock when it unlocks at level 3, and of Lightning Shield once it unlocks at level 9.

1. Keep Lightning Shield active on yourself;
2. Cast Healing Rain (with Acid Rain) against 3+ enemies that will live through its duration;
3. Apply Flame Shock if it is absent;
4. Cast Lava Burst whenever available;
5. Cast Chain Lightning against two or more targets;
6. Cast Lightning Bolt as a filler on a single target.

Starting at Level 15, you are able to queue for dungeons with the in-game group finder. You should aim to do this whenever possible while in Restoration specialization, as it is an efficient way to level up while learning your healing kit. In order to understand in-depth how to use this kit, especially at higher levels, check out our rotation page, but we have added a summary below:

1. Use Unleash Life on cooldown to spawn Ancestors;
2. Use Unleash Life and Ancestral Swiftness on cooldown to spawn Ancestors;
3. Cast Riptide and Healing Stream Totem whenever possible;
4. Cast Chain Heal if multiple people in your group are hurt and close to each other;
5. Cast Healing Surge on damaged allies;
6. Use your DPS rotation (detailed above) if no healing is required.

In order to avoid overloading the guide with redundant information, which is easily understood from opening your spell book and talent pane, we would advise you to read our detailed spell guide for the detailed information on each spell and talent, and how they are used in WoW.

In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of both General PvP Talents and Restoration Shaman-specific PvE talents.

1. Counterstrike Totem replicates and reflects damage you take for 15 seconds on a 45-second cooldown. This can be really strong when in a high damage area to deal some chip damage to targets around you and convert your health pool into additional damage;
2. Rain Dance makes Healing Rain instant, 45% cheaper and 30% more effective. This has great synergy with Acid Rain and also with Counterstrike Totem, as it will provide a lot of healing for you to tank mobs with while they kill themselves;
3. Totem of Wrath increases the critical effect of spells of allies within 40 yards by 20% for 15 seconds whenever you use Nature's Swiftness. It is good for solo play and excellent if you are doing outdoor content with others.

Other talents have their own niches but are not as generally useful when leveling.

When purchasing Heirloom Items for Leveling in general, we recommend picking the Heirloom items that have the highest amount of Haste possible. Having high Haste is a large DPS contribution and makes the rotation feel better to perform.

Haste is also useful for being a little bit quicker to tag mobs around you. A split second can make the difference between you getting a tag or losing it to another player.

There are several consumable items that can be purchased that will help you with your leveling speed.

• Gunshoes are an Engineering item that increases your movement speed by 200% for 25 seconds. These will make you almost as fast as a Flying mount. We recommend having a lot of these and using them whenever you are traveling more than ~250 yards.
• Goblin Glider Kit is very useful for covering long distances from high places.

The Gunshoes will not let you stop moving as long as they are active. Using this macro twice will click the buff off and allow you to stop.

• #showtooltip
• /use Gunshoes
• /cancelaura Gunshoes

Congratulations on reaching maximum Level! Now that you have hit the current maximum Level we recommend looking at our Easy mode page or Talents section for more advanced players to learn how to play at max level.

Leveling is also very different from end-game pursuits. Our Mythic+ Dungeon and upcoming Raiding guides can guide you to performing as well as possible, regardless of your favored focus in end-game content.