Restoration Shaman PvP Rotation and Playstyle — The War Within (11.0.5)

The main role for a Restoration Shaman, besides keeping your team alive, is to use your utility to disrupt and stop incoming spells or damage. Restoration Shamans have the Mana and the Mastery to sustain a team for a very long time. It is rare to lose a game because you are out of Mana.

Restoration Shaman's Riptide is very powerful and should be used on cooldown to keep your team healed.

To disrupt the enemy team, you will want to take advantage of a few spells. Grounding Totem is important to utilize. This can absorb any spell that is about to be completed. You will want to use Wind Shear on any meaningful spell that you can. This includes crowd control or big damaging abilities.

Before the gates open, you should use Earth Shield on a teammate that might be the kill target for the enemy team. It has a short cooldown, so it is acceptable if the enemy team swaps their target, but it is important to keep it active on the teammate that the enemy team is focusing.

Use Water Shield on yourself for passive Mana regeneration. You should also put Earth Shield on yourself to make use of the Surging Shields Shaman tree talent. Use Earth Shield on yourself. Cast Skyfury to buff your team.

Set your focus target to the main enemy team member who will be likely using crowd control like Polymorph or Fear. This will allow you to know when to use Wind Shear and Grounding Totem to stop the crowd control.

Make sure your team has a plan for crowd control; Hex is a strong crowd control that can be used on a healer without a trinket. However, do not make it your primary focus to Hex a healer. Your job is to keep your team alive.

The other team is going to try to force your trinket in the opener so they have an advantage later in the game. Use Grounding Totem to try to avoid incoming crowd control on you, and hold on to your trinket for as long as you can.

Use this if the enemy team uses their cooldowns to try to kill a teammate.

• If one of your teammates is taking strong single-target damage:
  1. Make sure Earth Shield is on the party member taking the most damage.
  2. Use Unleash Life, which creates an Ancestor for increased healing.
  3. Use Ancestral Swiftness/ Nature's Swiftness to be able to instantly cast a casted heal.
  4. Use Healing Surge/ Healing Wave for direct single target healing.
  5. Use Healing Stream Totem for passive healing.
  6. Use Riptide, which also generates Tidal Waves.
  7. Use Primordial Wave on cooldown.
  8. Use Earthen Wall Totem as a significant cooldown, which absorbs a small amount of damage from each ability the enemy team uses. This is particularly effective against damage over time spells. Use Totemic Recall after using Earthen Wall Totem to reset the cooldown.
  9. Use Healing Surge for a fast heal, or Healing Wave for maximum healing output. This puts Tidal Reservoir on the target, to further benefit from Riptides.
  10. Use Riptide on cooldown.
  11. Use Mana Tide Totem, with Spiritwalker's Tidal Totem, which allows you to cast multiple Healing Surge, as a last resort.
  12. Use Spirit Link Totem as a last resort.
• If your entire team is taking strong spread pressure:
  1. Make sure Earth Shield is on the party member taking the most damage.
  2. Use Riptide, which also generates Tidal Waves.
  3. Use Earthen Wall Totem as a significant cooldown.
  4. Use Totemic Recall to reset the cooldown on Earthen Wall Totem in case it needs to be used again.
  5. Use Earthen Wall Totem again, to stack these defensives.
  6. Use Healing Tide Totem for more significant passive AoE healing, especially with the Living Tide talent.
  7. Use Healing Stream Totem for passive healing.
  8. Use Riptide, which also generates Tidal Waves.
  9. Use Primordial Wave.
  10. Cast Healing Wave for single target healing or with Primordial Wave spreading the Healing Wave to the whole team, if all have the Riptide heal over time applied.
  11. Cast Healing Surge if a fast heal is needed on one teammate.
  12. Use Ascendance as a last resort.
  13. Use Spirit Link Totem as a last resort.

Use this to heal sustained damage throughout the match (damage done when the other team does not have burst cooldowns available).

It is important to note that there are multiple ways to keep your team alive to heal through sustained damage.

1. Maintain Earth Shield on the teammate taking the most damage.
2. Use Riptide on cooldown, which also generates stacks of Tidal Waves.
3. Use Healing Stream Totem for the Swirling Currents buff and passive healing.
4. Use Unleash Life to increase the heal of your next direct heal.
5. If your team is stacked and taking heavy spread or single target pressure, Earthen Wall Totem should be the first cooldown you use. This will give you time to heal your teammates even if you get interrupted on a cast.
6. Cast Healing Wave when you have 1-2 stacks of Tidal Waves.
7. Cast Healing Surge on yourself if you are using Swelling Waves.

It is hard to find a place for every totem a Restoration Shaman has. Below are all of the totems you have and the best time to use them.

• Healing Stream Totem: this is a strong passive heal and should be used often during an Arena match.
• Healing Tide Totem: this is the best spread healing ability when also using the Living Tide PvP talent.
• Earthgrab Totem: this is a Totem roots all enemies within the impacted area. This can be especially effective when rooting melee enemies out of the line of sight of their healer.
• Earthbind Totem: this is a Totem that slows an entire team. The best time to use this is when enemies are focusing on you. You can easily place this on one side of a pillar and use Ghost Wolf to quickly get to the other side.
• Earthen Wall Totem: this is a major defensive ability with a short cooldown. It should be used when the enemy team is dealing strong, sustained damage, and you need time to cast healing spells.
• Tremor Totem: removes Fear, Charm and Sleep effects from party and raid members within 30 yards. You should use this totem before you get feared. This will make the enemy players waste their important crowd control.
• Capacitor Totem/ Earthgrab Totem: you can use either of these when the enemy team is stacked. The Earthgrab Totem is best used when enemy teams will likely be focusing on you. Capacitor Totem is great against teams that will be far away. It gives the enemy team another ability to deal with. Earthgrab Totem is baseline, so something you can do is root an enemy and place a Capacitor Totem to get a full stun.
• Spirit Link Totem: this is your strongest totem. It will keep your entire team alive as long as it is active. It is best used when someone is about to die, and you do not have the time to cast spells. You will want to pair it with Healing Tide Totem.
• Mana Tide Totem: this will provide Mane back for the Restoration Shaman giving him the ability to keep ahead on Mana.

Astral Shift is your only real defensive for yourself. This cannot be used while stunned, so it is best used when the team is about to stun you or if they are using burst cooldowns.

Burrow an immunity, similar to Dispersion from a Shadow Priest. While under the ground, you can be healed and can move at full movement speed. This is particularly useful if the Shaman does not have Astral Shift available.

Stone Bulwark Totem is a useful totem providing an absorption shield to the Shaman. This can be reset with Totemic Recall to be used back to back. In addition the actual totem can be relocated with Totemic Projection to avoid it being focused.

Earthgrab Totem this ability can significantly assist your team with disengaging the other team's offensive plays or allow your team to reach your opponents easier.

Ghost Wolf becomes a very strong defensive ability when trying to get away from enemies. While it is active, you cannot be snared, and it will help you create distance between you and the enemy team.

Spiritwalker's Grace is not a direct defensive, but it will help you avoid damage. Instead of standing still and trying to cast, this cooldown gives you the ability to run away from the enemy team and still have the ability to cast spells. It also makes you immune to interrupts and silences afterward if you are using the Ancestral Gift PvP talent.

Nature's Guardian gives you a tool to survive stuns, something that Restoration Shamans are normally weak at. If a team is able to make this go off, play extra defensively until you are able to use Nature's Guardian again.