Waves
Grandfathered
Wavesjr’s 29 Legion Resto Shaman Guide
Patch 7.0
Patch 7.0
Table of Contents
Introduction
Race Selection
Talents & Glyphs
Stat Priority
Arena Comps
Arena and Battleground Positioning
Tips and Tricks
Introduction
Race Selection
Talents & Glyphs
Stat Priority
Arena Comps
Arena and Battleground Positioning
Tips and Tricks
Introduction
Hey folks, I'm making another Resto Shaman guide for 29s because A LOT has changed since WoD. First and foremost, our play-style hasn't changed too much, but our healing output has definitely been reduced(around ~30% less). It's also worth noting that our mana efficiency is also potentially problematic now that Healing Surge costs a higher % of our mana as well as no longer having Water Shield.
Race Selection
Race selection is very important at lower levels because some have abilities that can be game changers. Here, I'm going to give you a run-down of each race that shaman can choose from and the benefits that each contain.
Horde
Tauren:
Arguably the best race for Restoration Shamans due to:
Arguably the best race for Restoration Shamans due to:
- Brawn: Grants a slight increase to critical strike bonus damage and healing.(2%)
- Endurance: Increases your Stamina by X(Scales with Level)
- Nature Resistance: Reduces Nature damage taken by 1%
- War Stomp: Stuns up to 5 enemies within 8 yds for 2 sec.
A phenomenal choice due primarily to Endurance, War Stomp, and Brawn. Endurance allows us to become a bit more tanky, as well as Brawn increasing critical strike chance, and War Stomp gives a nice little stun to melee attackers.
Orc:
Not too shabby, definitely a viable option for Rshams, however may be better suited towards Enhance.
Orc:
Not too shabby, definitely a viable option for Rshams, however may be better suited towards Enhance.
- Blood Fury: Increases your melee attack power by X or you spell power by Y, lasts 15 sec.
- Hardiness: Duration of Stun effects reduced by an additional 20%.
Blood Fury is great for short bursts of healing in a clutch situation perhaps, but I don’t think it’s really optimal due to the 2 minute Cooldown.
Hardiness: Another neat racial, however most stuns at this level aren’t that long, and the ones that are (e.g. Hammer of Justice) you can just trinket out of and not worry about. Maybe handy against Windwalker Monks and their fists of fury, but there are very few Windwalker Monks that can kill you in a global. Also, you have a crutch against WW monks. Fists of Fury has a 25 seconds Cooldown while, your Nature’s Guardian has a 30 second Cooldown, so if your partner and/or teammates can peel them off of you for 5 seconds, you should be okay.
Troll:
Another neat choice for shamans primarily because of trolls’ passive which reduces movement impairing effects, as well as the mini-bloodlust which is really nice for tight situations, especially when battleground healing.
Hardiness: Another neat racial, however most stuns at this level aren’t that long, and the ones that are (e.g. Hammer of Justice) you can just trinket out of and not worry about. Maybe handy against Windwalker Monks and their fists of fury, but there are very few Windwalker Monks that can kill you in a global. Also, you have a crutch against WW monks. Fists of Fury has a 25 seconds Cooldown while, your Nature’s Guardian has a 30 second Cooldown, so if your partner and/or teammates can peel them off of you for 5 seconds, you should be okay.
Troll:
Another neat choice for shamans primarily because of trolls’ passive which reduces movement impairing effects, as well as the mini-bloodlust which is really nice for tight situations, especially when battleground healing.
- Berserking: Increases your melee, ranged, and spell haste by 15% for 10 seconds.
- Da Voodoo Shuffle: Reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 20%
Goblin:
Goblins don’t really provide much incentive to play as a resto shaman, but they have a few racials that still make them a viable option.
Goblins don’t really provide much incentive to play as a resto shaman, but they have a few racials that still make them a viable option.
- Rocket Jump: Activates your rocket belt to jump forward. (Nice to escape getting trained by melee.)
- Time is Money: Cash in on a 1% increase to haste(Haste is our best stat, so this is pretty neat)
Alliance
Dwarf:
Dwarf is perhaps the best race for Restoration Shamans on Alliance, just slightly ahead of Draenei due to Stoneform.
Dwarf:
Dwarf is perhaps the best race for Restoration Shamans on Alliance, just slightly ahead of Draenei due to Stoneform.
- Stoneform: Removes all poison, disease, curse, magic, and bleed effects and reduces all physical damage taken by 10% for 8 sec.(Great for getting out of cc in tight situations as well as removing Rogue poisons[e.g Crippling poison])
- Might of the Mountain: Alliance version of Tauren’s Brawn. Critical Strike bonus damage and healing increased by 2%.
- Reduces Frost Damage taken by 1%.
Draenei:
- Just slightly behind Dwarves in terms of effectiveness due to Stoneform, however still a great option.
- Gift of the Naaru: Heals the target for 20% of the caster’s total health over 5 sec. (Spectacular if you need to get a decent heal off before getting put into CC)
- Heroic Presence: Increases your Strength, Agility, and Intellect by X(scales with level) Another great passive to give a nice boost to your healing output.
Neutral Race
Pandaren:
Honestly, Pandaren don’t really bring anything to the table for us; so I’d say choose something else, however they could be decent in bgs for their food buff.
Pandaren:
Honestly, Pandaren don’t really bring anything to the table for us; so I’d say choose something else, however they could be decent in bgs for their food buff.
- Epicurean: Your love of food allows you to receive double the stats from Well Fed effects.
- Quaking Palm: Strikes the target with lightning speed, incapacitating them for 4 sec, and turns off your auto-attack.(Solid for arenas, but the 2 minute Cooldown is inconvenient)
Talents & Glyphs
Talents:
In Legion at level 29, all classes still only have one tier of talents available. This time around, all three choices are very good.
Undulation:
Every third Healing Wave or Healing Surge you cast heals for an additional 50%.
Unleash Life:
Unleashes elemental forces of Life, healing a friendly target for X and increasing the effect of the Shaman's next direct heal by 30%.
Torrent
Increases the initial heal from Riptide by 30%.
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- Undulation: The reason why I think Undulation is the best is because it is more practical than the other two. Not only is it more mana efficient(bigger heals = less heals required to top a target = less mana used) but it also has no Cooldown. Unleash life has a 15 second cooldown, so you get 1 big heal every 15 seconds whereas with Undulation you would have 5 big heals every 15 seconds.
- Unleash Life: Decent, but not worth choosing over Undulation(see above)
- Torrent: Now this is an interesting one, my shaman's Riptides already heal for around 600, with Torrent it's ~840. When it crits, it's nearly 1700, which would make it stronger(nearly on par) with Unleash Life, but 1700 is just over half of an Undulation crit(roughly 3.2k) I can see torrent being very good in spread pressure situations, namely against warlocks.
Glyphs:
Major glyphs were removed in patch 7.0, so now you can only get cosmetic
Cosmetic Glyphs:
- Glyph of the Spectral Wolf: Alters the appearance of your Ghost Wolf transformation, causing it to resemble a large, spectral wolf. Basically you turn blue, and that’s pretty sweet in my opinion. Blue = Better.
Stat Priority
Since patch 7.0, enchantments NO LONGER function inside instanced PvP(e.g. Battlegrounds, Arenas, Skirmishes etc.) Outside of it though, I've done some testing and since Resto Shaman have a higher baseline haste, you can enchant versatility and still have fast(and bigger) healing surges. I'd say Vers > Crit > Haste.
Arena Comps
Since 7.0, separate 2s and 3s skirmishes no longer exist, you can only queue for 'Arena Skirmish' and healers can no longer get into 2v2 skirmishes. Resto Shamans still do exceptionally well with caster cleaves and melee cleaves. Namely: WLS(Warr/Afflic Lock/Rsham), LSD2(Afflic/Boomy/Rsham), FLS(Feral/Afflic/Rsham), and KFC(Warrior/Hunter/Rsham).
Arena and Battleground Positioning
Nothing to really change in this section, just keep throwin' them surges.Battlegrounds:
I’d have to say Restoration Shamans do best at the back of a Battleground group, where they can avoid getting focused on, and just dish out large heals and keep their team up. We really shine if we’re paired with a Disc Priest and Mistweaver Monk.
Arena:
Similarly to Battlegrounds, you generally want to stay behind your dps. Hug the pillar, and try and stay out of line of enemy spell-casters to avoid Crowd Control effects.
Keep on asking your teammates for peels, since Nature's Guardian is now gone(we squishy as hell yo)
Tips and Tricks
So tips and tricks..I'll just go ahead and list a few, if you know any more that I've missed in this section - please let me know.1. Dropping Healing Stream Totem before getting sapped often makes you un-sappable(depending how quickly you drop it and it gets into combat), as well as using riptide on your partner if they enter combat quickly.
2. Try and drop your totems out of line of sight.
3. Again...USE THE PILLAR!
4. Try to Wind Shear as much as possible, it can really work to pressure the other team into having to fake cast and fall back on defense.
5. Use Ghost Wolf to your advantage, decent way to run from melee dps or LoS(line of sight) quickly.
Appreciate you guys sticking around for another guide. If I missed anything, please leave a comment down below!
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