WoW: Forever

Restoration Shaman

Triage healing — a big wave, a fast wave, or a chain heal across a cluster, now with an instant repeatable heal over time. The dungeon healer, and the lowest levelling score on any Shaman page.

WoW: Forever · Healer · Updated September 30, 2026 · Beta build 1.60.1.70124 · Null Ossuary

Is Restoration worth levelling?

No, not solo. The published heading is "Healer Leveling": "As a Healer specialization, Restoration lacks most of the damage talent support of other classes and has no area damage, making it more of a group leveling specialization." Ratings: Overall 4.0, Levelling 2.0.

What it is for is dungeons: "Restoration will make you a strong dungeon healer."

Level Enhancement and respec when you want to heal, or level in groups from the start. Soloing as Restoration means playing a worse Elemental Shaman: "you will mostly use Lightning Bolt and Flame Shock… as if you were Elemental, with the downside of having no extra damage from talents."

Your talent points

Level 20 — 0/0/11. Two published builds.

Build A:

Improved Healing Wave, 5 points
Mindfulness, 3 points
Natural Grace, 2 points
Water Shield at 20

Improved Reincarnation is offered as a swap for Natural Grace.

Build B: Improved Healing Wave 5 / Tidal Focus 5 / Healing Focus 1 — no Water Shield, which is a real difference rather than a rounding error.

Note that one major source publishes no level-20 Restoration build at all — its level-20 recommendation for every Shaman is the Enhancement build, on the grounds that you should be levelling in it.

Level 30 — 0/0/21, in order: Improved Healing Wave 5 → Mindfulness 3 → Totemic Focus 2 → Water Shield 1 → Ancestral Healing 3 → Totemic Focus 3 → Mana Tide Totem → Totemic Focus 5/5 → Tidal Focus 2 → Nature's Swiftness at 30.

Healing priority

Pre-place your totems, Searing Totem last
Healing Wave on injured targets
Lesser Healing Wave when you need the cast to land faster
Lightning Bolt as filler when nothing needs healing

From 30: Nature's Swiftness into Healing Wave as your emergency button, and Mana Tide Totem for the group's mana.

Multi-target: there is none. Chain Heal is level 40, so there is no group heal in this beta at any cap. Fire Nova is your only area damage, and it needs an active Fire totem.

Stat priority

Healing Power, then critical strike, Haste, Intellect, MP5, Spirit, Stamina.

Sources genuinely disagree about critical strike here — one puts it second, another puts it last (Healing Power > Intellect > MP5 > Spirit > Haste > crit). The disagreement is unresolved. A third phrases the top of the list as "Healing and spell power above everything, then Intellect… and Spirit for what comes back between fights."

Worth knowing: healing bonus on gear now also grants one third as much spell damage, which makes filler Lightning Bolts less wasteful than they used to be.

What defines Restoration

Talent	Earliest level	What it does
Water Shield	exactly 20	New. 3 globes; 2% of maximum mana when you are hit or when you crit a heal; 10 minutes. One Elemental Shield at a time — Lightning Shield replaces it
Mana Tide Totem	25	Moved from row 7 to row 4 and no longer needs `Restorative Totems`. The 16-point milestone
`Nature's Swiftness`	exactly 30	Your next Nature spell becomes instant, whatever it is — in practice a Healing Wave you cannot be interrupted out of
Riptide	40	New, the row-7 capstone. Instant, 6-second cooldown, and a Chain Heal cast directly on the Riptide target is 25% stronger

What Forever changed for Restoration

New: Mindfulness (17% per rank of mana regeneration continues while casting, up to 50%), Water Shield, Riptide. Removed: Nature's Guidance among others.
Healing Way is now a flat +8% per rank to Healing Wave itself, instead of a stacking per-target buff you had to build up with low-rank casts. That removes an entire Classic upkeep habit — if you played a Resto Shaman before, stop pre-stacking.
Mana Tide Totem moved from row 7 to row 4 but was cut to 88 mana per tick, down from 170.
Tidal Focus now also grants global hit. Healing Focus is 3 ranks reaching 70%. Improved Reincarnation now also grants +2% maximum health per rank, 4% at 2/2.
Riptide can now critically strike, as of the September 24 patch.
Totems last 5 minutes instead of 2 and reach 30 yards instead of 20. Weapon imbues last 60 minutes instead of 5.
A capstone conflict: Nature's Swiftness needs 21 Restoration points, and either 31-point capstone needs 31 — 52 against a 51-point budget. Nature's Swiftness cannot coexist with Rage of the Farseer or Lava Burst.

At level 60

Unknown. Riptide into Chain Heal is clearly the intended raid pattern, but Chain Heal arrives at level 40 and no raid has been tested, so Restoration's actual throughput and mana profile at 60 are entirely unmeasured.