Shaman Healer Guide for Season of Discovery Phase 2

Restoration Shamans receive several new tools in Season of Discovery Phase 2 with the introduction of the Rune system. These runes can be affixed to your gear, granting access to new abilities. Key abilities for healing include:

1. Healing Rain
2. Surge
3. Shaman's Wrath
4. Power Surge
5. Water Shield

In addition, the Spirit of the Alpha rune proves invaluable, aiding tank threat generation similar to Alliance's Blessing of Salvation.

Though you can't use all these spells simultaneously due to overlapping gear slots (e.g., leg slot for Earth Shield, Ancestral Guidance, and Shaman's Wrath), they significantly enhance Restoration Shaman gameplay in WoW Classic.

A notable feature unlocked via a specific questline is the passive ability to dual-wield for all Shaman specs, utilizing the Lava Lash rune. This is crucial for significantly increasing spell damage with double Lesser Spellstone Oil and an off-hand caster weapon like Hypnotic Blade or Voluntary Sacrifice Dagger.

Viability of Shaman Healers

Shaman healers maintain their viability, offering the well-known utility associated with the Shaman class, including Windfury Totem (now outperformed by Rampage from Feral Druid) and Tremor Totem. Despite the evolving meta, Shamans continue to provide essential support and healing capabilities.

The introduction of the Rune system in Season of Discovery Phase 2 enhances their healing toolkit, with abilities like Healing Rain, Surge, Shaman's Wrath, Power Surge, and Water Shield. These additions not only bolster their healing potential but also redefine the Restoration Shaman's role in WoW Classic.

While certain totems may face competition from other classes, the Shaman's unique combination of healing spells and utility ensures their continued relevance in group dynamics. Shaman healers remain a valuable asset, adapting to the ever-changing challenges of Azeroth with their versatile and potent abilities.

Best Runes for Shaman Healer

In Phase 2 of WoW Classic, Restoration Shamans benefit greatly from various runes that enhance their healing abilities and mana management. Here are the top runes recommended for Shaman healers:

1.  Overload Rune: The default choice for the chest slot, Overload affects both Healing Wave and Chain Heal, providing versatility and consistent benefits across different healing situations.

2.  Water Shield Rune: Critical for mana management, Water Shield allows Restoration Shamans to sustain healing efforts for longer durations, ensuring they can continue supporting their group even during challenging encounters.

3.  Shamanistic Rage Rune: Ideal for the leg slot, Shamanistic Rage not only aids in mana management but also provides mana return to the party while reducing damage taken. With the mana return scaling with the Shaman's intellect, it emphasizes the importance of intellect as a primary stat for Restoration Shamans.

4.  Power Surge Rune: Power Surge offers additional mana regeneration and occasionally grants cooldown resets and instant spell casts for primary damage-dealing spells. This rune synergizes well with maintaining Flame Shock active, providing valuable mana regeneration opportunities.

5.  Spirit of the Alpha Rune: An excellent choice for enhancing tank threat generation, Spirit of the Alpha functions similarly to Blessing of Salvation for Horde Shamans. Always prioritize applying this rune to the tank, ensuring optimal threat management. If another Shaman has already applied it, consider alternative rune options.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths:

1. High Area Healing: Restoration Shamans excel in healing groups with potent area healing spells like Chain Heal and Healing Rain, making them invaluable in raid scenarios.

2. Strong Utility: Shamans bring powerful utility to the group with their totemic abilities, including the potent Windfury Totem and the invaluable Tremor Totem, providing both offensive and defensive advantages.

Weaknesses:

1. Weak Single Target Healing: Shaman healers face challenges in single-target healing due to long cast times and relatively poor mana efficiency until unlocking Shaman's Wrath. This weakness can make them less effective in situations where focused healing is crucial.

2. Low Survivability: Restoration Shamans have lower survivability compared to some other healing classes. While they have the unique ability to reincarnate through Reincarnation, it only slightly compensates for their overall lower durability, requiring careful positioning and situational awareness.

Best Specialization for Shaman Healer: Restoration

To become an effective Shaman healer, prioritizing the Restoration specialization is essential. The Restoration tree houses crucial talents that significantly enhance your healing capabilities and support for the group. Key talents include:

1. Ancestral Healing: Offers improved damage mitigation for your allies, enhancing their overall survivability.

2. Totemic Mastery: Strengthens the effectiveness of your totems, amplifying the utility you bring to the group.

3. Tidal Mastery: Boosts your critical healing chance, increasing the overall potency of your healing spells.

4. Purification: Enhances the efficiency of your direct healing spells, allowing you to maximize your healing output.

5. Nature's Swiftness: Provides a crucial instant-cast spell, offering versatility and rapid response in critical situations.

6. Mana Tide Totem: Supplies much-needed mana regeneration for your group, ensuring sustained healing over extended encounters.

Gameplay

Playing a Shaman healer requires a strategic approach to casting healing spells and deploying utility totems effectively. Follow this guide to optimize your healing rotation:

Healing Spells:

- Healing Rain: Use on a group of injured players to provide sustained healing over time.
- Chain Heal: Heal multiple targets at once, particularly effective in situations with grouped damage.
- Healing Wave: Cast on targets with moderate damage for efficient single-target healing.
- Lesser Healing Wave: Use for quick, emergency healing on targets with low health.

Rotation:

1. Utility Totems: Deploy totems based on your group's needs, such as Searing Totem, Windfury Totem, Strength of Earth Totem, and Healing Stream Totem.

2. Emergency Healing: Activate Nature's Swiftness in critical situations and pair it with either Healing Wave or Chain Heal based on the type of healing required.

3. Mana Management: Utilize Shaman's Wrath to replenish your mana and that of your group when a significant amount has been spent without risking wasted regeneration.

4. Mana Regeneration: Cast Mana Tide Totem when your group's mana is low enough to benefit from the regeneration without overflowing.

5. Rune Abilities: If runed, use Healing Rain strategically on a group of injured players, followed by Chain Heal for additional area healing.

6. Area Damage Healing: Employ Chain Heal for broader area damage healing and Healing Wave on highly damaged targets, adjusting based on the urgency of the situation.

Stats and Gear for Shaman Healer

Stat Priority:

1. Intellect
2. Healing Power
3. Spell Crit
4. Mp5 (Mana per 5 seconds)

As a level 40 healing Shaman, prioritize stacking Intellect as it greatly impacts your Mana management tools such as Shaman's Wrath, Water Shield, and Power Surge. While Mana Tide Totem provides fixed mana restoration, it still contributes to your overall mana regeneration.

However, ensure to also focus on throughput stats, as excessive Mana is futile if you can't efficiently utilize it throughout encounters. Solely stacking gear with pure Intellect can be inefficient.

Gear Recommendations for Shaman Healer

1. Arcane Filament Goggles: Crafted by tailors, offering high stats and a unique on-use effect, making it highly desirable.

2. Brilliant Brass Cachivache Sword: An excellent caster weapon, albeit challenging to obtain. Pair it with another caster weapon like Hypnotic Blade for dual-wielding benefits.

3. Dielectric Safety Shield: A powerful healing shield with no competition in its category. Although not weapon-class, it remains potent, albeit slightly less powerful than dual-wielding caster weapons.

4. Electromagnetic Chainmail Set: Specifically tailored for Shamans, offering a unique cast time reduction on Lightning Bolt and can be repurposed later for Elemental leveling.

5. Acolyte's Void Pearl: Obtained from Blackfathom Deeps' final boss quest, remains one of the best trinkets available at Level 40.

6. Green Gear with "Of Healing" Modifier: High item level pieces with this modifier can be valuable additions to your gear set.

Best Races for Shaman Healer

1. Troll Shaman: Trolls stand out as the top choice for PvE Shaman healers. **Berserking** provides a significant cast speed increase of up to 30%, especially beneficial after sustaining heavy damage from boss AoE abilities. While other racial abilities may have minimal impact, **Berserking** greatly enhances healing efficiency in raid scenarios.

2. Orc Shaman: Orcs excel as PvP Shamans, primarily due to Hardiness, which increases resistance to crowd control effects by 25%. When factoring in the baseline 5% chance to resist stuns, this totals to a 30% reduction, offering valuable survivability against abilities like Iron Grenade, Tidal Charm, or Kidney Shot. Although Blood Fury and Axe Specialization offer little utility for healing, they can be advantageous for leveling and solo play.

3. Tauren Shaman: Tauren Shamans represent a versatile choice, suitable for various roles. While lacking standout racial abilities for healing, Endurance provides a slight health boost, and War Stomp offers a brief crowd control option, useful in both PvE and PvP encounters. Tauren's balanced attributes make them a solid pick for players seeking flexibility.

Best Professions for Shaman Healer

1. Tailoring: Tailoring proves to be an excellent profession choice for Shaman healers, primarily due to the Arcane Filament Goggles headpiece, which stands as best-in-slot for this phase. However, to utilize this item, you need to reach maximum proficiency in Phase 2 Tailoring. The profession offers valuable gear options and customization, making it one of the top picks for Shaman healers.

2. Engineering: Engineering emerges as a must-have profession for Shaman healers looking to excel in both PvE and PvP content. In PvE, Gnomish Engineering allows you to craft Gnomish Battle Chicken and Arcanite Dragonling, powerful bind-on-pickup trinkets that summon pets aiding your group significantly. The Battle Chicken provides melee attack speed increase through Battle Squawk, benefiting melee-heavy groups, while the Arcanite Dragonling inflicts increased fire damage through Flame Buffet, ideal against fire-vulnerable enemies. Additionally, Dense Dynamite and its lesser versions offer a potent damage boost with a short cooldown, contributing significantly to group damage output.

Tags: