Cataclysm Classic Restoration Shaman Talent Builds (2024)

Last updated on May 19, 2024 at 00:00by Seksixeny

On this page, you will find out the best PvE talent choices and builds for yourRestoration Shaman in Cataclysm Classic, as well as advised glyphs.

Restoration Shaman, like mostCataclysm specs, is heavily restricted to its namesake specialization tree, Restoration.You will always want to put points into this tree first and foremost, with the fewleftover points after you hit the capstone talent, Riptide, being dedicatedto passive healing increases in the Elemental and Enhancement trees.

While the build below is an example of a 25-man talent build, keep inmind there are many talent swaps and adaptations possible for 10-man or trade offsbetween mobility and Mana sustain, as explained below.

Restoration has a lot of optional talents:

• Ancestral Awakening is very strong whenever you mostly cast singletarget spells such as Greater Healing Wave, making it great in 10 man.
• Blessing of the Eternals has the opposite dynamic, and is muchstronger when you mostly cast area spells such as Chain Heal, making itstronger in 25 man.
• Ancestral Swiftness is a great mobility talent and a must-pickon any fight you are expected to move around often.
• Elemental Precision is better on fights where you can stand andcast, especially if the boss has an increased damage taken phase which will allowyou to fully restore your Mana regularly with Telluric Currents. Youget most of the benefit of this talent with 2 points due to our preference for Spirit,and if taking it, Concussion is preferable to Convection.

Taking the above lessons in mind, here is a sample 10-man talent build,also using the alternative Spell Hit tech for Telluric Currents'sbenefit:

In this section we will go over some of the key talents you will use when youare playing a Restoration Shaman.Be sure to understand your most important talents as they are vital to play thebuild to its top strength.

• Ancestral Resolve — reduces damage taken while castingby 10%. Since you will be looking to constantly be casting, even if it is Lightning Boltfor Telluric Currents, or while moving with Spiritwalker's Grace,this talent grants a huge amount of damage reduction!

• Resurgence — causes your spell crits to restore Mana. Thisis a very powerful effect that directly scales with your critical strike chance,making it a much stronger stat, overall.

• Focused Insight — allows your shocks to reduce the Manacost and increase the healing done by your next spell, essentially making themmostly free to cast and increasing your DPS. It combos particularly well with Healing Rain since you are limited by its cooldown and thus the extrahealing is quite valuable.

• Nature's Swiftness — causes your next spell to be instantcast. This will typically be used on Greater Healing Wave for emergencyhealing, but can also be used with Healing Rain or Chain Healto speed up your rotation or enable casting while moving.

• Ancestral Healing — reduces physical damage taken by 10%on the target of one of your critical heals, increasing the value of critical strike,and also increases the health of anyone healed by you by up to 10% of their maximumhealth, making them much less likely to die from raid damage mechanics.

• Improved Cleanse Spirit — converts your Cleanse Spiritinto a magic dispel, allowing you to do encounters that involve dispelling sucheffects.

• Spirit Link Totem — creates an area around the totem for 6 secondswhere the health of allies is equalized every second. This makes it especially powerfulagainst mechanics that hit targets inside a clump of players for deadly damage,as it will spread that damage across the whole clump evenly, making it easy toheal with area heals.

• Mana Tide Totem — provides extra Spirit to your raid equivalentto 200% of your own Spirit for 12 seconds. This is a great Mana regeneration talentwhich benefits your whole raid and scales heavily with your Spirit, making it oneof the top reasons to stack Spirit in the first place.

• Ancestral Awakening — is fantastic whenever you are castinga lot of single target spells, and also scales well with your critical strike chance,making it a great 10-man and small group content talent.

• Tidal Waves — reduces the cast time of Greater Healing Waveand Healing Wave by 30% and increases the critical strike chance of Healing Surgeby 30%. You will gain two charges of this buff whenever you cast Riptideor Chain Heal, allowing you to have permanent uptime of this massive singletarget healing bonus.

• Riptide — is a heal over time with a strong direct heal componentwhich is often used to save allies close to dying, especially considering our Deep HealingMastery. You will typically use it with Glyph of Riptide, which increasesthe heal over time component massively.

Prime glyphs are new to Cataclysm, giving you a third "row" of glyphs you canuse on your character. While there are a couple of different options to choose from,there are some very clear front runners for each specialization.

• Glyph of Earthliving Weapon — a nice passive boost to your Earthliving Weaponimbue healing.
• Glyph of Riptide — huge increase to Riptide healingand also drastically increases the amount of time you have to use Chain Healon it for extra healing.
• Glyph of Earth Shield — another passive boost, this time to your Earth Shield healing.

Major glyphs typically offer utility-based options and can be highly situational.While there are many different options for Restoration, we will listbelow the ones we find more useful.

• Glyph of Chain Heal — increases the smart healing done by Chain Healwhile slightly reducing healing to the first target, which is often overhealing anyway.
• Glyph of Healing Stream Totem — removes the need for using Elemental Resistance Totemby baking its power into Healing Stream Totem.
• Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem — converts your Stoneclaw Toteminto a strong personal cooldown.

Minor glyphs typically provide very minor benefits. Your choices will typicallydepend on what quality of life increase is the most meaningful for you. We givea few suggestions below.

• Glyph of Water Walking — allows you to cast Water Walkingwithout a reagent, saving gold in the process.
• Glyph of Renewed Life — removes the reagent requirement from Reincarnation, saving some gold over time.
• Glyph of Astral Recall — lowering the cooldown of your Astral Recallallows you to move around more frequently, especially if you have your Hearthstoneat your faction's central hub and all its portals.