Restoration Shaman Leveling Guide - Midnight

By Harreks Updated: 2026/08/12

Restoration Shaman Leveling in Chain Lightning Level 80 to 90 Talent Order

Restoration Shaman Leveling Tips for

You should maintain Water Shield, Earth Shield, and Earthliving Weapon active all the time. After unlocking Elemental Orbit you should also maintain Earth Shield on one ally and once you get Instinctive Imbuements you can use Water Shield to keep all your other buffs active on yourself.

Capacitor Totem and Earthgrab Totem are very good aoe crowd control spells with very short cooldowns. Remember to use them every time you think they might help.

Improved Purify Spirit lets you remove curses, Poison Cleansing Totem clears poison effects, and Tremor Totem dispells fear effects. You can't have access to all of them all the time but you can grab the ones you need for the specific content you are about to do to bring in extra utility.

Earth Elemental can serve as a backup tank in a pinch.

Restoration Shamans are the only healer with an interrupt. Use Wind Shear often.

Reincarnation can be used to quickly get you back alive, just be mindful of the long cooldown.

Best Restoration Shaman Talent Builds for Leveling in Below are two tabs you can clickUse the copy button below for a level 80 talent build to start leveling in Midnight

Restoration - 80+

The War Within Restoration Spec Tree

Pathing Notes

There aren't a lot of important nodes in the spec tree if you are questing as the tree mostly focuses on healing, but for group content there are several extra tools that will make your life easier and you want to get them quick. These are some key nodes to focus on.

Your first points will unlock some key abilities and your major cooldown very early. Grab Healing Stream Totem and right after Ascendance and Preeminence. Ascendance is a very powerful spell and thanks to Preeminence you can use it both defensively and offensively.
Next we fill out the top of the tree with Ancestral Vigor and the Healing Stream Totem talents on the right. Healing Rain is a bit clunky and forces you to stand still for long periods of time to get value out of it and Acid Rain, so instead we favor instant casts for healing and do our damage with Chain Lightning.
With the first gate unlocked, we go for White Water to open the way for Unleash Life and Earthliving Weapon.
To open the last part of the tree, we pick several passive increases to our spells spread across the middle of the tree.
Once the last gate is unlocked, we path into our second cooldown Spirit Link Totem and several passive capstones like Deeply Rooted Elements and Primal Tide Core. The order here does not matter too much, and you should feel free to go for the talents you prefer first as long as you end up with all the recommended ones at the end.
Finally, we go back to the middle of the tree and spend our last points on a couple of Healing Wave boosts that we skipped earlier in favor of tier 3 talents.

The War Within Shaman Class Tree

Pathing Notes

The Shaman class tree is very open, and once you get all the important active abilities early on you should feel free to grab whatever utility you want. There are a lot of passive nodes that offer small throughput increases spread throughout the tree, but you will have more than enough points to get all of them.

We start by grabbing all our key active abilities. Lava Burst and Chain Lightning for damage, Earth Shield and Healing Stream Totem for healing, and Astral Shift and Gust of Wind for defensives and mobility.
In the next part you grab several utility abilities. Your interrupt Wind Shear, Earthgrab Totem, Capacitor Totem, Wind Rush Totem, and Earth Elemental.
To finish the middle of the tree there are several passive nodes that are small healing, damage, and survivability increases.
Once the last gate is unlocked, You get access to Instinctive Imbuements, Therazane's Resilience, Spiritwalker's Grace, and Nature's Swiftness which will notably increase your quality of life.
For the last points to round up the tree you get Totemic Projection and Totemic Surge.

Restoration Shaman Leveling Rotation in Restoration Shaman Single Target Damage Rotation

Apply Flame Shock to your target.

Cast Lava Burst. Use all Lava Surge procs you get.

Fill with Lightning Bolt.

Restoration Shaman AoE Damage Rotation

Maintain Flame Shock on as many different targets as possible.

Use all Lava Surge procs you get.

Cast Chain Lightning.

Unleash LifeAncestral SwiftnessRestoration Shaman Healing Rotation

Cast Riptide. Prioritize targets that don't already have Riptide.

Use Unleash Life.

Spend Healing Stream Totem charges.

Cast Healing Wave on targets that need healing.

Restoration Shaman Cooldown Usage in

Ascendance - Very high on the spec three, Ascendance is your most important cooldown while leveling due to its flexibility. Thanks to Preeminence it not only serves as a very strong healing cooldown, but can also be used to do more damage with the extra haste.

Healing Tide Totem - While Healing Tide is fairly strong specially on larger groups, being on a choice node with Ascendance means you aren't likely to be running it.

Spirit Link Totem - Your second major healing cooldown, Spirit Link is a very strong group survivability tool. As an emergency cooldown, it can also be used to quickly get the health of a single target back up.

Spiritwalker's Grace - Allows you to cast while moving for a short duration, being useful both to keep healing in any situation or to keep doing damage.

Nature's Swiftness/Ancestral Swiftness - A minor cooldown, useful to get a single faster cast out when you can't stand still to cast. Once you unlock hero talents, Ancestral Swiftness becomes a decent power increase.

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Comments

Comment by Shade

The guide is great for 1-70 and 80-90, but I just hit 71 and I'm not sure how to place my Totemic talents for the best effect.

Thank you for the guide!

Restoration Shaman Leveling Guide - Midnight

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