Hi,
Looking at rolling a Resto Shaman in Shadowlands but have not spent an extensive amount of time playing the class. I have traditionally played melee DPS and am undecided between running a Blood DK as a main or going left field and healing on Shaman - the animations and theme of the spec is pretty cool.
I tend to like to do all content, PvP, Heroic raiding and Mythic+ and am looking for a relatively unbiased (these are the WoW forums) view on Resto Shamans. Alternatively, being redirected to an alternative source of information would be great too.
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The biased types will harp on resto for not having a tank external, and having mediocre tank healing. They’re valid concerns which do limit mythic + viability at very high keys. They do work there, and you’ll probably get more groups on a resto shaman than you would a holy priest.
That being said, shamans are the only healer with an interrupt, and has a pretty short cooldown and is obviously ranged. They also have more utility than the average healer by far, especially in a raid setting. For that alone I think resto will always have a spot in progression.
Adding to that, shamans have excellent stacked healing and raid healing in general. Balancing is obviously subject to change but as it stands now, shaman are probably a top 3 healer in terms of hps (which is awesome for a utility healer like us). Every serious guild looking to push mythic WILL have a resto shaman. They’re looking great.
I can’t speak too much on the pvp side of things as I haven’t played resto in arena seriously since BC, but many top players are saying shaman is in a decent b-tier spot.
TLDR: Resto shamans are fantastic, and are potentially the top spec for raids. Especially after the disc nerfs. Mythic plus is fine, but are missing a few things to make them compete with some of the other specs at very high keys.
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for pvp and m+ r sham is at the mercy of tuning most of the time. they are the only healer with an interrupt and have nice utility. it is performing quite well in the raid testing so far and even when they arent that good they still have a perma spot in most raid groups. rsham does struggle if you are looking to push super high keys because it lacks a true tank cooldown. but if you are doing 1-15 keys the only thing holding you back would be yourself but there is a community perception about r sham in m+ that they arent good but thats just untrue. they are getting their opinions from people pushing 20+ keys which is a whole diff level of what you need in your grp comp to succeed and applying it to all keys. so you may get a little push back from players but good players will take you.
PVP is a little different story because there are several factors that play in to it. its a throughput game and if shams can do the healing they offer immense flexibility and slot well into comps that historically perform well and are looking quite good in shadowlands. pvp metas tend to have 1-2 healers and the others are seen by the community as unplayable, same as m+ is untrue. it may take a little more effort to make them work if their throughput is lower than a few other healers but finding teams as a healer will never be much of an issue
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For me personally, this is the only reason I’m not full stop maining resto in shadowlands. Resto is a fantastic spec, but many players will only want a completely meta stacked group for their precious +8 keys.
It’s silly but also reality.
In M+ you’re gonna have a harder time trying to find groups sometimes. People will take 100 Ivl Druid over a 110-115 ilvl shaman simply because they’re a Druid (numbers hypothetical).
If it weren’t for the fact that I expect to pug m+ a fair amount, I would almost certainly be resto for shadowlands.
Pvp is all about comp, so I’m sure shaman will have at least one good option for arenas.
you have violated that beautiful mog with those shoulders. its unforgivable
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this is how a sham is supposed to look villian!!
Hahaha I’ll be sure to change that back, it’s been bothering me too (if you were talking about me and my obviously mismatched shoulders).
yes it hurt me deep in my soul
Tbh I’m really not sure how that happened lol. I’m usually pretty fastidious when it comes to mog.
I am ashamed
good set tho. i put the red version on my sham the day transmog came out and have never took it off. its my fav or 2nd fav set of all times for any class lol
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Hard to go wrong with frost witch! Say what you will about shamans, but we’ve gotten some of the best looking tier sets over the years.
I feel bad hijacking this topic for a minute to talk about mog, but mog is pretty important to me when considering rolling a class. So you have that to look forward too if you decide to go with shaman op!
I think because of those… Shortcomings Resto tends to fall into the “support” healer niche.
Do we do fantastic healing in our own? Sure, there are classes that do it better but we pull more than our weight. Resto synergieses very well with anyone that has high levels of tank healing
Shaman throughput is a hard thing to pin down because of our mastery. I feel like we put out some serious numbers when it counts though.
There may be more proactive healers that can address problems before they happen. But… when the chips are down, the raid is dying, and the disc priests are furiously spamming smite, it’s the resto shaman that raises his hands and says “b****es be healed” like freaking orc Jesus.
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Resto Shaman has Spirit Link so however the healing may be in the expansion, you will always get a raid spot .
Indeed rsham has SLT so will always have a raid spot.
If you are semi serious about m+ then you will struggle to find groups. If you are very serious about m+ you will have to work 5x harder than the meta healers. While the return of engi brez greatly helps our viability, the style that we heal and lack of several important tools will always make rsham a poor dungeon healer. You can definitely do it, it will just be significantly harder and you will have to deal with the fact that you are handicapping your team
PvP you’ll be fine rsham is generally always pretty good
It’s great for raiding. It can M+ fine too but it’s on the lower and of the tier list and for tangible reasons beyond mere number tuning.
12 second interupt. Solid single target damage. And you are the CD God of raiding.
If your raid lead knows what you bring and you know what you bring resto shaman is possibly the strongest healer in the comp. That said I dont think you need two.
I love going in on the sham and just dpsing until my CDs are needed. If your goal on shaman is to spam your heart out on healing and top the charts you are doing it wrong imo. Other healers simply do it better. But weaving in your dps options and using your massive CDs at the right time is where shaman exists.
That said I am not a fan of shaman in high M+ and it does suffer from its mastery. You really need 2 sets of gear. One for progression raiding with a mass amount of mastery (the best mastery for progress in the game regardless of role IMO) and one set of gear with more haste/crit for keeping up once people know the mechs and have the added stats of being progressed.
Doing PUG M+ as any other healer really, really makes you miss having a kick, a purge, and an AOE stun in one package. Not to mention a backup tank.
It’s not looking to be meta for high keys, but it does have some great tools to make PUG life manageable.
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I didnt even mention how great earth ele and the stun totem and purge are.
Resto sham is by far my favorite healer but my guild has requested I boomy this expansion so the poor shaman will be my second toon I focus on.
Just so many tools to play with and ways to effect the runs and encounters without hps. Other healers might too charts as far as pure hps goes but restos ability to flex into other jobs (kick rotation and purging as well as providing juicy aoe stuns plus that healer dps) makes it my favorite healer by far.
Three weaknesses:
Group Healing
- Very powerful when a Group is stacked
- Doomed if everyone spreads out
Tank dies, everyone dies
- Traditionally Resto’s biggest weakness is keeping a tank alive
- No single target DR cooldown and limited burst heals when you get behind
Dealing Damage
- Hard casted reactive heals make dealing damage a significant trade-off
- Decent single target damage but poor AOE damage
Shaman has a great toolkit for Raids because they are part of a wider Healing Team, bring great utility and moments of big damage usually result in the Group being stacked to a degree.
The main issue is that while Resto Shaman can keep a tank alive in Mythics you have to over invest time into doing it. Where a Druid can load up HoTs, has a DR and can now deal damage a Shaman is spaming single heals just to not fall behind. Also, if you make a mistake and fall behind there really are very few tools to catch back-up. Likewise in an organized group your AOE healing can amazing but in a PUG or where a fight requires the team to be spread Shaman’s healing toolkit struggles.
Is Resto Shaman bad?
Far from it I would argue. However, in its current build it’s unlikely to ever be a top Mythic or PvP pick but you will get a Raid spot. However, it’s not going to be bad at Mythics and PvP is a little unknown.
Disc Priest to me is the healer than may excel in all content. Druid is the healer that will always excel in Mythics and PvP and everyone else is somewhere in there…
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