Leveling a Resto Shaman: 40-69

From this point out, I’m going to assume that you have access to the dual spec feature, or have just decided to level as a resto shaman.  That way, we can focus on one talent tree at a time, rather than discussing elemental leveling along the way.  I’m going to deal with a big chunk of levels in this post, because we learn very few new spells in this range.

However, the first one you learn is a major game changer in the form of Chain Heal.  While our other healing spells work around a water theme, Chain Heal works around an awesomeness theme.  Now, you’ll start to see why shamans are such good AoE healers in the end game.  Chain Heal will heal your initial target, and then jump to two other players (3 with the glyph) and heal them as well, for a smaller amount with each bounce.  It is a smart heal, which means it picks its targets based on who needs healing.

Credit for this image goes to Cassandri

One of the great things about Chain Heal is the awesome healing laser graphic, which will give you a great visual indication of whether or not you cast a good Chain Heal.  If you see your healing laser fly off to one lonely ranged DPS standing off in a corner, and you don’t get any bounces, you know that you just wasted some cast time and mana on the wrong healing spell.  If you see a nice laser light show flying around the room, good job, you just used an efficient Chain Heal.

Chain Heal is something that a third grader could use somewhat effectively, but using it to its full effect will take some experience and strategic thinking on your part.  Here’s a great post by Cassandri talking about some of the positioning and spacing issues with Chain Heal (which currently has a 12.5 yard range for bounces).

Aside from Chain Heal, it’s pretty slim pickings for trainable talents until well past level 60.  You will pick up two more spells that allow you to create sets of four totems, Call of the Ancestors at 40 and Call of the Spirits at 50.  You might find it useful to have a PvP totem setup, for example, especially if you play on a PvP realm, so you can easily get your important defensive totems out (such as tremor, cleansing, or grounding), without having to hunt around on your bars while you get blown up.

At level 40, I would go with this talent spec for healing dungeons.  From 41-44, you’ll want to grab Cleanse Spirit, fill in Anestral Healing, and grab two points in Healing Way.  Cleanse Spirit is great because it allows us to do all our dispelling with one button.  I like to just have my bottom left corner icon in Grid pop up whenever a disease, curse or poison shows up, and I know no matter which it is Cleanse Spirit will get rid of it for me.

From 45-49 I would first pick up Improved Chain Heal and then Blessing of the Eternals.  Put one point in Nature’s Blessing for now, with the plan to fill it in later when you have more Intellect on your gear.  So, at level 49 it looks like this.

Continue filling in your top tier resto talents until you get something like this at level 64.  The exact order does not matter all that much, but make sure to pick up Earth Shield right at level 50 and Riptide right at level 60.  These are both fundamental shaman spells and will be an integral part of your healing from now on.  You will want to keep Earth Shield active on your tank 99% of the time for PvE, although sometimes it may be better used on yourself or another caster for the pushback protection.  Riptide is your only instant cast heal besides Nature’s Swiftness, and your only controllable heal over time spell, so learn to love it.  Try to keep the HoT active on the tank during instances.

At level 64 we finally get a new trainable spell again, in the form of Wrath of Air Totem.  This is a great buff for any healer or caster class, and it should quickly become your new default air totem to drop for PvE.  Haste is simply an amazing stat for resto shamans, so unless you have another shaman in the group who can cover this totem, you probably want it down.  Once you’re at level 80 and overgearing heroics, you might want to drop Windfury instead to help the melee out, but that’s when you have a ton of haste and are basically bored with the minimal healing required.  For now, Wrath of Air is your friend.

At level 66 you get your first quasi-pet totem in the form of an Earth Elemental.  When you drop this earth totem, you’ll get a pretty solid companion that focuses on taking punishment, rather than dishing it out.  He lasts for 2 minutes, assuming you can keep him alive that long.  The Earth Elemental is great for tanking elite mobs or group quests.  Don’t be afraid to toss him a few heals while you try to stay below him on threat and DPS the mob down.  Using this tactic can get you through many rough spots in PvE, so don’t be afraid to use your Earth Elemental, sometimes even in raids at level 80.  My Earth Elemental once saved an embarassing wipe on the Gunship Encounter in ICC, tanking the mobs on our boat for a minute or so when we lost a tank near the end of the fight.

You get your other totem pet, the Fire Elemental, at level 68.  Where the Earth Elemental focuses on tanking, the Fire Elemental does some pretty decent AoE DPS.  Unfortunately, you cannot have both the Fire and Earth Elementals out at the same time.  The Fire Elemental is great when you get in a rough spot and have a large number of mobs attacking you.  When running dungeons and raids, you should drop him on boss fights or difficult AoE pulls to help out the DPS.  Sure, it’s a 10 minute cooldown, but don’t be afraid to use him when needed.  He doesn’t do any DPS while sitting on your spell bar.

From Level 65 to 69, put all your points into Ancestral Knowledge in the enhancement tree, so you end up with this spec at level 69.  The added intellect is nice, and should help your longevity while healing.  At this point, you have everything that really makes you a shaman healer.  I have skipped Healing Focus for now, since I don’t remember much pushback while leveling.  If you feel that pushback protection would be helpful, feel free to grab that talent at any point during your level process, probably sacrificing points in Healing Way to do so.

In the final segment, we’ll look at levels 70-80, where you get a few new spells (mmm, Bloodlust), but more importantly, can practice using all the tools in your arsenal to become a great healer in the end game.

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