Restoration Shaman Healing Stat Priority (Legion 7.2.5)

On this page, we explain what the best statistics are for Restoration Shamans in World of Warcraft Legion 7.2.5, how the class benefits from each of them.

The statistics priority is important as it influences itemisation choices (gear, enchants, and gems).

The other pages of our Restoration Shaman guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.

About Our Author and Reviewer

This guide has been written by Furty, who has an illustrious history in the World of Warcraft raiding scene and race for World First. He has been a member of guilds such as Serenity, Midwinter, and many more, and is currently raiding in Future. He plays most classes at the highest level. You can follow him on Twitter and watch him play on Twitch.

This guide has been reviewed and approved by Seksixeny, Restoration Shaman and general healing expert. He has been raiding in Group Therapy since Cataclysm and currently creates articles for Chain Heal as well as heavily participating in Discord healing discussion at various WoW healing channels. You can find him for questions / suggestions on Earthshrine, in the Restoration Shaman lounge.

1. Basics

Intellect;
Mastery;
Critical Strike;
Versatility;
Haste.

Mastery is overall your best stat for early Mythic progression, particularly on fights with periodic phases of intense damage rather than sustained healing for an entire fight. Mastery does tend to sim poorly, however, it affects the most important healing you do, which is saving allies' lives when they are low on health. This keeps it consistently the most valuable among our choices for stat distribution. Critical Strike is very close in value due to Icon Queen Ascendant and Resurgence Icon Resurgence interactions, and is likely a better stat to budget into for less experienced healers, or players not concerned with the Mythic race. In either case, a balance of both stats is very important. Too little Critical Strike and you will run dry before the fight is finished, but with too much you will be sitting on excess Mana which is wasteful. Find a balance that works for you and develop an understanding on how your Mana ebbs and flows on each individual fight.

While Versatility and Haste are less potent, they still have value and are very similar to each other in terms of throughput gain. To benefit from Haste, however, you have to empty your Mana pool faster, making Versatility a slightly better stat overall.

2. Getting a Better Understanding

2.1. Statistics Explanations

Intellect is your primary stat. You should look for this stat in all of your upgrades. It provides you with Spell Power, which increases the power of your heals.

Mastery increases your healing on targets with low health (through Mastery: Deep Healing Icon Mastery: Deep Healing). This is an especially powerful stat early in the progress cycle, as you are dealing with targets low on health much more often.

Critical Strike increases your throughput and your Mana regeneration (through Resurgence Icon Resurgence). Critical Strike will actively reduce the value of Haste as it will directly increase the uptime of Icon Queen Ascendant.

Haste is important as well because it lowers the cast time of your heals, which is of particular value for Healing Wave Icon Healing Wave. It also lowers your global cooldown, bringing it closer to the desired 1 second global cooldown, which benefits all of your instant cast spells. Haste also causes your HoT and DoT effects to tick faster, as well as increasing the tick rate of your totems.