Leveling as Resto

          I can hear it now. Leveling as what? While in the past leveling as a restoration shaman was not an easy thing to do it has been made much easier in recent patches. In this post I will go over a resto spec, the method of leveling as a healer and basic healing methods. Leveling as resto will give a better grasp of healing overall and help you down the line as you venture into raiding. It'll help you go from this:

 To this:

Minus the sex change of course :)

               As you start out leveling resto you'll find that in the early going all shamans are pretty much the same. Do your due diligence and quickly quest grind til level 10 at which point you'll have two options. If your faction does well in the lowbie Bracket of WSG you can PvP in between quests for very quick leveling. Practice your healing in the BG's as other players will help keep you on your toes. If on the other hand your faction just gets pulverized every time you queue continue with the questing until level 15. At this point the leveling process becomes very easy thanks to the Looking For Group random dungeon system. When you queue as a healer you tend to get groups very quickly and if you have a tank leveling with you you will generally insta-queue! Healing at these low levels is a remarkably easy process as long as non-tanks (see :Huntard ) don't pull. I won't go into much detail here as your spell selection is still somewhat limited. Just keep the tank alive and everything goes smoothly.

              Now at this point you'll have some talent points to play around with and I'll stress that if you are dedicated to leveling as a healer keep your points in the resto tree until at the very least you have access to earth shield and ideally Riptide. A good spec to follow is this. Once you've spent 51 plus points in resto feel free to pick up the talents over in the enhancement tree. Also note at level 40 you have an option to dual spec and having a dps spec for questing by yourself and a restoration spec for healing dungeons can be handy.

              Once you have all the tools of a proper restoration shaman (around level 60 or so) you will generally follow this routine in dungeons.

1. Cast water shield and eathliving weapon on yourself.
2. Cast earth shield on the tank and keep it up at ALL times. A simple add-on like shaman friend can help immensely with this.
3. Before the pull lay down your totems! Most 5-mans will be best served by: Strength of Earth or Stoneskin, Flametongue, Healing Stream, and Wrath of Air . Other totems are situational and you'll learn when to use them.
4. Also, be sure to Riptide the tank before the pull. This combined with Healing Stream and Earth Shield give you a nice cushion.
5. Finally during the pull Lesser healing wave is your friend. Use it to keep the tank alive riptiding as needed. Only use Healing wave combined with Nature's Swiftness for emergencies. In fights with alot of damage to the party spamming Chain Heal can be great, but you will use it alot more when raiding which is a whole 'nother post :)

         The only other tip I can think of for leveling resto at this point is after your mid 60's or so as long as your faction is decent at AV, run it constantly! easy xp for very little work. Find a group, stick with them and keep 'em up! Please feel free to leave comments about anything in the post or e-mail me with any questions. have fun out there and remember shamans > every other class! xD