Of course it isn’t as simple as just choosing a tree and filling it with points. There are accepted builds for top dps, and they are as follows (In no particular order    )

(55/0/16)  Affliction

This spec’s strength is the Improved Lifetap which syncs very nicely with the new change to lifetap, and one point in Cataclysm.

(56/0/15) Affliction
This spec utilizes the new buff to Dark Pact, the improved range and lack for the need of LoS makes it much more viable that previous patches. This spec also uses Improved Drain Soul.

(0/56/15) Demonology

This is easily the best Demo build for raiding. This spec will certainly use and abuse the new Demonic Pact, allowing for a very consistent spell power buff for you and your raid.

(0/13/58) Destruction

A straight up, Destro replenishment  build. Soul Leech and Improved Soul Leech should keep your health and mana pool up as well as assist your healers with their Mana-manage-ment.

(0/18/53) Destruction

This is the Imp Machine gun spec. You lose Soul Leech, but you gain Soul Link (For survivability in raids), and Unholy Power, which makes your imp a beast, seriously.

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The most popular build and the one I personally use for raiding is the following:(0/16/55)

It has everything a restoration shaman may want and it’s very similar to the other (0/16/55)build which I would also recommend, and the only difference between these two builds is, as you can see, is 3 points taken from Healing Focus in favor of Healing Way.

Healing focus when coupled with a Paladin’s Concentration aura means you never have to worry about spell push back which is quite a huge advantage in the current end-game content as you will find lots of encounters with AoE raid damage which is not necessarily avoidable or just hard to avoid.

The other build give a significant buff to your Healing Way. But then again, you should ask yourself a question: “how often I’m going to use healing wave? Should I prioritize this particular spell?” Basically shaman is a raid healing class and when you heal raid you rarely use healing wave, but for some encounters you may be asked to heal a certain tank in which case you will probably want to improve your healing wave.

There’s one more optional build for restoration shaman: (0/13/58) which basically covers both healing wave and healing focus in at the expense of Elemental Weapon what basically means you lose 30% bonus healing on your Earthliving Weapon.

This bonus increases healing done by each spell by 45 (instead of basic +150 healing power from your Earthliving you get + 195). However, this talent does not affect the healing done by HoTs when Earthliving procs. And what’s more important, this talent also does not scale well as your gear improves, what basically means the more spell power you get from your gear, the less contribution to your healing power this talent gives in percentage terms. For example, at +2000 spellpower, the talent increases your spell power by 2.25%. At +2500 spellpower, the talent increases it by 1.8%.

Now let’s talk about glyphs you’ll want to use for more effective healing.

Let me start with a side note.

Shaman often change glyphs, depending on the boss and their healing assignment. For example, if assigned to heal a single target, you might want to use the LHW glyph instead of CH. It is advisable to carry a few copies of each glyph that you use in your bag and adjust as necessary.

But let’s look at universal glyphs which you will find most effective in 80% of cases.

#1 glyph which is a must have glyph for 25 men content is Glyph of Chain Heal. However, you may find it less effective in 10 men raids and even less effective in 5 men groups. Depends on raid / group disposition.

#2 glyph is Glyph of Earth Shield since your Earth Shield will be quite valuable spell in percentage terms of your total healing done.

#3 glyph will be Glyphs of Riptide, which becomes more and more important as you update your gear to T10. For better understanding of Riptide mechanics and the impotency of this particular spell, see Riptide spell details in Major Abilities section.

Alternative glyphs you may want to use according to situation and healing assignment:

* Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave
* Glyph of Healing Wave
* Glyph of Healing Stream

Glyphs I wound not recommend for using:

* Glyph of Water Mastery– it basically provides additional 30 MP5 which it not to be compared with advantages of the other glyphs listed above.
* Glyph of Earthliving Weapon – increases the base chance of your Earthliving to trigger for 5% (from base of 20% to 21%) which is close to nothing. Leave along the fact that Earthliving is mostly over healing.

As for minor glyphs, you should definitely go for Glyph of Water Shield as it’s the only glyph which will affect your effective healing.

Choose other minor glyphs to your liking. I personally prefer  Glyph of Renewed Life and Glyph of Water Walking, so that I don’t care about reagents for these 2 abilities.

Part 2: Spells and abilities

Let’s now have an overview of shamans’ healing abilities.

Chain Heal

The most topical spell which shaman use for massive healing.

Chain heal jumps to 3 targets (or 4 with a glyph) based on who is missing the most health (by absolute value). If there are no targets in range below 100% it will not jump. The heal can jump back to the shaman if they have taken damage.

Chain Heal got significant buffs in Patch 3.2. Jump range increased to 12.5 yards, from 10 yards. Also, each jump reduces the healing done by 40%, instead of 50%.

Chain heal can crit on any (or all) of the three to four jumps. However, the healing done to the next target is based on the non-crit healing done. Crits from chain heal will proc Ancestral Fortitude.

Many trinkets will proc based on a “direct healing spells” as each jump of chain heal is considered a direct heal.

However, each separate jump do not count as a separate spell and will not trigger trinkets proc based on “each spell cast.”

Riptide

This brilliant spell becomes even more important in T10 content considering T10 2 set bonus and Totem of the Surging Sea.

Basically Riptide is a talent that gives shaman their only instant heal. About 57% of the healing is instant and the remaining 43% is a HoT over the next 15 seconds.

If you cast Chain Heal on someone affected by Riptide, it consumes the Riptide and increases your Chain Heal by 25% on all jumps of that Chain Heal. With T10 2 items set bonus it will additionally grant you 20% spell haste for the next spell cast.

Note, that only a direct Chain Heal will proc Riptide, not the jumps and Chain Heal from other shaman will not proc your Riptide.

You will not be able to cast Riptide and Chain Heal in gear all the time as Riptide has initial 6 second cooldown, so pay keep an eye on the spell tooltip and use the Riptide + Chain Heal bundle if possible in a situation when you would generally cast Chain Heal.

Healing Wave

This is the largest heal shaman can cast. Not taking into account your spell haste, it takes 2.5 seconds to cast (3.0 seconds without talents). Basically the situation when you may find this spell most useful is when you need have some significant healing on a single target (for example when you assigned to a certain tanks’ healing) and in a bundle with Nature’s Swiftness often saves lives.

Lesser Healing Wave

This is the fastest but smallest heal a shaman can cast. In addition, Tidal Waves does not reduce the GCD and thus LHW throughput is capped by the GCD.

LHW is most powerful when a shaman have Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave and an Earth Shield on the target.  You may find it mostly useful when you assigned to a single target healing.

Earth Shield

A shield with 6 charges (8 with talents) that heals the wearer every few seconds while taking damage.

You want to have Earth Shield on one of the tanks all the time.

How much healing the Earth Shield does is based on the spellpower at the time it is cast, not when it procs.

One of the most frequently asked questing is: how does ES affects tanks aggro?

The aggro from healing is attributed to the person who cast the shield starting in Patch 3.0.2. Each point of damage healed will generate 0.725 threat divided evenly among the mobs present.

Protection paladins have a talent called Spiritual Attunement that restores mana equal to 10% of the healing they receive. Since Patch 2.1.0, they have received mana back from the healing done by Earth Shield (and Prayer of Mending). Each point of mana restored generates 0.5 threat.

Earthliving Weapon

This is a weapon buff used by shamans to increase the effectiveness of healing.

Make sure that this buff is always on your weapon. Earth Living Weapon causes any direct heals to proc a small hot called Earthliving on the target.

Earthliving procs off:

* Riptide
* Healing Wave
* Lesser Healing Wave
* Any bounce of Chain Heal

The proc has no internal cool down and can potentially proc off every Chain Heal bounce.

Earthliving will not proc off:

* Healing Stream Totem
* Earth Shield
* Ancestral Awakening
* Glyph of Healing Wave

Ancestral Awakening

This is a passive ability and it works like this: each time you crit with Lesser Healing Wave or Healing Wave or Riptide, you instantly heal the raid member with the lowest percentage of health within 40 yards for 30% of the amount healed (including any overhealing).

As of Patch 3.0.9, this talent benefits from purification, so in practice Ancestral Awakening heals for 33% of the total heal.

Ancestral Awakening cannot crit and will not proc earthliving.

Tidal Force

Using Tidal Force gives you a buff with 3 charges. Each charge increases your chance to crit with lesser healing wave, healing wave and chain heal. Each crit consumes a charge INCLUDING each jump of chain heal. Therefore, it’s possible for one chain heal to use all three charges. Tidal Force is best used with Healing Wave or Lesser Healing Wave, as they greatly increase the chance for mana returned via improved water shield, and have a chance to proc ancestral awakening (if applicable).

Often used in conjunction with Nature’s Swiftness to increase the size of an emergency heal. Tidal Force has a 3-minute cool down.

Tidal Waves

This is a passive ability.

When you cast Chain Heal or Riptide, you have a 100% chance to lower the cast time of your Healing Wave spell by 30% and increase the critical effect chance of your Lesser Healing Wave spell by 25%, until two such spells have been cast.

Your Lesser Healing Wave spell gains an additional 10% of your spell power, and your Healing Wave spell gains an additional 20% of your spell power. This effect is passive and completely independent of the Tidal Waves proc.

And that’s about it. So much for shamans’ healing abilities.

However, there’s one more spell I can’t pass by, thought it’s not a literally a healing spell.

Water Shield

It’s a very valuable tool for the Restoration Shaman which plays very important role in mana regeneration.

It costs no mana to cast.

It’s important to have it on at all times and refresh it before it expires. I personally recommend to wait until all the charges have been used, but refresh you WSh whenever you have time (i.e. when there’s a lull in healing and you can spare your global cooldown time to put up new charges) .

Improved Water Shield: this talent now has a 10/20/30% chance to be triggered by Chain Heal, and the charges of Water Shield are no longer consumed by this talent.

Part 3: Totems

With help of default totem UI you can customize up to three sets of totems (4 totems in each set). You can now instantly drop 4 different totems on one global cooldown. It still costs the combined mana cost of all four totems.

Most totems affect everyone in your raid or party within 30 yards. The following are exceptions and only affect the 5 people in your party:

* Mana Tide Totem:  Restores 24% of a player’s mana over 12 seconds. 5-minute cool down. This spell is available in restoration branch only and therefore can be used only by restoration shamans (neither elemental nor enhancement will ever go that deep into restoration tree).
* Healing Stream Totem: Amount healing depends on the +spell power of the shaman. Talents boost the amount healed by 45%. A glyph boosts the amount another 20%.
* Tremor Totem
* Cleansing Totem

As you can have only 1 totem of each element at a time, you’ll need to prioritize them.

AIR:

1. Windfury Totem if there is no Frost Death Knight or Enhancement Shaman (who will certainly have it in his set)
2. Wrath of Air Totem otherwise

FIRE:

1. Flametongue Totem if there is no Elemental Shaman or Demonology Warlock in your group.
2. Searing Totem or Magma Totem if you can spare the global cooldown to refresh them and there is no danger of grabbing aggro on phase transitions or aggoing other mobs.
3. Since Patch 3.3.0 Fire Elemental Totem has a 10 min cooldown (down from 20 min) what makes it an excellent option of a fire totem during a boss fights. So, as Jimmy Morrison used to say: “Come on baby, light my fire!”

EARTH:

1. Strength of Earth Totem if there is no Enhancement shaman. Death Knights have a similar buff called Horn of Winter Horns of Winter; however it lasts only 2 minutes (3 minutes with glyph).
2. Stoneskin Totem which stacks with a paladin’s devotion aura.
3. Tremor Totem as needed.

WATER:

1. Mana Spring Totem if there is no paladin for Blessing of Wisdom which is utterly a rare case.
2. Healing Stream Totem
3. Cleansing Totem as needed

Note: sometimes a restoration shaman will need to drop Windfury, Strength of Earth and Flametongue totems even if presence of enhancement shaman in a raid if the raid is spread out to provide additional coverage.

Part 4: To wear, or not to wear

With so many types of healers in the game it’s easy to get lost in many quasi-healing stats.

Let’s see what stats are actually useful for a shaman and prioritize them.

1) Haste rating

Until you have a soft cap of 1269 buffed and Spell power – the 2 most important stats for a restoration shaman. But if Spell Power is an indispensable attribute of any casters / healer piece, haste rating is something you should particularly look for as it occurs less frequently. Also may want to use Quick King\’s Amber for your yellow and blue sockets (unless you need a blue gem for a meta gem bonus).

Spell Haste is calculated after talents.

Taking under consideration that 1% haste = 32.78 haste rating at level 80, arithmetic formulas for spell cast time modified by your haste will look like this:

Spell Cast time modified by haste = basic cast time / (1 + haste rating / 3278)

In most of the raid groups, you will have a total of 8.15% haste before gear: 5% from Wrath of Air Totem + 3% from Improved Moonkin aura (balance druids) or Swift Retribution (retribution paladin)

Haste is multiplicative so the total benefit is 8.15%

The soft haste cap for resto shamans is 1269 haste rating (38.7%). On your character sheet (without raid buffs), you approach the soft haste cap at about 30%. The soft haste cap refers to the amount of haste needed to lower the global cooldown from 1.5 seconds to 1.0 seconds. No amount of haste (including Heroism or Bloodlust) will reduce the global cooldown below 1.0 seconds. It is called a soft cap because additional haste rating will reduce the cast time of longer spells, such as Chain Heal.

Haste Need to Reduce Chain Heal Cast Time at Level 80

2.4 seconds = 137 haste rating

2.3 seconds = 286 haste rating

2.2 seconds = 447 haste rating

2.1 seconds = 625 haste rating

2.0 seconds = 820 haste rating

1.9 seconds = 1036 haste rating

2) Crit rating

Apart from increasing the pure amount of healing, your critical heals will trigger some of your abilities (such as Ancestral Healing and Ancestral Awakening). Regarding T10 set bonus the value of crit rating increased and currently it is prioritized over MP5.

3)MP5

This is a source of mana regeneration, so make sure you have gear with MP5 stat on it. You’ll also find some trinkets (like Solace of the Defeated) very useful for that purpose.

4) Intellect

Raises your total mana pool and also increase you spell crit and spell power. However the value of intellect you’ll find on the gear as a white stat should not be boosted in any ways. There’s no need to emulating a quasi-paladin full-intellect way of gearing.

10 Int = 5.5 mp5 in a five-minute fight if you use Mana Tide and have 100% uptime on Replenishment
Initial mana pool. +181 mana (3 mp5)
Replenishment 100% uptime (1.8 mp5)
Mana Tide (0.7 mp5)

10 Int = 1.8 spell power

10 Int becomes 12.1 Int with Kings and Ancestral Knowledge.
12.1 * 0.15 = 1.8 spell power (Nature’s Blessing)

10 Int = 3.3 crit rating
166.67 int = 1% crit
%1 crit = 45.91 crit rating at Level 80
12.1 Int = 3.3 crit rating

And finally, one important note: DO NOT use gear / enchants / gems with Spirit – it’s basically a waste of stat for a shaman.I hope that helped clear up some of the confusion out there with abilities and stats as the right choice of gear / tanlent build / spells really does make a big difference to your HPS.

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The Spec

This leaves 5 points. Fill them in the following order:

* Intensity: put points in as necessary to alleviate any mana concerns (unlikely that you’ll need this unless you’re quite undergeared and missing Replenishment). Note: if you’re not using 2T9, you should first move two points from Improved Moonfire to Moonglow to get more mana, before taking Intensity.
* Gale Winds: take this if you have any interest in speccing for AoE DPS; this is an enormous boost.
* Typhoon: take this if you like having another instant spell to press, basically. See below for more on potential uses.
* Improved Insect Swarm: Best remaining single-target DPS talent.
* Brambles, Owlkin Frenzy, or Genesis: All of these are very tiny DPS increases. Put any leftover points into one of them of your choice after you’ve exhausted the talent tree of anything else you need.

If you need Gale Winds and Typhoon, and still want the 3rd point in IIS, you can potentially drop one point in Balance of Power to get it (raising the hit cap), depending on what your gear options are. This is a small DPS increase at best; check the spreadsheet if you think it might be useful for you.

Finally, there’s the option to drop 2 points in iGotW or Furor to get Nature’s Focus. This is a tradeoff between pushback resistance and the tiny DPS increase from the other talents. Furor provides slightly more DPS and regen per point than iGotW. But note that you want iGotW if there are no other Druids in your raid (all other specs currently take the talent), or if you want to use the Clearcast-forcing trick described below.

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Talent details

* Genesis: Affects Hurricane and Tranquility. Stacks additively with Moonfury, Improved Moonfire, Glyph of Moonfire, Glyph of Insect Swarm, and Gale Winds.
* Starlight Wrath: Applies before any haste effects.
* Moonglow: Mana cost is rounded down after multiplying. Applies after [Spark of Hope]-type effects.
* Improved Moonfire: This damage bonus, Glyph of Moonfire, Moonfury, and Genesis all stack additively. The crit% bonus does affect DoT tick crits with the 2T9 bonus (PTR).
* Nature’s Grace: This procs off Wrath and Starfire when the spell completes, which is slightly before it does damage and shows a crit in the combat log (due to travel time for Wrath, but also a slight bit of latency in the case of Starfire). This does not proc from Hurricane or Moonfire DoT (2T9) crits, but it does proc from Starfall.
* Nature’s Reach: Stacks additively with the range reduction from [Glyph of Focus] to give Starfall a 21 yard range.
* Vengeance: Due to the odd critical bonus stacking rules, the total damage you’ll see on a crit with this and a Chaotic meta is 209%.
* Celestial Focus: Multiplies with all other haste bonuses.
* Insect Swarm: The 3% hit debuff on the target does not stack with the Hunter spell Scorpid Sting. It stacks additively with all other forms of avoidance.
* Improved Insect Swarm: As with all damage debuffs, Wrath checks for this on arrival at the target. As with all crit% player buffs, Starfire checks this when its cast completes. The Wrath buff stacks multiplicatively with other damage bonuses.
* Moonfury: Stacks additively with Eclipse (Wrath), Glyph of Moonfire, Improved Moonfire, Genesis, and the 4T9 bonus.
* Moonkin Form: The mana return does not proc from Hurricane, Starfall, or Moonfire DoT (2T9) crits. The crit bonus does not stack with the Shaman talent Elemental Oath.
* Improved Moonkin Form: The haste buff grants both melee and spell haste, and does not stack with the Paladin talent Swift Retribution.
* Improved Faerie Fire: The hit debuff does not stack with the Priest talent Misery. The crit buff is active when any Faerie Fire, not just your own, is on the target.
* Owlkin Frenzy: This can proc from physical or magical damage, but many boss abilities which hit the player frequently (e.g. Vezax’s Profound Darkness or Mimiron’s Rapid Burst) do not proc it.
* Wrath of Cenarius: This adds 0.2 (Starfire) or 0.1 (Wrath) to the spell’s spellpower coefficient. It does not apply to the effective spellpower granted by [Idol of the Shooting Star].
* Eclipse: Unlike Nature’s Grace, this procs when the associated Wrath or Starfire crit is processed on the server and appears in the combat log. In the case of Wrath which has a travel time, this results in a significant delay between the Nature’s Grace proc and the Eclipse proc.
* Force of Nature: If casting this immediately after an instant, you have to press the spell key and then click a targeting reticle in the world frame, losing a small amount of time. The Treants will attack whichever mob hates you the most, and can be easily redirected with the pet bar. They have 90% reduction against AoE damage in PvE, allowing them to survive some boss abilities. Bloodlust and Battle Shout, among other things, will particularly improve their DPS.
* Earth and Moon: The personal 6% damage buff multiplies with all other buffs. The 13% damage debuff also multiplies with all other buffs (including the 3% buff from this same talent), and does not stack with the Warlock spell Curse of the Elements or the Death Knight disease Ebon Plague. As with other damage debuffs, spells check for presence of this debuff when the arrive at their target and log damage.
* Starfall: This will not fire stars when your character is stunned, and the buff will drop entirely if you shift into a Feral form. The worst use is against a single target, where you only get 10 stars. Against multiple targets, you will get 20 stars. If those targets are tightly clumped, you will additionally benefit from splash damage.
* Improved Mark of the Wild and Furor: These stack multiplicatively with each other and with Kings.
* Omen of Clarity: Has a 3.5/60 = 5.83% chance to proc on spellcast. Does not proc from and is not consumed by shapeshifting. Gift of the Wild, if cast on 25 people, has a very high chance of proccing this.
* Master Shapeshifter: The Moonkin Form bonus multiplies with all other damage bonuses.

Resulting Spell Coefficients and Damage Multipliers

Some useful numbers to have, when fully talented and raid buffed.

Overall damage multiplier: 1.13 (Earth and Moon) * 1.04 (Master Shapeshifter) * 1.06 (Earth and Moon) * 1.03 (Sanctified Retribution) = 1.283.
Haste multiplier, before haste rating: 1.05 (Wrath of Air) * 1.03 (Celestial Focus) * 1.03 (Improved Moonkin Form) = 1.114. Multiply this by (1 + HasteRating/3279) to obtain final haste ratio.
Crit Chance, before Intellect and crit rating: 5% (Moonkin Form) + 5% (Improved Scorch) 3% (Totem of Wrath) + 3% (Improved Faerie Fire) = 16%. Adding in 4% (Nature’s Majesty), 3% (Improved Insect Swarm) and 10% (Improved Moonfire) gives 20% for Wrath, 23% for Starfire, and 26% for Moonfire, added to whatever you see reported in your character sheet when out of form.

Effective Starfire coefficient: (1 (base) + 0.2 (Wrath of Cenarius)) * 1.283 (damage multiplier) * 1.1 (Moonfury) = 1.694.
Effective Wrath coefficient: (2/3.5 (base) + 0.1 (Wrath of Cenarius)) * 1.283 (damage multiplier) * 1.1 (Moonfury) * 1.03 (Improved Insect Swarm) = 0.976.
Effective Insect Swarm coefficient, per tick: 0.2 (base) * 1.283 (damage multiplier) * 1.3 (Glyph of Insect Swarm) = 0.333.
Effective Moonfire coefficient, direct damage: 1.5/3.5 * (1.5/3.5 / (1.5/3.5 + 12/15)) (base) * 1.283 (damage multiplier) * (1 + 0.1 (Moonfury) + 0.1 (Improved Moonfire) – 0.9 (Glyph of Moonfire)) = 0.0575.
Effective Moonfire coefficient, per tick: 12/15*(12/15 / (1.5/3.5 + 12/15) / 4) (base) * 1.283 (damage multiplier) * (1 + 0.1 (Moonfury) + 0.1 (Improved Moonfire) + 0.75 (Glyph of Moonfire)) = 0.326.

Glyphs

Major Glyphs:
In most situations you will use [Glyph of Starfire], [Glyph of Moonfire], and [Glyph of Starfall].

[Glyph of Insect Swarm] is now much weaker than it used to be (because we have three other good Glyphs). Against a single target, and only if you’re not using the 2T9 set bonus, the potential gain is less than a percent (and possibly zero based on your gear) if you replace [Glyph of Moonfire] and keep IS up full-time. This is generally not worthwhile, since it removes the 3% miss debuff from IS, which is a nearly unique raid debuff (Hunters can provide it, but at a large DPS cost). I’d recommend ignoring Glyph of IS at this point.

[Glyph of Focus] will be worth swapping in anytime you regularly get to use Starfall on multiple targets during an encounter.

Minor Glyphs: none of these add any DPS, so it’s entirely up to personal taste. [Glyph of Typhoon] is the only one that affects combat mechanics, but it’s still up to you whether you prefer it or not. [Glyph of the Wild] can save a little bit of mana if you ever have to rebuff people during a fight, or if you’re trying to force a Clearcast during combat.

I hope this will be a helpful guide for you.

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Arcane (57/3/11)

Floating points: Arcane has the most flexibility of any of the mage raiding specs. Mages converting from TtW Fire to Arcane may choose to sacrifice some points in hit/mana cost reduction (Arcane Focus) in favor of other abilities. Many mages sacrifice hit talents (Arcane Focus) or threat reduction (just one point in Arcane Subtlety gives as much threat reduction as a TtW Fire has) to free up points.

Other places to move points include Magic Absorption (extra survivability with chance of mana regain) or Magic Attunement (increased range, though most raiders — this one included — will insist upon using range talents). Incanter’s Absorption was changed in 3.3.3 so it only procs off of mana shield (which you do not want to use while raiding) or Fire/Frost Ward. A few fights in ICC deal frost damage and you can take advantage of this talent to boost your spellpower at the cost of one of the other talents. I, personally, do not recommend points in Student of the Mind, as arcane mages scale poorly with crit, and the regen gained from the extra spirit is very minimal.

Pros and cons: Capable of doing the most DPS in single-target situations. Flexible rotation to suit varying mana levels. Provides 3% increased damage to party or raid with Arcane Empowerment (does not stack with the buff provided by ret paladins or beast mastery hunters). Does not provide the 5% critical strike chance debuff. Includes Focus Magic to add 3% critical strike chance to another caster. Has a number of cooldowns to provide excellent burst damage. Very low hit cap.

Stats priority: Hit to cap > spell power > haste > crit > intellect > spirit

Boss spell rotation: The short answer is to spam Arcane Blast until these two conditions are met: 1) you have four stacks of the Arcane Blast debuff and 2) you have a Missile Barrage proc, at which point you cast Arcane Missiles. Clear your stack with a regular Arcane Missiles if you don’t have the mana to push through until you get an MB proc. Do not clear your stack with arcane barrage unless you are moving and will not have time to channel Arcane Missiles before the AB debuff clears. You can cast ABarr while running with a clear stack; if doing so procs Missile Barrage, you can cast Arcane Missiles with a zero stack of Arcane Blast. If mana becomes a concern, you can reduce the number of stacks of AB you have before you use the MBAM proc; for instance, you may choose to use the hastened Arcane Missiles when you have zero, two, or four stacks of Arcane Blast. Your rotation will likely vary throughout the fight: the best mages will be those who push themselves to use up every last bit of mana. You can use evocation to restore your mana during a fight, though you’ll want to time it so it benefits from some hastened ability (such as the last second of Bloodlust/Heroism or Icy Veins), or during a phase where you aren’t supposed to be DPSing (such as the air phase of Sindragosa before ice tombs are up). Stack your cooldowns together whenever possible: trinkets should always be lined up with an arcane power, for instance. If there’s a disc priest in your raid who likes you, remember that while they can’t Power Infuse you while you have AP up, you can cast Arcane Power while infused and overwrite (and thus lose) the buff. You can use mirror images to mitigate threat (though see the Tier 10 notes below if you have the four-piece bonus).

Trash rotation: With good gear and assuming the mobs live for a while, flamestrike is the best DPS on trash. You can alternate ranks if you want to be fancy: the dots generated by the two different ranks will stack. Arcane explosion if you’re near the mobs and have chutzpah, though you’ll likely just end up with a pissed-off tank and/or a dead mage.

How tier 10 affects you: It is worth it to break 4pc T9 for 2pc T10. Once you have 2pc T10, the DPS difference between casting a Missile Barrage Arcane Missiles at lower stacks of arcane blast (say using MBAM at the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th AB) and using it only on the fourth stack is smaller: the haste proc from consuming the Barrage makes up for some of the lost DPS. With four piece T10, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using all available cooldowns with Mirror Images. Pop them first, then pop arcane power, icy veins, and any trinkets, and go to town. You can reasonably get in one arcane power while waiting for mirrors to come back up off cooldown, and have another one ready for when Mirror Images is back up.

Fire with Torment the Weak (18/53/0)

Floating points: Since 3.2.2, Combustion is worth picking up. You can sacrifice range (2/2 Flame Throwing) for increased regen (Arcane Meditation), more crit (Student of the Mind), or more resistance with the chance of mana regen (Magic Absorption). Depending on what you’re raiding, you may also want to pick up the AOE talents, Blast Wave and/or Dragon’s Breath.

Pros and cons: Capable of excellent DPS in fights with multiple targets. Can provide the 5% critical strike chance debuff to target via Improved Scorch. Rotation is extremely simple, with only one cooldown to manage. Very RNG dependent. Includes Focus Magic to add 3% critical strike to another caster. No hit from talents, so extremely high hit cap.

Stats priority: Hit > spell power > haste > crit > spirit. (At higher levels of gear, you will benefit more from haste than crit; the opposite is true as you’re gearing up.)

Boss spell rotation: For single target situations, cast living bomb, scorch if necessary, fireball until Hot Streak proc, then pyro. Resume fireball spam. Keep living bomb on the target at all times — if living bomb fades as you get a Hot Streak proc, it’s generally better to reapply living bomb before pyro. Scorch every ~28 seconds to keep the debuff up if necessary. Combustion is your only cooldown — if your tank has good aggro, blow it (along with any on-use trinkets) when your living bomb(s) and scorch still have a long time before they need refreshing — the ticks from Living Bomb will benefit from (but not consume) Combustion, and you don’t want to waste the damage modifier reapplying Scorch. Before 3.3.3, you’d want to hold off casting Pyro while Combustion was up (as Pyro didn’t benefit from TtW), but now you can DPS normally with Combustion active. Use mirror images to mitigate threat if you don’t have 4pc T10 (it at least gives your tank a second or two to taunt) and add a teensy bit more DPS. For multiple target situations, casting living bomb and maintaining it on multiple targets — particularly if those targets are grouped for the AOE explosion — will be a net DPS gain. It depends on the average lifespan of the mobs: the adds or sparks on XT will not help your DPS, the tentacles on Yogg-Saron will. Knowing the fights and your raid’s strategies is going to be the best indicator on whether or not you should be dotting up other targets.

Trash rotation: Pick two or three mobs and put living bomb on them. For mobs that will be alive for a while, cast Rank 9 Flamestrike, then Rank 8, then spam Rank 9 until the bombs explode. If the lol’bombed mobs live for 12 seconds, the explosions will generate great DPS. If your raid DPS is high and you finish off the mobs before the explosion, you’re out of luck. It’s a matter of knowing your raid’s DPS output and the health of the trash mobs (Ulduar mobs aren’t worth it, ICC ones usually are) and planning accordingly. Have fun.

How tier 10 affects you: It is worth it to break 4pc T9 for 2pc T10. With 2pc T10, your boss rotation won’t change, but you might want to weave in pyroblasts on trash to proc the haste buff, making your next flamestrike faster. With four piece T10, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using all available cooldowns with Mirror Images. For fire mages, that just means combustion and any trinkets you might have. Depending on the length of the fight, it’s probably worth it to save your second combustion to use with your second images. For really long fights, you’ll want to pop combustion every time it’s up, and save your trinkets for mirror images.

Frostfire (0/53/18)

Floating points:  Typical variations include dropping the points in Flame Throwing and putting them into improved trash DPS (Blast Wave, Dragon’s Breath) or trash control (Improved Blizzard). The two points in Improved Frostbolt are to make sure that if you do take Improved Blizzard, you aren’t inadvertantly rooting the mobs with the blizzard’s chill effect. Note that Flame Throwing does not give extra range to frostfire bolt.

Pros and cons: Provides the 5% critical strike chance debuff to target via Improved Scorch. Very RNG dependent. Extremely mana-efficient. Capable of doing good DPS with beginning raiding gear. Lower hit cap than Ttw Fire. Uses cooldowns (Combustion and Icy Veins) for burst damage.

Stats priority: Hit > spell power > crit > haste > spirit.

Boss spell rotation: For single target situations, cast living bomb, scorch if necessary, frostfire bolt until Hot Streak proc, then pyro. Resume frostfire bolt spam. Keep living bomb on the target at all times — if living bomb fades as you get a Hot Streak proc, it’s generally better to reapply living bomb before pyro. Scorch every ~28 seconds to keep the debuff up if necessary. Depending on the length of the encounter you may want to blow Icy Veins and Combustion if you have it at the start so it’ll be up again by the end of the fight; otherwise, you’ll want to save it until the boss is within Molten Fury range. Wait to use Combustion when you won’t need to refresh Living Bomb or Scorch — the ticks from Living Bomb will benefit from, but not consume Combustion, and you don’t want to waste the damage modifier reapplying Scorch. Use mirror images to mitigate threat (it at least gives your tank a second or two to taunt) and add a teensy bit more DPS. For multiple target situations, casting living bomb and maintaining it on multiple targets — particularly if those targets are grouped for the AOE explosion – will be a net DPS gain. It depends on the average lifespan of the mobs: the adds or sparks on XT will not help your DPS, the tentacles on Yogg-Saron will. Knowing the fights and your raid’s strategies is going to be the best indicator on whether or not you should be dotting up other targets.

Trash rotation: Pick two or three mobs and put living bomb on them. For mobs that will be alive for a while, cast Rank 9 Flamestrike, then Rank 8, then spam Rank 9 until the bombs explode. If the lol’bombed mobs live for 12 seconds, the explosions will generate great DPS. If your raid DPS is high and you finish off the mobs before the explosion, you’re out of luck. It’s a matter of knowing your raid’s DPS output and the health of the trash mobs (Ulduar mobs aren’t worth it, ICC ones usually are) and planning accordingly. Have fun.

How tier 10 affects you: It is worth it to break 4pc T9 for 2pc T10. With 2pc T10, your boss rotation won’t change, but you might want to weave in pyroblasts on trash to proc the haste buff, making your next flamestrike faster. With four piece T10, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using all available cooldowns with Mirror Images.

Frost with Torment the Weak(18/0/53)

Floating points:  Frost has a lot more flexibility now than it once had. If your raid doesn’t need you to provide repelenishment, drop the point in Enduring Winter. Cold as Ice isn’t really worth it: you will not need a lower cooldown on summoning your water elemental (he’s permanent with the glyph), and fights won’t last long enough for a reduced CD on Cold Snap to matter. Okay, maybe the Lich King fight lasts long enough for it to matter, but if we’re bringing frost mages to Lich King then the 30% damage buff is probably already in place and who cares what you do. (Sorry, frost mages, I have to rag on you a little.) Since 3.3.3 lets frost mages use their brain freeze proc to cast frostfire bolt in addition to fireball, there’s not much point in taking the Spell Impact talent: frostfire bolt is better DPS than fireball (even fireball with the talent).

Pros and cons: The weakest of the mage specs in terms of pure damage. Can provide replenishment via your frostbolt from Enduring Winter. Provides the 5% crit debuff more easily and consistently than fire or frostfire mages (or warlocks, for that matter), as it is applied with your main nuke. Includes Focus Magic to add 3% critical strike to another caster. Superior DPS on trash. Extremely good mana efficiency. Much better survivability (magic resistance and Ice Barrier). Lack of talents like Molten Fury mean you can frontload your damage instead of waiting for optimal settings to use cooldowns.

Stats priority: Hit > spell power > haste > crit > spirit.

Spell rotation: First priority is stacking Winter’s Chill to 5; this can be done with just a few pure frostbolts. This is easiest to do by blizzarding the boss; however, this is a personal DPS loss and probably not worth it to do in anything but a 25 man raid. Make sure your water elemental is out, pop icy veins, and start frostbolting your head off. When you get a Fingers of Frost proc, you’ll want to cast Deep Freeze immediately, and cast it every time you’re able to do so. Watch for your Brain Freeze proc (called Fireball!) and use Frostfire Bolt — not fireball — when you can. You can use Cold Snap to pick up another Icy Veins during the fight. Given how much haste mages have now, you will want to stagger Icy Veins with Bloodlust/Heroism to avoid bumping against the GCD cap. Ice lance is actually a DPS loss to cast even if FoF is up, so don’t bother. Casting ice barrier is a DPS loss, but if it can save your life, go for it.

How tier 10 affects you: It is worth it to break 4pc T9 for 2pc T10. With 2pc T10, your boss rotation won’t change (and I’m sure you’ll be hitting GCD cap at times), but you might want to weave in frostfire bolt on trash to proc the haste buff, making your next blizzard faster. With four piece T10, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using all available cooldowns with Mirror Images: icy veins, trinkets, what-have-you.

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Here’s the spec we’ll be discussing today:  51/18 /2.

This spec has been extensively tested and confirmed as one of  the highest Assassination DPS specs in patch 3.3.3.  The large amount of points in Combat allow you to pick up the haste from Lightning reflexes, which you’ll be adding to via gems.  Haste and Attack power are the best stats for this build.  Gear that focuses on these stats should be the kind of gear you’re looking for.  And now, on with the show:

This talent t requires that you use two daggers, and have Instant Poison on your main hand / Deadly Poison on your off hand  at all times.  There’s really no talented utility in this build, as it is designed for 100% pure single target DPS.

Tier 1

Malice (5/5)  – Increases your Critical Strike chance by 5% (1 per point).   This is a very powerful talent to be in a first tier, and that’s why this isn’t skipped by any Rogue, regardless of Spec.

Tier 2

Ruthlessness (3/3) – Gives your melee finishing moves a 60% chance to add a combat point to your target.  Assassination rogues rely on fast generation of combo points rather than pure energy regen like Combat.

Puncturing Wounds (3/3) – Increases the critical strike chance of your backstab ability by 30% and the critical strike chance of your Mutilate ability by 15%.  We’re taking this solely for the Mutilate crit.

Tier 3

Lethality (5/5) – Increases the critical strike damage bonus of all combo moves by 30%.  This won’t improve our white DPS, but 30% on Mutilate is too huge to ignore.

Tier 4

Vile Poisons (3/3) – Increases the damage dealt by your poisons and Envenom ability by 20% and gives your poisons an additional 30% chance to resist dispel effects.  As an Assassination Rogue, we’re always going to have poisons on both weapons (really, all rogues should), and Envenom is our main finishing move, as it will refresh Slice and Dice with a talent we’re taking later.  Buffing the damage of both is a must.

Improved Poisons (5/5) – Increases the chance to apply Instant and Deadly Poison to your targets by 10%.  We’re going to be using both of these poisons at all times.  Poisoned targets take more damage from Mutilate, the poisons themselves, and it’s necessary to use Envenom.

Tier 5

Cold Blood (1/1) – When activated, increases the critical strike chance of your next offensive ability by 100%.  A guaranteed crit.  Take it and use it as often as possible.  I tend to save mine for 5 combo point envenoms, which can crit for 15k+.

Fleet Footed (2/2) – Reduces the duration of all movement impairing abilities by 30% and increases movement speed by 15%.  This does not stack with other movement speed increasing effects.  Reducing the amount of time that you spend moving from target to target will increase your overall DPS.  You can also get this from the foot enchant Tuskar’s Vitality.  If you go that route, take these two points and place them elsewhere in the tree.

Tier 6

Seal Fate (5/5) – Your critical strikes from abilities that add combo points have a 100% chance to add an additional combo point(20% chance per point).  Between talents, buffs and abilities, Mutilate is going to crit a fair number of times, so we’re taking this for much faster combo point generation.

Murder (2/2) – Increases all damage caused against Humanoid, Giant, Beast, and Dragonkin targets by 4% (2% per point).  Unfortunately this doesn’t increase damage against undead, but we still see these types of mobs a lot in Wrath, so you’ll still get that 4% increase a fair amount of the time.

Tier 7

Overkill (1/1) – While stealthed and for 20 seconds after breaking stealth, you regenerate 30% more energy.  As Combat, it makes sense to run around outside of stealth to start rotations, as opening with Sinister Strike is often the most efficient way to start combat.  However, with this talent, it makes sense to open from Stealth whenever possible.  This basically functions as a weaker version of Combat’s Adrenaline Rush.  When killing trash, it’s generally available on every pull, and on bosses, you can use Vanish offensively to activate it multiple times in a fight.

Tier 8

Focused Attacks (3/3) – Your Melee critical strikes have a 100% chance to give you 2 Energy.  You crit with your white hits more often than you think.  This provides a much needed infusion of extra energy.

Find Weakness (3/3) – Offensive ability damage increased by 6%.  This ability is a flat 6% increase on all damage abilities you use, so you should definitely take it.

Tier 9

Mutilate (1/1) – Instantly attacks with both weapons for and additional 181 with each weapon.  Damage is increased by 20% against poisoned targets.  Awards 2 combo points.  You can’t be a true Assassination Rogue without taking this talent, as the tree is really built around it now.  True it is expensive at 60 energy (unglyphed), but it does massive damage and awards 2 combo points (3 if it crits).

Master Poisoner (3/3) – Increases the critical hit chance of all attacks made against any target you have poisoned by 3%, reduces the duration of all poison effects applied to you by 50% and increases the bonus chance to apply Deadly Poison when Envenom is used by 45%.  The raid wide critical buff is nice, but a ret paladin will also provide the same buff.  The poison duration reduction is also nice but we’re taking this for the increased chance to apply deadly poison. Having this talent will pretty much guarantee that you have 5 stacks up almost all the time.  If you do roll with a Ret Paladin and want to take Turn the tables on the other side of this tier, that’s cool too.

Tier 10

Cut to the Chase (5/5) – Your Eviscerate and envenom abilities have a 100% chance to refresh your Slice and Dice to its 5 combo point maximum.  This was one of the best improvements that Assassination got in Wrath.  If you Envenom with 1 combo point, it not only does the Envenom damage, but you’ve just hit a 5 combo point Slice and Dice as well.  The only caveat is that Slice and Dice must already be up first.

Tier 11

Hunger for Blood (1/1) – Enrages you, increasing all damage caused by 5%. Requires a bleed effect to be active on the target.  Lasts 1 minute.  We’ll be using Garrote and Rupture if needed, so there’s your bleed effect.  This buff should be kept up at all times.

Combat (13)

Dual Wield Specialization (5/5) – Increases the damage done by your offhand weapon by 50%.  This is a buff to offhand damage, which includes the offhand damage from Mutilate.  We’re taking it mainly to get deeper into the tree; plus, it’s a prereq for Close Quarters Combat.

Precision (5/5) – Increases your chance to hit with weapon and poison attacks by 5%.  The hit penalty for dual wielding is simply too high for any PvE Rogue build to skip this talent.

Close Quarters Combat  (5/5) – Increases your chance to get a critical strike with Daggers and Fist Weapons by 5%.  because you’re using two daggers, you’ll get 5% extra crit on all direct damage you do.

Lightning Reflexes (3/3) Increases your Dodge chance by 6% and gives you 10% melee haste.  The dodge is nice, but we’re mainly taking this for the haste buff.  This will cause your Deadly Poison to proc more often, which will in turn increase your Instant Poison procs.  Additionally, this means more white damage, and more Energy from Focused Attacks.

Subtlety (7)

Relentless Strikes (2/5) – Your finishing moves have a 8% per combo point to restore 25 Energy.   A 40% chance to get free energy every time you use a 5 point finisher and a 32% chance with a 4 point finisher.

The Assassination is fairly simple to play, but here are two fundamental rules.

1. Poison both of your daggers – Instant on the main hand, and Deadly on the off hand.
2. Get Hunger for Blood and Slice and Dice up as soon as possible and do not let them drop.

Rotation Startup:

* Always begin from stealth, and open with a Garrote
* Activate Hunger for Blood
* Activate Slice and Dice
* Mutilate once and then Envenom (remember this gives us a full 5 point refresh on Slice and Dice)

Main Rotation:

Note:  Hunger for Blood should be refreshed any time that it goes under 10 seconds.

* Mutilate twice to get 4 or 5 combo points
* Envenom
* Repeat

Yup, that simple.  Refresh Hunger for Blood when necessary and if you’ve got the two piece tier 10 set bonus, find someone to cast Tricks of the Trade on when it’s up.  You should only need to apply a Rupture if no one in your group can cause a bleed effect, and for that a 1 combo point Rupture will do.  Also, if you are switching mobs, don’t be afraid to use a lower combo point Envenom to keep Slice and Dice active.

To further increase your DPS, use Cold Blood on a 5 point Envenom with a full stack of Deadly poison and Vanish whenever you can to reactivate Overkill.  Additionally, if you are fighting three or more mobs, you’ll do more damage spamming Fan of Knives.

Glyph Choices

These are the three Glyphs that I use with this spec:

* Hunger for Blood (3% increase in bonus damage)
* Mutilate (5 Energy reduction
* Fan of Knives (20% more damage)

Tricks of the Trade is also a viable glyph option, especially if you and another Rogue are bouncing Tricks off each other.

I hope that you have found this guide informative and useful for a basic understanding of how to spec and play Assassination.

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Ice Block macro: Interrupts your cast, pops Ice Block, and when pressed again, will cancel Ice Block.
#showtooltip Ice Block
/stopcasting
/cast ice block
/cancelaura Ice Block

Invisibility macro: Same thing, but with Invisibility.
#showtooltip Invisibility
/stopcasting /cast invisibility
/cancelaura Invisibility

Counterspell macro: Interrupts your cast, casts counterspell.
#showtooltip Counterspell
/stopcasting
/cast counterspell

Remove curse macro: Stops casting, removes curse on target under your mouse cursor.
#showtooltip Remove Curse
/stopcasting
/cast [target=mouseover,exists] Remove Curse

Random polymorph macro: Sets your focus (clears it if you hold shift while pressing your keybind or clicking), and casts a random polymorph spell. Delete polymorph spells you don’t have.
#showtooltip Polymorph
/clearfocus [modifier:shift][@focus,dead][@focus,noexists]
/focus [@focus,noexists]
/castrandom [@focus,exists,nodead] Polymorph,Polymorph(Turtle),Polymorph(Pig),Polymorph(Rabbit)

Living Bomb focus macro: Casts Living Bomb on your focus target.
#showtooltip Living Bomb
/cast [@focus,exists,nodead] [] Living Bomb

Water elemental macro: Summons your pet and tells him to attack your current target.
#showtooltip Summon Water Elemental
/cast [nopet] Summon Water Elemental
/stopmacro [@pettarget, exists]
/petattack

Frostbolt macro for frost mages: Forces Splashy to cast his waterbolt, which could result in an overall DPS increase for you if you’re a button spammer.
#showtooltip Frostbolt
/cast Frostbolt
/use Waterbolt

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