Welcome to this guide for Restoration Shamans, which is aimed at level 80 characters doing instances and raids, although a lot of information can still be valuable for players below that level. Over the course of this guide we will discuss all you need to know to be a decent and reliable healer, from talents to gear choices to general playstyle. There are no theoretic models for healing, so if you just want to play a role where you can be told what to do exactly, do everyone a favor and go roll DPS, read their guides and get their addons and leave the healing to people with active brain functions ;-).
Remember that a good healer is defined by the choices he or she makes. This guide will assume that you are atleast capable of that on a basic level and call upon that ability occasionally. But even in that case we will inform you about all the options and their consequences the best we can.

That said, let's start off with with the basics.

Glossary:
AA: Ancestral Awakening
CH: Chain Heal
ES: Earth Shield
FT: Flametongue (Totem)
HoT: Healing over Time (effect)
HST: Healing Stream Totem
HW: Healing Wave
MTT: Mana Tide Totem
LHW: Lesser Healing Wave
RT: Riptide
SoE: Strength of Earth (Totem)
WoA: Wrath of Air (Totem)

0. Choosing a Race

The most important thing to do here is to pick a race that you don't mind looking at for the next couple of years. A big part of that is probably the casting animations, so look at some YouTube videos of Shamans and think about having to look at that same animation for dozens of hours per week!!
Racials really have very little impact on Restoration Shamans. If you really can't decide, consider the use of racials for your secondary/DPS spec.

Here is a short list of important racial traits:

• Draenei: Instant HoT on a medium-long cooldown and a 1% melee & spell hit aura
• Orc: Bloodfury (AP+SP 'trinket' ability), Axe Spec(+5 expertise on Axes and Fist Weapons), 5% pet damage (Enhancement Spirit Wolves)
  Tauren: mediocre AoE stun, awesome looks
  Troll: 20% Haste 'trinket' ability and an amazing 10% HP regen nobody can stop!!

Until Cataclysm comes out, Alliance doesn't have much choice. As for Horde, the most often racial choices are Orc for Enhancement due to the 2 Enhancement-only racials AND the double gain from Bloodfury, and Troll for Elemental due to a better gain from Haste for casters. But ofcourse there's people like me that just want to stand out and pick a Tauren!!

Once you've decided on how exactly your Resto Shaman will look like, we can move on to the real guide.

Part 1: Talents & Glyphs