Restoration Druid Guide (Archived)

By Jaydaa Updated: 2016/11/20

Warlords of Draenor Druid Changes GuideSpells

Rejuvenation: The classic workhorse Druid heal. A component of our healing in every situation. In the more mana-limited world of 6.0, learning to use this judiciously is key.

Lifebloom: Always have it running on somebody. Now only requires one stack, which makes maintaining it on the tank easier, and means allowing it to bloom is always fine.

Wild Growth: Larger and more expensive than in the past. Use when many targets need healing, but avoid extraneous casts. Similar mana efficiency to Rejuvenation.

Swiftmend: The first go-to option when anyone needs something faster than a HoT. Its use changes significantly with Soul of the Forest, , or both (see below).

: The most efficient direct heal, and should be used whenever time is not an issue. A very nice heal on the tank due to the Perk, , second only to Clearcast Regrowth.

Regrowth: Our fast, expensive heal. Will often be used due to Clearcast procs (Omen of Clarity). Otherwise, only use when Swiftmend and aren't enough, as it will exhaust mana quickly.

Efflorescence: Now has a mana cost, but still cheap enough to be an efficient cast even if people aren't in it for the full 30 seconds. Great whenever the raid is stationary. Not unreasonable to use as an added HoT on a lone tank. Note that it can no longer be bloomed.

: Currently has limited use due to being expensive and adding no healing of its own. Keep it in mind as an occasional option when people are low and you're worried they'll be in danger if you wait for Rejuvs to tick on their own.

Resto has one important passive to keep in mind: Mastery: Harmony. The heals which refresh it are , Swiftmend, and Regrowth. It often stays up naturally due to Swiftmends and Clearcast Regrowths, but remember to throw an HT on someone if it's about to expire.

Cooldowns

Nature's Swiftness: Despite the 1 minute cooldown, a key part of the healing arsenal. Don't hesitate to use it whenever HoTs and Swiftmend aren't enough to get someone to safe HP. You generally want to make macro that casts this and at the same time, such as:

#showtooltip Nature's Swiftness
/use Nature's Swiftness
/use

Ironbark: Another spell with a nice mix of a short cooldown and a very noticeable effect. Use this liberally as well, anytime a tank or other specific target is threatened.

Tranquility: Pours a huge amount of healing into the raid. Using this when a substantial part of the raid is low on HP will save the whole healing team quite a lot of time and mana.

Incarnation (talent): The throughput increase while this is up is significant, but what really makes it shine is the cheap Rejuvenations. You can spam quite heavily while this is up without causing mana problems.

Nature's Vigil (talent): Makes your single target heals (including HoTs) splash to other targets. Effective when many targets need healing and you have many Rejuvenations going. Strong when combined with Incarnation.

Grove Guardians (talent): Summons a pet that heals for 15 seconds. This is on the charge system, so it's okay to let 1 or 2 charges pool up at any time. Spend charges for some free healing whenever there's healing that needs to be done.

Heart of the Wild (talent): A mediocre ability for healing due to its long cooldown, but can have use if one specific part of an encounter requires unusually high healing. Can also be used if helping DPS would be especially valuable at one particular part of an encounter.

Utility

Rebirth: Now instant cast, so can virtually always be used with no delay. Make sure to advise people if they'll be in danger as they appear at your current location. In addition, a new visual indicator allows them to see where they will appear before they accept.

Stampeding Roar: Giving the raid a movement boost is a unique Druid ability that is very useful in a wide variety of raid situations. Always keep an eye out for when people can benefit from it, including by clearing multiple people from snares or roots.

CC spells: We have quite a wide variety at our disposal. Cyclone locks down a target but makes them immune to damage. Entangling Roots can root a target for a long time, but breaks easily on damage. Talents allow for a stun (Mighty Bash), AoE disorient (Incapacitating Roar), AoE root (Mass Entanglement), ranged snare (), AoE knockback (Typhoon), and the somewhat unique Ursol's Vortex.

Barkskin: always useful for keeping yourself alive. It is not on the GCD and can be pressed at any time. It should be second nature to use it when you're in any danger from incoming damage.

Dash: limited in that it only lasts while you are in Cat Form and cannot heal, but has its uses in dangerous situations.

Soothe: Especially in smaller groups with no Rogues or Hunters, you might be the only one who can do this.

Talentshttp://wod.wowhead.com/talent#zdz29M

Level 15 (movement): Displacer Beast is hard not to grow attached to once you start using it, and is worth finding a free keybind for. Feline Swiftness is acceptable passive option.

Level 30 (minor healing): Ysera's Gift and Cenarion Ward are capable of similar amounts of healing, but Ysera's Gift doesn't require any GCD's or mana from you.

Level 45 (CC): This is entirely up to what version of crowd control is best suited to a particular situation. Typhoon is the most unique and commonly used.

Level 60 (healing): Soul of the Forest and Incarnation are both very strong. Use Soul of the Forest when constant heal output is desired, and Incarnation: Tree of Life when a cooldown and/or mana efficiency will be helpful. Grove Guardians is currently weak.

Level 75 (CC): Once again, 3 crowd control choices. Ursol's Vortex is the only one which can be used at range and is a great help to anybody who is kiting. The stun or disorient can be used to interrupt casting against PvE targets.

Level 90 (healing/hybrid): Nature's Vigil has good general-purpose healing use. For purposes of doing some hybrid DPS, Heart of the Wild is usually most useful. Dream of Cenarius is a decent filler option when you don't need any throughput boost, and save some mana, but generally only is attractive on very long fights with a lot of downtime.

Level 100 (healing): Germination is always a useful option. makes for a more complex playstyle that can be effective, but generally needs to be paired with Soul of the Forest. is somewhat more limited since it only works with Regrowth and demands that you cast it immediately to get value.

Heart of the WildSoul of the ForestSwiftmendWild GrowthSwiftmendWild GrowthDream of CenariusSoul of the ForestSwiftmendRejuvenationSwiftmendWild GrowthGlyphs

: The most standard glyph, used in any content with more than 5 players.

: Good when you expect a lot of focused tank healing with Regrowth (such as in dungeons). Otherwise, it's often better to keep the Swiftmendable HoT.

: Frequently useful, since you can't go wrong with having NS available more often.

: A great utility glyph, significantly increasing the value of a unique Druid spell.

: You don't want to play around this Glyph by casting extra Rejuvenations (it's not worth it). But when you're already using enough for it to be active often, it's a nice boost to .

: For when two consecutive dispels will be helpful, but note that you can only do so once every 24 seconds.

Other options rarely have important uses.

A minor glyph, Charred Glyph, lets you choose whether your mushroom is targeted manually or on a player. Targeting manually is good to get used to, since it gives you more options.

Stats

Intellect is our primary stat and should be on all pieces of gear (except possibly for trinkets).

Spirit is generally favored over other secondary stats for healers. Use where available.

The remainder of the secondary stats are reasonably well balanced overall, but they have slightly different strengths.

Haste is very effective on HoTs because, unlike for other spells, it increases the healing they do (by adding ticks).

Mastery and Multistrike are uniform flat increases to all our heals, with Mastery slightly stronger on the numbers.

Crit gets a little added value out of , but that ultimately affects a minority of heals, and it's weaker than the above stats otherwise.

Versatility is interesting—around 20% weaker than other stats in terms of adding healing, but gives you personal damage reduction on the side, which is a nice benefit.

hereGems, Enchants, Consumables and Professions

In Warlords, gems, enchants, and food represent free choices of secondary stats (other than Spirit). If you follow the pattern above and favor haste, for example, you could use all your gems, enchants, and food buffs for haste. The exception is the weapon enchant, where there is a Spirit option, Mark of Shadowmoon, that you should use.

Flasks will still be for Intellect.

Professions no longer provide personal stat bonuses.

Contact Info and Advanced Links@HamletEJhttp://iam.yellingontheinternet.com/healercalcs/http://iam.yellingontheinternet.com/tag/healing-theory/

Comments

Comment by Skeffi

Love the guide!
It really gives a good perspective on how to play a Resto Druid.

I think new players will love these new guides here! it contains a lot of information and regulations in a coherent and transparent whole.

Comment by Ananas99

Excellent guide that covers about everything. One note though, I prefer disorienting roar from tier5 because I often find Ursols Vortex kinda hard to use and Mighty bash isnt that useful in PvE.

Comment by Aurienn

I'm curious as to why it says avoid Dream of Cenarius in the Talents section. As a disc priest who loves atonement heals, I tried this out on my resto druid and found it to be very effective at healing while conserving my mana.

Wrath is much cheaper in mana than any other druid healing spell. It's not for everyone, and it's not nearly as powerful as atonement healing, but it is good to help conserve mana, reach players who may be out of you're range, and the extra damage can help, ever so slightly, to speed up fights.

It's not for every fight, but it can be a helpful tool to use on fights where damage done is increased, or phases where not a lot of healing is needed. It can make heroics a lot more interesting as well.

It's also faster, cheaper, and stronger than Nourish, and heals about as much as the base heal from Regrowth for a third of the mana. If used in addition to HoTs, and the beautiful Wild Mushroom, it can enhance a resto druids healing.

Comment by Bufe

I must admit that I do not agree with everything in this guide.

I was using tree of life for the longest time..but felt it was hard to utilize it with a 3min cooldown...

I tried to do prooving grounds with it...and had no chance getting past wave 9 for GOLD since treeform made me oom.

Then i decided to try out
Force of nature...and it was INSANELY powerful compared to tree of life.
Soul of the forrest is only strong if you have a lot of haste, it's extremely weak if you have low haste.

Force of nature gives you:
- Insta swiftmend on the person you target it with.
- Treants cast healing touch on the most injured party members
- Efflorecense under each treant target making it very nice to use in combo with cluser scanners for Efflo utilization.
- You can use Vuhdo/grid etc to cast treants and spread it around the raid.
- You can run around the raid for exact targeting ...casting treant on yourself when you get to the point where you want it to land the Efflo.
- The HPS of Force of Nature is through the roof if you use it on multiple groups..
- Force of nature is a crazy burst HPS if used on 1 target, ie a tank in proving grounds.

Don't take everything this guide says to be the definite answer to your healing questions.

Treeform is strong, but it will also oom you and if you try to blanket the raid with lifeblooms it will take time from cooldown refreshes.

Soul of the forrest is nice for situations where you need to double the HPS of your wild growths, other than that it's not very strong. It's good for tranquility and such spells too, and used in conjunction with main efflorecense (from swiftmend or mushrooms).

As I see it, Force of Nature, in pure RAID HPS, and then especially in 25m raiding is just OP.

Treeform may be stronger for 10m raids, but AOE HPS is still best with Force of Nature.

Boof

Comment by 1362250

This guide is great! It is all i need and more! Thanks to you im not going to be confused and in the dark when I make my Druid :)

Comment by Aztecia

Is anyone maintaining this one? It's out of date now!

Comment by 1368480

I like this guide. I think it would have to be my favorite because I'm rerolling resto druid for WoD and I'm trying to learn all I can. Thank you for the help!

Comment by gwjhassink

One thing I'm somewhat sad about is losing the Efflorescence at lower levels. At least, from what I understand, the new Swiftmend no longer has the green circle effect. This is now attached to Efflorescence, learned at level 84. I guess restoration druids can run the lower content pretty good without it, but it is such an iconic druid healing spell..

Comment by Tatahe

I don't have beta to prove this but I think multistrike is a really bad stat for rdruid cause of the overhealing. Idk if multistrike is gonna be better than crit. I know crit sucks but I think multistrike is worse cause do almost the same effect on a target and don't proc the Living Seed.

Anyway great guide for people who never play rdruid before :)

Comment by Tilpion

Very good guide, I'll apply it.

Comment by Darksun

Great guide :)

Germination really looks great, 2 rejuvs and +3 second duration and if coupled with Glyph of Rejuvenation we will have 10% cast time bonus on healing touch almost all the time. It seems that we will commonly use HT with rejuv anyway.

Soul of the forest was nice with Wild Growth so still nice combination.

Rampant Growth + Soul of the Forest this will change healing rotations totally, might be a good method to make us more mobile which i think what separate druids from other healers mostly, swiftmending low duration rejuv on people and recasting it will make it 100% more effective which is same effect of germination minus 3 sec. Guess this will be way to go if we get over mana management issues which is almost common problem at the start of every expansion.

Comment by Unrelatedto

Solid guide, think the only thing that was missing was a good explanation of what exactly Incarnation does for each individual spell. The spell referenced on the guide links to the generic incarnation spell that branches into each spec's transformation but even then it doesnt explain how the spells behave while under it.

Comment by Leiyan

stupid question: how do I get the tooltips to show the resto druid stuff for this guide?

I mean, when I mouse over "Force of Nature" it tells me the treants will taunt and melee....pretty sure this is the Guardian spec version of this spell.

Comment by Imzad

Anybody else feel that haste is just not preforming as well right now as mastery?

Comment by Crusalis

Played a resto druid since BC and I can easily say this is the worst expansion to heal for a Druid. Blizzard gave every other class ways to restore mana but ours, despite us having the largest mana costs in the game.

Comment by lxfjohnson

Howdy, I been playing a resto druid for almost two years. I have three questions that is bothering me in WoD.

Back in MoP, the stat priority was obvious, you either stack mastery, or try to hit haste break points.
However, I've seen top players stack mastery, and guides that suggest mastery build.
And I also seen some top players do Haste + Multistrike. And even a good mix of everything with versatility.

1 - I am just really confused on what stat to focus on, or is it more like you want everything, while having one or two stat dominating?

2- Does choosing your dominating stat change your play style? (haste, mastery, multistrike)

3 - And lastly, If you want every stat, is there an ideal ratio? like 1.7 haste for every 1 mastery. etc. I even downloaded SimCraft, but still can't get the just of it.

Any help will be amazing, please put some insight my tree friends.

Comment by princa

Great Guide!

I was looking for a while for haste caps for Restoration Druid but couldn't find any information, so done some testing and here are the results:

1689 haste provides:

Rejuvenation 7,11 ticks for 18 sek.
Regrowth 7,14 ticks for 12 sek.
Wild Growth 8,33 ticks for 7 sek.
Tranquility 4,01 ticks for 6,74 sek.*

*With 20 haste less Tranquility ticks drop to 3,99 for 6,75 sek.

Restoration Druid Guide (Archived)

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