Restoration Druid Hero Talent Showdown in The War Within - Keeper of the Grove vs. Wildstalker

Posted 2024/08/14 at 6:01 AM by Voulk

Not sure what Hero Talents to play for your spec in The War Within? Check out all the released articles in the 'Hero Talent Showdown' series:
Hero Talent Showdowns in The War Within
Blood DK
Frost DK
Unholy DK
Havoc DH
Vengeance DH
Balance Druid

Feral Druid
Guardian Druid
Restoration Druid
Augmentation Evoker
Devastation Evoker
Preservation Evoker
Beast Mastery Hunter
Marksmanship Hunter
Survival Hunter
Arcane Mage
Fire Mage
Frost Mage
Brewmaster Monk
Mistweaver Monk
Windwalker Monk
Holy Paladin
Protection Paladin
Retribution Paladin
Discipline Priest
Holy Priest
Shadow Priest
Assassination Rogue
Outlaw Rogue
Subtlety Rogue
Elemental Shaman
Enhancement Shaman
Restoration Shaman
Affliction Warlock
Demonology Warlock
Destruction Warlock
Arms Warrior
Fury Warrior
Protection Warrior

For more information on Hero Talents coming in the War Within, check out our Hero Talents Overview.

The War Within Hero Talents Overview

Restoration Druid in the War WithinHero Talent Showdown: Keeper of the Grove vs. Wildstalker Thriving GrowthCat FormGrove GuardiansKeeper of the Grove

Strengths

Weaknesses

RejuvenationEfflorescenceLifebloomRejuvenationIncarnation: Tree of LifeCenarius' GuidanceGrove Guardians Wildstalker

Strengths

Weaknesses

Thriving GrowthSwiftmendProsperityEfflorescenceWild GrowthConvoke the SpiritsIncarnation: Tree of LifeCat FormWhat's Changed?Keeper of the GroveHarmony of the GrovePower of NatureControl of the DreamFlourishCenarius' MightWild GrowthRegrowthSwiftmendWildstalkerWild GrowthRakeLethal PreservationSymbiotic BloomsImplantSwiftmendNature's SwiftnessRegrowthImplantVigorous CreepersSymbiotic BloomsAnd the Winner Is...

Class Fantasy & Visuals: Wildstalker (Winner)
Neither tree offers much in regards to visuals and class fantasy is fairly weak on both. Wildstalker takes a minor win since Symbiotic Bloomss do add a new visual and Flower Walk is on-theme.

Fun & Rewarding Gameplay: Keeper of the Grove
Keeper of the Grove wins the playstyle competition since there are a lot of little bits of min maxing you can do. It has a real impact on how you form your rotation - particularly your ramp - and it's something you'll be fine tuning every pull or every dungeon. It has decent gameplay implications for a passive tree. Those wary of putting more power into Grove Guardians are right to worry, but this is a decent iteration of a Grove Guardian focused tree. They mostly just play as buffs rather than themselves taking an active part in healing.

Wildstalker adds some interesting single-target healing gameplay, but is very passive otherwise. It also has very high pull-to-pull variance and you're generally not looking for that as a healer.

Difficulty: Keeper of the Grove & Wildstalker (Tie)
Both trees have a few hooks that add difficulty. Wildstalker is passive but requires you Catweave to maximize your tree value which is a higher difficulty playstyle. Keeper of the Grove makes Grove Guardian timing a core component of your ramp and making sure you don't waste Dream Petals is more important than it might seem. If you're already a skilled resto druid then Wildstalker is probably easier but if you haven't catweaved much in the past then it's about even.

Defensiveness & Utility: Keeper of the Grove (Winner)
Both have one node focused on defensiveness but the Keeper of the Grove 8% DR is more powerful than Wildstalkers 4% more healing received in all scenarios. It does require you have Regrowth on yourself but that's a paltry requirement for such a powerful buff and nodes like Rampant Growth can even make that part automatic.

Leveling: Wildstalker (Winner)
It doesn't matter too much which you pick to level as but Wildstalker offers a little more damage. The key strengths of Keeper of the Grove like it's high burst healing isn't very useful when you're out questing and barely even registers during levelling dungeons. Wildstalker just buffs what you'll actually be doing a bit more.

Mythic+: Keeper of the Grove & Wildstalker (Tie)
The two trees are closer in power in Mythic+ than they are in raid and this could even end up a dungeon to dungeon choice depending on the format of healing you need. Keeper of the Grove will offer an accessible healing buff in any form that you can use to scale your healing up when you need it. Wildstalker offers better single target coverage, and a bit more damage. The value of both the mastery stack and +20% healing buff are also more powerful in smaller group content where you're able to have higher uptime on the group overall. The downside is that aside from Implant you're relying on RNG for a lot of that power and uptimes can be tragic.

You're also likely to prefer Keeper of the Grove early on when being able to line Grove Guardians up with the most dangerous damage checks during the week 1 Mythic+ rush could be more valuable than adding damage.

Raid: Keeper of the Grove (Winner)

Keeper of the Groves mammoth burst healing puts it clearly in front in raid. Wildstalker would have to be very overturned for its style of healing to keep up with the dominance of +70% rejuvenation healing (among other buffs!) during the most critical moments of the fight.

Best Overall: Keeper of the Grove (Winner)

Keeper of the Grove offers more overall and more in the healing formats we care most about. Grove Guardians probably weren't many of our first choices for a hero tree, but they've delivered a fairly entertaining set of talents that only put a little more power into Grove Guardian healing itself. The tree instead buffs the rest of our healing while they're out and it's tuned very well to deliver on what the tree promises.

Wildstalker is a high-RNG, heavily passive tree that you don't get a ton of interesting gameplay from. The proc rate is also not high enough that you can really lean into what should be the trees strengths. Overall it feels like a Feral tree with Resto tacked onto it.

Hero Talent FeedbackKeeper of the GroveExpansivenessTreants of the MoonMoonfireWildstalkerLethal PreservationThriving GrowthImplantBase Restoration Druid Gameplay & Talents

Master Shapeshifter no longer requires Moonkin Form to restore mana on Wrath, and mana restored is 75% higher at level 80. Solves mana issues by letting you weave in wrath casts during downtime for significant regeneration.

Flourish and Photosynthesis now share a node. Forces you to pick between our two strongest talents.

Moonkin Form removed. Greatly improves the smoothness of our caster form rotation but does cost us some fluff like Flap and the ability to ride a mount in Moonkin Form.

Should You Play Restoration Druid in the War Within?Control of the DreamVerdancyPhotosynthesisRegrowthEfflorescenceWild GrowthGrove GuardiansCat FormFlourishPhotosynthesisjustConvoke the SpiritsIncarnation: Tree of LifeHero Talent Guides for the War Within Launch

Comment by KillerMoyashi13Coming from the perspective of a feral druid player: I kept saying that wildstalker was extremely boring/underwhelming for feral and did nothing to add to your rotation, or change how you might play feral. But, I also said that resto druids were probably going to be happy to be able to catweave much better than before, and that I was happy for them.

Seeing that wildstalker is just also pretty mid for resto druid breaks my heart. Feels like feral got the short end of the stick, for very little benefit to anyone. I remember sending in feedback thru a survey months ago, letting them know that wildstalker seemed pretty weak and was way too reliant on passives. I can see now that they took that advice and wiped their arses with it.

Coincidentally, I was planning to go resto druid for TWW and after reading this over, I feel confident in that choice. I think their raid heals are looking pretty strong, and I like the premise of being able to catweave in M+, so resto druid shouldn't get too boring.Comment by EuAmoPinguinsWell, this table comparing the advantages and disadvantages of Hero Talents is something that I really liked, congratulations wowhead.
sad for the friends of the forest, bad tuning, average/bad hero talents.Comment by VinceVegaI Loved my resto for years. And wildstalker Sounds cool for m+ but rather Bad for raiding.

Keeper.... No... Those dann trees Made the whole spec very weird and it does Not feel Like you actually do anything. Hate those trees with a passion. And basically being forced to Play them now ( in raids ) and them having such a huge impact on my overall healing makes the class unplayable for me sadly.

No healing for me this expansion.Comment by MyFingerIsOnCDI Loved my resto for years. And wildstalker Sounds cool for m+ but rather Bad for raiding.

Keeper.... No... Those dann trees Made the whole spec very weird and it does Not feel Like you actually do anything. Hate those trees with a passion. And basically being forced to Play them now ( in raids ) and them having such a huge impact on my overall healing makes the class unplayable for me sadly.

No healing for me this expansion.Comment by WaffleDruidLove the guide

Lots of detail put in to it.

Just came here to say this though…

Moonkin form forced in the rotation to generate mana = sad Druid :(

Moonkin form to flap flap off a cliff without changing specs = happy Druid! :D

Moonkins big fat fluffy booty on a tiny mount while being the healer = druid dying of laughter and giggling

Moonkin form for dancing to rave music at 3am in the morning doing content = happy Druid!

Getting out with the tree buddies to keep everyone alive = happy druid! Tree rave let’s go! Get all yo hands in the airrrrrr

Tree buddies doin so much for us that we could snooze while healing = sad druid :(

Summed up these points this way because I feel this is the best way to not go on an essay long list about Druids.Comment by WildnightshadeI've been playing beta to get a feel for these hero trees. They both feel too passive and boring, especially in comparison to other healers hero trees which give you more HPS & fill holes in the rotation like Totemic as an example.
The loss of adaptive swarm for the vines is meh in willdstalker.
Blizzard leaned hard into treants for the raid spec.

Missed Opportunities:
-Acid Rain Efflorescence (fold in some damage into our Efflo).
-Adaptive Swarm Efflorescence (fold in some damage to our Efflo).
-Add in some adaptive swarm interaction with wildstalker vines so we don't completely lose adaptive swarm.
-Change Innervate to function like mana tea.
-Let druid move while casting Tranquility (like in Legion); also let Holy Priest move during Hymn.
-Lastly, unlock the racial restrictions for druid/shaman/paladin; silly to have the racial restrictions.Comment by TastelikelemonWith the removal of Luxiriant Soil alongside nerfing/placing Flourish and Photo on the same node resto druid devs literally killed the spec. Before this change we were already the highest CPM healer in raids , now with removed Lux Soil we gotta cast even more Rejuvs to sustain high Abundance for low cost Regrowths , which on the other hand leads to heavy mana dump , then you are forced to spam Wraths after Flourish ramp to regain the massive lost of mana and with lowered stats when we reach level 80. This gona feel extremely sad to play with low haste values than we are used to atm... Hero tree talents could have been much more interestingly created around other major cd spells , or a whole new extra big healing cd to substitude for Flourish/Photo being on same node kinda to fill the gap between flourish-ramps-mana-regains-of-wrath-spaming. Also they could have moved Nurturing Dormancy and Germination on the place of Call of the Elder Druid/Dream of Cenarius which would have fixed the problem where we wanna pick it but we are shorter with 1 node. Overall many bad decisions from this dev team of the spec.Comment by ryuplaneswalker-Lastly, unlock the racial restrictions for druid/shaman/paladin; silly to have the racial restrictions.Comment by Cyrus19Both hero talents change nothing about your gameplay. Wildstalker still plays Treants. Treants now just feel like they do literally nothing, also ruining the theme of Keeper of the Grove because you don't feel any power from your treants.

For casual gameplay both are fine but if you have played these in M+ on the beta you'll know that Resto Druid lost substantial burst healing moving into TWW with the gigantic nerf to treants and our Tier set going away. They basically reworked the entire spec around trees and the tier set then just removed them. I was planning to play Resto Druid in TWW but I am not anymore. This isn't a complain post. I'm just going to move onto a different class.

This is just a warning to anyone that has played Resto Druid in Season 3/4 of Dragonflight. It will NOT be the same experience in M+ moving into TWW. The spec is severely struggling with the burst damage mechanics of the bosses and trash without having the mechanics that propped us up in S3 and S4. The overall throughput of the spec is probably fine. But many bosses have moved to doing to like 140% of your HP bar in 4 seconds and the nature of HoTs is that they don't occur over 4 seconds. So you get to just watch your teammates die and can't really do anything. If you're playing Discord with a premade team tetris-ing defensives you might be able to get by and the spec does okay damage. But if you play this in PUGs it's a nightmare. And heaven forbid the common player want to run in a PUG, Blizzard is designing it around the 1%.

So, just be aware. This isn't S3/S4 Resto Druid. It's a much, much worse version that feels awful to play if you are interested in M+ content. If you're just doing Raid or open world stuff, it's fine.Comment by MorrddMake moonkin form an optional spell for resto that provides no benefits, only visuals, and allows all spells cast = happy druids.Comment by selkiesidhebears get pigeonholed into taking either lunar fire or cat.

trees get pigeonholed into mini-me(s) or cat.

just return feral to the way it was if you really want cats and bears to be the same again! stop devoting an ENTIRE HERO TALENT TREE into something that has nothing to do with our chosen spec. i want BEAR things in my hero tree, thats why i picked bear. I want tree things, ect...Comment by SpilledstarsI continue to feel like nobody at Blizz HQ who runs these numbers ever personally played Druid back in the early days.

Between the polarizing of the hero-talent pairs behaviors and the math Major Nerf for being anything except the Spec You Signed On As -

...they've basically been telling me my entire reason for wanting to roll a dru in 2004 isn't worth rolling one today. I wanted to DANCE. Shift with the winds of quests needing this or that or the other thing. To roar to the skies, or make that tiny heal blush into a heroic rescue worth.

OR. Not "exclusive or". Not "if you think Bear is interesting go play a DK". Not "Cat is like rogue only having to hit three extra buttons first". Not "Resto is like warlock only with treant friends instead!"Comment by LizzurdI guess I'm one of the few who actually enjoys using the treants. I know they got their healing nerfed a bit but I don't understand why people dislike them so much. I find them pretty damn useful no matter the content.