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Restoration Druid Healing Starter Guide - Shadowlands 9.0.5
By Jaydaa
Last updated
2021/03/09 at 1:00 AM
View Changelog
Table of Contents
Quick Facts
Table of Contents
Guide Navigation
Welcome to our Restoration Druid starter guide, which covers everything you need to start playing a new character in Shadowlands. While our other guide pages go into more individual detail, this simple starter guide covers all the basics in one place, whether you're a new Restoration Druid, a returning player to Shadowlands, hardcore, or casual alike, it's the best place to get a beginners overview on the class. Included are basic talent builds, simplified rotations, stats, legendary recommendations, and more to get you started as quickly as possible.
Please keep in mind that this page is meant to get players started quickly as an introduction, and does not contain much in the way of detailed explanations, mechanics, competitive options, gearing, simulation comparisons, or nuance. For more in-depth information, including all those optimizations and more, check out the complete Restoration Druid Guide pages linked in the navigation on the left-hand side of the page, and if you're leveling up in Shadowlands, you can take a look at our
leveling tips
.
Overview
NEW
NEW Best Covenant
Gear
Talent Builds
NEW Legendaries
NEW Twisting Corridors
NEW Conduits
NEW Kyrian
NEW Necrolord
NEW Night Fae
NEW Venthyr
Pre-Patch
Starter Guide
Rotation, Priority, and Abilities
Advanced Concepts
Stats
Consumables
Macros & Addons
WeakAuras
Common Terms
NEW Castle Nathria Tips
NEW Mythic+
Common Questions
NEW Simulations
About the Author
This guide is currently updated and maintained by
Jaydaa
. I've been raiding in WoW for almost 15 years at various levels of progression. I've contributed to the theorycrafting of multiple healing classes, notably Mistweaver Monks and Restoration Druids. Find me on
Twitter
or on the
Wowhead Discord
username Jaydaa#2814.
Best Restoration Druid Covenant
Regarding Restoration Druids and covenant choice, there aren't any absolutely abysmal choices of covenant. If you want to choose a particular covenant for whatever reason then that option is open for you as a Restoration Druid. Most reasonable goals within the game can be accomplished regardless of covenant choice. If you're looking to push the absolute highest levels of PvE and PvP content then you're going to likely need to specialize your covenant depending on the content or specific need.
For most players that focus on PvE content, you can't beat the strength and versatility of Night Fae when it comes to covenant choice.
Convoke the Spirits
is a strong burst healing cooldown that provides significant in a variety of content including Mythic+ and
Castle Nathria
. You can also capitalize on
Convoke the Spirits
's versatility by shapeshifting to your affinity form and using this as a strong damage cooldown as well. Night Fae also backs you up with strong healing soulbinds and a narrative theme core to Druids.
Best Raid Covenants
Covenants
Performance
Best Soulbind
Kyrian
-
Kindred Spirits
Average
Kleia
Necrolord -
Adaptive Swarm
Below Average
Emeni
Night Fae
-
Convoke the Spirits
Fantastic
Dreamweaver
Venthyr
-
Ravenous Frenzy
Good
Draven
Best Mythic+ Covenants
Covenants
Performance
Best Soulbind
Kyrian
-
Kindred Spirits
Healing
: Average.
Damage
: Weak.
Kleia
Necrolord -
Adaptive Swarm
Healing
: Strong but only single target.
Damage
: Weak. Only single target.
Emeni
Night Fae
-
Convoke the Spirits
Healing
: Strong burst.
Damage
: Strong with affinity.
Dreamweaver
Venthyr
-
Ravenous Frenzy
Healing
: Strong burst.
Damage
: Strong with affinity.
Draven
More information on all of the covenants in Shadowlands for Restoration Druids can be found on the
Restoration Druid Covenant Choice Guide
.
Best Restoration Druid Covenant
Kyrian Restoration Druid GuideNecrolord Restoration Druid Guide
Night Fae Restoration Druid GuideVenthyr Restoration Druid Guide
Best Restoration Druid Legendaries
Assuming you're not looking for a specific legendary for off-spec, I currently recommend the following legendary crafting order:
#1
Craft
Vision of Unending Growth
for raid.
#2
Craft
The Dark Titan's Lesson
for Mythic+
This grants you a strong healing legendary for raid with
Vision of Unending Growth
and then as a follow up,
The Dark Titan's Lesson
, a more M+ oriented legendary. You can mix up the order of #1 and #2 depending on your specific content prioritization. If you prioritize
damage and healing
in Mythic+, then you can select
Circle of Life and Death
instead of
The Dark Titan's Lesson
.
Restoration Druid Legendaries Guide
Best Restoration Druid Talents
These Restoration Druid builds are well rounded and suited for group content. More information on all of the different talents choices and reasons for using them can be found on the
Restoration Druid Talent Guide
.
Restoration Druid Talents Guide
Restoration Druid Stat Priority
With a
diminishing return on secondary stats
in Shadowlands, we're returning to a more balanced secondary stat setup for raiding Restoration Druids that prioritizes gearing for item level.
Raiding
For raiding, you'll always prioritize item level over specific stats, but haste does tend to gain a small edge due to the beneficial interaction with our best legendary
Vision of Unending Growth
.
Item Level
Haste
Critical Strike, Versatility, and Mastery
Mythic+
For Mythic+, you'll still want to gear for item-level, but prioritize more Haste and Mastery when looking at similar item level pieces. Mastery is by far the strongest healing stat in dungeons, but it's worth noting that Mastery does not provide additional damage. If your goal is to provide as much damage as possible in Mythic+ then consider prioritizing other stats over Mastery.
Item Level
Mastery
Haste
Versatility & Crit
Restoration Druid Stats Guide
Restoration Druid Enchants and Consumables
For a brief look at enchants you'll want to utilize on your gear, we've provided the below table. For more information on all the consumables used by Restoration Druids, please see our
consumables guide
.
Restoration Druid Enchants
Slot
Recommended Enchant
Weapon
Celestial Guidance
Cloak
Fortified Leech
Chest
Eternal Stats
Bracers
Eternal Intellect
Rings
Tenet of Mastery
(Dungeons)
Tenet of Haste
(Raid).
Restoration Druid Consumables Guide
Best Restoration Druid Rotation
This is a simple priority for Resto Druids, though situations and circumstances can vary. If someone in danger of dying, then you should take whatever action necessary to prevent it regardless of how inefficient or where the action falls in this priority. More information about ability priority, important ability explanations, and advanced tips can be found in the
Restoration Druid Rotation Guide
.
Keep
Lifebloom
and
Rejuvenation
on the active tank at all times.
Lifebloom
can be swapped to non-tank targets that are taking moderate to heavy damage or to yourself if using
Photosynthesis
.
Keep
Efflorescence
active under injured targets. Usually keeping it in melee is a safe bet. However, if the ranged are taking significant raid damage and are mostly stacked you can use it there as well.
Wild Growth
on cooldown when incoming AoE damage occurs.
Use
Swiftmend
on priority or highly injured targets on cooldown. These players will require a
Rejuvenation
,
Regrowth
,
Wild Growth
HoT on them that will be consumed. Apply the HoT before if necessary, but try to prefer consuming an expiring HoT if possible to improve efficiency.
Consume
Omen of Clarity
buffs with
Regrowth
on heavily injured targets.
Regrowth
heavily injured players if necessary.
Use
Rejuvenation
as a filler raid healing ability by spreading
Rejuvenation
to players that are (or are about to) taking damage.
Use
Tranquility
when the entire group or raid is heavily injured being mindful of other healers' raid cooldowns.
Use
Moonfire
,
Sunfire
, and
Wrath
as damaging filler abilities during periods of little to zero incoming damage.
Restoration Druid Rotation Guide
Back to Top
Our Restoration Druid guides are always updated with the latest information from in-game experience, simulations, and logs; make sure to check our changelog to this page, by clicking on
View Changelog
at the top of the page. If you are interested in more in-depth Restoration Druid guides for , make sure to browse the
Navigation Bar
below, and our list of
Related Guides
just beneath the
Table of Contents
.
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