"Druids have a variety of tools to use, making them very versatile healers. With the ability to heal many players at once, druids are among the best raid healers in the game. Likewise, with a large arsenal of HoTs and direct heals to choose from, druids make excellent secondary (support) tank healers, and can even excel as the solo or primary tank healer, depending on the difficulty of the encounter. A skilled resto druid is a valuable asset to any party or raid."
I suggest you this spec thats my personal build
Talents explained (healing view):
#Genesis: Increases the healing done by our hots by 5%, anything that increases healing is a must have since we're Hot healers.
#Moonglow: Reduces the mana cost of Healing Touch, Nourish, Regrowth and Rejuvenation by 9%, very valuable for both tank (saves up mana when spamming Nourish) and raid healing. (saves up mana when spamming Rejuvenation)
#Nature's Majesty: Increases the crit chance of Nourish and Healing Touch.
#Nature's Splendor: Increases the duration of Rejuvenation by 3 secs, Regrowth by 6 secs and Lifebloom by 2 secs - Hots lasting longer means fewers gcds resulting in more healing dished out.
#Improved Mark of the Wild: Increases the effect or Mark/Gift of the Wild and increases your attributes by 2%.
#Nature's Focus: Reduces pushback while casting Healing Touch, Nourish, Regrowth and Tranquility by 70%, not terrible nor great, it's mostly situational and needed to advance to the next tier.
#Subtlety (2/3): Reduces the threat generated by your restoration spells by 20%, only 2 points in Subtlety are needed to advance to the next tier, more useful in pvp than pve.
#Natural Shapeshifter: Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifting by 30%, not so great in pve since you'll be staying in Tree of Life form most of the time.
#Intensity: Allows 50% of your mana regen to continue while casting, a must have.
#Omen of Clarity: Your heals have a chance to proc "Clearcasting", which makes your next heal or attack free.
#Master Shapeshifter: Increases healing in Tree of Life form by 4%.
#Tranquil Spirit (1/5): Tranquil spirit reduces the mana cost of Healing Touch, Nourish and Tranquility, this talent is mostly useful if you tank heal and/or have mana issues, if not 1 point in it is enough to move to the next tier.
#Improved Rejuvenation: Increases the effect of your Rejuv spell by 15%, duh Rejuvenation is our basic go to heal.
#Nature's Swiftness: Makes your next nature spell with a base cast time less than 10 secs an instant cast, commonly used for an oh-**** heal (NS+HT) or instant battle ress. (NS+Rebirth)
#Gift of Nature: Increases the effect of all healing spells by 10%, obviously a must have.
#Empowered Touch: Your Healing Touch spell gains an additional 40% and your Nourish spell gains an additional 20% of your bonus healing effects, a must have for tank healing or extreme situations when emergency (high) heals are needed, I find myself always speccing with this .
#Nature's Bounty: Increases the crit chance on your Regrowth and Nourish by 25%, basic tank healing talent or emergencies plus is of great use if you have Nature's Grace/Living Seed/etc.
#Living Spirit: Increases your total spirit by 15%, this gives you mana regen, but also converts to spellpower through your Tree of Life talent but these buffs are relative small ones.
#Swiftmend: Consumes (or not if glyphed) a Rejuvenation or Regrowth on your target and instantly heals them for 12 secs of Rejuvenation or 18 secs of Regrowth.
#Empowered Rejuvenation: The bonus healing effects of all HoTs spells is increased by 20%, obvious choice.
#Tree of Life (ToL): Reduces the mana cost of all HoTs by 20% (note: you don't have to be in ToL for this benefit), also grants you the ability to shapeshift into ToL form, while in ToL form you increase healing received by 6% for all party/raid members but you can only cast restoration spells, Innervate, Barkskin, Nature's Grasp and Thorns.
#Improved Tree of Life: Increases your armor by 200% and also increases healing spellpower by 15% of your spirit while in ToL form, so while in ToL form your heals and HoTs are more powerful.
#Gift of the Earthmother: Increases your total spell haste by 10% and reduces the base cooldown of your Lifebloom spell by 10%, essential for reducing our gcd to 1 sec.
#Wild Growth: Heals 5 (6 if glyphed) party/raid members within 15 yards of you, it's healing decreases slowly as it fades - this can be lowered by having 2pc T10. (the healing decreas as it fades reduces)
Tree Hopping makes other healing classes Jely
Spells explained (healing view):
We have 5 types of spells:
~Instant Hot: Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, Wild Growth
~Instant Direct Heal: Swiftmend
~Direct Heal with Hot: Regrowth
~Direct Heal: Nourish, Healing Touch
~Channeled: Tranquility
#Lifebloom: Instant cast HoT that ticks every second for 7 seconds (9 with Nature's Splendor, 10 with Glyph of Lifebloom), can be used as a single stack for a small amount of healing or stacked to 3 for a powerful HoT on tanks or anyone else taking sustained damage. When allowed to expire, it "blooms" for a good-sized direct heal which can crit and also returns 50% of the base mana cost of the spell.
#Rejuvenation: Instant cast HoT that ticks every 3 seconds for 15 seconds (18 with Nature's Splendor), if you're using Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation, the overall duration will be shorter, but the ticks will be closer together. (depending on your haste)
#Nourish: 1.5 second cast (less with haste) direct heal. Small base heal, but can be buffed by adding a HoT to your target thus Nourish will heal for 20% more, if you also have the Glyph of Nourish, each HoT will heal for an additional 6%. (note: Lifebloom counts as a single HoT, regardless of the number of applications on the target)
#Regrowth: 2 second cast (less with haste) heal with a direct heal and a HoT heal that ticks every 3 seconds for 21 seconds (27 seconds with Nature's Splendor) ,perfect for tank healing or for healing someone who has lost a portion of their HP and may take further damage in the next 20-30 seconds.
#Swiftmend: Instant cast direct heal that consumes either a Rejuvenation or a Regrowth from your target, this Rejuvenation or Regrowth can be yours or another druid's - excellent for tank healing but also for spot raid healing.
#Wild Growth: Instant cast multi-target HoT that ticks every second for 7 seconds, with a 6 second cooldown, the initial tick is the strongest, getting lower as the Hot reaches it's end.
#Healing Touch: 3 second cast (less with haste, less with Naturalist - but this is not a raiding talent), its slow cast time means that it is hardly ever used for raiding other than with Nature's Swiftness thus becoming useless.
#Tranquility:Channeled, party-wide spell that ticks every 2 seconds for 8 seconds (with haste, ticks are closer together and overall duration is reduced). 8 minute cooldown (less with talents - although generally not taken for raiding) - Ticks cannot crit!
- Other -
#Barkskin: Reduces damage taken by 20% (30% talented) and makes you immune to spell pushback while it lasts, sweet for situations when you have to spam heal or need to use a channeled spell - usable while in any form and while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep.
#Nature's Grasp: Perfect for situations when you're being pursued by a mob, when he hits you, he'll get rooted - next to Barkskin this is one of our best defensive abilities.
#Entangling Roots: Sometimes used in pve to CC mobs, to stop them from reaching you or someone else.
#Innervate: The target regenerates mana equal to 225% of the druid's base mana pool over 10 sec. 3 minute cooldown - at level 80, this is 7866 mana (9439 with Glyph of Innervate), also the sooner you use this, the sooner you can re-use it.
#Nature's Swiftness: Makes your next nature spell an instant cast, commonly used with Healing Touch or Rebirth, you can macro these to turn it into 1 cast.
#Abolish Poison: Acts like a Hot that attempts to cure a poison effects on the target every 3 sec for 12 secs.
#Remove Curse: Removes a curse effect from your target.
#Revive: Our out-of-combat resurrection spell, in TBC druids didn't have a normal ressurection spell like the other classes.
#Rebirth: Our in-combat resurrection spell, also known as "Combat Rez", "Battle Rez", "Bress" etc.
- Dungeon Healing -
Always pre-hot your tank with Regrowth and Rejuvenation and keep these up at all times, Lifebloom is optional since at some gear point dungeons become pure faceroll, if needed use Nourish for quick heal burst.
If you anticipate damage try and pre-hot everyone with a Rejuvenation and/or Regrowth (if needed) plus we've got Wild Growth which is amazing in dungeons and not only.
If things go wild, pop Barkskin and go Tranquility and do not forget to always hot/heal yourself too!
- Raid Healing -
Our main raid heals are Rejuvenation and Wild Growth, Nourish and Swiftmend can be used for burst healing if hots aren't enough, for fights with constant AOE or pulse damage we usually use a 5x1 rotation which is made of 5 Rejuvenations followed by a Wild Growth which is the most effective way to heal the raid - this is also known as blanketing the raid.
Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation is imo. a must for 10 man (also for 25 man but it may be draining your mana faster) due to Rejuvenation starting to heal only 3 secs after being cast, this can be speeded up by using the glyph.
Lifebloom is quick effective spot healing heal for smaller amounts of damage, don't Rejuvenate a target if they lack a really low amount of health unless you think they will take damage again soon - I usually try to blanket the raid as best as I can, even if random at times, they be lovin' my Revitalize.
- Tank Healing -
Pre-Hot your tank before he pulls, always start with Regrowth because it lasts longer followed by a Rejuvenation, then stack Lifebloom up to 3 stacks - if your mana reg isn't so great try to drink before the fight starts to begin with a full mana pool.
Keep Regrowth and Rejuvenation at all times on the tank because they buff Nourish, if it's needeed in case the tank takes heavy damage.
I suggest you let the Lifebloom "bloom" so you get the mana return else it'll drain your mana fast since Lifebloom's mana cost is quite high.
Tips
!Always stay in Tree form because it boosts the amount healed by your spells and incase an agressive npc attacks you, you'll get hit by a lower amount of melee damage thanks to the enhanced armor in Tree form.
!Never clip your hots, meaning never refresh them before their duration has finished otherwise you'll just waste ticks and mana, always wait for them to expire.
!Try to use Nourish only when you have a Hot on the target, it's not mandatory but without a Hot Nourish's heal will be quite lower and in moments with heavy damage you might want that extra bit of healing.
!Use Wild Growth only when it will heal at least 3 targets, if it's gonna hit only 1 player don't bother because you'll end up wasting a 5 or 6 man heal that could just save the day in a critical situation.
!Use Barkskin in fights with heavy damage, when you have agro, are pursued or will be using a channeled heal. - Barkskin gives you 100% pushback protection thus it's really usefull activating before Tranquility for example.
!IF needed use Innervate early and often, if not keep it for a party/raid member that needs it badly.
!Always carry mana pots just incase, you never know when they may come in handy.
!Always check if you have enough reagents for Gift of the Wild and Rebirth (if not glyphed) before an instance to prevent finding yourself in a situation to not be able to Bress or such due to the lack of a reagent.
!Try to anticipate situations such as being feared, out of range, frozen, silenced, interrupted etc - and try to have pre-HoTs up to deal with this because they will keep on healing your party/raid
!Mana problems can be easily avoided at times if you can use Lifebloom on Clearcasting proc thus gaining free mana after the Lifebloom blooms.
!Don't spam Nourish mindlessly, we're a HOT healer NOT a TANK healer like a holy paladin for example which spams Holy Light 24/7.
Don't forget to hop around whilst healing when you're bored, keep those branches fit!
Gear and Stats
- Stat Priority -
Haste (to soft cap) > Spellpower > Spirit > Crit > Int > MP5
> Spellpower: Our main stat, prioritise it even though it will increase with gear, Spellpower increases the size of our heals and hots.
> Haste: Is extremely important and valuable in order to have a 1 sec GCD which allows us to cast our heals faster, past the haste soft cap it will benefit mostly our non instant heal casts.
> Spirit: Spirit increases our mana regen and also gives a small boost to our spellpower when in Tree of Life form. (0.15 spellpower per point of spirit - 0.168 with Blessing of Kings and Improved Mark of the Wild, 0.194 with Living Spirit)
> Critical Strike Rating: 1% crit = 45.9 crit rating, crit heals do 1.5 times the healing of non-crit heals, despite that crit isn't a very desirable stat for resto druids since it doesn't benefit us as much without the 4pc T9 (allowed Rejuvenation ticks to crit) - if under the haste cap avoid items with crit.
> Intellect: Intellect will come with gear, don't prioritise it.
> Mp5: Rather aim with items with spirit than mp5 because mp5 won't give us any spellpower while in Tree of Life form nor will it scale with buffs such as Blessing of Kings.
If you're a fairly fresh gotten to 80 resto druid prioritize stats as following:
Spellpower + Enough regen to get the job done > Haste to soft cap > Spellpower > Spirit.
- Haste -
Resto druids strive for as much haste as possible in order to reach the 1 sec GCD, this is as low as the GCD goes - reducing the GCD means that we can squeeze in more spells in the same period of time. Most common example would be that with 1.5 sec GCD we could do 10 casts in 15 seconds whilst with 1 sec GCD we could do 15 casts in 15 secs
How much haste do I need?
Haste rating -> 32.79 haste = 1% spell haste
The Haste % required to reach 1.0s GCD -> 36.36% (with 5/5 Gift of the Earthmother) or 1192.36 haste
Other haste talents -> Celestial Focus
Raid buffs -> Improved Moonkin Form OR Swift Tetribution , Wrath of Air Totem
With all haste buffs at 5/5 Gift of the Earthmother, 735 is the haste soft cap with 3/3 Celestial Focus.
Without Celestial Focus, the soft cap is 856.
Gems
A resto druid should always aim for straight spellpower, except:
~If you need to activate a meta gem - use hybrid gems to activate it.
~If you need to activate a good socket bonus (7 or 9 spellpower) - use hybrid gems to activate it.
~If you need more regen - use Purified Dreadstone.
~If you need more haste - use Reckless Ametrine (preferred) in red slots.
Red - Runed Cardinal Ruby
Yellow -Reckless Ametrine
Blue - Purified Dreadstone
Meta - Insightful Earthsiege Diamond
Glyphs
*** Raid Healing: Glyph of Wild Growth,Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation,Glyph of Swiftmend,Glyph of Nourish
*** Tank Healing: Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation,Glyph of Swiftmend,Glyph of Nourish
* Minor: Glyph of WildGlyph of DashGlyph of Unburdened Rebirth
Suggested Glyphs:
Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation
Pros: Makes rej tick faster meaning your targets of your rej will be healed faster, excellent for tank and raid healing or when the party/raid takes heavy damage.
Cons: You can blanket less people meaning rej can be be on less people due to haste mechanics, also due to haste your rej will have a shorter duration thus you'll be refreshing it more often which may cause mana issues.
Glyph of Wild Growth
Pros: Will increase the effectiveness of your wild growth when raid healing IF it will hit 6 targets, some say this is a must have.
Cons: Rarely players will be grouped together so that it can hit 6, not a so great tank healing glyph.
Gyph of Rebirth
Pros: Gives full Hp to the person which you combat ress.
Cons: Don't increase the healing done.
Idols
Currently the best idol is Idol of the Idol of the Black Willow
or Idol of Flaring Growth is good too if you can't afford the EoF one.
Trinkets
There are three types of trinkets that are good for resto druids: spellpower, regen, or hybrid spellpower/regen:
@Spellpower: Scale of Fates/Althor's Abacus/Illustration of the Dragon Soul.
@Regen: Spark of Hope/Ephemeral Snowflake
@Hybrid: Show of Faith/Silver of Pure Ice/Purified Lunar Dust/Solance of the Defeated.
!Avoid trinkets that are based around intellect, crit, or require you to activate them because they are less beneficiary to you. Rather stay focused on no one dying.
Consumables
< Food: Fish Feast/Tender Shoveltusk Steak/Firecracker Salmon
< Flask: Flask of the Frost Wyrm
< Potion: Runic Mana Potion/Crazy Alchemis't Potion/Runic Mana Injector
Enchants
+Head: Arcanum of Blissful Mending
+Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Crag
+Cloak: Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed
+Chest: Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats
+Wrists: Enchant Bracers - Superior Spellpower
+Hands: Enchant Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower
+Legs: Brilliant Spellthread
+Boots: Enchant Boots - Greater Spirit/Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality
+Weapon 1H: Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower
+Weapon 2H: Enchant Staff - Greater Spellpower
* +Waist: Eternal Belt Buckle
-Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch (requires two presses if moving)
- Code:
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast Healing Touch
- Code:
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast Rebirth
- Code:
/cast [help] Innervate
/script SendChatMessage("innervated", "WHISPER", nil, UnitName("target"));
- Code:
#showtooltip Innervate
/cast [target=player] Innervate
- Code:
#showtooltip Tranquility
/cast Barkskin
/cast Tranquility
- Code:
/s Ressing %T
/cast Revive
Best in Slot Items
-Head- Sanctified Lasherweave Helmet
-Neck- Bone Sentinel's Amulet
-Shoulders- Shoulders of Frost-Tipped Thorns
-Cloak- Greatcloak of the Turned Champion
-Chest- Sanctified Lasherweave Robes/Sanguine Silk Robes
-Wrist- Bracers of Eternal Dreaming
-Weapon- Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas/Trauma
-Offhand- Sundial of Eternal Dusk
-Idol- Idol of the Black Willow
-Hands- Sanctified Lasherweave Gauntlets
-Waist- Professor's Bloodied Smock
-Legs- Sanctified Lasherweave Legplates
-Boots- Blessed Cenarion Boots
-Ring1- Ashen Band of Endless Wisdom
-Ring2- Memory of Malygos
-Trinket1-Solace of the Defeated
-Trinket2-Althor's Abacus/Glowing Twilight Scale
* Main source for this Guide is Molten and ther Forums/guids.
