Resto Druid Guide - Updated for 3.3

[Dendrek]

This guide has not been updated for 4.0.1. Most of the information in this guide is no longer valid. I apologize for the inconvenience. Hopefully a knowledgeable and skilled resto druid will write an updated guide for Cataclysm.
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Guide Index
1. Druid Healing
2. Specs

• 2.1. Basic Point Allocation
• 2.2. Healing Specs

3. Glyphs

• 3.1. Major Glyphs
• 3.2. Minor Glyphs

4. Stat Priorities
5. Gems
6. Enchants
7. Spells

• 7.1. Healing Spells
• 7.2. Utility Spells

8. Healing Rotations
9. How to Avoid Going OOM
10. Detailed Stat Breakdown

• 10.1. Spell Power
• 10.2. Haste
• 10.3. Crit
• 10.4. Spirit
• 10.5. Intellect
• 10.6. Mp5

11. Macros

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1. Druid Healing

Resto Druids are hot healers! I'm sure that goes without saying. After all, there's nothing quite as sexy as a dancing tree! But one could also argue that this is true because druid healers have a large arsenal of Heal Over Time (HoT) spells (in addition to many other spells that synergize well with druid hots) to heal with.

Hots are spells that heal their target once every few seconds (or once every second, depending on the spell). Unlike direct heals, which must be cast after damage is taken in order to be effective, HoTs can be cast in preparation for incoming damage. When present on a target, hots guarantee that the target will receive a steady stream of healing any time damage is taken.

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.


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2. Specs

2.1. Basic Point Allocation

Base Spec (11/0/50) - 10 points remaining (ignore the one point in Improved Tranquility*).
This is the bare-bone spec that all resto druids should use, leaving several points to be distributed based on your own style of healing.

Highlights:

• Master Shapeshifter - It increases your healing while in Tree of Life.
• Omen of Clarity - Periodically makes one of your spells cost 0 mana to cast.
• Intensity - Provides a large amount of mana regen while casting.
• Nature's Swiftness - Can be used to make any number of spells, including Healing Touch and Rebirth, instant cast.
• Nature's Bounty - Increases the critical strike chance of Nourish and Regrowth by a lot, making them benefit more from other talents like Living Seed and Nature's Grace.
• Swiftmend - An instant-cast direct heal requiring that Rejuvenation or Regrowth be present on the target.
• Tree of Life - Allows you to shift into the Tree of Life form, reducing the mana cost of some spells, providing immunity to certain CC effects, and allowing you to benefit from talents like Master Shapeshifter and Improved Tree of Life. This talent defines what it means to be a resto druid.
• Improved Tree of Life - Increases armor (which decreases physical damage taken) and increases healing done based on your spirit stat.
• Gift of the Earthmother - Increases spell haste by a VERY LARGE amount. No self-respecting druid should go without this.
• Wild Growth - An important AoE raid healing spell that I recommend no druid go without.
• Nature's Spendor - Increases the duration of all druid hots.

Optional Talents:

• Living Seed - This provides extra healing if Nourish, Regrowth, Swiftmend, or Healing Touch crits. Considering Nourish's and Regrowth's high crit rate this may be a worthwhile talent to get if you use direct heals often.
• Empowered Touch - This improves the amount of healing that Nourish provides and should be considered in any Nourish-based build.
• Natural Perfection - This increases your total critical strike rating, which primarily boosts your direct heals. It's really only useful if you tank heal often.
• Revitalize - This allows Rejuvenation and Wild Growth to restore mana/rage/energy/runic power to party/raid members, adding utility to two of your most prominent healing spells. This is a worthwhile, though not mandatory, talent for any build.
• Nature's Grace - This makes the cast time of all spells lower whenever you get a crit from a direct heal. This is worth getting if you use Nourish or Regrowth often.
• Celestial Focus - This talent is used to increase your spell haste by 3%. (Note: it does require you to take 1 point in Brambles, which is a wasted talent point, but the 3% haste may well be worth it.)

Talents to Avoid:

• Lunar Guidance and Dreamstate - These talents are far too deep in the Balance tree and require too many wasted talent points to be worth obtaining.
• Improved Tranquility - Tranquility is not very useful for raid healing. You can justify getting this talent if you do mostly 5 mans, but for 10 and 25 man content don't bother with this.
• Non-Healing Talents: Furor, Improved Barkskin, Starlight Wrath, Improved Moonfire, Nature's Reach, Brambles (unless using 1 point to get Celestial Focus), etc. - None of these talents improve your healing and none should be sought after in a PvE resto build.
• Everything in the Feral tree.

Note: * The single point in Improved Tranquility is there as a filler in order to reach the talents at the end of the resto tree. This single point should be used elsewhere.

2.2. Healing Specs

*Nourish-based (Crit) Healer (11/0/60)
This is both a tank and raid healing build, but it gives special emphasis to Nourish (and to its crit modifiers) in order to make it a more powerful tank-healing spell. If you don't need the extra haste from Celestial Focus, this is perhaps the best spec to take (for raid and tank healing).

Highlights:

• Living Seed
• Empowered Touch
• Natural Perfection
• Revitalize

*Nourish-based (Haste) Healer (18/0/52) - 1 point remaining.
This build is a tank and raid healing spec that gives special emphasis to Nourish and to haste (to decrease the GCD for our instant spells and to make Nourish a faster and more reliable "flash heal"). The haste benefits hots more than a crit-build would.

Highlights:

• Empowered Touch
• Nature's Grace
• Celestial Focus

*Dedicated Raid Healer (18/0/53)
This is a specialized raid-healing spec. It prioritizes haste and focuses on Rejuvenation and Wild Growth as the druid's primary healing spells. If you're primarily a raid healer and are short on haste this is perhaps a good choice for you.

Highlights:

• Revitalize
• Nature's Grace
• Celestial Focus

Notes:
1. * These are the builds I personally recommend. All three are useful for raid and tank healing and benefit hots well. (For druids needing haste, "Dedicated Raid Healer" is the better spec for raid-healing and "Nourish-based (Haste)" is for tank-healing, otherwise "Nourish-based (Crit)" is the ideal spec to take.)
2. Do not feel that you must use one of these specs. You are free to experiment with your talent points and build a spec that works for you. Just be sure to use the Base Spec (11/0/50) (remember to ignore the point in Improved Tranquility, it's only there as a filler) in "2.1. Basic Point Allocation" and build from there.


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3. Glyphs

3.1. Major Glyphs

*Glyph of Rejuvenation - Rejuvenation provides additional healing when targets are at low health.
This glyph is a great choice for any healing spec. It's not a mandatory glyph, but it's certainly worth considering.

Pros:

• With this glyph, Rejuv acts sort of as a safety net for players at risk of dieing by healing for more.
• If your targets (the raid, for example) are often getting low on health this glyph may get a lot of use.

Cons:

• Though this is a good glyph, depending on your healing style/spec/other glyph choices, you may not have room for this glyph.

*Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation - Rejuvenation's ticks occur faster based on your total haste.
This glyph is an excellent choice in most healing situations and would be well worth the investment if you choose to use it. However, you should be aware making Rejuv tick faster is great for healing (in most situations) but can be cumbersome for the healer.

Pros:

• Causes Rejuv to tick faster, meaning that the targets of your Rejuvs will be healed up more quickly.
• This is an excellent tank-healing glyph and *can be* an excellent raid-healing glyph, especially on fights where the raid takes a lot of damage but does not require a "blanket" method of healing.

Cons:

• Because of specific haste-mechanics, using this glyph will make it so you can only Rejuv up on 12 targets at a time (vs up to 18 targets without this glyph). If your goal is to have Rejuv up on as many targets as possible this glyph will limit you. (For "blanket" healing fights, this glyph is not ideal.)
• The full duration of Rejuv decreases with the more haste you obtain, meaning that if you wish to keep it refreshed on a target (such as the tank) you will need to cast it more often (once every 12-15 seconds vs once every 18 seconds without the glyph).
• Because of the need to cast Rejuv more often, you will likely have more issues with mana and have less downtime when healing while using this glyph. The less haste you have, the less of an issue this will probably end up being.

*Glyph of Swiftmend - Makes it so that your Swiftmend no longer consumes a Rejuv or Regrowth from the target.
This is a very useful glyph for tank and raid-healing alike.

Pros:

• This glyph will likely save you mana and a GCD since you won't need to recast Rejuv or Regrowth after using Swiftmend.
• When you're GCD locked (meaning that you're spamming heals every GCD), tank healing, or blanketing the raid with hots, you will find this glyph to be very useful.

Cons:

• There aren't really any cons to using this glyph, but it's possible that you may find other glyphs that you consider to be more useful than this. Choose wisely.

*Glyph of Wild Growth - Wild Growth will heal 1 additional target.
This is a very good raid-healing glyph but loses value for druids that are primarily tank-healers.

Pros:

• When raid healing, Wild Growth will most likely make up a large portion of your effective healing, so increasing its effectiveness is definitely a good idea.
• On fights that involve blanketing the raid with hots this glyph is arguably a "must have".

Cons:

• Wild Growth being able to hit one extra target won't always be useful if there aren't enough players in range of your target or if there isn't enough damage going around. (It may not be particularly effective in 5 and 10 man content.)
• If you tend to be bad about using WG on cooldown this glyph becomes significantly less effective. For that reason it could be considered a "meh" glyph to tank healers.

*Glyph of Nourish - Nourish heals for more with each of your hots on the target.
This is mostly a tank-healing glyph, and as a tank healing glyph it's very good. It's rarely ever useful for raid healers.

Pros:

• The amount of healing Nourish does on tanks increases by A LOT with this glyph, making it well worth the investment if you need to tank-heal.
• This is better than the Regrowth glyph-alternative if you're looking for a tank-healing spell and glyph.

Cons:

• This requires that hots already be present on the target, which makes it nearly useless when raid healing.

Glyph of Regrowth - The direct heal and hot of Regrowth heal for more if Regrowth's hot is already present on the target.
This is a reasonable alternative to Nourish as a tank-healing glyph. By focusing on Regrowth as your main direct heal you are able to save a few talent points that would otherwise go to propping up Nourish. Also, Regrowth benefits well from haste, providing slightly more incentive to use it and this glyph if you have a lot of haste on your gear.

Pros:

• This provides you with a decent direct heal that is boosted by haste and cynergizes well with various non-Nourish-based talent specs.
• This increases the hot of Regrowth. For tank healing, having stronger hots on the tank is always a good thing.

Cons:

• Regrowth isn't quite as good as Nourish can be if appropriately glyphed and speced.
• The strength of this glyph only really shows when Regrowth's hot is already present on the target. This means it's somewhat useless for raid healing.

Glyph of Healing Touch - Healing Touch becomes a very fast, wearker, and less mana efficient spell.
This glyph is nearly useless. Glyphed HT does not compare to Nourish as a spammable "flash heal". It's mana inefficient. It doesn't have as high a crit modifier. And to make it "useful" requires a ton of wasted talent points. Glyphed HT is situationally useful at best.

Pros:

• When glyphed and spec'd, Healing Touch is the fastest direct heal you have (that isn't instant).

Cons:

• Glyphed HT costs too much mana. It's very inefficient.
• If only glyphed, HT's cast time is the exact same as Nourish's (making glyphing HT useless if it's not also accompanied by various talents).
• Making HT useful requires A LOT of talent points be wasted to prop it up.
• If HT is glyphed and spec'd, its cast time will become faster than the GCD. It can never be spammed any faster than Nourish can be.
• And the list goes on... DON'T GLYPH HEALING TOUCH

Glyph of Innervate - Innervate restores an additional 1573 mana to you over 10 seconds no matter who you cast your Innervate on.
This glyph is primarily only useful for druids that suffer from mana issues. It does provide a decent amount of mana, but there are much better glyphs to use in its place.

Pros:

• You gain 1573 extra mana whenever you cast Innervate in addition to the effect of Innervate (if you cast your Innervate on yourself). This is about the equivolent of using half a mana pot.
• At early levels of gear, this glyph may be needed since mana can be very difficult to manage.

Cons:

• This is a glyph slot that could have been used for something better.
• The mana gained from this glyph probably won't make a huge difference in the long run. You'd most likely see greater benefits by adjusting and being smarter with your healing rotations.

Note: * These are all glyphs that I personally recommend you use. Choose the ones that best fit your spec and style of healing.

3.2. Minor Glyphs

Unburdended Rebirth - Rebirth costs no reagent.
This is a must-have minor glyph.

Glyph of Wild - Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild cost less mana.
This is an optional glyph, but I recommend it.

Glyph of Dash - This can be useful if you're running back after a wipe, but usually you won't actually see a benefit of the reduced CD.
This is an optional glyph.

Glyph of Aquatic Form - This allows you to swim faster in aquatic form.
This is an optional glyph.


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4. Stat Priorities

Being primarily HoT-based healers, druids rely heavily on stats that improve the effectiveness of their HoTs. In general, stat priorities for druids are very simple, but at higher levels of gear these priorities change and become a bit more complex.

While in pre-raiding/5-man-heroic gear:

• Spell Power > Spirit > Int > Mp5 > Haste > Crit > Stam

Once mana becomes less of an issue:

• Spell Power > Spirit > Haste > Int > Mp5 > Crit > Stam

Once you have more than ~1500 Spell Power:

• Spell Power > Haste (to soft cap) > Spirit > Crit > Haste (past soft cap) > Int > Mp5 > Stam

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5. Gems

There are essentially three sets of gemming-standards that correspond to the Stat Priorities listed above (see "4. Stat Priorities").

At low levels of gear, while mana is still an issue:
If the socket bonus for the piece you're gemming is any amount of Spell Power or Spirit (and possibly Int, if you need the extra help - avoid Mp5 bonuses unless you're desperate) I'd recommend you go for it.

When gemming for the socket bonus, use:

• Meta Socket = Insightful Earthsiege Diamond (21Int/Can restore 600 mana on spell cast)
• Red Socket = Runed Cardinal Ruby (23SP)
• Blue Socket = Purifined Dreadstone (12SP/10Spirit)
• Yellow Socket = Luminous Ametrine (12SP/10Int)

Otherwise, if the socket bonus is useless, use all Runed Cardinal Ruby (23SP).

At higher levels of gear, where mana is much less of an issue:
If the socket bonus for the piece you're gemming is 7+ Spell Power (ignore all other socket bonuses) I'd recommend you go for it.

When gemming for the socket bonus, use:

• Meta Socket = Ember Skyflare Diamond (25SP/+2% Int)
  
  • OR Insightful Earthsiege Diamond (21Int/Can restore 600 mana on spell cast)
• Red Socket = Runed Cardinal Ruby (23SP)
• Blue Socket = Purifined Dreadstone (12SP/10Spirit)
• Yellow Socket = Reckless Ametrine (12SP/10Haste)

Otherwise, if the socket bonus is useless, use all Runed Cardinal Ruby (23SP).

*If you are at the highest levels of gear and below the haste soft-cap:
If the socket bonus of the piece you're gemming is any amount of SP or Haste (and the piece of gear doesn't have 2 or more blue gems) I'd recommend you go for it.

When gemming for the socket bonus, use:

• Meta Socket = Ember Skyflare Diamond (25SP/+2% Int)
• Red Socket = Reckless Ametrine (12SP/10Haste)
• Blue Socket = Purifined Dreadstone (12SP/10Spirit)
• Yellow Socket = Reckless Ametrine (12SP/10Haste)

Otherwise, if the socket bonus is useless, use all Reckless Ametrine (12SP/10Haste)[/url] (20Haste).

Note: * This recommendation is mostly only for people who *NEED* to be at the haste soft cap. That primarily applies to people in very difficult/progression content. At the moment, the only fights I can think of that this really applies to are ToGC Twins and ToGC Anub. If you aren't in great need to be haste soft capped, go with the second tier of gemming I suggested above.


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6. Enchants

Helm:
Arcanum of Burning Mysteries* - 30SP/20Crit, Kirin Tor - Revered
Arcanum of Blissful Mending - 30SP/10Mp5, Wyrmrest Accord - Revered

Shoulder:
@ Master's Inscription of the Storm* - 70SP/15 Crit, Requires Inscription (400 skill)
@ Master's Inscription of the Crag - 70SP/8Mp5, Requires Inscription (400 skill)
Greater Inscription of the Storm* - 24SP/15Crit, The Sons of Hodir - Exalted
Greater Inscription of the Crag - 24SP/8Mp5, The Sons of Hodir - Exalted

Cloak:
Enchant Cloak - Greater Speed* - 23Haste, Enchanting (430 skill)
Enchant Cloak - Wisdom - Reduce Threat/10Spirit, Enchanting (440 skill)

Chest:
Enchant Chest - Powerful Stats* - +10 to all stats, Enchanting (440 skill)

Wrist:
@ Fur Lining - Spell Power* - 76SP, Requires Leatherworking (400 skill)
@ Socket Bracer* - Adds gem socket to bracer, Requires Blacksmithing (400 skill)
Enchant Bracer - Superior Spellpower* - 30SP, Enchanting (440 skill)

Hands:
@ Socket Gloves* - Adds gem socket to gloves, Requires Blacksmithing (400 skill)
Enchant Gloves - Exceptional Spellpower* - 28SP, Enchanting (360 skill)

Belt:
Eternal Belt Buckle* - Adds gem socket to belt, Blacksmithing (415 skill)

Legs:
Brilliant Spellthread* - 50SP/20Spirit, Tailoring (430 skill)
Sapphire Spellthread - 50SP/30Stam, Tailoring (430 skill)

Boots:
Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality** - Minor Run Speed/15Sta, Echanting (440 skill)
Enchant Boots - Greater Spirit - 18Spirit, Enchanting (410 skill)

Rings:
@ Enchant Ring - Greater Spellpower* - 23SP, Requires Enchanting (400 skill)

1-hand Weapon:
Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spellpower* - 63SP, Enchanting (435 skill)

2-hand Weapon:
Enchant Staff - Greater Spellpower* - 81SP, Enchanting (450 skill)

Notes:
1. * Bolded item enhancements are ones I consider to be the best enchants for the given slots.
2. ** In a raiding environment I consider Enchant Boots - Tuskarr's Vitality to be superior to Enchant Boots - Greater Spirit because the run speed will make a big difference on difficult fights in helping you to get out of harm's way.
3. @ Requires you have a certain profession and be above a certain skill level to use this item enhancement.


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[Dendrek]

7. Spells

7.1. Healing Spells

Rejuvenation (Rejuv, RJ) - places a hot on the target that heals once every 3 seconds (unless glyphed) for 15 seconds (unless talented). The first tick occurs 3 seconds after the initial cast (unless equipped with 4 piece t8).

• Rejuvenation is your bread and butter! There's almost no healing situation where it isn't useful: raid and tank healing alike.

Regrowth (RG) - Provides a large direct heal and places a hot on the target that heals once every 3 seconds for 21 seconds (unless talented).

• Regrowth is a very versatile spell, providing both a direct heal and a hot. When tank healing the hot should nearly always be present on the tank. However, for raid healing Rejuvenation is usually more effective unless a direct heal is needed and Swiftmend is on cooldown.
• Druids have 2 primary "spammable" direct heals, Regrowth and Nourish. There is a lot of debate on which is more useful as a direct heal: Regrowth has a longer cast time but also provides a hot that is Swiftmend-able; whereas Nourish has a significantly faster cast time, it benefits from having hots already on the target, and it can be made a stronger heal than Regrowth with talents and glyphs. I tend to prefer Nourish, but Regrowth has its strengths, and realistically either is fine to use.

Swiftmend (SM) - Requires that RJ or RG already be present on the target. Swiftmend instantly heals the target for the total amount of health that would have healed by the hot of either Rejuvenation or Regrowth, whichever has the shortest remaining duration, and removes that hot from the target (unless glyphed).

• Swiftmend is a very efficient and very powerful direct heal. It has a cooldown, so it can't be spammed, but that shouldn't stop you from using it.
• This should be your go-to direct heal whenever it's not on cooldown. Swiftmend is one of my favorite spells. Don't ignore it.

Wild Growth (WG) - Places a hot on up to 5 party/raid members (unless glyphed), healing them once every second for 7 seconds. The amount of healing provided per tick decreases slightly over time.

• Wild Growth is a very good raid healing spell that does a lot to mitigate the effects of AoE damage.
• There are many situtions where you'd want to cast WG on cooldown, especially when raid healing.
• In general, cast Wild Growth on the melee group (which is usually grouped up) as this is often the best way to insure it will hit the maximum number of targets. If you know that the ranged are somewhat stacked up then you may WG them as well, but melee is often your best bet.
• Important: Wild Growth will always attempt to be cast on your current target, whether it be friendly or hostile. If you have an enemy targeted, WG will attempt to heal nearby friendly targets, if any exist. In its current form, Wild Growth does not recognize "mouseover" macros. However, there is a work-around that will let you use mouseover macros with WG (see "11. Macros").

Lifebloom (LB) - Places a hot on the target that stacks up to three times, healing the target once every second for 7 seconds (unless glyphed and/or talented). At the end of its duration, Lifebloom blooms, providing direct sizeable heal on the target and refunding 50% of the base mana cost of Lifebloom to the casting druid. The amount healed per tick, the size of the bloom, and the amount of mana returned with the bloom are all multiplied by the number of stacks on the target.

• The mana cost for lifebloom is extremely high, but the mana returned when it blooms makes the overall cost of casting LB pretty cheap.
• Using Lifebloom after an Omen of Clarity (OOC) proc is an easy source of free mana.
• 1. Rolling Lifebloom - this involves getting Lifebloom to 3 stacks on a single target and keeping 3 stacks on that target, always refreshing it within 1-2 second before it blooms. This is the most mana intensive method of rolling Lifebloom. It is so mana intensive that it's not worth doing unless your target is taking a ton of damage.
• 2. Slow Stacking Lifebloom - this involves building each stack of LB every 7 or 8 seconds (1-2 seconds before it's about to bloom) and then letting it bloom once it gets to 3 stacks, then starting the cycle over from 1 stack. This is the least mana intensive method of stacking lifebloom. It insures that the target has 2+ stacks most of the time, but it also means the target will not receive the full amount of healing lifebloom is able to provide most of the time. This is a good method to use when the target is not at high risk of dieing.
• 3. Fast Stacking Lifebloom - this involves building lifebloom up to 3 stacks as quickly as possible (within 3 GCDs) and then letting it bloom right away. This is rarely ever a good strategy to use as it wastes a lot of GCDs to keep LB on the target. It is, however, far less mana intensive than rolling lifebloom.

Nourish - A fast direct heal whose amount healed is increased if one or more druid hots are present on the target, in which case the healing amount is increased by a flat 20% no matter how many hots are present on the target (unless glyphed and/or equipped with 4 piece t7).

• Nourish is both an effective tank-healing spell because of the benefits it receives from hots and also makes for an effecitve "flash heal" because of its short cast time, which can be useful on occasion when raid healing.
• Nourish should generally be considered a "filler" spell between casting hots. Casting hots, however, should normally be your number one priority.
• To see my opinion on how Nourish compares to Regrowth as a direct heal see the information on Regrowth above.

Healing Touch (HT) - A slow (unless glyphed and/or talented) direct heal.

• Best used in a "NS/HT" (Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch) macro.
• Healing Touch should not be considered a useful healing spell except when used with Nature's Swiftness. Its cast time is far too long to be very effective.
• With the Glyph of Healing Touch (in addition to several "misplaced" talent points) Healing Touch can be made to have a cast time of less than 1 second. However, it is still limited by the GCD (any spell with a cast time less than the GCD, including instant cast spells (obviously), will force you to wait until the GCD is up before you can cast another spell) and it becomes very mana inefficient when glyphed. In general, you should avoid glyphing HT as it is only situationally useful and Nourish tends to be the better option if you need a "flash heal".

Tranquility - Is a channeled HoT that heals all party members in range for very large amounts once every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. It has a long cooldown (unless talented) and only effects members of the druid's party.

• This spell can be useful for healing 5 mans as a sort of "Oh S#@t!" button, but it's rarely useful in 10 and 25 mans (more so in 10 than 25). Most druids almost never cast Tranquility.

7.2. Utility Spells

Nature's Swiftness (NS) - Able to make any nature-based spell with a cast time of less than 10 seconds an instant cast spell.

• Spells that NS can affect include: Nourish, Regrowth, Healing Touch, Wrath, Cyclone, Rebirth, and Entangling Roots.
• Nature's Swiftness is arguably most useful with Healing Touch as a very powerful "Oh S#@t!" button, but can also be useful with Rebirth for instant battle resses. Avoid using it with any other spell.

Rebirth (battle res, brez) - Able to resurrect a party/raid member while in combat. Rebirth requires a reagent (unless glyphed).

• There are many fights in this game where a small handful of people are essential to the fight's success: healers, tanks, interrupters, CCers, and dpsers to a lessor extent (if the fight is a dps race). If any of those essential players happen to die your battle res may be able to save the group from a wipe.
• Don't use your Bres when: 1) It's not called for by the raid leader (unless you're in a group that doesn't call for breses, in which case use your own judgement), 2) the fight's nearly over and you're not likely to wipe, 3) you're clearly wiping and there's NO chance that the ressed person can keep you from wiping.

Innervate - Restores 7866 mana to any party or raid member over 10 seconds.

• If you are having mana problems on certain fights don't be afraid to use this on yourself.
• If you rarely have mana problems give your Innervates to someone who can use it: Healers, Arcane Mages, and casters that have recently been battle ressed are all good options.

Abolish Poison / Remove Curse - Able to remove poison debuffs or curse debuffs from friendly targets.

• As a healer it's your responsibility to remove debuffs from the raid. Be sure you can easily see when a person has a curse or poison and be quick to remove it using one of these spells.
• Abolish Poison vs Cure Poison: Abolish Poison is a buff that lasts for 12 seconds and ticks every 3 seconds, and will remove one poison effect from the target (if one is present) with each tick. It can be cast preemptively or after a poison debuff is applied and still be effective. Cure Poison is not nearly as useful and is not worth keybinding. (Thanks to Djinni and Tellaria for clearing that up!)

Barkskin - Greatly reduces incoming damage for 12 seconds.

• Make sure this is keybound to a key you can easily reach. Use it liberally any time you take or are about to take damage that may kill you. This is your most useful survival cooldown. Use it well.

Entangling Roots / Cyclone / Nature's Grasp - Able to immobilize hostile targets for a short period of time.

• It's rare, but there are certain occasions where you may need to assist the raid (or simply keep yourself alive) by using Crowd Control (CC) on hostile targets.
• Entangling Roots: does not incapacitate its target (rooted targets are still able to attack or cast). Keep in mind that if a rooted enemy's main-threat target (tank, for example) is out of range it will attack the next highest threat target that is in range. DO NOT ROOT mobs that a tank is kiting as you may cause that mob to turn and kill someone in melee range.
• Cyclone: makes targets effected by it completely invulnerable to all damage and healing. Do not cyclone targets that a tank is trying to pick up or that dps are trying to burn down.

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8. Healing Rotations

Being an effective healer most often involves knowing what kind of damage will be going out on a particular fight and then knowing what spells or healing strategies are best suited for handling that kind of damage.

Spike Damage:
Spike damage is generally considered to be a single burst of random (and often unpredictable) damage on one or more players that may put those players at risk of dieing to other sources of damage. Because of the inconsistent nature of these sources of damage, druid hots tend not to be very effective at healing them. That does not mean that druids are incapable of healing spike damage, however. You should always do your best to keep the raid alive.

If the damage hits a small number of targets:

• Nourish or Rejuv should be enough in most cases.
• Regrowth or Rejuv if you know the targets will be affected by other sources of damage.
• Wild Growth if the targets are somewhat stacked.
• Swiftmend if it's available, if there's a hot already on the target, and if a big and immediate heal is needed.

If the damage hits a large number of targets:

• Wild Growth will probably be needed.
• Pre-spam Rejuv across the raid in preparation for the damage if you have a reasonably good idea when it will occur (and if you aren't busy healing other things).
• RJx5 + WG* for damage that occurs consistently throughout the raid.

Dot Damage:
Dots are damage over time effects. They are often debuffs placed on a target that will cause that target to take a tick of damage every second (or every few seconds), where each tick may be weak, but all the ticks combined can be deadly. If you know that one or a small number of people will be hit by an ability that applies a damage over time effect to them, then your goal should be to apply the sufficient amount of hots or direct heals needed to keep them alive through that damage. There are also some raid-wide Auras in the game that cause constant dot damage, which druids are particularly good at handling.

Depending on how strong the Dot is:

• Rejuv or Lifebloom may be enough.
• Nourish + Rejuv may be needed if the target gets low on health before or around the initial tick of the dot.
• Regrowth + Rejuv may be needed if the dot does too much damage for RJ alone to cover.
• Full Hots** should be used for very strong dots. If you don't have the mana to keep LB rolling, then use a slow-stacking method. (Consider using Nourish as well if these alone are not enough.)

If the Dot is an aura or similar effect that constantly does damage to most of the raid:

• RJx5 + WG* is the standard rotation for this kind of damage.

Tank Healing:
Druids are capable tank healers and should not shy away from that responsibility when needed. Tank damage tends to be massive and spiky, and usually requires big, fast heals, while a druid's hots are mostly small and slow. However, all heals on a tank increase that tank's likelihood to survive, and druid heals are no exception. Though a druid does not have the burst-healing potential of a Paladin, druid hots mitigate the impact of incoming damage, providing a safety net that gives other healers more time to heal the tank to full.

Depending on the severity of incoming tank damage:

• Regrowth + Rejuv is the bare minimum amount of healing you'll need to provide.
• Full Hots** are generally needed. Decide, based on how much mana you have, whether it's worth keeping Lifebloom rolling. If it's not, use a slow-stacking method.
• Nourish spamming may be needed between refreshing your hots. However, keep in mind that Nourish is an expensive heal. Don't spam it more than necessary or your risk going OOM.

Notes:
1. * RJx5 + WG: A standard healing tactic for resto druids on some fights is "RJx5 + WG." It's NOT necessary for all (or even most) fights. With a 1-second GCD, you can cast 5 Rejuvs between each Wild Growth if you are spamming on GCD. Prefer to cast WG on players that are stacked, such as the melee. This healing method is particularly useful on fights that involve constant aoe damage to the raid.
2. ** Full Hots: Regrowth + Rejuv + Lifebloom (Full Hots does NOT include WG). This requires that you keep your three primary single-target hots up on the target as much as possible. For Lifebloom, it is often advisable to use a slow-stacking method rather than keeping it rolling on the target, but this depends on if you can afford the mana cost to keep it rolling.


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9. How to avoid going OOM

When appropriately geared, mana is rarely ever an issue for resto druids. However, starting resto druids may find themselves going OOM quite often.

Top reasons druids usually go OOM:

• Spamming high mana spells like Regrowth or Nourish: Don't spam your direct heals if your target is not taking enough damage to warrant such aggressive healing. Instead, maintain hots on that target; use Swiftmend when they take spike damage; use Nourish (or Regrowth) if Swiftmend is on CD; and use Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch as a last resort.
• Maintaining a 3 stack of Lifebloom without letting it bloom: The bloom restores a lot of mana. If you're casting Lifebloom on a target, be sure to let it bloom every once in a while. Slow or fast-stacking Lifebloom (see Lifebloom under "6.1. Healing Spells") is your best option if your target is not constantly taking massive bursts of damage.
• Blanketing the raid with Rejuvenations/Wild Growths: There are many fights where this is a valid method of healing, but if you don't have the mana to afford this then don't waste your time or mana doing it. Instead be smart with your hots. Also, definitely don't blanket the raid on fights that don't require it.
• Refreshing Hots too often/early: Try to avoid refreshing your hots (Rejuv, Lifebloom, or Regrowth, if it's not your primary direct heal) too early, as this is an unnecessary waste of mana. For Rejuv and Regrowth: it's better to refresh these about ~1 second after they've warn off, or at the very earliest 1-4 seconds before they've warn off. For Lifebloom: try to only refresh it about 1-2 seconds before it's about to expire.

Best ways to increase mana longevity (list in order of best option to worst):

• Innervate: Use your Innervate on yourself. It's best to use it whenever you're down ~7-10k mana.
• Trinkets: Find and equip mana-restoring trinkets. Trinkets that have spell power and mana regen are ideal.
• OOC: Use Omen of Clarity procs to cast either: Lifebloom (if no other heal is needed at that time), Regrowth (if tank healing, where a direct heal is needed or if the Hot needs to be refreshed), or Wild Growth (if raid healing).
• Potions: Use Mana Potions during fights / Drink water or mage food between pulls.
• Meta Gem: Use the meta gem Insightful Earthsiege Diamond in your helm.
• Glyph: Use Glyph of Innervate. I personally recommend avoiding using Glyph of Innervate unless mana is a serious issue as there are much better glyphs for healing than this.
• Food: If you need more help than the above give, try using spirit food (vs spell power food).
• Flask: As a LAST RESORT (I really do consider this a last resort) you may consider using Flask of Pure Mojo. I really don't like seeing Pure Mojo used over Frostwyrm.

Note: Gemming for high amounts of Int or Spirit is almost never worth doing. (In other words, don't use 20 Int or 20 Spirit gems). If mana is so bad for you that you feel the need to gem for 20 Int or 20 Spirit, you should check to make sure that you aren't needlessly wasting mana in your healing rotations.


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10. Detailed Stat Breakdowns

10.1. Spell Power
Spell Power is argueably the most important stat for a resto druid. It benefits every one of our heals and our throughput more than any other stat can (with one exception, see Note 2 in "6. Stat Priorities"). Your goal should always be to maximize spell power. Your gemming, enchanting and gear selection should reflect this.

10.2. Haste
(32.79 haste rating = 1% haste)

Total Haste Percent:
Haste effects are multiplicative (not addative). This means that with 20% haste from gear and the talent Gift of the Earthmother (10% haste), you will NOT have 30% haste (20+10). You'll actually have 32% haste. To see how this is calculated, read on.

• Convert the percents of different haste effects to decimals (25% = 0.25) then add 1 to that value. For example, 20% haste from gear = 1.20 and 10% haste from Gift of the Earthmother = 1.10.
• Multiply the effects together. So with 20% haste from gear and GotEM, you'll get: 1.20 * 1.10 = 1.32. If you ignore the 1 in 1.32 and you'll find you have 32% haste.

Cast Time Formula:
(Spell's Base Cast Time) / [1 + (Total Haste %)/100]

• Spell's Base Cast Time = The base cast time of a spell with 0% haste. For example, Nourish's base cast time is 1.5 sec.
• Total Haste % = The total of all of your haste, including Gift of the Earthmother (10% haste) and Celestial Focus (3% haste).

Haste decreases the cast time of spells and also decreases the Global Cooldown (GCD). Considering that instant spells trigger the GCD and that a large number of the spells resto druids use are instant we benefit a lot from haste. The base GCD is 1.5 seconds. It is possible to get the GCD down to 1 second, but doing so requires a lot of haste and/or certain buffs and talents.

You may hear people refer to a haste "soft cap." This is considered to be the amount of haste that's required to get the GCD to 1 second. To obtain a 1 second GCD the following amounts of haste are needed. (These values depend on whether you're buffed with Wrath of Air or Improved Moonkin Aura/Swift Retribution and whether or not you have points in Celestial Focus*.)

Both haste buffs (8%)
735 haste rating (3/3 CF)
856 haste rating (0/3 CF)

WoA alone (5%)
856 haste rating (3/3 CF)
980 haste rating (0/3 CF)

Moonkin/Swift Ret alone (3%)
936 haste rating (3/3 CF)
1063 haste rating (0/3 CF)

No haste buffs
1063 haste rating (3/3 CF)
1193 haste rating (0/3 CF)

Number of Targets of Rejuvenation:
If you are NOT using Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation, you can determine the number of targets you are able keep your Rejuv on by your total % haste (and by your GCD**).

• 12 targets = 0.00% (1.50s GCD)
• 13 targets = 8.33% (1.38s GCD)
• 14 targets = 16.67% (1.29s GCD)
• 15 targets = 25.00% (1.20s GCD)
• 16 targets = 33.33% (1.13s GCD)
• 17 targets = 41.67% (1.06s GCD)
• 18 targets = 50.00% (1.00s GCD)

Duration of Rapid Rejuvenation:
With the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation, you can determine what the duration of your Rejuvs will be based on your total % haste (and by your GCD**).

• 18s = 0.00% (1.50s GCD)
• 17s = 5.88% (1.42s GCD)
• 16s = 12.50% (1.33s GCD)
• 15s = 20.00% (1.25s GCD)
• 14s = 28.57% (1.17s GCD)
• 13s = 38.46% (1.08s GCD)
• 12s = 50.00% (1.00s GCD)

Time between ticks of Rapid Rejuvenation:
With the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation, your ticks obviously occur faster. How fast they will occur can be determined based on your total % haste (and by your GCD**).

• 3.00s = 0.00% (1.50s GCD)
• 2.75s = 9.09% (1.38s GCD)
• 2.50s = 20.00% (1.25s GCD)
• 2.25s = 33.33% (1.13s GCD)
• 2.00s = 50.00% (1.00s GCD)
• 1.75s = 71.43%
• 1.50s = 100.00%
• 1.25s = 140.00%
• 1.00s = 200.00%

Notes:
1. Haste Soft Cap: These values of haste are only really obtainable in the highest levels of gear and are only really worth going for in the highest levels of content.
2. * "(3/3 CF)" indicates haste values needed with 3 points in Celestial Focus and "(0/3 CF)" is with no points in that talent.
3. ** To determine what your GCD is, check the cast time of your Nourish. Its cast time is always the same as your GCD unless either: a) you've passed the haste soft cap, b) you have the Nature's Grace buff.

10.3. Crit
(45.91 crit rating = 1% crit)
(147.93 intellect = 1% crit)

Crit is one of your less valuable stats as it primarily only effects your direct heals (unless you have 4P t9, in which case it also benefits your Rejuvenation): Swiftmend, Nourish, Regrowth, and Healing Touch. Crit synergizes well with some of your talents: Nature's Grace and Living Seed, making it especially useful for tank healing. However, since your hots do not benefit from crit raiting, it's not a particularly valuable stat for Resto druids.

It is not necessarily a stat that needs to be avoided, but do not stack it at the cost of Spell Power or Haste.

10.4. Spirit
+10 spirit = 12.90 spirit (with IMotW, Kings and Living Spirit)
+10 spirit = 2.01 spell power (with Improved Tree of Life and Master Shapeshifter)

With proper talents, spirit increases mana regen and spell power for resto druids. It is the only stat that increases our throughput and mana-longevity (I don't consider the crit gained from Int to be a valuable throughput gain). In fact, it is the best regen stat druids have available (especially considering that mp5 appears in smaller values than spirit does on gear).

At lower levels of gear spirit is a very important stat because druids start off with very little mana regen. However, with enough gear most druids find that there are few fights that cause them to get low on mana. At this point, spell power (and, to an extent, haste) becomes a lot better than spirit.

10.5. Intellect
+10 int = 11.22 int (with IMotW and Kings)
+10 int = 168.3 mana
+10 int = 1.68 mp5 from Replenishment (assuming 100% up-time*)

Intellect increases the size if your mana pool, the amount of passive mana regen you gain from spirit*, and the amount of passive mana regen you gain from Replenishment. It is an important mana stat (obviously), but it's not better than spirit, and it's not really one that needs to be stacked beyond what already appears on your gear (unless gemming a yellow socket for the socket bonus on low levels of gear).

Note: * Replenishment rarely has a 100% up-time unless you're in a 5 or 10 man group. However, even in 25-mans the actual up-time tends to be high (80% or so).

10.6. Mp5
Mp5 means "mana per 5 seconds" and is the standard measurement for mana regen. (Mp5 as a stat is very weak for resto druids and should not be taken over spirit.)

The equation (ignoring Replenishment) that converts spirit/int to mp5 is :

• 0.016725 * sqrt(Int) * Spi

- I will add a chart showing the mp5 gained from spirit and int at a later time. -


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11. Macros

It's a good idea to set up a few useful macros that may assist you greatly when healing. Copy and Paste any macro(s) that you think you will find useful. (If there are any macros you feel I should include or changes I should make, feel free to post and I'll see what I can do.)

Mouseover Macros
It is possible to cast helpful spells on friendly targets without directly targeting them. This is done using mouseover macros. Assuming you have a mouseover macro set up to be cast on a friendly target, you would cast it by hovering your mouse over your friendly target's raid frame and hitting the keybinding for that macro. Using these macros, you can have a hostile enemy targeted while continuing to cast healing spells on the raid.

Wild Growth (Mouseover Macro)
In its current form, Wild Growth does not work properly with a normal mouseover macro. (In other words, a standard "/cast [@mouseover, help] Wild Growth" macro will not work as intended for Wild Growth.) This is because of the way Wild Growth works (see Wild Growth under "7.1 Healing Spells"). If you wish to make Wild Growth work with a mouseover macro, use the following macro.

#showtooltip
/target [@mouseover, help][@target]
/cast Wild Growth
/targetlasttarget

• Wild Growth will always attempt to be case on your current target, even if your target is hostile. This macro insures that if you are mousing over a friendly target, Wild Growth will be cast on that target instead.
• The last line, "/targetlasttarget", re-targets your previous target. You should not notice your target change when using this macro. However, that nearly instantaneous target change is necessary to insure WG is cast on the intended raid member.

Instant Healing Touch!
This is a very useful "Oh S#@t!" button that can be used to provide a massive, instant heal. It will cast Nature's Swiftness and then Healing Touch instantly with one click (unless you're running*). It's particularly useful as a tank-healing cooldown if the tank takes a massive spike of damage, Swiftmend is on cooldown, and you're afraid you may not have enough time to finish casting a direct heal before the tank takes another hit that will kill him.

#showtooltip
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast [@mouseover, help] Healing Touch; [@target, help] Healing Touch; [@player] Healing Touch

• This macro will attempt to cast Healing Touch on: 1) your mouseover target (on a unit frame) if one exists and is friendly, or 2) your main target if it exists and is friendly, or else 3) yourself.
• If Nature's Swiftness is on cooldown, this macro will cause you to begin casting Healing Touch on your mouseover/target/self. This macro will show the icon for Nature's Swiftness, which will indicate it's on CD.
• Note: * If you are moving when you click this macro, it will only cast Nature's Swiftness. When moving, you will need to click this macro twice in order for it to cast HT after NS.

One-Button Resurrection
This is a 1-button macro for both of your resses. It will attempt to cast your battle res while in combat or your normal res while not in combat.

#show Rebirth
/cast [@mouseover, combat, dead] [@target, combat, dead] Rebirth; [@mouseover, dead] [@target, dead] Revive

• This macro will attempt to cast Rebirth if you're in combat and Revive if you're not in combat. This macro will attempt to resurrect: 1) your mouseover target (on a unit frame) if it exists and is dead, or else 2) your current target if it exists and is dead.
• Warning! Be careful when ressing after a battle has ended not to use this macro while still in combat. You can sometimes be in combat a few seconds after combat has ended, and if you are this macro will attempt to battle res your target.

Survival CD
This macro will cast Barkskin and then Tranquility. Unless you're about to be 1-shot, this macro will probably save your life if you're about to die. Barkskin significantly reduces the amount of damage you're taking and prevents casting delays from attacks. This combined with Tranquility, which heals for A LOT, will probably help you (and your party, if they're in range) survive most sources of incoming damage.

#show Tranquility
/cast Barkskin
/cast Tranquility

• If you are moving, Tranquility will be interrupted.
• This macro will show the icon for Tranquility (including whether it's on CD). If Tranquility is on cooldown, this macro will still attempt to cast Barkskin (assuming it's not on cooldown).

Break Roots/Snares
Using "Powershift" macros, you can break certain types of CC without switching out of form. This macro will allow you to powershift in Tree of Life form, whether or not you're already in Tree of Life form.

#showtooltip
/cast !Tree of Life

• If you are currently in Tree of Life form, this macro will cause you to stay in ToL but will break certain types of CC effects that may be on you. If you're not in ToL form, this macro will switch you into ToL, also breaking those CC effects that may be on you.
• If you wish, you can set up powershifting macros for other forms making a macro for /cast ![form name].

Innervate on Yourself
This macro will allow you to innervate yourself without having to target yourself.

#showtooltip
/cast [@player] Innervate

• This macro will attempt to cast your Innervate on yourself no matter who you have targeted (assuming Innervate is not on CD).

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A few sections are left blank for the moment (I've spent a lot of time on this so far and am taking a break). I'll fill out the rest of this guide later.

There are other sections I may add in the future (such as a "Where to find" gearing section, an "Additional Resources" section, a "Trinket" section, and a "FAQ" section).

[Dendrek]

Reserved (just in case)

[Cerelli]

personally, i would leave your "base spec" out of the guide. listing the 1 point in improved tranquility even though you are doing it as a filler talent to move deeper into the resto tree is misleading. You also have 3/3 subtlety in all of your specs, which isn't necessary since your tanks should be competent enough to save you when new adds come into the fight. Also, an added 10% threat reduction on already low threat abilities really doesn't amount to much.

http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...2VekJMs,,10958

is also a very viable spec IMO. more of a jack of all trades spec. Assuming that you have the gear to be at or near the haste soft cap. You get good direct heals and all of the optimization for our HoTs when raid healing.

why would you even list a regrowth direct heal build? Regrowth spam has been dead and gone since the introduction of the nourish glyph and the nerf to nature's bounty. there is no case that spamming regrowth will ever trump nourish spam. Nourish is cheaper. Faster to cast. Crits just as much. And heals for more. Also spamming regrowth as a direct heal resets the hot timer every time it hits, so the HoT component of the spell will be completely negated. I'm not saying that regrowth should never be used. All i'm trying to say is that once it is rolling on somebody then don't ever refresh it again till it expires. Nourish is the better choice for a direct heal.

[Instant]

Hey thanks a lot for that

Been loking for anything like that. I had similiar thoughts on a lot things you've covered, but now i know they have sense

Anyway, cant wait for info bout glyphs. From what i saw RJ glyph is mandatory (one that makes haste work in between ticks)...

Also about soft haste cap, numbers provided are for builds with CF?

Thanks again, was helpfull :]

[Rahzel]

Nice guide, good practical info explaining the different skills. I personally use Rejuv, Wild Growth and Nourish with occasional Swiftmends when raid healing and do really well with it.

[Dendrek]

@ Cerelli

Regrowth isn't dead. I agree it's less efficient, but Regrowth benefits more from high amounts of haste than Nourish does, and since haste is our number 1 stat outside of spell power, a player would not be reprimanded for using Regrowth. Technically that "Regrowth-based" build could just as easily be a "Nourish" build, though it lacks points in Empowered Touch. I don't use this build, but I won't discount it either.

I agree with you on the 1 point in Tranquil Spirit. I actually meant to include that, but overlooked it. It's not a necessity (though it is nice to have in any build that focuses on Nourish). And yes, threat reduction is not very important for a resto druid, but there are times when you can build A LOT of threat by spamming hots, which can make it harder for tanks to pick up newly spawning adds (especially if the tank is getting their initial pickup from an MD, which can't really compete with a resto druid in threat).

I may edit the "Base Spec" as I expect that point in Imp Tranquility will be misleading. I only chose that because I figured it was an "Obviously don't get this. It's only there as a filler" talent. Thanks for the feedback though.

[edit] I edited a few things in response to your post. Thanks again!

[Dendrek]

@ Instant

Both haste buffs (8%)
736 haste rating (3/3 CF)
856 haste rating (0/3 CF)

WoA alone (5%)
856 haste rating (3/3 CF)
980 haste rating (0/3 CF)

Moonkin/Swift Ret alone (3%)
936 haste rating (3/3 CF)
1063 haste rating (0/3 CF)

No haste buffs
1063 haste rating (3/3 CF)
1193 haste rating (0/3 CF)

Notice that the first of each list has "(3/3 CF)" and the second "(0/3 CF)". The 3/3 indicates 3 points in Celestial Focus and the 0/3 indicates 0 points in that talent. I'll edit the original post later to make that clear.

[Instant]

Eh sorry, im blind :S

Think its too late for me, obviously.

Anyway, thanks for numbers and waiting for any info on glyphs, some other day

[Dendrek]

Updated with information on Glyphs.

[Djinni]

Nice guide just 1 point though.

There is no difference in cast time or mana cost between Cure Poison/Abolish Poison so theres no point listing them both, sure it might be good practice to use Cure, it shows your brain is working, but seeing as Abloish doesnt cost any extra theres no point wasting 2 Keybindings, when 1 will do.

[Dendrek]

I can't seem to find information about the success rate of Abolish Poison. It's possible that it's a 100% chance to remove a poison debuff per tick, but according to its tooltip it "attempts" to remove 1 poison effect. (Does that mean that it tries to remove a poison with each tick but is only successful when a poison is actually present? Or does it mean that if a poison is present on the target it tries to remove it? I challenge someone to say that in a way that makes more sense! English can be such an annoying language.) You have a valid point though. If I can find evidence that suggests it's a 100% success rate I'll edit the post as you have suggested.

[Tellaria]

Yes, the wording of the tooltip for Abolish poison can be misleading indeed.

I can pretty much confirm what Djinni put forward though, Abolish Poison is as effective as Cure Poison (100% removal rate in pve), and will serve you equally in any situation, if not better in cases of stacking poison debuffs.

The reason why Abolish poison's tooltip states that it "attempts" to cure a poison is, like you suspected, that it will only remove a poison if there is actually a poison effect present on the target:
Cure Poison triggers an error message if you try to cast it on a target with no poison effects affecting it, and you will be unable to cast it.
On the other hand, the "over time" nature of Abolish Poison makes it castable pre-emptively, without a poison effect necessarily present on the target. The tooltip was worded safely to reflect that, I believe.


An Excellent Guide, I was especially happy to find the "new" haste soft cap values after the GotE change, will certainly make good use of those. Thumbs up, keep it coming! 8)

[sparks]

thank you for this.
Great guide and answered a lot of questions I had.

[Devilsdance]

i didnt realize that the soft haste cap was so high, thanks for the info, guess im regemming

[Dendrek]

Updated with Gems and Enchants information.

[axxey]

A lot of good info weakened by the big flaws.

Your base spec is fail.
2 points of Subtlety gets you to next tier, beyond that gives you nothing, filler point goes in tranquil spirit.
Read tooltip on Empowered Touch now.

First thing you try to do is compartmentalise a druid healer...
Druid is the jack of all trades, only the fail ones focus on one stupid thing to the exclusion of their other strengths.

Get with the times, direct heal regrowth/nourish debate died when they changed http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=17078 to be 25% crit to both instead of 50% regrowth several patches back.

Not a bad spell breakdown apart from nourish, i say again, read this tooltip. http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=33880
Regrowth, there's no emphasis on the fact it's a 27second hot, by far longest duration, it's a spell used more for this long duration hot than it's front loaded healing.

[Dendrek]

I know what Empowered Touch does. What makes you think I don't?

Are you calling me a "fail druid"? I'm not compartmentalizing druids at all. I've suggested that they can boost certain abilities with their free talent points and glyph choices, which is indeed completely up to them. I'm just trying to give them information on how each option will effect them. There's nothing that says any of the specs I've suggested can be used "only as a tank healer" or "only as a raid healer". They're all good for both roles, but some happen to suit certain spells better than others. Nor have I said that "If you use this spec/glyph/etc you should only use these spells."

Your clearly inflammatory reply is meant only to make me feel stupid or to piss me off as there's nothing constructive about it. Sorry to disappoint you but I'm not falling for it. Obvious troll is obvious.

[Edit] To be fair, you did make 3 good points (I don't fully agree with all of them, but they are valid opinions).

Yes, I should have made it more clear that Regrowth's long hot is one of the primary reasons it's useful. (I didn't neglect to mention the usefulness of its hot, but perhaps I should emphasis it more.)

Yes, the extra point in Subtlety isn't necessary, but neither would be an extra point in Tranquil Spirit. If you use Nourish often then you may notice a difference, but otherwise it's a pretty insignificant talent point.

Yes, Regrowth is not as useful as Nourish. Nourish is very strong. But it loses a lot of that strength if it's not directly glyphed/spec'd for. You don't necessarily have to take a spec/glyph build that buffs Nourish in order to be a viable healer. And if you opt to go with a build that doesn't boost Nourish, you won't really see a difference between Nourish and Regrowth (as direct heals). Whereas without a spec that props Nourish, I'd argue that Regrowth becomes better than Nourish because of the hot and because of the benefit it receives from haste. (My Regrowth has a 1.4 second cast time without NG up.)

[Spudinski]

So I have been playing WoW for about 2 1/2 years now, and only have one Level 80. I have many alts, but I tend to get disenchanted with the leveling process and just focus on my mage. Well finally I have a Druid that I am getting close to end-game content, and for the first time I would like to try something different than my typical glass cannon dps. Having no idea how to heal, I came across your post and I must say it has been incredibly informative. I feel like the first time I get into a group I have a much better chance of not being the Epic-Fail Healer (that I enjoy complaining about so much when I am playing my mage...)

My big question is, What types of Add-ons do you consider somewhat necessary? I have the typical ones you would expect, DBM, Quartz, Bartender4, etc... I am concerned about being effective as a healer, figuring out how to know when to jump to other targets aside from the tank (mostly in raid situations, when I cant necessarily see the other 5 or 20 people in the raid)

Thanks again, your guide has been extremely helpful!!

[zattox]

Very nice guide. i have been looking for an update to the one that is a sticky at the top of the druid thread. i do however have a question about the soft haste cap. Can anyone comment on how the GOTEM changes affect the soft cap ? It seems your clip from elitest jerks is a small part of many different possible combinations of buffs and talents the chart i found there(see below) seems different from what you posted , is this due to the change in GotEM? . So for simplicity sake i guess my question is without buffs and 3/3 in CF and 5/5 in GotEM what is the haste rating need to be at to hit soft cap ? this chart fro EJ shows a lot less then what you post?
quoted from EJ -
Haste rating
32.79 haste rating increases your haste by 1%. If you have Gift of the Earthmother, you need 19.98% haste to get to a 1 second global cooldown, or 655 haste rating. Wrath of Air totem provides 5% haste and improved Moonkin aura provides 3% haste. Here is a list of the amount of haste rating you need with these buffs:


Wrath of Air and Improved Moonkin Aura/Swift Retribution Aura (with 3/3 Celestial Focus)
0/5 GotE = ~34.7% Haste = ~1137 Haste Rating
1/5 GotE = ~29.45% =~959 Haste Rating
2/5 GotE = ~23.85% =~782 Haste Rating
3/5 GotE = ~18.48% =~606 Haste Rating
4/5 GotE = ~13.11% =~430 Haste Rating
5/5 GotE = ~7.72% =~253 Haste Rating

Wrath of Air only (with 3/3 Celestial Focus)
0/5 GotE = ~38.7% Haste = ~1269 Haste Rating
1/5 GotE = ~33.12% =~1086 Haste Rating
2/5 GotE = ~27.60% =~905 Haste Rating
3/5 GotE = ~22.05% =~723 Haste Rating
4/5 GotE = ~16.50% =~541 Haste Rating
5/5 GotE = ~10.95% =~359 Haste Rating

Improved Moonkin Aura/Swift Retribution Aura only (with 3/3 Celestial Focus)
0/5 GotE = ~41.4% Haste = ~1358 Haste Rating
1/5 GotE = ~35.71% =~1171 Haste Rating
2/5 GotE = ~30.04% =~985 Haste Rating
3/5 GotE = ~24.40% =~800 Haste Rating
4/5 GotE = ~18.76% =~615 Haste Rating
5/5 GotE = ~13.11% =~430 Haste Rating

No outside buffs at all (only 3/3 Celestial Focus)
0/5 GotE = ~45.6% Haste = ~1497 Haste Rating
1/5 GotE = ~39.80% =~1305 Haste Rating
2/5 GotE = ~33.97% =~1114 Haste Rating
3/5 GotE = ~28.15% =~923 Haste Rating
4/5 GotE = ~22.32% =~732 Haste Rating
5/5 GotE = ~16.50% =~541 Haste Rating

Wrath of Air and Improved Moonkin Aura/Swift Retribution Aura
0/5 GotE = ~38.7% Haste = ~1269 Haste Rating
1/5 GotE = ~33.12% =~1086 Haste Rating
2/5 GotE = ~27.60% =~905 Haste Rating
3/5 GotE = ~22.05% =~723 Haste Rating
4/5 GotE = ~16.50% =~541 Haste Rating
5/5 GotE = ~10.95% =~359 Haste Rating

Wrath of Air only
0/5 GotE = ~42.9% Haste = ~1407 Haste Rating
1/5 GotE = ~37.12% =~1217 Haste Rating
2/5 GotE = ~31.41% =~1030 Haste Rating
3/5 GotE = ~25.71% =~843 Haste Rating
4/5 GotE = ~19.98% =~655 Haste Rating
5/5 GotE = ~14.27% =~468 Haste Rating

Improved Moonkin Aura/Swift Retribution Aura only
0/5 GotE = ~45.6% Haste = ~1497 Haste Rating
1/5 GotE = ~39.80% =~1305 Haste Rating
2/5 GotE = ~33.97% =~1114 Haste Rating
3/5 GotE = ~28.15% =~923 Haste Rating
4/5 GotE = ~22.32% =~732 Haste Rating
5/5 GotE = ~16.50% =~541 Haste Rating


Are these numbers out of date?
thanks for your input and great job on the guide