Resto Druid Guide
Currently updated for 6.0.3
- Introduction
- Stats
- Enchants, Gems & Consumables
- Talents
- Glyphs
- Spells and Cooldowns + Perks
- Macros
- Trinkets
- Proving Grounds / Encounter tips
- Changelog
Thank you to the MMO Champion community for interesting discussion about Resto Druids. Thanks to Hamlet @ Mal'Ganis-US for his wowhead guide and spell descriptions. Thanks to wowdb.com for not having Glyph of Healing Touch in their database..
This guide will be a collection of information that's already out there on various sites as well as my own experience and thoughts. I've played WoW for 9 years and have been playing the Druid class on-and-off since that time, most of the time playing Resto. I'm currently residing on Turalyon EU, in the guild <MM> where I will be preventing wipes for the foreseeable future.
The guide already here is outdated, though it seems Aoroc will be updating it - I don't mean to step on someone's toes here, but I felt it was time for a little change so thought I'd write this up. Feel free to delete this one if his is way better ^_^. Also, by creating a new thread people wont have to read old comments. You can find the old guide Here.
One thing to note is that this guide will be shorter than the previous guide, mainly because there are so many changes and mechanics that no longer needs mentioning (breakpoints, symbiosis, lots of enchants and gems, reforging, etc) thus the guide will shorter. Good, right? Let's get into it.
See something you disagree with? Post about it - constructively! There is no need to be rude. Constructive criticism is always appreciated, and if you have suggestion for additional info or changes, feel free to post.
Warlords changed a lot when it comes to stats, mainly breakpoints being gone from haste, as well as adding two new stats; Versatility and Multistrike. Also, Spirit is now only found on rings, neck, cloak and trinkets. Intellect is your main stat, and should be found on all of your items, except for trinkets, possibly.
There are currently two stat priorities that's popular.
Intellect > Spirit > Haste > Mastery > Multistrike = Crit > Versatility
Intellect > Mastery > Haste > Multistrike = Crit > Versatility
Haste: Reduces the cast time of your spells, and increases the amount of healing your HoTs do (extra ticks).
Mastery: Increases the potency of your singletarget heals, and gives you the Harmony buff whenever you use a singletarget heal. Harmony increases the healing of your hots.
Multistrike: Gives you a chance to deliver two extra heals at 30% strength. If your Healing Touch heals for 10.000, Multistrike would hit for 3000 twice.
Crit: Increases the critical strike chance of your heals. Critical hits with Regrowth, Swiftmend or Healing Touch also grants Living Seed.
Spirit: Increases your mana regeneration while in combat.
Versatility: Increases your healing and reduces the damage you take.
Haste and Mastery is our strongest stats since they are a guaranteed increase in healing output. Crit and Multistrike are unreliable, while Versatility isn't worth it since it's a expensive stat, as you can see below.
Best pick: Haste is better than mastery, but mastery is still a very good stat. You should try to gear for both, but prioritize haste.
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100 Mastery rating gives approximately +1.13636% increase in Mastery
88 Mastery gives 1% Mastery
91~ Haste gives 1% Haste
100 Crit rating gives approximately +0.90925% increased Crit chance
112 Crit rating gives 1% crit
100 Multistrike gives approximately 1.5152% increase in Multistrike
66 Multistrike gives 1% Multistrike
100 Versatility gives approximately +0.76941 increase in healing
131 Versatility gives a 1% increase in damage and healing
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The difference between Haste and Mastery is currently pretty small. Most people tend to favour haste since it reduces cast times and makes HoTs tick faster. Haste and Mastery works really well together, though, and all of your gear should have both Haste and Mastery on it, ideally.
Note: Wild Growth is the only spell we have that has a haste breakpoint. Not sure if this is intended, but if you're stacking haste you should easily reach this breakpoint which is 900 haste.
In Warlords, gems, enchants and food now gives you a secondary stat of your choice (exluding Spirit). That means that you can have all mastery gems, enchants and food, or haste if you prefer that. There are no socket bonuses anymore, only prismatic sockets. The only exception here is your weapon enchant, which should be Enchant Weapon - Mark of Shadowmoon
You can now only enchant the following slots: Rings, neck, cloak and Weapon.
For instance, for the Mastery enchants you have:
Enchant Ring - Gift of Mastery
Enchant Neck - Gift of Mastery
Enchant Cloak - Gift of Mastery
Your flask will still be Intellect, the Draenic Intellect Flask.
You longer gain any perks from professions, so it no longer matters what professions you have. Rocket boots and Goblin Glider from Engineering no longer works when you're in combat with a raid boss.
Feline Swiftness is a passive ability that increases your movement speed by 15% at all times.
Displacer Beast is an active ability that teleports you 20 yards forward, activates Cat Form Icon Cat Form, and grants you a 50% increase in movement speed for 4 seconds.
Wild Charge is an active ability that differs based on the shapeshift form you are in. In caster form, you fly to a nearby allies position.
Best pick: Displacer Beast
You can choose Feline Swiftness if you don't want to manage an extra spell with Displacer Beast. Stay away from Wild Charge.
Ysera's Gift is a passive spell that heals you for 4% of your maximum health every 5 seconds. If you are at maximum health, then it heals a random injured party or raid member within 100 yards for the same amount.
Renewal is a self-heal for 22% of your maximum health with a 2-minute cooldown.
Cenarion Ward is a buff that you can place on a friendly player, lasting up to 30 seconds. When the player takes damage, Cenarion Ward activates a 6-second HoT on the player, consuming Cenarion Ward in the process.
Best pick: Ysera's Gift or Cenarion Ward
If you expect a lot of heavy damage on one player (the tank, usually), Cenarion Ward is a good idea. In most other situations, Ysera's Gift will serve you better.
Faerie Swarm is an improved version of Faerie Fire Icon Faerie Fire, which it replaces. In addition to Faerie Fire's effects, Faerie Swarm also slows the target's movement speed by 50% for 15 seconds.
Mass Entanglement roots all enemies in an area around the target for up to 20 seconds.
Typhoon is a spell that affects enemies in a cone in front of you, knocking them back and dazing them for 6 seconds.
Best pick: Typhoon
Situational, but Typhoon can also interupt spellcasting when used on mobs that aren't immune to knockback effects.
Soul of the Forest passively grants you a buff when you cast Swiftmend Icon Swiftmend. The cast time of your next Healing Touch is reduced by 50%, or the healing of your next Regrowth or Rejuvenation is increased by 100%, or of the next Wild Growth by 50%, depending on which spell you cast first (the buff is consumed).
Incarnation: Tree of Life grants you the Tree of Life healing cooldown. It lasts for 30 seconds (with a 3-minute cooldown), it increases all healing done by 15%, it increases your armor by 120%, it grants you immunity to Polymorph. It also improves some of your spells.
Wild Growth affects 2 additional targets.
Regrowth is instant cast.
Rejuvenation has its healing increased by 50%, and its Mana cost reduced by 30%.
Entangling Roots is instant cast.
Force of Nature is an active ability that summons a treant which casts Swiftmend on your current target and heals it with Healing Touch Icon Healing Touch for 15 seconds. Force of Nature has a maximum of 3 charges, and a 20-second recharge time.
Best Pick: Incarnation: Tree of Life
Soul of the Forest is also pretty good, specially if you take Rampant Growth from the level 100 talent. Incarnation: Tree of Life is a very nice output cooldown, but also a mana saving cooldown since Rejuvenation is 30% cheaper when Incarnation is up.
Force of Nature is currently not worth it outside Proving Grounds.
Incapacitating Roar is an AoE incapacitate that lasts for 3 seconds and affects all enemies in a 10 yard radius. It has a 30-second cooldown.
Ursol's Vortex is a targeted AoE slow, which slows down enemies in an 8-yard radius by 50%. When enemies first try to leave the slowing area, they are pulled back in. The vortex lasts 10 seconds, and it has a 1-minute cooldown.
Mighty Bash is a single target 5-second stun.
Best pick: Mighty Bash in most situations.
Heart of the Wild is a 6-minute cooldown that grants you 35% increased healing when used. In addition to this, allows you to tank, and to deal competitive melee and spell damage. It lasts 45 seconds.
When in Bear Form Icon Bear Form and Cat Form Icon Cat Form, you gain a massive increase in Agility.
Your damaging spells are more effective.
Dream of Cenarius is a passive ability that increases the damage done by Wrath Icon Wrath by 20%, and causes your Wrath to heal a nearby ally for 150% of the damage it does.
Nature's Vigil is a 90-second cooldown that causes all single target healing spells to also damage a nearby target for 30% of the healing done, and all single target healing and damaging spells heal a nearby friendly target based on the amount done (30% for heals, and 40% for damaging spells or abilities).
Best pick: Nature's Vigil
Heart of the Wild is also decent, specially if there is a phase in a fight where your group/raid requires more damage. Dream of Cenarius doesn't increase your ouput, so take it if you want to contribute with some extra damage.
Moment of Clarity modifies your Omen of Clarity Icon Omen of Clarity to last for 5 seconds, instead of for one cast.
Germination allows you to apply two Rejuvenation Icon Rejuvenations to the same target, and increases the duration of Rejuvenation by 3 seconds. When Rejuvenation is already applied on a target, a second cast of Rejuvenation applies a second version of the HoT. From this point on, as long as both HoTs are active on the target, Rejuvenation will always refresh the HoT with the shortest remaining duration.
Rampant Growth causes your Swiftmend Icon Swiftmend to consume your Rejuvenation Icon Rejuvenation or Regrowth Icon Regrowth HoT on the target, but Swiftmend has no cooldown.
Best pick: Germination
Germination is a steady heal increase and works well with Genesis.
Rampant Growth works well with Soul of the Forest and has an interesting playstyle, but is pretty intense on your mana. Rampant Growth can be better than Germination for singletarget healing.
Moment of Clarity is somewhat lackluster compared to the other two talents.
Play around a bit and find the playstyle that suits you the best.
What glyphs you use will be somewhat situational. Therefore, I will list the most useful ones.
Glyph of Wild Growth: Must have for any content where you have more than 5 people in your raid.
Glyph of Regrowth: Decent for tank healing. Personally I prefer having the Regrowth HoT there for Swiftmend usuage. If you use Rampant Growth, you shouldn't take this talent.
Glyph of Healing Touch: Nature's Swiftness is a nice cooldown, and having it available more often is nice.
Glyph of Stampeding Roar: Makes it a lot easier to have your entire group/raid buffed by Stampeding Roar. For raiding, this is very useful.
Glyph of Rejuvenation: A decent boost to healing touch, but you shouldn't cast extra rejuvenations just to get this buff up. Germination works well with this glyph, since you can have two rejuvenations on one player.
Glyph of Nature's Cure: Useful for when you have to dispel twice within a short time-frame. This will only be available each 24 second, however.
Choosing a glyph I haven't listed here won't kill your group, and is down to a personal preference.
Minor Glyph - Glyph of the Sprouting Mushroom This is a must have. Being able to place your mushroom wherever you want is ideal.
Rejuvenation: Our main healing spell. This spell should be used in nearly every situation. You're able to have two Rejuvenations on one target with the Germination talent. You won't be able to blanket your raid with Rejuvenations like before, since the mana cost is somewhat high.
Lifebloom: No longer has 3 stacks, so it's easier to maintain and you can now allow it to bloom without any worry. This should ALWAYS be up on someone, to increase clearcasting procs.
Wild Growth: Our most expensive heal, but also very effective. You should use this whenever many people needs healing. Shouldn't be cast on cooldown mindlessly.
Swiftmend: A instant heal you should use whenever someone needs fast healing. If you have Soul of the Forest and/or Rampant Growth, you will use this spell a lot more frequently and different than a 'normal' playstyle.
Healing Touch: Our most efficient direct heal. If used on the target you have Lifebloom on, it'll have a 20% increased critical hit chance.
Regrowth: A fast butexpensive heal. No mana cost if you have a clearcasting proc, though. Should be used when Healing Touch or Swiftmend isn't enough to save someone.
Wild Mushroom: A very efficient heal, but has gotten a mana cost in Warlords of Draenor. It's worth using even though people doesn't stand in it for the full duration, but you should plan ahead and place it strategically. Can also be used where the tank stands for an extra hot.
Genesis: Has a pretty high mana cost, so use it with caution. If you have the Germination talent, Genesis can be quite strong. Use if several people needs quick healing, and already has a rejuvenation or two on them. You are now able to track how much healing Gensis does in combat logs, which wasn't possible in Mists of Pandaria.
How does Gensis work? Once you use it, Gensis removes all Rejuvenations you have on your targets and replaces them with the "Gensis" HoT. If you cast a Rejuvenation and instantly use Gensis, it will basically turn that Rejuvenation into a 3 second HoT instead of 15/18 seconds. If you use it on a Rejuvenation that has a 6 second duration left, the Gensis will heal the target for the remaining healing over 3 seconds.
Remember to keep your mastery buff up at all times; Harmony. In most cases it'll stay up since you use Swiftmend and Clearcast Regrowths, but it's worth tracking it to maximise uptime.
Cooldowns and Utility:
Nature's Swiftness: Increases the healing of your next Healing Touch or Regrowth by 50% and makes it instant. Most commonly used with Healing Touch. Use this when Swiftmend or Regrowth isn't enough. It also increases the duration of the spell by 50%, giving Regrowth's HoT portion a 18 second duration.
Ironbark: A great defensive cooldown for a tank or someone else will be taking damage. Also increases the healing of your hots on the target by 20% (perk)
Tranquility: No longer has a HoT, but is still very powerful in a raid setting. Be cautious when you use this in a 5-man though, as it doesn't heal as well there. Use this when several people in the raid requires healing, often after a big raid-wide damage. This is usually coordinated by the raidleaders.
Incarnation: Tree of Life (talent): The best part of this talent is the 30% reduced mana cost Rejuvenation gets. This means you can use this both as a throughput cooldown, as well as a mana saving cooldown.
Nature's Vigil (talent): This talent shines when you have several rejuvenations up, as 30% of each Rejuvenations healing gets splashed to another target. Works very well with the Incarnation talent, which makes the mana cost of Rejuvenation lower.
Force of Nature (talent): Summons a treant that heals for 15 seconds, with 3 charges on a 20 second cooldown. You should use this whenever extra healing is needed. Try to make sure it never stays at 3 charges for long.
Heart of the Wild (talent): A decent healing cooldown. You can also use this to help with some extra DPS, that can be very useful on certain encounters that needs some fast DPS.
Rebirth: Is now instant cast. Try to use it whenever you're not standing in/near any dangerous AoE effects. Usually it's coordinated between your raidleaders on who to use it on.
Stampeding Roar: Giving your raid a movement boost is very useful on a lot of encounters. Try to keep an eye out for when your raid will benefit from it. Might also be called out by raidleaders.
Barkskin: It should go without saying that you should use this whenever you will be, or are, taking damage. Reducing the damage you take reduces the healing you need, which is always a good thing.
Cyclone deserves a quick mention. I've found myself using this in heroics and challenge modes somewhat frequently. It no longer has diminishing returns in PvE, so you can completely lock down a mob with cyclone. Useful to reduce damage on the tank if too many mobs are pulled, but requires some managing. It's also a spell I use a lot on trash in raids to annoy my guildmates. Nothing like a cycloned trash mob with 1% health left.
Soothe: Dispels enrage effect on mobs / bosses. Can be very useful if you don't have a Hunter or Rogue who can do it.
I'll list some of the macros that I use. I use mouseover macros for all of my healing spells and most cooldowns. I recommend everyone to use mouseover macros or an addon that makes you heal more efficiently.
Most of these macros targets your mouseover first. If that target is hostile or someone you can't heal, it'll heal your target instead. If you have a hostile or no target, it'll heal yourself.
Cenarion Ward
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists,nodead,help,][exists,nodead,help][@player] Cenarion Ward
Healing Touch
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists,nodead,help,][exists,nodead,help][@player] Healing Touch
Iron Bark
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists,nodead,help,][exists,nodead,help][@player] Ironbark
Lifebloom
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists,nodead,help,][exists,nodead,help][@player] Lifebloom
Rejuvenation
#showtooltip Rejuvenation
/cast [@mouseover,exists,nodead,help,][exists,nodead,help][@player] Rejuvenation
Rebirth
#showtooltip Rebirth
/cast [@mouseover,help]Rebirth;Rebirth
Swiftmend
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists,nodead,help,][exists,nodead,help][@player] Swiftmend
Wild Growth (You don't actually need a macro for this one as it targets 5 random damaged players)
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists,nodead,help,][exists,nodead,help][@player] Wild Growth
Nature's Cure
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists,nodead,help,][exists,nodead,help][@player] Nature's Cure
Regrowth
#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists,nodead,help,][exists,nodead,help][@player] Regrowth
Trinkets
Soon to come.
Proving Grounds / Encounter Tips
Did Endless Healer just now and it was a lot harder than MoP, mostly due to not having a silence through Faerie Fire. Had 5% mana left once wave 30 ended.
Not going to post encounter tips before raid opens up and I get to try them out. Not going to post tips for Heroic dungeons. Possibly Challenge modes once they come. If someone wants to write up a little guide for PG/CMs, feel free to post in this thread or PM me.
Some tips for Endless Healer:
- Spec for Cenarion Ward, Typhoon, Force of Nature, Mighty Bash, Nature's Vigil and Germination
- I used all 3 charges of Force of Nature at the start of each wave. That way I had all 3 up each wave, and they helped out since it's usually the most damage at the start of the wave. However, for wave 5 and 9 (and 15, 19, 25, 29) I hold them off until the Rogue and Mage has silenced the Hive Singer.
- Nature's Vigil was mostly used on Wave 2, 5 and 9. Tranquility was only used once on wave 29. It's not as good now as it was in MoP.
- Typhon used to interupt Hive Singer and the Flamecallers.
- Cenarion Ward is mostly used on the tank, but also on the debuff that the Tunneler creates.
- Prehot everyone on waves that has tunnelers and flamecallers.
If relevant you can see my spell usuage here:
Changelog:
26/11/2014 - Added some additional information about stats. Rewrote some parts, added some spaces between spells and glyphs. Changed Rebirth macro.