Restoration Druid Raid Guide
Restoration Druid Raid Guide
11.1.5 - Nightfall
Welcome to the Restoration Druid Raid guide for the World of Warcraft patch 11.1.5! This guide covers everything you need to know to understand your character! Are you starting out and leveling up from 70? Check out the leveling guide!
Overview
Restoration Druid
Restoration DruidRaid
Hero Talents
Restoration Druid
- Keeper of the Grove focuses on AoE healing and Cooldown strength, while Wildstalker focuses on Single Target healing and damage done in Cat Form.
- In a Raid environment Keeper of the Grove outperforms Wildstalker in any scenario. Therefore this Guide focuses solely on the better option.
Keeper of the Grove
Wildstalker
- Every time you summon a Grove Guardian you gain all of the following benefits:
- Harmony of the Grove
- 3% healing done increase per active Grove Guardian.
- Power of Nature
- Rejuvenation, Efflorescence, and Lifebloom healing is increased by 5% per active Grove Guardian.
- Treants of the Moon
- Your Grove Guardians do damage passively.
- Dream Surge
- Your next direct heal creates 3 Dream Petals that each heal up to 3 Allies. These direct heals scale with your Mastery.
- Further enhanced by Power of the Dream.
- Harmony of the Grove
- Wild Growth, Regrowth, and Efflorescence healing has a chance to spawn a Symbiotic Blooms on the target, greatly increasing your healing done to that target.
- Symbiotic Blooms is enhanced by the following nodes:
- Vigorous Creepers
- 20% increased healing done to targets with Symbiotic Blooms.
- Resilient Flourishing
- Increases the duration of Symbiotic Blooms by a third of its total duration.
- Bursting Growth
- Small AoE healing is triggered if you cast Rejuvenation on a targets with Symbiotic Blooms or Symbiotic Blooms expires.
- Vigorous Creepers
Talents
Restoration Druid
General Raid Talents
When to use this Spec
- This is the default loadout going into any boss unless specified otherwise. You have to adjust the class talent tree based on the utility needed for the encounter. To make your life easier, boss-specific talent loadouts are available in the Liberation of Undermine section.
Gameplay Altering Talents
- Discover all talents that significantly alter your gameplay within the Spec and Class Talent trees. This section gives a concise overview of these talents and their applications but for a more detailed look check out the Rotation and Deep Dive sections below.
Spec Tree
- Verdant Infusion
- Your Swiftmend does no longer consume one of your HoTs
- Abundance
- This talent greatly improves your mana efficiency by reducing the cost of your Regrowth by 8% and increasing its critical chance by 8% for each active Rejuvenation, up to a maximum of 96%.
- Germination
- The ability to place a second Rejuvenation on a target and increase its base duration by 2 seconds is extremely powerful, significantly enhancing your healing capabilities. Any increase in Rejuvenation duration greatly boosts your effectiveness.
- Rampant Growth
- Applies Regrowth to all active Lifebloom targets, allowing you to apply multiple Regrowth HoTs with a single cast. Also the increased hot duration increases the value you get out of your mastery a lot.
- Cenarius' Guidance
- This talent allows you to drastically reduce the cooldown of Incarnation: Tree of Life, giving you greater flexibility and more frequent access to your most powerful healing cooldown.
- Dreamstate
- Channeling Tranquility reduces the cooldown of all your druid spells by up to 20 seconds, fundamentally changing how you pre-plan your cooldowns and significantly improving your flexibility to respond to critical moments.
- Nurturing Dormancy
- Increases the duration of your Rejuvenation by up to 4 seconds if it heals targets at full health, drastically increasing your average number of active Rejuvenation HoTs.
- Soul of the Forest
- Empowers your core healing abilities after every Swiftmend cast, making it a versatile and very powerful talent that greatly increases your healing capabilities.
Class Tree
- Astral Influence
- Increases the range of all your abilities by 5 yards, providing a powerful tool for remaining in range of your group.
Hero Talents
- Power of Nature + Harmony of the Grove
- Picking these talents drastically changes how important optimizing your Grove Guardians becomes, as they become one of the main contributing factors to your ramp.
- Cenarius' Might
- Adds another modifier to min-max for your ramp, which is triggered after using Swiftmend.
- Protective Growth
- Adds another small defensive to your arsenal.
- Blooming Infusion
- This proc synergizes exceptionally well with Master Shapeshifter.
Rotation
Restoration Druid
Tier Set
- 2-Set: Your healing spells have a chance to apply Insurance! to their targets that heals them over 15 sec. Insurance! is consumed if an ally drops below 40% health to heal them.
- 4-Set: Lifebloom's bloom has a 30% chance to apply Insurance! to its target for 10 sec. When Insurance! is consumed or removed, it leaves a missing Rejuvenation, Regrowth, or Wild Growth heal over time effect for 15 sec on its target.
This set doesn't change your Gameplay at all, apart from the fact that it is even more important to keep Lifebloom on a target. It just passively spawns hots on your raid for you.
Priority List
- Keep Efflorescence active at stack points, keep your Raid's movement in mind since this is your most expensive spell.
- Keep Lifebloom on a tank, refreshing it no earlier than 4.5 seconds left.
- Cast Regrowth with any Omen of Clarity procs you get.
- Cast Swiftmend followed by Wild Growth (skip this if your next Flourish is within 15 seconds).
- Cast Rejuvenation if there's damage incoming within the next 20 seconds.
- Use Nature’s Swiftness + Regrowth if anyone seems to be in danger; be very generous with this.
- Cast Regrowth on anyone taking damage, prefer targets with hots already present but no Regrowth hot.
- Send some Wraths if there is any free time.
Cooldowns
Flourish
- The bread-and-butter cooldown for a Restoration Druid, Flourish, extends all your active HoTs and increases their tick rate for a brief period. Optimal use of this cooldown involves combining different healing cooldowns and managing your Reforestation. Details on how to do this are explained in the Deep Dive section.
Tranquility
- Before channeling Tranquility, ensure all your other major cooldowns are on cooldown due to Dreamstate, which reduces their cooldown while channeling Tranquility. For the healing aspect, Tranquility is a strong cooldown that you should either use after Flourish or completely on its own.
Deep Dive
Restoration Druid
Cooldown Management
- As Keeper of the Grove you have two different one minute cooldowns that you always want to use together: Flourish and Grove Guardians. Also to boost these even more you need to ensure to always have Reforestation prepared, if the talent is chosen, for your one minute pop.
Symbiotic Relationship
- This newly added spell this patch is like a weak version of a Holy Paladin's Beacon of Light. Put it on a Balance Druid, any type of Hunter, or a DPS Evoker, and forget about it. This does not affect your gameplay at all.
Heart of the Wild
- With the addition of Master Shapeshifter, Heart of the Wild becomes a great cooldown for any downtime, as it allows you to restore a massive amount of mana due to its cast time reduction for Wrath.
- Heart of the Wild is also a great defensive to survive one shot mechanics while learning the fight by turning into an enhanced Bear Form.
Understanding Mechanics
Rotational min-maxing is just one aspect of mastering a specialization, but there are numerous other key mechanics that influence your performance. Use the following guides to improve them.
Liberation of Undermine
Restoration Druid
Vexie
Cauldron
Rik
Sprocketmonger
Stix
One-Armed Bandit
Mug'Zee
Gallywix
How To Use Your Healing Cooldowns
- These cooldowns were assigned with the primary goal of defeating the boss, rather than maximizing raw HPS.
Boss Tips
- Defensives
- Use Barkskin when targeted by Incendiary Fire and you have to go into the oil.
- Externals
- Use Ironbark when collecting oil, while already having a debuff.
- Paradox
- Other healers make better use of Spatial Paradox.
- General
- Only help driving bikes at the start of each phase 1 as Exhaust Fumes becomes stronger each time.
How To Use Your Healing Cooldowns
- These cooldowns were assigned with the primary goal of defeating the boss, rather than maximizing raw HPS.
Boss Tips
- Defensives
- Use Barkskin during Colossal Clash to survive being hit by waves.
- Externals
- Use Ironbark as a personal defensive.
- Paradox
- Other healers make better use of it in this encounter.
- General
- Use Stampeding Roar during Colossal Clash to make dodging waves easier.
How To Use Your Healing Cooldowns
Boss Tips
- Defensives
- Use Barkskin when targeted by Sound Cannon.
- Externals
- Use Ironbark as a personal defensive.
- Paradox
- Other healers make better use of it in this boss encounter.
- General
- Cast Stampeding Roar in the intermission to help people reaching the overloaded amplifiers.
How To Use Your Healing Cooldowns
These cooldowns were assigned with the primary goal of defeating the boss, rather than maximizing raw HPS.
Boss Tips
- Defensives
- Use your defensives when targeted with Screw Up.
- Externals
- Use Ironbark on drill targets without a defensive.
- Paradox
- Other healers make better use of it in this encounter.
- General
- Use Stampeding Roar during the intermission to help your team reach the boss quicker.
How To Use Your Healing Cooldowns
Boss Tips
- Defensives
- Use Barkskin when targeted with Incinerator.
- Externals
- Use your Ironbark on people targeted with Prototype Powercoil.
- Paradox
- Other healers make better use of it in this encounter.
- General
- Coordinate your AoE Sprints like Stampeding Roar to ensure one is active for each Incinerator.
How To Use Your Healing Cooldowns
Boss Tips
- Defensives
- Rotate through your defensive arsenal when Foul Exhaust overlaps with another mechanic.
- Externals
- Use Ironbark as a personal defensive.
- Paradox
- Other healers make better use of it in this encounter.
How To Use Your Healing Cooldowns
Boss Tips
- Defensives
- Always Barkskin when Mines are being triggered.
- Externals
- Use Ironbark as a personal defensive.
- Paradox
- Take it during the intermission to spam cast while walking!
How To Use Your Healing Cooldowns
Boss Tips
- Defensives
- Rotate through your defensive arsenal when Tick-Tock Canisters happens.
- Externals
- Use Ironbark as a personal defensive.
- Paradox
- Other healers make better use of it in this encounter.
Stat Priority
Restoration Druid
Understand your secondary stat priority and the tertiary stats needed for optimal performance during Raid boss fights as a Restoration Druid. For more detailed information, visit the Stats and Attributes guide.
The Conclusion here is that you want to equip the highest item level generally.
- All secondary stats are affected by diminishing returns. Click here to learn more!
Tertiary
- Avoidance - Reduces damage taken from AoE effects.
- Leech - Returns a portion of your damage and healing done as healing to you. (Excludes self healing)
- Speed - increases movement speed. (Does stack with other movement speed abilities)
The only time you should think about picking a lower item level is if it has Leech or Avoidance. Speed is nice to have, but you shouldn't consider this stat when choosing between two items.
- Here is a showcase of how powerful Leech is for a Healer: Breakdown of Mythic Fyrakk
Gear
Restoration Druid
Best in Slot
Farmable Alternatives
Due to the way stat weights work for Restoration Druids, there isn't a strict best-in-slot list. Although it is theoretically possible to obtain items with all the correct Tertiaries, doing so requires extraordinary luck or several human lifespans because of the weekly reset system in World of Warcraft.
| Slot | Item | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Branches of Reclaiming Blight | Tier/Catalyst |
| Neck | Strapped Rescue-Keg | Cinderbrew Meadery |
| Shoulder | Jaws of Reclaiming Blight | Tier/Catalyst |
| Cloak | Test Pilot's Go-Pack | Sprocketmonger |
| Chest | "Streamlined" Cartel Uniform | Gallywix |
| Wrist | Battle-Scarred Fisticuffs | Cinderbrew Meadery |
| Gloves | Grips of Reclaiming Blight | Tier/Catalyst |
| Belt | Rune-Branded Waistband | Crafting |
| Legs | Moccasins of Reclaiming Blight | Tier/Catalyst |
| Boots | Stalwart Guardian's Boots | Priory of the Sacred Flame |
| Ring 1 | The Jastor Diamond | Gallywix |
| Ring 2 | Cyrce's Circlet | Siren Island |
| Trinket 1 | Eye of Kezan | Gallywix |
| Trinket 2 | Mister Pick-Me-Up | Sproketmonger |
| Weapon | Stix's Metal Detector | Stix |
| Off-Hand | Vagabond's Torch | Crafting |
Authors Note:
This list shows the best items for healing in Raids from all sources. Keep in mind that getting different tier pieces with Leech / Avoidance changes which off-piece is best for you. Likewise, any other non-trinket item with Leech / Avoidance replaces the one suggested here.
Below you are presented with a good list of farmable alternatives that are obtainable outside of WoW ’s weekly lockout system. While replaced in time as you progress, these offer immediate character power.
| Slot | Item | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Head | Mekgineer's Mindbending Headgear | Operation: Mechagon |
| Neck | Strapped Rescue-Keg | Cinderbrew Meadery |
| Shoulder | Fireproof Cinderbee Perch | Cinderbrew Meadery |
| Cloak | Electrician's Siphoning Filter | Operation: Floodgate |
| Chest | Seraphic Wraps of the Ordained | Priory of the Sacred Flame |
| Wrist | Disturbed Kelp Wraps | Operation: Floodgate |
| Gloves | Shimmering Glimclaws | Darkflame Cleft |
| Belt | Brewery Toiler's Waistband | Cinderbrew Meadery |
| Legs | Flame-Seared Leggings | Operation: Mechagon |
| Boots | Stalwart Guardian's Boots | Priory of the Sacred Flame |
| Ring 1 | Footbomb Championship Ring | The Motherload!! |
| Ring 2 | Wick's Golden Loop | Darkflame Cleft |
| Trinket 1 | Signet of the Priory | Priory of the Sacred Flame |
| Trinket 2 | Carved Blazikon Wax | Darkflame Cleft |
| Two-Hand Weapon | Neural Synapse Enhancer | Operation: Mechagon |
| One-Hand Weapon | Electrifying Cognitive Amplifier | Operation: Mechagon |
| Off-Hand | Deathwalker's Promise | Theater of Pain |
Trinkets
Below you can find active and passive alternatives to our recommended trinkets. Do note that some trinkets are better than others depending on the scenario.
Passive Trinket alternatives
- Reverb Radio
- Strong stat stick, that gives you a high average of your preferred secondary stat.
- Suspicious Energy Drink
- Does a decent amount of healing, this will be better when you are still uncomfortable with the spec.
Active Trinket alternatives
- Signet of the Priory
- Not only very good for you, but also very good for your team if they are using this trinket!
Embellishments
- Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension
- Very strong stat stick that gives you a high amount of a random secondary stat that changes every 8 seconds.
- Writhing Armor Banding
- Doubles the effect of your Darkmoon Sigil: Ascension.
Remaining Sparks
- Crafted items are 675 item level and regular items are 678 on max item level, therefore, it's not beneficial to equip crafted items outside of your 2x embellishments unless you don't have access to other high item level gear on that slot.
Consumables
Restoration Druid
- Phials
- Flask of Tempered Swiftness
- Food
- Feast of the Divine Day
- Combat Potion
- Algari Mana Potion -- Recommended
- Tempered Potion
- Health Potion
- Algari Healing Potion
- Weapon Oil
- Algari Mana Oil
- Augment Rune
- Crystallized Augment Rune
- Sockets
- Masterful Emerald
- Elusive Blasphemite -- Unique, use one of each gem colour to enhance your Blasphemite.
- Quick Ruby
- Quick Onyx
- Quick Sapphire
Enchantments
| Helm | Nerubian Gemweaver |
| Neck | Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Cloak | Enchant Cloak - Chant of Leeching Fangs |
| Chest | Enchant Chest - Crystalline Radiance |
| Wrist | Enchant Bracer - Whisper of Armored Leech Nerubian Gemweaver |
| Belt | Nerubian Gemweaver |
| Legs | Daybreak Spellthread |
| Boots | Enchant Boots - Scout's March |
| Ring 1 | Enchant Ring - Radiant Haste Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Ring 2 | Enchant Ring - Radiant Haste Magnificent Jeweler's Setting 2x |
| Weapon | Enchant Weapon - Stormrider's Fury |
You buy S.A.D. from the Great Vault Vendor to add sockets to your Helm, Wrists and Belt.
Races
Restoration Druid
For min-maxing a Restoration Druid in Mythic Raiding, different racial traits can provide a tremendous benefit to your characters. If this is not your top goal, picking a race that fits your style works just as well.
- Berserking -- Troll
- Increases your haste by 10% for 12 sec.
Recommendation:
While Trolls' Berserking theoretically offers the highest output bonus in Raids, it is recommended to pick Tauren for a small survivability bonus. These bonuses are very minor, so you shouldn't worry about them at all.
Macros
Restoration Druid
Discover recommended macros for Restoration Druid during Raid encounters and watch a quick video guide on creating simple macros for your character.
All spells in this Restoration Druid Raid Guide are available as mouseover macros for your convenience!
Rejuvenation
/cast [@mouseover, help] Rejuvenation; RejuvenationRegrowth
/cast [@mouseover, help] Regrowth; RegrowthSwiftmend
/cast [@mouseover, help] Swiftmend; SwiftmendLifebloom
/cast [@mouseover, help] Lifebloom; LifebloomGrove Guardians
/cast [@mouseover, help] Grove Guardians; Grove GuardiansWild Growth
/cast [@mouseover, help] Wild Growth; Wild GrowthWild Charge
/cast [@mouseover, help] Wild Charge; Wild ChargeIronbark
/cast [@mouseover, help] Ironbark; IronbarkRebirth
/cast [@mouseover, help] Rebirth; RebirthGuarantees that your Innervate is always on yourself, without needing to deal with targeting or mouse-over adjustments.
/cast [@player] InnervateCancel your current form to ensure you use the human form one, allowing you to jump to one of your Grove Guardians.
#showtooltip Wild Charge
/tar Treant
/cancelaura [mod:ctrl] Travel Form
/cancelaura [mod:ctrl] Cat Form
/cancelaura [mod:ctrl] Bear Form
/cancelaura [mod:ctrl] Moonkin Form
/cast Wild ChargeQuicker Way for Emergency healing
/Cast Nature's swiftness
/cast [@mouseover, help] Regrowth; RegrowthQuicker Way for Combat Ress
/Cast Nature's swiftness
/cast [@mouseover, help] Rebirth; RebirthDirectly place your Efflorescence without needing to confirm with a click.
/cast [@cursor] EfflorescenceAddons
Restoration Druid
Below, you see a screenshot of the author's User Interface for their Restoration Druid, outlining which addons are used and how they are utilized in Raids to make your life easier.
- OmniCD -- Party CD Tracker
- Addon to track your party members' Cooldowns, mandatory for M+
- ElvUI / BetterBlizzFrames -- Party/Raidframe Addon
- WeakAuras -- Jack of all trades
- WeakAura allows players to create and customize graphical displays of game information. These displays, known as "auras" can show various aspects such as buffs, debuffs, cooldowns, health, and other important events.
- Plater -- Nameplate Addon
- Plater is a nameplate addon with an extraordinary amount of settings, out of the box debuff tracking, threat coloring, and support for scripting similar to WeakAuras + the WeakAuras-Companion for Mod/Script/Profile updates.
- BigWigs -- BossMods Addon
- BigWigs is a boss encounter add-on. It consists of many individual encounter scripts, or boss modules; mini add-ons that are designed to trigger alert messages, timer bars, sounds, and so forth, for one specific Raid encounter.
- Details -- Damage Meter
- Shows you Damage/Healing throughout the dungeon
These WeakAuras are recommended for optimal performance in Raids as a Restoration Druid.
Lifebloom & Efflorescence Cursor
Add small duration trackers to your cursor for Lifebloom and efflorescence to ensure they are constantly being used.
Changes this Patch
Restoration Druid
DRUID
- New Talent: Grievous Wounds – Rake, Rip, and Thrash damage increased by 10%.
- New Talent: Gale Winds – Increases Typhoon's radius by 20% and its range by 5 yards.
- New Talent: Incessant Tempest – Reduces the cooldown of Typhoon by 5 seconds.
- New Talent: Circle of the Wild – Physical damage dealt by your abilities increased by 5% (25% for Restoration Druids).
- New Talent: Circle of the Heavens – Magical damage dealt by your spells increased by 5% (25% for Restoration Druids).
- New Talent: Lycara's Meditation – You retain Lycara's Teachings' bonus from your most recent shapeshift form for 5 seconds after shifting out of it.
- Developers’ notes: Lycara’s Meditation is meant to retain some power when you shapeshift. It is not intended as a buff you would want to always maintain, and since Druids can swap into humanoid form instantly at no cost, the humanoid form bonus is not retained. Druids must also stay in Cat Form for 2 seconds to retain the Cat Form bonus if they entered Cat Form by casting Skull Bash with Fluid Form.
- New Talent: Symbiotic Relationship – Form a bond with an ally. Your self-healing also heals your bonded ally for 10% of the amount healed. Your healing to your bonded ally also heals you for 8% of the amount healed.
- New Talent: Aessina's Renewal – When a hit deals more than 12% of your maximum health, instantly heal for 10% of your health. This effect cannot occur more than once every 30 seconds.
- New Talent: Perfectly-Honed Instincts – Well-Honed Instincts can trigger up to once every 90 seconds.
- Ursoc's Spirit has been updated – Stamina increased by 4%. Stamina in Bear Form increased by an additional 5%.
- Developers' notes: These bonuses multiply together, so Druids' health in Bear Form remains unchanged.
- Light of the Sun replaces Skull Bash for Balance Druids only – The remaining cooldown of Solar Beam is reduced by 15 seconds when it interrupts its primary target.
- Improved Rejuvenation has been changed to Lingering Healing – Rejuvenation's duration is increased by 3 seconds. Regrowth's duration is increased by 3 seconds when cast on yourself.
- Instincts of the Claw is now a 1-point talent (was 2) and has been updated – Ferocious Bite and Maul damage increased by 8%.
- Lore of the Grove is now a 1-point talent (was 2) and has been updated – Moonfire and Sunfire damage increased by 10%.
- Fluid Form has been updated – Skull Bash can now be used in any form and shifts you into Cat Form if necessary.
- Fluid Form causes Wrath and Starfire to transform you into Moonkin Form at the end of their casts, instead of at their starts.
- Developers' notes: It should always take a global cooldown to transform to a shapeshift form, either from a direct transformation or a Fluid Form ability. Starting a Wrath or Starfire cast and cancelling it allowed Druids to transform into Moonkin without a global cooldown.
- Moonkin Form has been added to the Class talent tree in Sunfire’s previous position.
- Developers' notes: Restoring Moonkin Form to the class talent tree empowers Restoration Druids to use Convoke the Spirits for magic damage, like they can currently use Cat Form for physical damage.
- Rejuvenation healing increased by 5%.
- Wild Growth healing increased by 5%.
- Rip damage reduced by 9%.
- Shred damage increased by 10%.
- Swipe damage increased by 10%.
- Ferocious Bite damage reduced by 8%.
- Cyclone duration is now 5 seconds (was 6 seconds).
- Improved Sunfire’s effect is now included in Sunfire.
- Disorienting Roar now breaks based on a small damage threshold instead of any damage.
- Many talents have changed positions in the class tree.
- Rising Light, Falling Night has been removed.
- Restoration
- Restoration Druids now learn Improved Nature's Cure in the Class talent tree upon reaching level 10.
- Mastery: Harmony effectiveness increased by 45%. Now reduces its bonus with each additional heal over time effect.
- Developers' notes: This update to Mastery: Harmony is intended to reward more heavily the first few heal over time effects applied to allies while tempering the scaling at large heal over time counts. This scaling will still always make it a bonus to have additional heal over time effects on targets.
- All damage reduced by 20%.
- Developers' notes: This damage reduction keeps Restoration Druid’s physical or magic damage dealt equivalent to previous updates when selecting the Circle of the Wilds or Circle of the Heavens talents. We are making this change with the goal of moving Restoration Druids towards utilizing either their damaging physical abilities or magic spells instead of weaving between them both in order to reduce the damage rotation complexity.
- Tranquility channel time reduced to base 5 seconds (was 8 seconds). Total healing unchanged.
- Nature’s Swiftness now increases the healing of Regrowth by 200% (was 100%).
- Flourish now causes an initial heal effect on affected allies, split evenly among them.
- Master Shapeshifter now refunds 30% less mana from caster form spells.
FAQ
Restoration Druid
A: Start using Ironbark as a personal defensive cooldown.
A: Keep Lifebloom uptime at 100%, and don't waste a single Omen of Clarity proc.
Credits
Written By: Rycn
Reviewed By: Zhatzi