Welcome to the Restoration Druid healing guide, in this guide i will discuss the basics of a healing druid, up to advanced mechanics. This guide will be split up into several topics.
-Speccing
-Stats
-Gemming
-Enchanting
-Glyphs
-Healing in a raid
-Triage
-Addons
-Advanced healing mechanics
Some abbreviations you will see during this guide:
WG-Wild Growth
LB-Lifebloom
GCD-Global Cooldown
HPS-Healing per-second
MoTW-Mark of the wild
HOTS-Heal over time
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-Speccing
There are many ways that you can spec as a restoration druid and although it doesn't look very different it's quite a change. Most of the speccing is obvious but for a druid there really is no
"cookie cutter" build, which is a talent spec that all resto druids copy online.
First, we will start off in the balance tree. depending on what your gear is like and what i mean by gear is how much haste you have. If you are new to playing a resto druid or do not feel
comfortable with a "haste cap" then i would suggest speccing like so
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?druid#QcBXG,bLXH3O,12045If you understand the haste cap (which i will cover further in this guide) then i highly suggest speccing like this
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?druid#QcBT9h,bLXH3O,12045Now the reasoning behind this is because with the 3% haste bonus from celestial focus it will help you reach 735 haste, which is required to have a 1 second GCD and a .8 second GCD for your
Lifebloom.
Anyways, now we go into the restoration tree, first tier is obvious~improved MoTW and Nature's Focus, second tier is also easy 3/3 in both natural shapeshifter and subtelty. In tier 3 you want to
have maxed out all the talent points. Tier 4 all points in improved rejuv. Tier 5 put them all in Gift of nature. Tier 6 put them all in Natures bounty. Tier 7 swiftmend and living spirit max out.
At this point you cannot get to tier 8 so you have some options depending on your play style. I would suggest not putting the point into natures swiftness unless you have it in a macro in
conjunction with Healing touch for quick tank healing. I put my points into improved tranquility because in tight situations it really pulls through on fights where i know the group is going to
take damage. Then you have Tranquil spirit which is only used if you constantly have to spam nourish on targets. so now that you have chosen your mind on what to spec for it should look something
like this
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?druid#QBlPlZZ6V4X,bLXH3O,12045Moving on, in tier 8 you want to 5/5 Empowered Rejuvenation. Tier 9 get Tree of life form and 3/3 improved tree of life form. tier 10 5/5 Gift of the earth mother, and finally tier 11 wild growth.
You should have about 3-6 points to play around with depending on how you specced and you can do it a variety of ways but i found the most efficient spells are revitalize for the mana back and i
will explain later in the guide how and Living seed because it is a nice buffer for tanks. So this is what your final spec should look like.
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?druid#QBlPlZZ6VKNMs,bLXH3O,12045
and if you are at 735 haste
http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?druid#QBlPZCOFm7Mr5,bLXH3O,12045__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
-Gemming
Gemming as resto druid is very easy, but some players do not realize what min/maxing is and they may understand the basics of there class but not understand the true potential of socket bonuses.
First and foremost, spellpower is the number 1 stat for a resto druid, you should only be gemming for this. The gem that you are mostly looking for is a Runed Cardinal ruby, this is your best
friend.
Meta-Your meta gem should be 25 spell power and 2% intellect, because it's 25 spell power!!! if you are not using this one your doing it wrong.
Let us say you have a chest with 2 red sockets and a yellow socket and the socket bonus is +7 spell power.
if you were to gem full spell power this is what you would get from gemming. 23+23+23=69SP
Now, if you were to gem 2 23 spell power gems, and a 12 spell power 10 haste gem, here would be the outcome. 23+23+12+7=65SP &10 haste. It's not too big of a difference as you can see, but it
outweighs the 3 23 SP gems.
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-Enchanting
Enchanting, just like gemming is the same concept. You want to get as much spell power as you possibly can, so i will just guide you with the EXACT enchants you should have.
Head- Kirin Tor or Wyrmrest accord head enchants.
Shoulder- Inscribing enchant or Hodir reputation enchants.
Cloak- 10Spirit 2% reduced threat or engineering SP cloak enchant or if under haste cap 23 haste.
Chest- +10 all stats
Bracers- +30 SP
Hands- +28SP
Belt- Eternal belt buckle w/ Runed cardinal ruby
Legs- 50SP 20Spirit legging spell thread
Feet- 18 spirit or 15 stam run speed increase (situational)
Rings- spell power if you are an enchanter
Weapon- 63SP if it's a 1H 81SP if it's a 2H
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-Glyphing
Forget every glyph that a druid has, the follow glyphs are the only ones you should be looking at, and again these play a big part on your play styles.
1.Rapid Rejuvenation-I highly recommend this glyph, it will increase your HPS by a large margin and it gets better with more haste.
2.Rejuvenation-This is a poor combination glyph with Rapid Rejuvenation.back in the day it was preferred by many druids because it was just an extra heal, but with todays gear, mana regen is
ridiculous so there is no way someone will ever drop that low for it to ever go off, this is about .1% of your healing done for a fight.
3.Nourish-If you are having to do alot of tank healing then i think this would be your glyph in ICC with the current buff nourish will hit for about 16k crits.
4.Swiftmend-I believe that every druid should have this glyph because 1-your getting rid of other druids HoT's on players with your swiftmend if you don't have this, and 2 it's so much extra
healing since the HoT remains on the target
5.Wild growth-This is a very good glyph, for 25 mans that is, in 10 mans half the time it doesn't even get to 5 WG targets let alone 6.
6.Innervate-This glyph should never be used unless you are very undergeared and you struggle to keep your mana up.
7.Lifebloom-If you are using LB's on the tanks which you should always be doing, this will let you get in an extra spell before having to switch back and refreash LB.
Once again this is play style but i believe mathematically glyph of Wild Growth Rapid rejuv and Swiftmend will end up giving you the most healing done for just glyphs if used correctly.
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-Healing in a raid
On the average fight, this is what your recount SHOULD look like.
1.Rejuvenation
2.Wild Growth
3.Lifebloom
The first thing you need to know is that Resto druid Healing is mostly about prioritization.
Here is a list of priority
1.Swiftmend a player that has roughly 30% health left, if Swiftmend is on CD then cast a nourish, it's faster than waiting the time for a rejuv to tick for only 3k.
2.You always want to keep Lifebloom rolling on the tanks, unless priority #1 occurs, you refreash Lifebloom when it reaches 0 or 1 second left on ALL tanks taking damage.
3.Wild Growth incoming or possible damage, this is a weaker HoT than rejuv but it goes on more people, the only time you do not Wild Growth on CD is when you KNOW for a fact that the damage will be
coming a few moments later and you want to save your WG for that damage instead. Other than that WG should always be on CD.
4.Rejuvenation is your last priority, this is a fill in heal, but although its a fill in, it's your most powerful HoT. During encounters in raids it's best to know when damage will be going out and
who it is going out on, melee usually take the most damage, so keep rejuvs on the melee at all times.
This is the basic priority of a restoration druid.
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-Triage
What's triage? triage is something doctors use to prioritize critical patients above not so critical ones. in this case, someone missing 5k health and someone missing 20k health.
The point of triage is to heal the lowest party person in the raid as fast as possible and move on to the next person, you have to know 3 steps ahead who you will be healing. Triage is basically
just reaction time. If someone takes damage and is healed half a second later, then that was excellent timing, but if they don't get healed for 5 seconds then that is just far too long and you
need to work on your reaction time. This doesn't sound like a big deal but this is ONE of the biggest factors in overall HPS, if your always sniping the heals instantly you will show up as number 1
all the time.
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-Addons
Addons are very important as a resto druid, in fact it is nearly impossible to heal without HoT timers and watchers.
I highly suggest as a resto druid to look at the following addons
Xperl
Vuhdo
Grid
HealBot
If you already have a raid frame that can track Hots on targets then that is all you need, but remember addons are here to make things easier on you
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-Advanced Healing Mechanics
I would suggest not trying anything here until you have the basic feel for the resto druid and you understand all of the above sections.
One of the best things to do before a pull is to Pre-HoT, prehotting is just putting Regrowth on all the tanks, and hotting people that you assume are taking damage later in the fight. What you do
is throw a bunch of HoTs up and while the tank pulls the boss you drink back up to full. Basically starting the fight with full mana and free healing.
Knowing when damage is coming plays a huge part in HPS, and using the appropriate healling spell can save mana and save lives. On fights such as festergut and Stinky when i know that big aoe
damage is coming i will leave rejuv on everyone that i can and 2 seconds before the damage use a WG. The main thing is that you do not HoT anyone in your party, and the reason for this is because
you Tranquility during this time, which instantly heals your group to full. Your WG should be back up so use that again and just from you, you can get an entire raid group of 25 people back up to
full in less than 12 seconds.
All druids should know that Lifebloom gives half of the mana back that it took to cast when it blooms, so before a fight, you can cast a few LB's on random people drink up, then spam while running
into the fight, refreash the LB's then start healing again, the LB's will bloom bringing you back up to about 100% mana.
~During a fight a druids keyboard should ALWAYS be being pressed, on every GCD there should be a spell cast.
An easy way to get some free mana back during a fight, and to make WG alot easier to put on people, jump into a group of spread out players and WG yourself, you putting yourself between them all
will put out the 5 (6 if glyphed) WG's garunteed if done right.
Always pay attention to your surroundings, Like Dreamwalker for example the black void zone underneath you is not a healing buff!!! you can't do HPS if your dead.
Innervate, The way to cheat it. By starting the fight with the lifebloom strategy, you can do this midfight as well, with innervate. I have about 25.3k mana buffed in ICC and i normally innervate
at 17.6k mana. that gives me way over what i even have, so I lifebloom random people to burn some of the mana away and get the extra healing in. Why do i do this am i wasting an innervate? well
depending on the fight i can even get in 2 more innervates than the average druid for a fight, after the first time of doing this strategy, you don't need to LB your mana should be low enough, but
make sure you Innervate on CD at that point.
Knowing your mana bar, if you know that the DPS is good enough and you can see you aren't using enough mana, you can throw in some extra heals where it doesn't even need it. This is how you appear
on top by sniping all the other healers down. Here is an example, the jaraxxus fight in ToC is very short, so i always keep LB rejuv WG and regrowth on the MT the entire fight, and when someone
gets legion flame, the fire debuff that makes you run away, i not only rejuv them, but Lifebloom them as well, and maybe even WG them as long as they live. I would rather overheal for a million
than underheal by a million.
Cheating in some extra mana. You may not know but you can actually get clear casting from melee attacks, so not only can you melee a boss to get a free spell, but you also get mana back from
judgement of wisdom (if it's on the boss) more mana means more spamming like I said in the paragraph above.
It's always good to have the extra mana, I use power auras an addon that tracks buffs and debuffs to track just one of my buffs gained, and it's Clear Casting. Whenever I get a clearcasting proc
it comes up on my screen as a warning and i know i have it, whatever I was going to cast next, I just replace with Lifebloom, because it's free and I get mana back when it blooms.
By using all of these and with practice it's almost impossible to run out of mana or come in last on healing.
By Gettokiwi
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