Cataclysm Resto Druid Guide

Welcome to my Cataclysm restoration druid guide. I’ve been working on and maintaining this guide since shortly before Cataclysm’s release. I do my best to constantly fine tune my information and update it with each patch. So if you notice any problems, or have any feedback, please leave a comment below.

Last Updated: 12/07/11 (Updated for 4.3)

Table of Contents

1.Stats Explained
1.1 Reforging
2.Spell Overview/Usage
3.Talent Specs
4.Pre-raid Gear List
5.Gems
6.Enchants
7.Glyphs
8.Macros
9.Addons
9.1 Recommended Addons
9.2 Power Auras
9.3 Grid
10.Change Log

1. Resto Druid Stats Explained

I’m hesitant to give out a stat priority list. I just caution you to use your best judgment when picking gear based on the explanations I give below. I decided to give a few priority lists for different scenarios, all of which center around how you feel your mana and your regen are doing.

Major Regen Problems would be if you’re running out of mana even on trash pulls (or very early on during boss fights). This is assuming your group is using crowd control where appropriate and aren’t generally under-geared for what you’re trying, and most importantly, not standing in things that hurt them. Don’t be too quick to put all the blame on yourself for running out of mana, if you see a place where the group can improve, try to bring it up in a non-accusing manner (i.e. try not to single someone out, even if you know it was just them that stood in something, players generally get extremely defensive and less cooperative when they’re singled out).

Minor Regen Problems would be if your happy with your mana on most trash pulls, but still feel like it’s lacking on some of the boss fights. Again, this is assuming the group you’re with isn’t generally under-geared, and that the encounters are being played properly.

Finally, No Regen Problems would be if you find yourself having an abundance of mana in most circumstances. This isn’t likely to occur until the higher levels of gear, closer to the middle of the expansion. Though really it’s up to you to be the judge.

Major Regen Problems: Intellect > Spirit > Haste to Caps* > Spellpower > Mastery > Crit
Minor Regen Problems: Intellect > Haste to Caps* > Spellpower > Spirit > Mastery > Crit
No Regen Problems: Intellect > Haste to Caps* > Spellpower > Mastery > Spirit** > Crit**

**Crit and Spirit can be swapped in the list if you really don’t have any mana problems.

*Please see the Haste section below to learn about the different haste cap numbers. You will want to reach whichever one you can without sacrificing too much intellect (or regen if you have mana issues).

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Intellect

This is your primary throughput stat, as it now increases your Spellpower. To the absolute best of my knowledge, intellect increases your spellpower at a 1:1 ratio. Meaning if you have 200 intellect, you will get 200 spellpower from it.

Intellect also increases your total mana, at a rate of 15 mana per point of intellect (except for the first 20 points of intellect, which give 1 mana). Meaning if you have 200 intellect you will get 2720 mana. Formula: Total Mana=(Intellect-20)*15+20

It also increases your critical strike rating by 1% for each 649 intellect you have.

Finally, because of the mana increase, intellect will also help increase the mana you gain from talents like [Revitilize], and buffs like [Replenishment].

Spirit

Spirit, along side Intellect (to lesser degree), is your regen stat. Rather than me try to explain the formula (not that I don’t think you could understand it), I’ll just point you to an amazing tool created by Zusterke at PlusHeal.com.

Regeneration Calculation Tool: http://zusterke.orderoftheathanor.eu/regen.php

You can use the tool to select which talents you have that may affect regen, and even type in your own minimum and maximum values for intellect and spirit on the chart. So it’s pretty flexible and easy to follow.

Haste Rating

Haste rating still decreases your global cooldown (to a minimum of 1 second). In addition to that, it now also decreases the time between ticks on all of your heal over time spells, without decreasing the duration of them. With the way haste on heal over time ticks works, you can actually gain extra ticks on your spells with enough haste. Having extra ticks on your heal over time spells actually makes them more mana efficient.

In order to get 1% haste you will need 128.05 haste rating. Also keep in mind that Shadow Priests, Balance Druids, and Elemental Shaman can give you a 5% haste buff.

The most haste you should try to aim for is 21.43%. This will give you at least one extra tick on all of your heal over time spells. In order to get that much haste, assuming you have the 5% raid buff, you will need only 2,004 haste rating (or 2,745 without the raid buff). Also, consider picking up Swift Rejuvenation in your talent spec to bring your global cooldown to 1 second.

If you can’t reach 21.43%, the minimum amount of haste you want to have is 12.5%. This will give you one extra tick on your Rejuvenation spell. In order to get that much haste, assuming you have the 5% raid buff, you will need only 915 haste rating (or 1601 without the raid buff). Hitting this haste mark shouldn’t be hard at all, so it’s the first step to go for. If you go this route, consider picking up Swift Rejuvenation in your talent spec.

It should be noted that you may want to go over the haste cap by 5 points (or so) to ensure you’re reaching your bonus HoT ticks. This helps safeguard against some known rounding oddities that World of Warcraft displays at times.

Mastery Rating

Our mastery rating, Harmony, does the following: Increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic..

With our new mastery in 4.2, there should no longer be any debate on whether or not you will use it over crit. Our mastery is now as perfect as I could ever hope for.

The boost to direct healing will help in 5-mans, 10-mans and with tank healing especially. You will also keep up the Harmony buff without having to think about it when healing in those situations. Which will boost your healing further. You should see a substantial boost to your healing effectiveness coming from our old mastery.

While raid healing, where you aren’t necessarily using direct heals all the time, you will want to make sure you keep your Harmony buff up. This will be a significant boost to your raid healing, and well worth the time to cast a quick Nourish. It is also possible using Regrowth with Omen of Clarity procs will keep this buff up most of the time, too. Just be sure you’re tracking the duration of the Harmony buff, to ensure it never stays off you for long.

One thing to watch out for is if Efflorescence will “double-dip” from our mastery. Once because of the increase to Swiftmend healing, and again with the Harmony buff up because of the increase to heal over time spells. I’ll do some testing on this when I have the time, and get back to everyone about it.

There isn’t a certain level of mastery you want to get to, but definitely pick it up over Crit. If you are at the top Haste cap, you can even pick it up over Haste, but I doubt anyone is at that point yet.

Critical Strike Rating

Our heal over time ticks can now crit as well, which is a great little bonus. However, Mastery is still better. Not only is it a static increase to our direct heals, but it also gives us a boost to our heal over time spells that we can control. So while Crit isn’t terribly, definitely reforge out of it or avoid it when possible.

You need 179 critical strike rating to get a 1% crit chance. In addition, you need 649 intellect for a 1% crit chance.

Stamina

This will be on nearly all of our gear, so it’s not something you need to worry about getting.

Hit Rating, Spell Penetration, Agility, Strength, Dodge Rating, Parry Rating, etc.

I think it goes without saying, but none of the stats listed in this heading do anything for us, so they should be avoided like the plague. Really, if you’re wearing the right gear, you should never see any of these anyway. Though for the sake of completion, I thought I’d mention it.

1.1 Restoration Druid Reforging

Reforging is a great tool when it’s used correctly. What you reforge for should be well thought out, and you shouldn’t be reforging just for the sake of reforging. Below are some great templates from WoWReforge.com that I put together for different circumstances, which correlate with the Stat Priority lists I have above.

When using this tool, it is important to put in the Haste Cap that you are going for, where it says “Cap #1.” This will ensure the tool isn’t needlessly reforging for haste when you are already over your chosen cap. As a quick reference, the minimum haste you should shoot for is 915 haste rating (or 1,601 without raid buffs), ideally you would go for 2,004 haste rating (or 2,745 without raid buffs). It is also smart to go slightly over each haste cap, due to the way rounding sometimes works in game.

After clicking on of the links below, enter your character name and sever. After hitting load, it will load your character with the template and weight you selected.

Reforging with Major Mana Problems
This template prefers Spirit over any other secondary stat after reaching the minimal 915 haste cap.

Reforging with Minor Mana Problems
This template prefers Spirit over any other secondary stat after reaching the 2,004 haste cap. So chances are it will require you to give up more Spirit to reach the cap, depending on how your gear looks.

Reforging with No Mana Problems
This template values spirit less than all other secondary stats after reaching the 2,004 haste cap. You probably won’t be using this strategy until later tiers, but it’s here just in case!

2. Restoration Druid Spell Overview/Usage

***This section has been updated with more Cataclysm friendly information. It is still a huge work in progress, and I’m doing my best to continue to clarify my explanations of spells and the situations you might consider using them in.

With Cataclysm, it’s much more important to use the right spell at the right time. The goal is to keep your target alive while using the least mana possible. Tactics like blanket rejuv-ing the raid may not work nearly as well as they have in the past. While they’ll still put out big numbers, you may find yourself short on mana before the fight is over. So what I’m going to try to do in this section is work out times when each of our healing spells will be most effective. Obviously, in the heat of a boss fight you may need to use different tactics, but you should always keep the different spell niches in mind to help yourself conserve mana.

Some general things to keep in mind, many classes now have self-heals that proc from using their normal spells. So if someone is at, say, 90% health, you can probably skip healing them if they’ve quit taking damage. Also remember to just relax. Chances are you aren’t the only healer that sees a certain target taking damage. Try not to fall victim to spaming your fast casting, high mana cost spells because you feel you’re the only one trying to save a target. It’s a bad habit to get in to, and will lead to you running out of mana fast. If you don’t trust the other healers you are playing with enough, try talking to them about healing assignments or how they plan on healing the fight.

One final note, with Tree of Life changing how some of our spells behave, I’ll have the details of how to use each spell when you’re in Tree of Life form in the Tree of Life form section. Instead of trying to explain it in each separate spell. This will hopefully help it all be less confusing.

Rejuvenation

Do: Heal up the raid in critical situations where using casted heals would cause a more critical healing target to die (i.e the tank)
Don’t: Blanket the raid when it’s unnecessary, or use when a casted heal like Nourish would be more mana efficient and cause less overhealing

Rejuvenation is very useful for healing up raid targets that aren’t taking a huge amount of damage, especially when using a casted heal on them may result in a more crucial healing target dying. For example, if you’re on a boss fight and you have 3-4 raid members that need to be healed, but the tank is also taking tons of damage. You can cut your time being off the tank by putting Rejuvenation on the raid targets, and then get back to using your big, casted heals on the tank.

Rejuvenation will benefit from the 10-second Harmony buff from our Mastery.

Regrowth

Do: Heal heavy spikes of damage or critical targets that need a fast heal; use with Omen of Clarity procs
Don’t: Spam on targets just because it’s a fast heal

Regrowth is now our fast casting heal, and is one of our spells that can become free if it’s casted during an Omen of Clarity proc. You will want to use it if someone is dangerously low on health and you expect them to continue to take damage or continue to need healing even after the initial Regrowth hit. The heal over time portion of Regrowth has been drastically shortened, so keeping it up on someone as a full time heal over time is ill-advised. After casting Regrowth on someone, if they are still in critical need of a heal, consider using Swiftmend or Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Touch. If neither of those are available, put a Rejuvenation on them and start casting Healing Touch. Try not to get into the habit of spaming Regrowth to top targets off, it’s very mana inefficient.

The initial heal from Regrowth will benefit from the direct heal increase from our Mastery, and the the heal over time portion will benefit from the 10-second Harmony buff given by our mastery.

Wild Growth

Do: Use on groups of targets taking sustained light damage or to top off light damage; use on groups taking heavy damage as a precursor to Rejuvenation
Don’t: Use on less than three targets or pop it on every cooldown when it’s unnecessary

Wild Growth is useful to top off light damage on multiple targets, and can save you a lot of time and mana from trying to cast Nourish or Rejuvenation on each target. It’s also useful as a precursor to using casted heals or additional heal over time effects on raid members during heavy damage moments. For example, if the raid has taken a huge amount of damage (lets say someone missed an interrupt) you may want to consider putting Wild Growth up, and then casting Rejuvenation on those targets as well. That combination will help you identify the most critical targets first (as Wild Growth will prefer healing the lowest targets), and give you a buffer to your Rejuvenation healing. If they still need healing after that, you can cast Nourish or Healing Touch on them.

Wild Growth will benefit from the 10-second Harmony buff from our Mastery.

Lifebloom

Do: Use on the current tank; refresh with Nourish, Healing Touch or Regrowth as damage permits
Don’t: Switch Lifebloom targets unless necessary (i.e. tank switch)

Lifebloom can only be kept on one target at a time, so generally it should be kept on a tank that is currently tanking something. This will work well whether you are tank healing or not, because as you proc Harmony from our Mastery, the tank will get the boosted healing from you Lifebloom.

Lifebloom will benefit from the 10-second Harmony buff from our Mastery, and I think the bloom effect will benefit from the static increase to direct heals.

Nourish

Do: Use on current target that has you Lifebloom; use to top off lingering raid damage if time permits
Don’t: Use to save a target taking fast and/or heavy damage

Nourish is no longer our fast heal. It’s now a slow(er), smaller heal, and costs very little mana compared to a spell like Regrowth. It’s an ideal spell to use on the same tank you have Lifebloom on, because it will refresh your Lifebloom on the tank (if you’re talented correctly). It may also be useful to help top off raid targets who aren’t in dire need of quick heals, and who won’t be taking prolonged damage. If you use Nourish to top off raid targets, you will also want to make sure that spending that time casting won’t result in another target dying. So be sure you take that fraction of a second to assess the situation and decide if maybe something like Wild Growth or a Rejuvenation would be better, or even if that person really needs healing at all.

Nourish will benefit from the static increase to direct heals from our Mastery.

Healing Touch

Do: Use as a large heal for predictable damage on a single target (or where a large heal is critical in keeping a target alive); have macroed with Nature’s Swiftness
Don’t: Spam continuously when it’s not required, or when Nourish may be a better choice

Healing Touch is now our big, slow, expensive heal, and is one of our spells that can become free when used during an Omen of Clarity proc. Slow and expensive may not make it sound very appealing, but it can save you a lot of time if you use it instead of Nourish to heal up large amounts of damage, especially on the tank. It’s also very efficient when strategically used with Omen of Clarity to top off a raid member or even the tank. However, don’t get into the habit of only using it with Omen of Clarity. If you need to top off a lot of damage, and you have the time to use Healing Touch to do it, then use it. If nothing else though, you should definitely have this in a macro with Nature’s Swiftness for another instant heal (see the macros section).

Healing Touch will benefit from the static increase to direct heals from our Mastery.

Nature’s Swiftness

Do: Use in a macro along with Healing Touch for a large instant heal
Don’t: Just rely on using without a macro, this can add as much as 1-2 seconds to getting the instant cast off

Your best use of Nature’s Swiftness in probably 99% of the situations in a raid will be to have it setup in a macro with Healing Touch (see the macros section). This will allow you to hit one button and get off a large instant heal. As opposed to hitting one button to put up Nature’s Swiftness, then another to use Healing Touch. There aren’t really any other spells I would recommend using with Nature’s Switness, none of them are going to give you the bang that Healing Touch will.

Swiftmend

Do: Use for an instant heal on critical targets, and/or to lay down Efflorescence on a group of targets to heal light damage
Don’t: Save the spell just to use Efflorescence on a group

Swiftmend is still very useful to use when a target needs a boost of health quick. Of course, this only works if they already have a Regrowth or Rejuvenation heal over time on them, but that doesn’t make the spell any less useful. In addition to a large, “instant” heal, Swiftmend also puts down Efflorescence (which is explained below).

Swiftmend will benefit from the static increase to direct heals from our Mastery.

Efflorescence

Do: Strategically use on group of targets for light incoming damage; Use on top of a tank for added healing
Don’t: Use every cooldown when the damage doesn’t call for it

Efflorescence is an AoE-type heal that procs on top of any player you use Swiftmend on. The good news is that, from what I can tell, even if your Swiftmend over-heals, Efflorescence will still take advantage of whatever the full Swiftmend heal would have been. This means that it can be worth it to pop Swiftmend on someone who is standing in a group if you know they will be getting hit by light damage, even if that person is at or near full health. I don’t recommend using Swiftmend on cooldown just to have Efflorescense up all the time. Try to be smart about using it.

Also, don’t hesitate to use Swiftmend as a fast heal to save someone that’s dangerously low, even if it means Efflorescence only procs where it hits one person. Saving that person would likely benefit the group more than if you just saved you’re Swiftmend.

It may also be worth it to put Efflorescence on the tank, if raid damage for the fight is light, but tank damage is high. That way you aren’t sitting on your Efflorescence and just not using it.

One final thing to note, Efflorescence bay double dip from our Mastery. Once because of the increased healing to Swiftmend, and again from our Harmony buff. This requires additional testing to verify or disprove.

Tranquility

Do: Use when raid damage is critical and wide spread, where using other spells on each target wouldn’t be fast enough
Don’t: Use for less than 5 targets taking critical damage

Tranquility was changed to be effective across the raid, and not just in your group. This opened it up to be a large scale, critical-moment heal like it was used for in 5-mans. The best time to use Tranquility would be when at least five (usually more) targets are in critical need of a lot of healing, and you don’t feel there will be enough time for you and the other healers to save them with spells like Regrowth. Even if there are more than five targets, the Tranquility can free up the other healers to save the rest of the targets. You may only have enough time to use Tranquility once per fight, so you will need to decide in an instant which moment is the best one.

I highly recommend having two points in [Malfurion's Gift], in order to bring you Tranquility cooldown to 3 minutes. This will allow you to use Tranquility at least twice in most fights. Which, as you can guess, is pretty big on a lot of raid content

Finally, I recommend having a full duration buff of Harmony (our mastery) before using Tranquility, as it will see a boost from the heal over time bonus. Further increases its effectiveness

Omen of Clarity

Do: Keep track of procs and use Regrowth or Healing Touch with them
Don’t: Ignore procs or leave them unused, if everyone is topped off use a free Regrowth on the tank

Omen of Clarity is huge now, especially with mana being at a premium. I highly recommend putting at least one point into [Malfurion's Gift], which is required for Omen of Clarity to proc from healing spells as of patch 4.0.6. If you’ve put a point into Malfurion’s Gift to get Omen of Clarity, then you need to have a way that’s comfortable for you to see each time you have a proc (and possibly even the time remaining on it), so you can use it.

When Omen of Clarity procs, you can use it with Healing Touch for a large (free) heal on the tank or a raid member, even if it’s used with a Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Touch macro. You can also use it with Regrowth to get a heal to someone quick (and for free) during heavy raid damage. If everyone is already topped off, I highly recommend just using Regrowth on the tank. It’s a free heal, so you can’t go wrong just using it when there’s nothing else that needs immediate attention. Not watching Omen of Clarity procs, or leaving them unused, is just about as bad as casting an unneeded heal.

Tree of Life

Do: Use just before heavy damage is expected, or when heavy damage is happening
Don’t: Just use at the beginning of the fight, so you can use it again later on – it’s best saved for when it’s really needed

Tree of Life form was changed to a cooldown ability. When you use Tree of Life form your healing is increased by 15% and you get some new unique things added onto some of your spells. Regrowth becomes an instant cast, Wild Growth will affect two additional targets, your Lifebloom can be cast on unlimited targets. You also get a casting speed increase and damage increase to Wrath, and Entangling Roots becomes an instant cast. If you’re using Tree of Life in a raid setting, you should probably be focused mostly on healing. The best time to use Tree of Life is when you know heavy damage is coming, or when heavy damage is already happening and you need a healing boost.

A good strategy for Tree of Life healing, assuming you popped it during a raid healing intensive portion of a fight, is to make sure Wild Growth is up and then start blanketing the raid in Lifebloom, refreshing Wild Growth until targets are in a less critical state. Lifebloom is very mana efficient, and if you’re talented into [Malfurion's Gift], your Omen of Clarity procs should go crazy. This means you can be using instant cast Regrowths with the Omen of Clarity procs to top off targets even faster, without killing your mana. Also, don’t forget about using things like Swiftmend (for Efflorescence) and Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Touch. Just because a spell doesn’t get a cool new mechanic doesn’t make it’s useless, you’ll still get the 15% healing boost on it.

If you popped Tree of Life to help heal the tanks or a smaller group of people through heavy damage, consider using Wild Growth first again (to give everyone a heal over time), then use your Regrowth once on each target if they are all very critical. If they aren’t too critical, consider just using Rejuvenation on each target and then Healing Touch. Just don’t get into the habit of spaming Regrowth multiple times on the same target. Again, don’t forget things like Swiftmend and Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Touch.

Innervate

Do: Use when you are at about 80% mana
Don’t: Use on yourself or someone else when the effect will be wasted

In 4.2, it is not longer efficient to trade Innervate with another druid. So don’t do it anymore!

You should use Innervate on yourself at around 80% mana. Then every time after that when it’s off cooldown. Always ensure you will get the full effect of it, and that you aren’t already near full mana. Also, if you pop it with Intellect or Mana buffs up, you will see an even bigger mana return because your maximum mana pool will be larger.

Thorns

Do: Use on the tank just before a boss or trash pull
Don’t: Completely ignore using Thorns if your mana permits

Thorns is a tough spell to explain when to use. I guess there really won’t be any huge penalties if you just never use it either. I generally use it just before a boss pull or a trash pull, to help the tank out as much as possible with threat. After that it’s up to you if you continue to use it every cooldown, or not. If you don’t have the mana to use it every cooldown, then don’t. No one is going to think you’re bad because you didn’t use Thorns. My guess is most non-druids don’t even know that Thorns exists, or how it functions now. There is also a macro in the Macros section below that will cast Thorns on your Focus target, which makes it a little easier to use on tanks during a fight.

Faerie Fire

Do: Use if a Hunter, Warrior, Rogue, or other Druid is not already providing an armor debuff, and you are comfortable applying it while healing
Don’t: Make it a huge priority as a healer, even if the debuff isn’t being applied. You do have bigger things to worry about!

Faerie Fire is another spell that you may not use often, if at all. What it does is reduce enemies’ armor by a certain percent depending how many stacks of Faerie Fire you put up. This is helpful if your group or raid is looking to maximize DPS. Generally you will have a DPS or tank class there to provide the same debuff. However, if your group is missing the debuff, and the healing situation is comfortable enough for you, you can apply the debuff yourself. The physical DPS’ers in the group will thank you. This is something to keep in mind in 5-mans and 10-mans especially, where there are less debuff possibilities.

3. Restoration Druid Talent Specs

Below are some specs I put together for different circumstances. The one you use will depend on what you’re trying to accomplish. As a general note, [Nature's Cure] can always be considered an optional talent. I like to have it because I enjoy utility, but if your raid doesn’t need it you are free to put the point elsewhere. If you’re mostly running 5-mans, I recommend picking it up though. DPS are never very quick to dispel, unless you’re running with an experienced group.

Raid Healing/Tank Healing

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0hrhZZrfzhdzruouo

This is the spec that I currently use for raid healing and tank healing, though my primary role while using it is raid healing. Because I only have one resto spec, I wanted it to be dual use. Which was easy to do with the talent changes in 4.1.

The strategy with this spec is a bit of a throwback to the “blanket rejuving” days, though you have to be smart with it. Your primary heal will be rejuvenation, but you should try to keep over healing with it to a minimum. You will also be utilizing Wild Growth for raid healing very consistently (it should be the first spell you go to once it’s off CD). Swiftmend and Efflorescence will also be powerful healing spells when used and positioned correctly, along with Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Touch for a tight situation. The interesting part about this spec is watching for Omen of Clarity procs, which you’ll more than likely want to use Regrowth with for a quick, free raid heal on someone. As a filler spell, I still use Nourish if the situation calls for it, but generally I’m too busy healing one person and moving onto the next. You will also want to keep Lifebloom on the primary tank target, which should be a strategy you adopt regardless of your spec or role in a group/raid. With the short cooldown on Tranquility in 4.1, you should now be able to use Tranquility two or three times in one fight, so be sure you don’t forget about it!

This spec is also powerful for tank healing because of Empowered Touch, which allows you to save a global cooldown on refreshing Lifebloom. While also making Nourish and Healing Touch (your two bread and butter tank heals) heal for more. You also get the small bonus to Nourish cast time from Nature’s Bounty.

This spec also includes a number of regen oriented talents, most notably Moonglow. This particular talent will translate to a lot of mana savings over the course of a fight with how often you’ll be using Rejuvenation and other instant cast spells. You also have Malfurion’s Gift, to ensure you get as many Omen of Clarity procs as possible. This won’t save you as much mana as Moonglow, but it will still be some savings you can’t ignore. Watching for procs will also add a little bit of “fun” to healing, because you actually need to watch for something. Then of course there is Revitalize, which I don’t really see as an optional regen talent, but it should certainly be something you pick up when considering this spec.

Alternative Raid Healing Spec

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0hbhZZMfzIdcruoho

This is a theoretical spec that I have not tested. If you try it, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

The idea behind healing with this spec, is you get at least three Rejuvenations up on certain targets (to benefit from Nature’s Bounty), then put up Wild Growth and use you’re fast Nourish cast to top people off that already have your HoTs on them. This will benefit from mastery more than crit to a large degree, so keep that in mind if you go with this spec. You will also still be using Efflorescence and Swiftmend as usual with this spec. Along with keeping Lifebloom up on the primary tank at all times.

I’m still up in the air on whether or not to include [Malfurion's Gift] instead of two points in [Furor], because Nourish will not consume an Omen of Clarity proc. However when it does proc you could substitute a Regrowth heal on whoever your next target is.

4. Restoration Druid Pre-raid “Best in Slot” Gear

Rather than try to continue to keep a pre-raid gear list here, I’ve decided to configure a gear list on Wowhead. This will make updating for patches way faster, and make things a whole lot neater.

This list will not include anything from raids, but it will include things from Valor points.

NOTICE: This is a work in progress, and it appears Wowhead doesn’t currently have a way to exclude raid drops (voice your support for this feature in this thread on Wowhead). I will update and finetune the list filters based on feedback and my own findings.

Wowhead Pre-Raid Gear List for Restoration Druids

5. Restoration Druid Gems

There is some flexibility when it comes to gemming your gear, but you should still try to make a logical choice based on what you need. You may also want to consider what the socket bonus is when picking what gems to use. The gems listed for each socket are listed in order of priority, from highest priority to lowest. I’ll say it again though, keep in mind what kind of caps you are trying to reach (specifically the haste caps), as well as things like how your mana regen is when you pick the gems to use in each socket.

Red Socket: [Brillian Inferno Ruby], [Reckless Ember Topaz] (if haste is still needed after yellow sockets)
Yellow Socket: [Reckless Ember Topaz], [Quick Amberjewel] (if you are in dire need of haste, and reckless gems aren’t enough)
Blue Sockets: [Purified Demonseye], [Sparkling Ocean Sapphire] (use only if you have extreme regen problems and nothing else fixed them)
Meta Socket: [Ember Shadowspirit Diamond]

Socket Bonuses: For now, if a socket bonus is 20 intellect or higher, and requires only one non-Brilliant gem to get it, you will gain more by socketing for the bonus. For example, pretend you have a chest piece with a red and a blue socket, and a socket bonus of 20 intellect. It will be more beneficial to use a Brilliant Inferno Ruby and a Purified Demonseye than it would be to use two Inferno Rubies, because by picking up the socket bonus to gain back the intellect you lost, plus 20 spirit.

You can also be smart about socket bonuses if you need more haste, in order to minimize your intellect losses. So be sure you’re paying attention to socket bonuses when figuring out your gear!

6. Restoration Druid Enchants

The enchants are a little more flexible now, so you’ll have some (and I mean some) choices when it comes to getting the stats you need. Just like with the gems, the enchants will be in a priority order for each slot, but it’s up to you to make the judgment about what exactly you need to do to reach stuff like the haste caps, or to help out your regen if you’re having problems.

Also, if you have a profession that has a better enchant for any of the slots, you should definitely be using that over anything I list here. For example, enchanters should be enchanting their rings.

Helm:
[Arcanum of Hyjal] (Revered Guardians of Hyjal)

Shoulders:
[Greater Inscription of Charged Lodestone] (Exalted Therazane)

Cloak:
[Greater Intellect] (Enchanting)

Chest:
[Peerless Stats] (Enchanting)
[Exceptional Spirit] (Enchanting)

Bracers:
[Mighty Intellect] (Enchanting)
[Exceptional Spirit] (Enchanting) (use spirit as a cheaper alternative if you absolutely need to)

Gloves:
[Haste] (Enchanting)

Waist:
[Ebonsteel Belt Buckle] (Blacksmithing)

Legs:
[Powerful Ghostly Spellthread] (Tailoring)
[Ghostly Spellthread] (Tailoring) (can be used as a cheaper alternative is necessary)

Boots:
[Lavawalker] (Enchanting) (I’m biased towards having a movement speed increase)
[Haste] (Enchanting) (haste is more than acceptable, if you need it, you need it)

Weapon:
[Power Torrent] (Enchanting)
[Heartsong] (Enchanting) (use Heartsong as a cheaper alternative if you absolutely need to)

Off-hand:
[Superior Intellect] (Enchanting)

7. Restoration Druid Glyphs

Prime Glyphs

[Lifebloom], [Rejuvenation], [Swiftmend]

The only choice you really have between Prime glyphs is [Regrowth] and [Lifebloom]. The reason I didn’t chose the Regrowth glyph is because I’ve never seen many situations where it would actually refresh in a way that makes it beneficial. For example, you’re probably going to cast Regrowth on someone that is low (lets say sub-25%). Chances are all of the other healers are going to cast a heal on that person as well, meaning they’ll get out of that 25% range pretty fast. Even if they don’t, you still need to wait for the refreshed heal over time portion to tick again. So I guess in my head I liked the other glyphs a little more than that. Even though Lifebloom is still kind of RNG based like the Regrowth glyph, I still see it healing more on a tank over the course of the fight.

The [Swiftmend] glyph will save you a lot of trouble with needing to recast your HOTs. This will save you time and mana, which are two huge factors for a healer. I wouldn’t switch this glyph out for anything

Finally, Rejuvenation is still our bread and butter heal. So you can’t go wrong with increasing the effectiveness of a spell that will make of the majority of your healing!

Major Glyphs

[Healing Touch], [Rebirth], [Wild Growth], (or[Thorns] or [Innervate]; if you must or for some reason don’t have Nature’s Swiftness or don’t want to use the Wild Growth glyph)

With the changes to Innervate in 4.2, there is no longer a need to use the [Innervate] glyph as you shouldn’t be trading Innervates. However, if there is an encounter or situation where someone else needs your Innervate more than you do, and you know that it’s going to happen, you may still find the glyph useful.

The [Healing Touch] glyph is a nice replacement for the Innervate glyph. Most Druids have Nature’s Swiftness (and I would argue that all Druids should, even if realistically you can heal fine without it). Reducing the cooldown on a big, instant heal is always nice.

With the changes to the [Wild Growth] glyph in 4.3, you now have an interesting choice to make with this glyph. It’s actually a tougher one than I think it should be. Since if you decide to not use the Wild Growth glyph. Which may happen in the case of 10-man healing, where there are less people to heal overall and where healing may need to go out faster. You are almost choosing between the same thing, neither of which will affect your numbers. You’ll either heal for more because it’s on an extra target, or heal for more because the cooldown is less. I would like to eventually crunch numbers on what would actually heal for more, but there will be so many variables that will get in the way it’s just tough to do definitively.

So what it comes down to with the [Wild Growth] glyph is a playstyle choice really. I have the shorter cooldown Wild Growth engraved in my head, where I have a spidey-sense like feeling to hit it when the cooldown is up. And I found the extended cooldown threw off my healing greatly. Sure, I could get used to the longer cooldown, but at the moment I don’t see what difference it makes besides affecting playstyle by a couple seconds one way or the other.

As always with glyphs, you can just switch them fight-to-fight! So don’t feel too pressured to make a decision and just stay with it.

Minor Glyphs

[Mark of the Wild], [Unburdened Rebirth], [Dash]

Not much choice here either. I did chose Dash over Aquatic Form because it’s nice to have Dash up more often on fights where you may need to move somewhere quickly. Though with how glyphs work now, it won’t be a big deal to switch Dash and Aquatic Form as needed.

8. Restoration Druid Macros

Here are some macros I use with my druid. There are tons of macros out there, but I thought I would start with the ones I use first. I’ll continue to build this section up as I find more macros I think people will like.

Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Touch Macro

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Nature’s Swiftness
/cast Healing Touch

This macro lets you put Nature’s Swiftness up, and cast Healing Touch with one button.

Nature’s Swiftness/Healing Touch Focus Macro

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/cast Nature’s Swiftness
/cast [modifier:shift,@focus,help,exists][@target,help][@player]Healing Touch

This is similar to the above macro, but instead if you hold down your Shift key it will cast the instant Healing Touch on your Focus target (useful if you have a tank set as your Focus). Otherwise, if you don’t hold Shift, it will cast it on our current target. If you have no target, it will then cast it on you.

Thorns on Focus Target

#showtooltip
/cast [@focus,help][@target,help][@player] Thorns

This will use Thorns on your current /focus target, or if you have no focus it will cast Thorns on your current target, and if you have no focus or no one targeted that’s friendly, it will cast it on yourself. This is especially useful if you have only one tank for a fight, or if you have more than one resto druid and you can each take a Thorns target to use as your focus.

Remove Corruption Mouseover

#showtooltip
/cast [@mouseover,exists,nodead][exists,nodead][@player] Remove Corruption

This macro will cast Remove Corruption on the target you have your mouse pointer over first, if you don’t have a mouseover target it will cast it on your currently selected target, and if you have neither it will cast it on yourself. I find a mouseover macro useful for this, since I don’t need to switch targets to dispel anything, so I lose less time on healing my current target.

9. Restoration Druid Addons

I will slowly be updating this section with more and more addon information, it’s quite a tedious process, so bear with me.

As a frame of reference, you can see screenshots of a basic version of my UI on the Restoration UI Compilation page. You may also download a copy of the UI there as well. If you don’t want to manually configure everything.

9.1 Recommended Restoration Druid Addons

• Grid / Healbot / Vuhdu / Similar Raid Frame Addon
• Power Auras

9.2 Restoration Druid Power Auras

Power Auras is a great addon to use if you’re like me and don’t like always staring at your bars to see if a spell is ready. This addon will allow you to make visual and/or audio cues for an endless list of situations (such as when your Innervate is ready). You can download it from Curse or WoWInterface.

I’m going to be giving you things called Import Strings for each of the setups I have below. In order to use these Import Strings all you need to do is type /powa in game to bring up the Power Auras configuration window. Then click on the Import button. After that you’ll copy and paste in the corresponding Import String for whichever thing it is that you want to use from below.

Omen of Clarity/Clearcasting

I use this configuration to track when I have an Omen of Clarity proc. It’s big, and bright green, so I can’t miss it! I also have the time remaining on the Clearcasting buff at the top of the effect, so I know at a glance how long I have to use it still.

Import String:
Version:4.13; b:0.0431; anim1:4; icon:Spell_Shadow_ManaBurn; buffname:Clearcasting; r:0; x:-283; groupany:false; texture:169; alpha:1; isResting:0; inVehicle:0; spec2:false; size:1.14; y:-325; ismounted:0; finish:2; timer.h:1.91; timer.enabled:true; timer.y:-167; timer.x:-293

Innervate Ready

This configuration will put a big, bright blue “aura” on your screen to let you know your Innervate is off cooldown. It also has a small timer with the remaining cooldown on Innervate. I have this particular aura positioned around the top most part of my Grid setup. That way I can see it when I’m looking at Grid, or when I’m looking at my character and making sure I’m not standing in anything.

Import String:
Version:4.13; g:0.4196; icon:Spell_Nature_Lightning; buffname:Innervate; r:0.1686; x:17; bufftype:15; texture:16; alpha:1; isResting:0; size:1.82; torsion:1.21; y:-261; anim2:1; finish:2; timer.h:1.61; timer.enabled:true; timer.cents:false; timer.y:-127; timer.x:-207

9.3 Restoration Druid Grid Configuration

This section is a work in progress, but I decided to release it in chunks as I complete them for people who are interested.

Grid is a compact and flexible raid frame addon, which supports a variety of plugins for added functionality. Below is a list of all of the addons/plugins you should download and install before attempting to follow my configuration instructions:

• Grid (Curse \ WoWInterface)
• GridIndicatorCornerText (Curse) – No longer being maintained, but still works for now
• GridStatusHots (Curse)
• GridStatusRaidDebuff (Curse)

General Frame Configuration

The first tab in the Grid configuration menu, titled “Frame,” contains general frame options. Below is an image of the options I use, as well as a diagram of a single Grid square to give a better visual of what each of more important options will change. If you plan on following this configuration guide completely, I recommend copying the settings below. Under the diagram of the Grid square, I will provide explanations of most of the options.

Here is a quick run down of what each of the options in the above screenshot changes or adjusts:

• Frame Width/Height – the width/height of the individual boxes in Grid (the ones that represent each player)
• Border – size of the border around each individual frame, which will only show if you have indicators set for the Border (you’ll see later in this guide)
• Corner Size – how big you want the corner indicator boxes to be (you can tweak this to your liking)
• Show Tooltip – This will let you set when the tool tip for players shows up when you hover over them in Grid
• Orientation of Frame – Changes whether your groups are organized left to right, or top to bottom
• Orientation of Text – Changes weather the center text is aligned left to right, or top to bottm
• Enable Mouseover Highlight – Enables/Disables the highlighting of the target your mouse pointer is over on Grid
• Enable Health Bar Color Indicator – I believe this option will change health bar color as the target gets lower, but it doesn’t work when you use class colors (which I do)
• Enable Center Text 2 Indicator – This will give you a second text row in the middle of the Grid boxes, generally below where the player names are

Bar Options

• Frame Texture – Changes how the bars look, you can set this to whatever you like
• Healing Bar Opacity – This will make the bars look different when a player is missing health, you can set this to whatever you like the most
• Invert Bar Color – This will polarize or un-polarize the bar colors, you can use whichever setting you like

Icon Options

These options will change the size and border size of the center grid icon. This icon is generally used to show dispel-able or other important debuffs/buffs on a target.

Text Options

• Font, Font Size, Font Outline – These all affect how text appears on Grid, you can change these to your liking
• Center Text Length – Number of letters that will be displayed in the Center Text and Center Text 2 indicators
• Corner Text Font Options – You can change these options however you would like, too. I have the font blown up huge because I only use it to track my Lifebloom duration

Indicator Configuration

The next tab, Indicators, is where you setup what information to display in each of the different areas of a Grid box. Below is a list of each notification I have enable for all of the different areas. Along with each item in the list, I also have the Priority for each item (it’s in parenthesis after each one). Priorities can be setup in the Status tab, and I will talk about those a little later in the guide.

Layout Configuration

The layout tab allows you to tell Grid how to display groups based on what instance difficulty/size you’re in. Most of the options here I feel are pretty self explanatory, so I’ll spare you the long explanations. For reference, here is a screen shot of the settings I use.

10. Change Log

The last three or so updates will be listed here, until I figure out a way to make the list take up less space otherwise!

12/07/11
Updated glyphs section to be more current and informative (and hopefully not more confusing!)
Further refined Wowhead pre-raid gear list

11/30/11
Removed pre-raid gear list in order to eventually replace it with a Wowhead loot list
Shortened the changelog
Updated haste levels (turns out 37% haste is still alot for the last tier!)

06/28/11
4.2 updates are rolling out, check back often today
Updated the mastery/crit sections
Updated Tranquility spell section
Updated Major Glyphs to reflect no more Innervate trading
Added an Innervate spell section (not sure why I didn’t have one before)
Re-read some of the guide for grammar, typos and general readability. Will check the rest soon

05/15/11
Added links to my Resto Druid UI

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