Restoration Druids
Resto Druids excel in raid healing. With their mastery, they now are also pretty powerful at tank healing too. With a battle rez, smart AoE healing, and powerful heals that are free, Druids are a strong addition to any raid.
TL;DR
- Talents: See below
- Gems: Red - Purified (+Spirit/+Int), Blue - Sparkling (+Spirit), Yellow - Energized (+Haste / +Spirit) or Zen (+Mastery / +Spirit)
- Stats: Spirit (until you don't need mana regen anymore)>Int>Haste (Breaking Point)>Mastery>Crit
- Playing: Keep Lifebloom on the Tank and refresh with Regrowth, Regrowth on Clearcasting Procs, Wild Growth and Swiftmend groups of people to AoE heal, Tranquility
Talents and Glyphs
Tier Level 15: Feline Swiftness is your ideal choice. Overall, situational.
Tier Level 30: Natures Swiftness for instant cast. Cenarion Ward for an extra heal on hit.
Tier Level 45: Situational.
Tier Level 60: Soul of the Forest has higher output, but requires more mana (see note below for further analysis on Soul of the Forest). Incarnation is ideal if you have bad mana management.
Tier Level 75: Situational.
Tier Level 90: Nature's Vigil for healing output# Heart of the Wild for amazing damage output. Dream of Cenarius sucks for Resto Druids#
Major Glyphs - Glyph of Lifebloom (faster swaps between tanks). Glyph of Wild Growth (6 targets healed) Glyph of regrowth (100% crit chance, losing the underwhelming HoT)
Stat Priorities and Gemming
For quick reference, I listed the priority in stats. Explanation is listed below.
Spirit (till comfortable). >>> Intellect >>> Haste (To haste cap) >>> Mastery >>> Crit >>> Haste (Non-breakpoint)
Your best stat for healing by far is Intellect. However, you will want to get enough spirit to be able to handle the long 10 minute fights that are more commonground in MoP. Haste is your second best stat up to haste caps (two common haste caps are listed in the next section). After that, Mastery slightly beats out Crit in throughtput.
For gemming, there is no reason to not meet socket bonus on gear. As you feel more comfortable with your mana regen, start regemming into intellect. See above for recommended gems.
Haste Caps
Always reach first haste breakpoint at 3043 haste. As you gear up, shoot for 6652 haste for your next breakpoint. Beyond that is unreachable without lowering your stats too much.
Information
Thoroughput on Healing Touch is not worth the time to cast it. You should only ever use Regrowth. Note that this is an expensive heal so you cannot just spam it. Use it to refresh Lifebloom. Use it whenever clearcasting procs. Use it with the Glyph of Regrowth for an fast / powerful crit heal# The only time you would use nourish is if you have nothing else to do# If that's the case, start casting wrath at the boss.
If you chose the Soul of the Forest talent, you will want to use Swiftmend right before using Wild Growth. Swiftmend will give your next spell 75% haste (100% haste in patch 5.4). This works for Wild Growth giving it more ticks, faster. Much higher AoE output than Incarnation. Try to always time Wild Growth right after Swiftmend. Note that this will consume mana faster than Incarnation.
Questions?
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