If you have the will and the faith to choose the healing path, the Restoration spec is the way to go. It gives you additional tools as well as improving your existing spells to keep people alive. Let's get everything we need to start in the right way with the Resto spec.
Stats
Haste
Haste helps to reach the incompressible 1s Global CoolDown (GCD) triggered by your instant spells. The faster you cast hots, the more you heal.
Haste has a soft cap from which it becomes less powerful. It depends on how many talent points you have spent in Celestial Focus. With raid buff, Haste soft cap is :
- with Celestial Focus : 735
- without Celestial Focus : 856
As you may have noticed, Celestial Focus is a 4th tier talent which means you have to spend 15 points in the Balance tree to reach it. The most you spend in Balance, the less you have in Resto.
The typical Celestial Focus spec is useful for fresh 80 druid and undergeared characters as the soft Haste cap is quite hard to reach without, at least, a full 251 gear. The loss in the Resto tree is definitely worth the Haste gain.
The more you gear up, the more Haste you get if you keep focusing on it (check my post about Gear progression pattern). A common 264-277 gear with 4T10 and good pieces from ICC will end up giving you just the Haste cap or a little more.
However it's a SOFT cap which means Haste continues to be useful even after the soft value.
Spell
Spell is the primary stat for a Resto druid. The more you have the stronger your heal will be.
Spirit
As well as giving you mana regeneration, it grants 0,15 spell per point with the Improved ToL talent. I've been asked about usual regen issues and my answer is still the same : you will get more benefits from spell and haste than from spirit. See below, things can be modulate to opt for more regen. Mana regen can be found in multiple other ways. However we don't forget spirit, you will find some on most interesting items in ICC and it scales with your gearscore which is largely sufficient.
MP5
MP5 is a pure regen stat and you must always prefer spirit over mp5 if possible.
Intellect
It gives you a larger mana pool as well as regen and crit. Like spirit, every relevant items have intellect and it's sufficient to let it grow up alongside your gearscore.
Crit
The impact of our gear in our critical chance is quite low. It mostly comes from Nature's Bounty and raid buff. In a raid environment, Nourish and Regrowth will roughly have 45-50% crit chance while our gear accounts for only 10-15%. I strongly recommend to ignore crit. Like other stats it'll automatically grow up alongside your gearscore.
Template Glyphs Gems Enchants and Consumables
Templates
You can find different templates online but they all have the same base :
11/0/53 and 7 points left to spend.
It's the spec for fresh 80 and undergeared druids. It brings the soft Haste cap to 735 while dropping Living Seed.
It's my current spec. You drop the haste bonus (as your gear becomes better) to get Living Seed and 1/2 Empowered Touch. A point in Tranquil Spirit has been moved to Subtlety for threat purpose.
A different spec without Nature's Grace more throughput oriented. It gives you 2% more crit and 10% additional spell bonus for Nourish. If you happen to read posts on this blog you will definitely understand why I really dislike this spec.
Pure tank healing spec. It's the spec you should go for on boss like LK HM. Living Seed takes advantage of Nourish spamming improved by Empowered Touch. This spec is linked with Glyph of Nourish.
Because this post explains basics, I won't go in specific spec for special boss.
Glyphs
Glyph of Swiftmend : mandatory glyph. read tooltip
Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation : I recommend this glyph if you have more than 600 haste. You will have less Rejuvenation running at the same time. With 850+ Haste your Rejuvenation will last approximatively 12 seconds so a maximum of 12 targets in the raid will be covered. In 10m environment it's mandatory but in 25m you can possibly drop it.
Glyph of Innervate : especially for fresh 80 and undergeared druid that don't have much Haste and usually mana issues.
Glyph of Wild Growth : adding 1 target to your wild growth helps a lot on fight where there are heavy raid damages.
Glyph of Nourish : when raid healing isn't needed or when you need a good focus on tank, this glyph grants you a good boost to Nourish. Keep in mind that your Wild Growth will still cover 5 targets which isn't bad for raid healing.
Glyph of Rejuvenation : especially on new content when healing is not easily predictable and when your teammates are not experienced. It's still not a good glyph and you will see better results with others.
Typical glyph setup might be :
Glyph of Swiftmend + Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation + Glyph of Wild Growth
Glyph of Swiftmend + Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation + Glyph of Nourish
Glyph of Swiftmend + Glyph of Innervate + Glyph of Wild Growth (for fresh 80)
Gems
If you don't have the Haste cap, you should put Reckless Ametrine in yellow sockets and Runed Cardinal Ruby in red sockets, otherwise go for full Runed Cardinal Ruby. If you need Reckless Ametrine, try to choose spell socket bonus (+7 or +5).
Socketing is linked with your gear and your spec. If you are :
Over 800 haste without any Reckless Ametrine, you should choose a spec without Celestial Focus, and put Reckless Ametrine in yellow socket to reach 856.
Under 800 haste, choose a spec with 1/3, 2/3 or 3/3 Celestial Focus depending on your current haste value and socket with Runed Cardinal Ruby.
Spell is the most important stat for a restoration druid and if you dropped Spell to gain Haste (e.g. Reckless Ametrine instead of Runed Cardinal Ruby) in order to reach the soft cap value, you should just get back to full Runed Cardinal Ruby as soon as you have the cap. If you can have 856 haste without any Reckless Ametrine, go for it.
As meta, opt for an Ember Skyflare Diamond. If you often have mana issues you can definitely go for an Insightful Earthsiege Diamond and 1 Reckless Ametrine + 1 Purified Dreadstone. It will allow you to get 2 socket bonus while optimizing your mana regeneration.
Enchants
Shoulders : Greater Inscription of the Crag
Cloak : Greater Speed
Chest : Powerful Stats
Bracers : Superior Spellpower
Gloves : Exceptional Spellpower
Legs : Brilliant Spellthread
Boots : Tuskarr's Vitality
Consumables
Food : Fish Feast
Flask : Flask of the Frost Wyrm
Potion : Runic Mana Potion
Gear
If you are looking for a good way to gear up your fresh 80 druid be sure to check this post.
Best items for Restoration druid in ICC are these with Spirit and Haste. Depending on the raid setup (10 or 25) you gear choice could change. Be sure to check my post about 10 and 25 differences to know more about it.
Basically I keep a 4T10 + Chest setup for 25 man raid and I drop 2 pieces of set in 10 man. Trinket setup depends on boss and mana regeneration requirement.
I'm not going to do a BIS table but let's have a list of interesting items. Also good in lower version (251/264).
Helm
Neck
Shoulders
Cloak
Chest
Bracers
Gloves
Belt
Legs
Boots
Rings
Trinkets
Weapon
Offhand
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