This thread is a summary of our main spells. It suggests how to use them, what are their strengths as well as their weaknesses. With hindsight, it shows a comprehensive picture of the restoration druid potential in a PVE environment.
Other posts are dedicated to advanced gameplay, 10 vs 25 differences and specific boss role analysis so these topics will not be addressed in here.
Let's take a good look at our spellbook and talents.
Rejuvenation
It's what we can call our base spell. It's definitely the most powerful hot in the game and you must abuse of it. The Healing Per Mana (HPM) is very efficient and the Healing Per Execution Time (HPET) very strong which make this spell awesome.
Its primary use is raid healing and especially when there are constant heavy damages on the raid. By spamming Rejuvenation you will be able to cover high damages on many targets. It gives stability to raid health and allow flexibility on damages taken as it will heal without focus on the target.
Boosted by talent, it also receives modifications and improvements from Glyphs and Set bonus. Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation allows your Rejuvenation to pulse faster (depending on your haste). The overall duration is lowered but HPS per spell is increased. The 4T10 bonus procs a new intelligent Rejuvenation on someone in the raid. Intelligent because it will automatically target someone with low HP. It could sometimes be frustrating when you throw a Rejuvenation on someone that has just been targeted by the bonus.
Rejuvenation works very well with Wild Growth when it comes to raid healing, with Swiftmend to save people and with Revitalize to boost raid mana regeneration and dps. You must also keep it up on tank.
Wild Growth
Wild Growth covers 5 targets and 6 with Glyph of Wild Growth equipped. It has a cooldown of 6 sec and must be used on CD on boss with heavy raid damages. Even more than Rejuvenation, it stabilizes the raid HP. The typical combinaison with Haste cap is the so-called 5x1 rotation : 5 Rejuvenation for 1 Wild Growth.
Combined with Rejuvenation it provides you the best tools to succeed at raid healing. It always targets the lowest HP units and is considered as a hot, which works very well with Nourish. You can combine Wild Growth and Nourish to top up people when quick healing is needed.
Its 15 yards radius is often enough to target all 6 players but it's obviously more efficient on melee as you are pretty sure it will heal the maximum amount of targets. To get the best of Wild Growth you must keep in mind it has to target 6 units (or 5 without the Glyph). You must try to be aware of everyone's position to avoid targeting someone alone.
Also you will notice that Wild Growth usually targets pets. I would say it needs a fix but after all someone has to take care of them.
Lifebloom
Lifebloom is one of our multifunctional spell. Its main use is for tank healing but you will definitely understand is full potential as you get experienced.
The typical use of Lifebloom is stacked by 3 on tanks. Combined with Rejuvenation and Regrowth it helps a lot by keeping permanent incoming heal. The rate at which you have to stack it depend on boss.
As you might have understood, you can let Lifebloom bloom or refresh it. If you refresh the duration at 3 stacks, it costs a lot of mana. If you don't, it blooms and you receive mana back. The tank receive the heal but loose the hot and you have to stack it again which is 3 Global Cooldowns.
This leads me to my last point about Lifebloom : mana management. Letting Lifebloom fade gives you mana. It's up to you to know when to refresh and when to let it bloom. Lifebloom management and Omen of Clarity procs will be the key factors of your mana situation.
Regrowth
Regrowth is quite an hard spell to use properly. Its cast time is long but not enough to give up casting it. First you must keep the Regrowth hot up on tanks. The hot lasts 27 sec and allow you to use Swiftmend with flexibility when Rejuvenation has faded.
More than a hot, it can also be used as a flash heal especially during Heroism/Bloodlust. You can prefer it to Nourish on boss with regular spike raid damages.
Aside these situations, you might prefere Nourish to top up damages.
Nourish
It's your flash heal. It needs a hot to show its full potential and it's why it works perfectly with Wild Growth. It helps a lot to top up someone but you must prefer Rejuvenation for raid healing. You should never use more Nourish than Rejuvenation on fight where raid healing is needed.
Combined with Glyph of Nourish (and even without it) and 3 hots, it's your main tank healing spell. You'll need to use it on pretty much every fight.
As you get more and more experienced at healing, you will usually use it with Nature's Grace because it helps you to top people up faster than any class (probably except shaman). Find out more on this post.
Swiftmend
Your main instant heal. It's an extremely powerful spell as it instantly heals a target for 10k+. It works better with Rejuvenation as the hot is stronger than the Regrowth one but it's still useful with Regrowth.
It helps a lot on tank when the raid needs to move. You must be ready to throw it on tank when movement is coming. It also helps to top up someone with the common Rejuvenation + Swiftmend.
The Glyph of Swiftmend allow you not to consume the hot as the tooltip says. This glyph is mandatory both in PVE and PVP.
Innervate
This is your main mana regeneration tool. It gives 225% of your base mana = 7866 mana. On bosses you continually spend your mana, you should use it at approximatively 65% mana.
You must consider it specific to your mana regeneration. But as you get experienced and especially on already cleared content you might not need it. In this case you can possibly throw it on another healer such as Shaman or Priest but also on Mage.
Undergeared druid can use Glyph of Innervate instead of Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation to improve their mana regeneration as they don't have much Haste.
Living Seed
This talent works pretty much like the priest spell Prayer of Mending. Living Seed has a extremely good potential on tank and you must play with it. On bosses that hit really hard on tank, you should keep Living Seed up by looking for Nourish critical heal even if the tank is full HP.
Living Seed is hard to master and will sometimes overheal targets but it's definitely one of our best talent.
Unfortunately undergeared druids can't take it because they need Haste from Celestial Focus. You can possibly drop Revitalize if you really want to try it out.
Revitalize
Primary use of this talent is mana regeneration. It can gives up to 9k mana to paladins (who have big mana pools) on some bosses. It boosts dps aswell especially on DK and Rogue.
This talent is definitely not insignificant. As we said just before, druids with Celestial Focus have to choose between Revitalize and Living Seed. Living Seed is more throughput oriented while Revitalize gives a raidwide passive utility to our main spells.
Nature's Swiftness
With a 3 min cooldown, you must use it carefully. Combined with Healing Touch, you might find it useful to top up someone especially when movement is needed but it's usually considered as an emergency button for any situation.
Very powerfull spell especially in 10 man as it covers a full group. You won't probably spec into it so you may only use it once in a fight. It is a 10 seconds channeled spell and it will heal a lot more than necessary if you use the full duration. I recommend to wait for 2 pulses and stop the channeling.
It's only group wide so use it carefully and when at least 3 players on 5 are dangerously low.
Tranquility
Very powerfull spell especially in 10 man as it covers a full group. You won't probably spec into it so you may only use it once in a fight. It is a 10 seconds channeled spell and it will heal a lot more than necessary if you use the full duration. I recommend to wait for 2 pulses and stop the channeling.
It's only group wide so use it carefully and when at least 3 players on 5 are dangerously low.
Rebirth
Rebirth is a unique spell and define pretty nicely our class. It resurrects someone in combat giving it a second chance.
You should probably wait for a call of your raid leader instead of casting it on the first dead player. However you might use it mostly on healers or tank as they have usually a clever role in a fight.
Barkskin
This spell is very useful on pretty much every fight. By diminishing damage taken, it must be used on every dangerous and damaging ability bosses could do and so that when it's raidwide abilities or targeted spells. I'm sure you will find example of use for Barkskin on every boss in ICC.
Even with a 1 min cooldown, you should use it carefully.
Dash
Useful in many situations. Must be glyphed with the minor Glyph of Dash. It can be use to avoid abilities, make up faster a distance or catch up with your late.
