Restoration Druid

Rotation

Note: healing doesn’t follow a strict rotation and this is more of a guideline.

1) Use a direct heal to apply the Harmony buff. Maintain this buff 100% of the time.

2) Keep Lifebloom and a Rejuvenation on the active tank at all times.

3) Keep Wild Mushroom down. Usually keeping it in melee is a safe bet. However, if the ranged are taking significant raid damage and are stacked, you can place it in ranged.

4) If you have the Soul of the Forest talent, use Swiftmend off cooldown followed by a Wild Growth. You can save this combo for a few seconds if you know there is upcoming raid damage.

5) Consume Omen of Clarity buffs with Regrowth casts. If no one is low, use this on your current Lifebloom target to refresh its duration.

6) Use Rejuvenation as a filler ability on players that are, or are about to, take damage.

7) If you have the Dream of Cenarius talent, use Wrath as a filler during low periods of damage.

Cooldowns

Tranquility – Our signature three minute cooldown ability. Tranquility is arguably one of the best healing throughput cooldowns in the game, and can be used to heal through dangerous parts of an encounter. This ability will almost always be assigned by your raid or heal leader. If not, use this during periods of heavy raid damage.

Nature’s Swiftness – Often overlooked and sometimes not considered a “cooldown”, Nature’s Swiftness is an essential part of our toolkit. This is especially true with our 2 piece set bonus. This bonus gives our Nature’s Swiftness three charges. Always use this with Regrowth for maximum throughput. Try to use this ability nearly off cooldown on players that are low health.

Ironbark – This external tank cooldown is unique due to its very low cooldown of one minute. While other cooldowns have much larger damage reduction, Ironbark fills the niche of an external that can be used very frequently. Additionally, at level 100, Ironbark targets take 20% more healing from your HoTs.

Incarnation / Heart of the Wild / Nature’s Vigil – All cooldowns tied to talent choices. Check out the talents tab on the left for more information!

Talents Cheat Sheet

The cheat sheet below is a very generalized talent build suggestion. Due to the situational nature of healing, you’ll likely change talents nearly every encounter. For more detail, read the talent explanations below or click the Boss Guides tab to the left.

Level 15:  Displacer Beast

Level 30:  Ysera’s Gift

Level 45:  Typhoon

Level 60:  Soul of the Forest

Level 75:  Ursol’s Vortex

Level 90:  Heart of the Wild

Level 100:  Germination

Talents Advanced

Level 15: Feline Swiftness, Displacer Beast, Wild Charge

Feline Swiftness
Provides a passive movement speed buff.

Displacer Beast
Provides a blink and short duration sprint. This is your go-to choice, the utility of a blink is too good to pass up on for most encounters.

Wild Charge
Provides various utility abilities related to movement; very rare and situational use.

Level 30: Ysera’s Gift, Renewal, Cenarion Ward

Ysera’s Gift
Provides a passive self-heal that can also heal allies when you are at full health. This is the strongest talent for most situations.

Renewal
Provides a moderate self heal on a 2 minute cooldown. The weakest of the three talents.

Cenarion Ward
Provides an activated heal over time ability when the target takes damage. This talent is capable of similar throughput as Ysera’s Gift, but requires mana and a GCD every 30 seconds. Due to this, this talent is only useful on very high tank damage encounters.

Level 45: Faerie Swarm, Mass Entanglement, Typhoon

Faerie Swarm
A single target slow, situational use.

Mass Entanglement
An area of effect root effect. However, since the roots are broken on damage, this ability is very situational.

Typhoon
A knock back and daze effect. Situational use and usually the go-to talent for most encounters.

Level 60: Soul of the Forest, Incarnation: Tree of Life, Force of Nature

Soul of the Forest
A short cooldown buff to various healing abilities. Almost always paired with Wild Growth for maximum throughput. Provides the most sustained throughput of this tier’s talents, thus being our go-to talent choice.

Incarnation: Tree of Life
A long cooldown that buffs various healing abilities and provides a 30% reduction in mana cost for Rejuvenation. This ability adds one extra Wild Growth effect per cast, makes Regrowth instant cast, and increases the healing done by Rejuvenation by 50%. Incarnation is a situational talent choice for fights with staggered damage phases; especially those that are 1, 1.5, or 3 minutes apart. Additionally, a good talent for low levels of spirit due to the mana savings on Rejuvenation.

Force of Nature
The weakest of the three talents. Provides single target smart healing by summoning treant pets.

Level 75: Incapacitating Roar, Ursol’s Vortex, Mighty Bash

Incapacitating Roar
A small area of effect ability that incapacitates targets for 3 seconds.  Situational use.

Ursol’s Vortex
A unique ability that holds enemies in one place by pulling them to the center of the vortex when they first try to escape. Additionally, provides a slow effect on enemies in the vortex. Units that are immune to grip effects will not be pulled by the vortex, but they will be slowed.

Mighty Bash
Provides a long duration (5 seconds) single target stun. Situational use.

Level 90: Heart of the Wild, Dream of Cenarius, Nature’s Vigil

Heart of the Wild
A long cooldown ability that dramatically increases healing and damage done. For encounters with tight enrage mechanics or priority targets, this ability can be used to do a moderate amount of burst DPS. However, most of the time we use the strong 45 second healing buff paired with Tranquility for massive amounts of healing. This talent is an excellent choice on any encounter where Tranquility plays a major role, and thus is our go-to talent choice for this tier.

Dream of Cenarius
A passive increase to Wrath‘s damage and converts 150% of its damage into smart healing. This talent is a good choice on long encounters with periods of low damage. With this talent, use Wrath as your filler ability rather than Rejuvenation during low raid damage.

Nature’s Vigil
A short cooldown ability that causes your single target healing abilities to splash to nearby allies, healing them for 20% of the initial heal. Additionally, causes single target healing to do 20% of its healing as damage to nearby enemies. We usually take this talent when Heart of the Wild or Dream of Cenarius are not a good option. Meaning, on encounters where the large 1-2 time boost to DPS and/or healing (primarily for Tranquility) is not needed/possible and you don’t have time to frequently cast Wrath. Due to these constraints, this talent is only very situationally taken.

Level 100: Moment of Clarity, Germination, Rampant Growth

Moment of Clarity
The weakest talent of the tier. Changes Omen of Clarity into Moment of Clarity, making Regrowth cost zero mana for 7 seconds. However, casting Regrowth back-to-back for 7 seconds is almost always a throughput loss. Additionally, you have no control over when the buff activates, meaning there will be times where you will not fully use the buff.

Germination
The strongest of the talents. Increases the duration of Rejuvenation by 3 seconds and allows targets to have two Rejuvenation buffs (from one druid) on them at the same time. The second Rejuvenation usually has high overhealing, but can be very useful on targets expected to take large amounts of damage.

Rampant Growth
A very situational talent and is required to be paired with Soul of the Forest. Allows you to activate the Soul of the Forest buff every other GCD for a large increase to throughput. However, this playstyle is extremely clunky and requires massive amounts of mana regeneration to be sustainable. Due to this, only consider this talent on very short encounters or those with a mana-return mechanic.

Glyphs

Major

Glyph of Regrowth
Guarantees that your Regrowth casts will always be a critical strike. A solid throughput gain, especially when paired with our 2 piece set bonus.

Glyph of Wild Growth
Adds an additional heal over time effect to each Wild Growth cast. Do not use this glyph in 5-man content.

Minor

Glyph of Sprouting Mushroom
Allows you to place your Wild Mushroom at a ground location rather than only under a targeted player.

Glyph of Grace
Situational damage reduction from falling.

Situational

Glyph of Stampeding Roar
Increases the range of Stampeding Roar and allows you to remain in caster form while casting it. This is usually our third major glyph.

Glyph of Rebirth
Causes our Rebirth to revive dead allies with full health. Only take this if you are your group’s primary battle resurrector.

Glyph of Enchanted Bark
Our Barkskin ability also makes us immune to interrupt and silence effects.  Potentially useful on encounters with frequent interrupts.

Glyph of Nature’s Cure
Allows us to dispel two times in a row, but increases the cooldown of dispel charges by 4 seconds. Very situational, only take on encounters that require infrequent double-dispelling.

Glyph of Healing Touch
Healing Touch casts reduce the cooldown of Nature’s Swiftness by 2 seconds. Situational; useful if we are casting Healing Touch frequently.

Glyph of Rejuvenation
Reduces the cast time of Healing Touch by 10% when we have at least 3 Rejuvenation effects on the raid. Situational; useful if tank healing or casting Healing Touch frequently.

Stats

Intellect >> Spirit (Until Comfortable) > Haste => Mastery > Multistrike > Critical Strike = Versatility

Intellect is a primary stat that provides 1 Spell Power (SP) per point. Spell Power increases how much your spells heal for.

Spirit increases your combat mana regen. Once you feel comfortable with your mana, you can trade spirit for other stats. We recommend spirit levels around 1,500 (including average value from trinket effects) for most talent builds and encounters.

Haste increases casting speed and makes our heal over time abilities have more ticks that occur more frequently.

Mastery increases all of our healing, assuming you maintain 100% uptime on Harmony.

Multistrike causes abilities to have a chance to hit a second and a third time, each dealing 30% of the initial damage.

Critical Strike increases the chance to critically hit with abilities and increases the chance direct heals cause Living Seed.

Versatility increases all damage and healing done, and decreases all damage taken.

Stat Math

The following information shows you how much secondary stat rating you need for a 1% increase:

1% increase in haste ~ 90 rating (Use HealerCalcs for an exact value for your character)
1% increase in mastery = 88 rating
1% increase in multistrike = 66 rating
1% increase in critical strike = 110 rating
1% increase in healing from versatility = 130 rating // 1% decrease in damage taken from versatility = 260 rating

Enchants

Rings: Enchant Ring – Gift of Haste
Cloak: Enchant Cloak – Gift of Haste
Neck: Enchant Neck – Gift of Haste
Weapon:  Enchant Weapon – Mark of Shadowmoon. You can switch to Enchant Weapon – Mark of Warsong if you have too much spirit.
Gems: Immaculate Haste Taladite

Consumables

Food: Buttered Sturgeon
Potion: Draenic Channeled Mana Potion for maximum regeneration. If you cannot channel for at least 7 seconds, use Draenic Mana Potion. If you do not need mana, use Draenic Intellect Potion.
Flask: Greater Draenic Intellect Flask

Gear

The gear below is an absolute best in slot list. Meaning, this is the best possible gear you can attain once you have cleared all the mythic encounters.

Slot	Item	Source
Helmet	Oathclaw Helm	Kormrok
Necklace	Locket of Unholy Reconstitution	Mannoroth
Shoulder	Oathclaw Mantle	Xhul’horac
Cloak	Drape of Beckoned Souls	Socrethar the Eternal
Chest	Oathclaw Vestment	Mannoroth
Bracer	Manacles of the Multitudes	Fel Lord Zakuun
Gloves	Felfinger Runegloves	Archimonde
Waist	Waistwrap of Banishment	Archimonde
Legs	Oathclaw Leggings	Gorefiend
Boots	Oppressor’s Merciless Treads	Tyrant Velhari
Ring	Pompous Ceremonial Ring	Tyrant Velhari
Weapon	Edict of Argus	Archimonde
Trinket	Demonic Phylactery	Socrethar the Eternal
Trinket*	Flickering Felspark	Hellfire Assault

*Both Seed of Creation (Archimonde) and Unstable Felshadow Emulsion (Xhul’horac) can be used in this slot situationally.

• 2 Piece Set Bonus – Fairly strong set bonus. Adds a sizeable increase to the throughput of Lifebloom when tanks are taking high enough damage to avoid overhealing.
• 4 Piece Set Bonus – Fairly strong set bonus. Allows us to have Lifeblooms on two targets at once. Not only does this help our tank healing capabilities, but allows us to have a Lifebloom on the active tank and a raid member with a debuff or damage over time effect if there is only one active tank.

Gear

The gear below is an absolute best in slot list. Meaning, this is the best possible gear you can attain once you have cleared all the mythic encounters. This also assumes that spirit is slightly devalued since fights are shorter and have less damage once on farm. For progression, you may consider replacing some of the jewelry listed below with similar pieces that contain spirit.

Slot	Item	Source
Helmet	Living Wood Headpiece	Kromog
Necklace	Gruul’s Lip Ring	Gruul
Shoulder	Flamebender’s Shoulderguards	Flamebender
Cloak	Runefrenzy Greatcloak	Kromog
Chest	Living Wood Raiment	Flamebender
Bracer	Squire’s Electroplated Bracers	Thogar
Gloves	Living Wood Grips	Iron Maidens
Waist	Girdle of Unconquered Glory	Hans’gar and Franzok
Legs	Living Wood Legguards	Blast Furnace
Boots	Treads of the Dark Hunt	Iron Maidens
Ring	Uk’urogg’s Corrupted Seal	Iron Maidens
Weapon	Inferno-Flame Staff	Gruul
Trinket*	Darmac’s Unstable Talisman	Beastlord Darmac
Trinket**	Auto-Repairing Autoclave	Blackhand

*If you need more spirit, you can replace this with Ironspike Chew Toy from Beastlord Darmac.
**If you need less spirit and more throughput, you can replace this with Everburning Candle.

A spreadsheet for trinket values can be found here.

• 2 Piece Set Bonus – Our two piece set bonus is fairly strong. It makes our Nature’s Swiftness cooldown work on the next three spells, rather than just one. Always consume this buff with Regrowth for maximum throughput. Three subsequent buffed and mana-free Regrowths can be very strong when used on players taking heavy damage.
• 4 Piece Set Bonus – A very weak set bonus. We do not go for our 4 piece for the set bonus, we use these pieces for their stats. This means if you get warforged off-tier pieces, feel free to replace the 4 piece set bonus. If you do have this set bonus, just ignore it. Attempting to cast two Healing Touches for a 25% cheaper Wild Growth results in a higher mana cost than just casting Wild Growth.

Hellfire Citadel Boss Guide

The suggested talent builds for the fights below are meant to provide the best assistance to the raid team during progression. These are not the only viable talents, and various talent combinations work for many of these fights. Also, remember that the talents are selected to maximize the potential for success on progression, not for parsing.

Finally, the majority of the guides below are intended for the Heroic version of the encounters. They will be updated for Mythic mode once progression is completed.

Hellfire Assault

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild
Strategy
This fight has low and intermittent damage if your raid keeps on top of the adds and has the correct kill priority. Make sure you have a Soul of the Forest buffed Wild Growth when Gorebound Felcasters metamorph into Gorebound Terrors and they begin to cast Felfire Volley. Additionally, use your Tranquility and Heart of the Wild when there are multiple Gorebound Terrors alive. Displacer Beast is useful for avoiding Shockwave and Felfire Crushers.

 

Iron Reaver

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Strategy
Pounding is the main source of high raid damage during this encounter. During this ability, place your Wild Mushroom in melee and use Heart of the Wild and Tranquility where assigned. Displacer Beast is very valuable for quickly dodging Barrage, Blitz, and crossing paths of Immolation. If your raid is having issues keeping up with killing Firebombs, Heart of the Wild cleaving (with Moonfire and Wrath) is very effective, although a substantial throughput loss.

Kormrok

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Strategy
Pound and Grasping Hands are the primary sources of damage during this encounter. Try to use Heart of the Wild when Pound and Grasping Hands are close enough together as to cover both with the healing buff. Additionally, use Tranquility during one of these abilities. Barkskin and Bear Form are helpful for soaking Explosive Runes. Use Stampeding Roar for Explosive Burst on the tank to help the raid move away from that player. Otherwise, Stampeding Roar is useful during Fel Outpouring phases to assist moving from the waves.

Hellfire High Council

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Glyphs

Glyph of Nature’s Cure

Strategy
Make sure to track all of the Mark of the Necromancer debuffs (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Focus heal players with yellow and red versions of the debuff. Consider dispelling players with the red version of the debuff if Reap is not happening soon. If Reap is happening soon, do not dispel the debuff. Use Tranquility during Wailing Horror phases. Save Heart of the Wild for the final Wailing Horror phase, as there will be more damage once the bosses have been pushed past 30% health. Use Ironbark and single target healing on targets with Fel Rage fixate.

Kilrogg Deadeye

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Strategy
Use Tranquility during Death Throes casts. Save Heart of the Wild for a late Death Throes cast, as its damage increases throughout the fight. If you are assigned for Vision of Death, keep all three players alive until you reach 20 stacks of the Undying Salvation debuff. Genesis has some use here to heal through the burst damage. Once you leave the Vision of Death, use your Cleansing Aura to clear Fel Corruption from players (primarily the tanks and melee). Finally, use Displacer Beast when you have Heart Seeker to spawn the Globule as far back from the boss as possible.

Gorefiend

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Situational Trinket
Unstable Felshadow Emulsion – This trinket has situational use on this boss due to the damage amplification buff during his long Feast of Souls phase. Additionally, most DPS will be using Bloodlust/Heroism and cooldowns during this phase. Therefore, the increased DPS during the encounter’s highest damage taken phase plays perfectly to Unstable Felshadow Emulsion’s niche.

Strategy
While outside, remain spread and use Displacer Beast to move Touch of Doom out of the raid. Additionally, Displacer Beast can be used to move to players afflicted with Shared Fate (if you are chained with them). When inside of Gorefiend’s stomach, use Nature’s Swiftness and Regrowth to quickly heal Tortured Essences before they can reach the center of the room. Remember to track your Digest debuff and leave the Stomach if it is about to expire. Additionally, immediately leave the stomach if Feast of Souls begins.

Shadow-Lord Iskar

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Strategy
Use Tranquility and Heart of the Wild during transition phases (when the boss flies away) and try to line it up with Focused Blast. Additionally, dispel Fel Bomb quickly if you have the Eye of Anzu. Use a Soul of the Forest buffed Wild Growth after each Fel Chakram combo. Additionally, make sure to heal up players with Phantasmal Wounds quickly to remove the debuff. Finally, use Stampeding Roar during Phantasmal Winds to assist raid members.

Socrethar the Eternal

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Strategy
During the Construct phase, use Displacer Beast to quickly move Felblaze Charge out of the group. Additionally, run forward into Volatile Fel Orbs that are fixated on you before they reach the group. During the main boss phase, use Heart of the Wild and Tranquility during Apocalypse and when there are many players afflicted with Gift of the Man’ari. Make sure to keep the Haunting Soul that is fixated on you pathing through fire left by Felblaze Charge.

Fel Lord Zakuun

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Strategy
Make sure to track all of the Befouled debuffs (1, 2, 3). Apply both Rejuvenations and a Lifebloom (if you have T18 4pc) to targets with Befouled to quickly heal off the debuff. Additionally, if you have Befouled, make sure to move away from other players as you explode when the debuff is removed. Use Heart of the Wild and Tranquility during the Disarmed phase, as he will be dealing significantly higher damage during this phase. Finally, move to a corner of the room (away from any pillars) when you get Seed of Destruction.

Xhul’horac

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Strategy
Make sure to save Heart of the Wild for the final phase, as his damage is drastically increased during this time. Move to the assigned sides for Fel and Void when you are debuffed with Fel Surge and Void Surge respectively. Avoid taking Fel damage when you are Voidtouched, and avoid taking Void damage when you are Feltouched. Use Displacer Beast to quickly move to correct sides of the room.

Tyrant Velhari

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Strategy
Make sure to track Touch of Harm. Use both Rejuvenations and Lifebloom (if you have the T18 4pc) to heal off the Touch of Harm as quickly as possible. Also, feel free to dispel the Touch of Harm if the player afflicted with it drops below 50% health. Displacer Beast can be useful in phase one, as the blink movement does not count as normal movement, and thus you do not take any damage from Aura of Oppression. Use Tranquility during Edict of Condemnation. Save Heart of the Wild for an Edict of Ccondemnation during the final phase for maximum throughput. Additionally, using Heart of the Wild during the final phase to DPS will result is massive DPS output due to HotW’s damage buff stacking with Aura of Malice.

Mannoroth

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Strategy
Prepare to use Ironbark on tanks during the Glaive Combo. Additionally, Stampeding Roar is useful during Mannoroth’s Gaze to allow the raid to reach players with the fear. Tranquility is also useful during Mannoroth’s Gaze as it is the only raid damage during the first half of the encounter (assuming all other mechanics are dodged correctly). Displacer Beast is extremely valuable for both Felseeker dodging and countering the pushback from Shadowforce. Use Heart of the Wild and your final Tranquility during an Empowered Felseeker in the final phase.

Archimonde

Talents
Soul of the Forest and Heart of the Wild

Strategy
Stampeding Roar and Displacer Beast are very useful for dodging Allure of Flames during the entire encounter. Use your first Heart of the Wild and Tranquility during the Desecrate (Pillar) phase as you will get a second use of Heart of the Wild again during the final phase. After the Desecrate phase, use Tranquility during Shackled Torments to help heal through the chain breaks. In the final phase, use Stampeding Roar to help the raid dodge Rain of Chaos.

AddOns

Raid Frames

The primary addon for any healer should be their raid frames. There are several good raid frame addons available. The differences come down to personal preference. I recommend one of the following:

Grid
Grid2
VuhDo
Healbot Continued

WeakAuras 2

Easily one of the best addons in the game. Allows you to do almost anything, ranging from alerting you of a debuff to tracking raid wide cooldowns. Most guilds require this addons so players can import custom made strings for particular bosses.

Macros

Basic Mouseover Macro
Allows you to cast a spell on an ally by hovering over their raid frame and hitting the associated keybind. Replace SPELL with a spell name.
#showtooltip SPELL
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead] SPELL

Nature’s Swiftness and Regrowth
You almost always consume your Nature’s Swiftness buff with Regrowths. Use this mouseover macro to cast an instant Regrowth.
#showtooltip Regrowth
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead] Regrowth

WeakAura Strings

Harmony Tracker – Appears when Harmony has fallen off.
Lifebloom Tracker
Wild Mushroom Tracker
Stampeding Roar Tracker
Druid CD Bar (Originally created by Affinity)