Resto Druid 8.2 FAQ
Patch 8.2 is the expansion’s biggest so far. BFA’s salvation. Let’s hope that it can live up to its name. The patch adds a huge amount of new content: a dungeon, a raid, new items for every profession and…. pet battles. We’re going to cover everything you need to get started on day one of the patch including which Essences you want and how to grab them early. This was a rough PTR with no gear vendors so do check back in a few days for new information.
Your first day in 8.2: Getting started
- Get quest “The Wolfs Offensive” (Alliance) or “The Warchiefs Order” (Horde) when you log in. They’ll take you to Nazjatar.
- Complete the first seven or eight Nazjatar quests until you pick up Essential Empowerment from Magni. You don’t have to go looking for it. He’ll pop up in your camp.
- Complete the 6-7 quest Heart of Azeroth quest chain until you unlock the Heart Forge. Total playtime to get through to here is ~30 minutes and you’ll want to do it before your first raid.
- Complete another 20 to 30 minutes of Nazjatar quests. A gnome will join you in your Naz base camp and start you on the Mechagon quest chain.
- After completing the Mechagon opening quests, get started on your world quests so that you can unlock some good Essences on week one.
Essences
We won’t cover every Essence here, just the 3-4 you’re most likely to use in the first two weeks of the patch. Anything that requires season 3 isn’t on here. For a full break down of all 11 Essences take a read through the three part previews here. You need level 55 to unlock your first minor so don’t expect it for a few weeks.
The quick version: do your world quests every day in both of the new zones. Take your bodyguard with you to level it up.
Memory of Lucid Dreams
How to get it? Reach rank 3 on any bodyguard. Bodyguards get experience by doing special daily quests or world quests. There is a cap of +1 level per day. This means you need two days minimum to get the Essence.
This is your number one pick for the first two weeks of patch on any boss you’re still progressing on. It’s a little weaker for farm since it can be harder to spend the mana.
Ever Rising Tide
How to get it? Reach honored with your Nazjatar faction (Ankoan for Alliance, Unshackled for Horde). You start at neutral and can get rep from completing world quests and the central storyline.
Ever Rising Tide is probably not the way to go in the first two weeks outside of maybe Mythic+. Rank one is particularly weak. You just want to start progress on it so that you can get to rank 3 by the time you start your Eternal Palace progression.
Well of Existence
How to get it? Reach honored with the Rustbolt Resistance which is the Mechagon faction. Clear the world quests daily and grab whatever quests you can.
Well of Eternity is a likely lock in for your first Minor slot when you finish farming and while you’re unlikely to use it in the first two weeks you should definitely start the grind toward rank 3.
8.2 Professions
New stuff to pick up
All of these are available on 8.2 launch. You’ll be able to pick them up in the first couple of days as your crafters level their professions and pick up the new reagents.
New Weapon Enchants: Machinists Brilliance and Oceanic Restoration. Machinists Brilliance is quite a bit stronger so long as it procs off healing spells. It wasn’t available to test but we’ll update this with live data on day one.
New Ring Enchants: 60 of a secondary stat of your choice. For Resto Druid either go with your highest Wowanalyzer stat weight or Mastery if you want an easy default.
New Gems: 60 of a secondary stats per socket. There are also new +120 intellect gems that you can have one of.
New Potion: Unfortunately it doesn’t look like the upgraded Replenishment potion will make it to live. We do however get stronger intellect potions (Superior Battle Potion of Intellect) and something a little different in Potion of Wild Mending. It’s not very good and you’re likely to stick with Potion of Replenishment on most raid fights but it is cheap to make. I won’t judge you for saving a few pennies on farm. It also has potential as a pre-pot since it lasts for a full minute.
Which professions are best?
None of the professions are so strong that you should drop everything and level them immediately. That said, some are definitely stronger than others. They’re listed in order of overall usefulness below:
Alchemy: Alchemist Stone remains best in slot outside of titanforges or some later tuning. Plenty of non-combat benefits too like double duration flasks.
Leatherworking: You get 440 pants and boots with sockets in 8.2. You won’t replace them until mythic, and even then you’ll need a warforge most of the time. As an added perk it’s usually cheap to level.
Engineering: The helm is only mid-tier but an early high Azerite piece has value and it enables some better trades in raid. You also get a bunch of fun out of combat toys.
Jewelcrafting: You get a 440 ring with a socket. This isn’t quite as special as it was in 8.1.5 since all crafted pieces get the same thing. They also has some competition from the Mechagon rings if they remain as strong as they are.
New Trinkets
The QE Trinkets page has been updated for 8.2 but there are longer breakdowns of the new stuff below.
Raid Trinkets (Likely to be tuned)
Azshara’s Font of Power
Drops from: Queen Azshara
At the cost of a four second channel you get a stunning 2-3k+ intellect for a long 30 seconds. This is definitely the strongest of the new raid trinkets since it’s overbudget by a significant amount. I’m expecting tuning come raid week, but if not this is definitely your bonus roll boss.
Deferred Sentence
Drops from: The Queens Court
When you are standing still the trinket builds up power which is released as healing when you move. This wasn’t available to test but as it reads it’s on the weak side right now. The throughput numbers just aren’t quite there.
Luminous Jellyweed
Drops from: Blackwater Behemoth
This is another gimmicky trinket that you’ll pretty much just judge on throughput value alone. The fact that it always picks our your most injured ally is nifty, but it doesn’t actually provide any immediate value to them and if they get a big enough heal that the 10% is significant then they likely aren’t in the danger zone anymore anyway. So low life saving potential and only average raw throughput. Usable, but not something you’re hoping for.
Za’qul’s Portal Key
Drops from: Za’qul, Harbinger of Ny’alotha (say that three times fast)
This is a big stat proc with a positional requirement. You do have 30 seconds to move to the void tear (which opens a 10s portal that gives you the buff) and the trinket is decent overall. I just can’t help but think there’s no reason to ever take this over Azshara’s Font of Power. It offers fewer stats and less reliability. We’ll call this one mid-tier.
Zoatroid Egg Sac
Drops from: Orgozoa
This is the most creative of the set which I’m going to encourage but it’s not particularly good with current tuning. The Versatility is based on the shield amount remaining but a 20k shield is eaten almost immediately on most fights so your DPS won’t benefit as much as they could. There are a few unanswered questions like whether the Zoatroid is removed when the shield reaches 0 or if they stick around to be later juiced by the mana spend portion. The early analysis is that you probably don’t want this but do check back after we get our hands on one.
World Boss Trinkets
Enthrallers Bindstone
Drops from: Ulmath, the Soulbinder
Standard stat stick with a big intellect proc. The uptime on this appears to be very decent and it’ll hold up well for a 415 trinket. You’re unlikely to use it deep into the raid since it’ll be tough to get one at a higher item level.
Shockbiters Fang
Intellect stat stick with a 90 second Haste on-use. Lines up well with Flourish and is rather good at the beginning of a big ERT window. This is very good, just stuck at 415 unless you’ve lined up a megaforge.
Pocket-Sized Computation Device
Now for something completely different. You get the base trinket early in your Mechagon quests but you have to socket it with three Punchcards to get any value out of it. Red sockets are a proc of some kind, yellow sockets give you two flat secondary stats and blue sockets are all flavor. It’s a good 415 trinket but until Op Mechagon Mythic+ joins us in Season 4 this will just fall behind higher item level alternatives. The yellow cards are all of similar value and we’ll be able to tell you which Red cards are best after they stop tuning them.
Quick-Fire Questions
- Will our stat weights change? Not particularly. You’ll still use your highest ilvl items in most slots. Wowanalyzer and the upcoming 8.2 version of HSW will be able to give you accurate weights.
- What talents will we use in the new raid? We’ll have talent recommendations for each fight when the raid goes live but Inner Peace / Spring Blossoms and Abundance / Cenarion Ward are likely to remain the only rows you change.
- Is Resto Druid a strong healing spec in 8.2? Yes, this is a pretty good patch to be a resto druid. We’re still completely dominant in Mythic+ and competitive in raid (while below the top tier).
- How good are the new raid azerite traits? Loyal to the End is really fantastic and you’re likely to use a couple of them. Arcane Heart isn’t very good for Resto Druid most of the time and Undulating Tides only offers damage and a small absorb.
Next you should check out the updated 8.2 Azerite tier lists
How good are the new weapon enchants compared to the “old” ones? Are they worth it?
Machinists Brilliance is really solid and a reasonable upgrade over the old enchants. Oceanic Restoration is close to worthless.
does someone know if “poens deepsea gloves” (Benthic Gear) with socket will be BIS? or is the healing to low?
They’re nothing special but the effect is free on top of the stats so if you can get a socket or leech version you’re likely to use them for a very long time.