Spells
By discovering nature, you discover yourself
— Maxime Lagace, predicting the season 2 meta.
Resto Druids specialize in Heal over Time effects and this theme runs through most of our spells. This section can be long but the explanations are thorough, and the tricks spread throughout are valuable.
Resto is an incredibly rewarding spec to master and I would strongly recommend it to prospective healers. Our spells have strong synergies with one another and you’ll build large windows of healing through our powerful cooldowns. Some of the below spells are technically talents, but we’ll be taking them in every build (except where noted).
If you already have a strong background in Resto Druid you can skip this section and start with the playstyle guides coming up next.
The Hots
Rejuvenation
Primary Role: Key builder in your ramp sequence. Can also be used as a filler HoT.
- Rejuvenation is a key piece of your “ramp” (we’ll cover what this means a little later).
- Generally you’ll cast a lot of these in a row before Flourish, or during Tree of Life. You can also cast them on damaged targets in between your big cooldowns, and you can get away with casting a ton of them. Think of this as a medium-sized HoT that you’ll combine with other buttons to do huge healing.
- In Mythic+ Rejuvenation takes a back seat but can still be a key button press. You'll use it to better prep for periods of high damage. Be careful you don't fall into a habit of trying to keep Rejuvenation up at all times.
Wild Growth
Primary Role: Powerful, efficient AoE heal. Also features in your ramp sequence.
- Does a lot of healing on six targets on a very short cooldown and it’ll go on random injured allies near your target.
- Incredibly efficient and you can cast it very often to react to raid wide damage. If you are having mana trouble, cast this more often.
- In raid it is often combined with Swiftmend to get a healing increase from Soul of the Forest.
You should know: Even though Wild Growth can be cast on an ally (like every other heal) it won’t necessarily hit that target. It instead will pick the six lowest health targets within 30 yards of them. This also means you can cast it on an enemy.
Efflorescence
Primary Role: AoE maintenance healing. Keeper of the Grove not included.
Targeted healing effect that heals allies in the green circle. It lasts for 30 seconds and you’ll want to aim for 100% uptime. It’s very efficient and it’s large enough to hit both the tank and the melee group in most fights. Haste increases the rate at which Efflorescence heals, which also adds more Spring Blossom HoTs across the raid (if talented). Increasing your Efflo uptime can have a big impact on your healing.
You should know: When running Spring Blossoms, the Efflorescence heal will prioritize targets that don’t have the Spring Blossoms hot but Efflorescence is otherwise NOT a smart heal (and so could heal an ally at 90% life instead of one at 10%).
Lifebloom
Primary Role: Single target healing
Limited to one target at a time (two with Undergrowth). Aim for very high Lifebloom uptime. You'll generally want to put it on anyone you expect to take a lot of damage - the target matters somewhat less than making sure you have it out.
You should know: If you recast Lifebloom on a target with less than 4.5 seconds remaining it will proc the bloom portion of the heal. This is one of our maintenance spells since it does good healing and gives us free Regrowth casts through Omen of Clarity.
The Direct Heals
Regrowth
Primary Role: Spot heal. Also a powerful filler spell after a Flourish ramp or whenever you have a lot of Rejuvenations active.
Regrowth is a direct healing spell that we’re going to make cheap or free through the Abundance talent and Omen of Clarity procs. You can also cast it whenever someone is on the brink of death. Abundance also causes Regrowth to crit almost always, which is one of the reasons Crit is such a poor stat for us in raid.
Swiftmend
Primary Role: Single target heal with a lot of effects attached.
Instant heal on a 15 second cooldown. Removes a HoT from the target in the following order: Regrowth, Wild Growth, Rejuvenation. This is a strong emergency heal, but in raid you’ll primarily be using it for the large number of extra effects the cast gives you like:
- Reforestation (if taken)
- Soul of the Forest
- Verdant Infusion (if taken)
- Cenarius Might
- Our season 1 tier set (+% Healing)
- And more!
The Cooldowns
Tranquility
Heals ALL allies within 40 yards and leaves a stacking hot on them for 8 seconds. This is a decent cooldown that we’ll usually assign alone as opposed to combining it with any of our other cooldowns. It's also often used for its cooldown reduction effect via the Dreamstate talent.
Tip: Tranquility benefits from your Mastery, so throw out a Wild Growth before you cast Tranquility to give it a boost.
Flourish
Primary Role: Major healing cooldown
Extends all HoTs by 6 seconds and increases your HoT tick rate for 8 seconds. This increased tick rate is a buff on yourself which means any HoTs you apply after you cast Flourish will also benefit. This is a strong healing cooldown on a short 60 second cooldown. In raid you can easily have 14++ rejuv buffs active when you press it which will generate a lot of healing. The extension also means that you will be able to follow your Rejuvenation ramp with Regrowths for free. In Mythic+ Flourish is only chosen in one of the two builds since it competes with the also excellent Photosynthesis
Convoke the Spirits
Primary Role: Healing cooldown
Convoke is a special kind of spell. It casts 12-16 Druid spells over 3-4 seconds and it’s semi-random which you get. It's a little RNG but on average it’s a very good cooldown. With both Convoke talents you’ll also get a Flourish cast about 90% of the time across two casts. You’ll often combine Convoke with Flourish since their cooldowns line up perfectly.
Tip: Convoke can also be used offensively - particularly in Mythic+. Shift to Cat Form before you cast it and you'll get a lot of DPS spells since the spell distribution is based on which form you're in.
Incarnation: Tree of Life
Primary Role: Healing cooldown
Incarnation: Tree of Life is a choice node with Convoke. It lasts a lot longer than Convoke the Spirits which makes it perfect for 20-30s long healing windows. Its tooltip isn't great at telling you what you get so here's a list:
- All healing buffed by 10%.
- Rejuvenation mana cost reduced by 30%. Rejuvenation healing increased by 40%.
- Regrowth is now instant cast.
- Wrath damage increased by 20% and it's now instant cast.
- Wild Growth hits 2 extra targets.
The Defensives
Barkskin
Primary Role: Personal Defensive
Reduces the damage you take by 20% for 8-12 seconds. This is off the global cooldown, so get into the habit of casting it whenever you’re in danger. You can also look at dangerous overlaps in a fight and aim to press your defensive there every single pull.
Ironbark
Primary Role: External cooldown
Reduces the damage your target takes by 20% for 12 seconds. Use this whenever tank damage has gotten too high for your HoTs, or if another key ally is in trouble. You can cast this on yourself if Barkskin is on cooldown, or if you need both (what are you getting hit by!?). Try and get into the habit of casting this quite frequently since its cooldown is very short.
Passives
Ysera's Gift
Ysera's Gift is a free heal on you, or a raid member every 5 seconds. It doesn’t benefit from Haste or Versatility, isn’t increased by your Mastery, and cannot critically heal. It’s just free healing.
Omen of Clarity
Omen of Clarity rewards you with some free Regrowth casts for having Lifebloom up. Once again, it's just free healing.
The Other Stuff
Innervate
Allows you, or a targeted ally to cast spells for free for 8 seconds. In raid it’s up to you and your group to decide if this is best on yourself or another healer but the standard is to keep it for yourself.
Tip: Efflorescence and Wild Growth are both reasonably expensive spells that should be fit into your Innervate duration. Rejuvenations are better value than Regrowths unless the Rejuvenation will mostly overheal.
Tip: Try not to time your Innervate as the big damage hits. Instead, cast it 8 seconds beforehand to get a blanket of Rejuvenations out before the damage hits. Getting your HoTs out before damage hits is one of the keys to playing Resto Druid well.
Nature's Cure
Our dispel. Dispels are on an 8 second cooldown, and remove all negative effects on the target. As a Druid we can cleanse anything that isn’t a disease, and dungeons in particular have many status effects that you can dispel. Make sure this is keybound and used frequently.
Ursol's Vortex
A frequently forgotten about utility spell that has many applications in dungeons (and a few in raid too). It forms a cyclone at the targeted location which pulls back in mobs that escape as well as slowing them down. You can get pretty creative with its use but some examples include:
- Keeping mobs away from the tank in Mythic+ dungeons.
- Stalling boss adds.
We also have some damage spells like Moonfire, Sunfire, Wrath, and more depending on our talents. In raid you should use any downtime to chain-cast Wrath at the active priority target. It'll restore mana via Master Shapeshifter. In Mythic+ you'll have a more involved DPS rotation but we'll cover that deeper in the guide.
Extra Info
Pandemic - Or, Overwriting Hots
If you recast a hot that has less than 30% of its duration left on a target the remaining duration will be added to the refresh. So if you refresh a Lifebloom with 3 seconds remaining, that three seconds will be added to the 15 second fresh Lifebloom (for an 18 second total duration). This applies to all heal and damage over time effects which means there’s no cost to refreshing HoTs early within this zone. 30% is a little hard to remember so here are some proper numbers:
- Lifebloom: 4.5s or less remaining.
- Rejuvenation: 4.5s or less remaining (5.1s or less if you're talented into Germination).
- Regrowth: 3.6s or less remaining.
Mastery: Harmony
The Resto Druid mastery has been through a few iterations since the stat was introduced, with its current version one of the best. Mastery: Harmony increases all healing done to the target by 4-20%+ for each HoT on them. Each HoT is worth a little less mastery value than the one before it.
There are currently eleven spells that count toward it:
- Lifebloom
- Rejuvenation
- Regrowth (HoT)
- Wild Growth
- Cenarion Ward
- Cultivation
- Spring Blossoms
- Germination
- Tranquility (HoT)
- Grove Tending
- Symbiotic Bloom (Wildstalker)
HoTs from trinkets or other non-druid sources don’t count toward Mastery. The Wild Growth cast by Grove Guardians benefit from mastery but don't add a stack of their own (so your other healing will not be buffed).
Mastery Diminished Returns
In 11.1 a form of diminished value was added to mastery stacks (in exchange for a large buff). This is pretty mathy for a beginners page and it isn't essential knowledge so feel free to skip it.
Stack Number | Mastery Multiplier |
---|---|
1 | 1 |
2 | 1.7 |
3 | 2.3 |
4 | 2.8 |
5 | 3.2 |
So, we can see the first two stacks are particularly valuable and then it starts to fall off from there. Note that adding mastery stacks is still always a positive. In raid you will tend to average 2-3 stacks depending on whether you're in a cooldown phase or not. In Mythic+ you can average a bit higher during dangerous damage.