How to play – Mythic+

Healing as a Resto Druid in Mythic+ is somewhat similar as healing a raid except you have to take on the bulk of the spot healing yourself and the damage patterns are often burstier. You’ll need to run each dungeon a few times to get a good feeling for the damage patterns since, like raid, pre-hotting is incredibly important. Make sure you’ve read through the essentials chapters of the Resto Druid guide before you get started here since a basic grasp of your abilities is assumed. Note that talents and stats have their own guide pages. You’ll be expected to contribute decent damage through a key and this is covered in detail on the next page.

 

Dungeon Healing Priorities

Maintenance Healing

Including most general pulls without notably dangerous mobs. 

  • Lifebloom is one of your most important spells. During low damage pulls you can just keep one on the tank by default. As damage ramps up you can put one on yourself for handling group damage and put the other on an at-risk DPS. Uptime is extremely important since due to Photosynthesis (and Verdancy).
  • Put Efflorescence down. Try and cover as many people as you can but make sure you hit the tank with it. There’s a real priority on being GCD efficient since the fewer you spend healing the more you can spend on damage. Efflorescence heals over a very long period of time and the Spring Blossoms HoTs give you some mastery value for if the group takes damage unexpectedly.
  • Cast Adaptive Swarm on cooldown. There is a weak aura that’ll pick a target for you and it’s included in the UI section of the guide. These do a lot of maintenance healing and a decent amount of damage. It’s also really good setup for when you need to ramp up your healing.
  • Use Regrowth and Wild Growth to keep people healthy. Let your HoTs do most of the work. If they’re sitting on 80% health in Efflo then they’re fine. As with Efflo, Wild Growth is very GCD efficient. Remember that with Lifebloom out you’ll get more than one Regrowth HoT per cast via Rampant Growth.
  • You’ll be able to focus a lot on damage on these packs.

We’ll discuss what to do as damage ramps up in the examples below but expect to use some of your big cooldowns for it. Flourish is your most powerful cooldown, Convoke is ok – particularly if you’re caught without prep, and Tranquility is the weakest but also doesn’t require much prep.

You’ll notice here that you cast a lot of your spells in advance, before or as the damage hits. Getting used to this healing pattern is a key part of learning to play Druid well. Over time you’ll also practice healing in fewer, more efficient GCDs so that you have more time to DPS. You’ll generally alternate between the maintenance healing above and layering in more GCDs as required but it’s this strong base that allows us to do so much healing.

 

Healing different types of heavy damage

Sustained Damage – Kha’jin (Halls of Infusion)

Kha’jin is characterized by heavy sustained damage on the party. Your HPS here will be very high, though it can be somewhat easier to heal than burstier bosses.

  • Prioritize very good fundamentals. Lifebloom uptime on two targets, Efflorescence down, Swarm used on cooldown, and casting Wild Growth often. Remember that you can refresh Lifebloom when it has less than ~3.8 seconds left (4.5 without Circle of Life and Death) and still get the “bloom” portion.
  • Use Rejuv as necessary. Note here that Rejuv GCDs are less important than the Regrowth that’ll add three HoTs but it’s a fine filler cast after those if people need more healing.
  • Use your defensive buttons and encourage DPS to press defensives.
  • Assume you will get 2-3 Flourish casts per fight, depending on key level. You’re often better to maximize usages here than saving it for when you’re in trouble. Use Convoke the Spirits the same way. If you’re going to commit Tranquility make sure you don’t do it when Frost Cyclone or Glacial Surge are coming up.

 

Burst Damage – Asaad (Vortex Pinnacle)

Asaad damage comes in waves – you’ll have little to do until Skyfall Nova spawn and then the party will take heavy damage over 10-15 seconds until it dies. Asaad has quite a predictable healing pattern – he’ll cast one Skyfall Nova, then have a brief intermission and for the rest of the fight you’ll get two Skyfall Novas, an intermission and it repeats.

  • Unlike Kha’jin, there is a lower priority here on casting stuff like Wild Growth on cooldown. Instead you want to make sure your biggest buttons are up when the most dangerous damage hits (Skyfall Nova).
  • (Maintenance) Do keep Efflorescence down and Lifebloom up. Also continue to cast Adaptive Swarm on cooldown. These are good value per GCD spent and keeping them down means you can set up for Skyfall Nova much more quickly. Swarm also adds decent damage.
  • When Skyfall Nova is about to spawn (good timers from Little Wigs helps here), cast Swiftmend -> Wild Growth and then follow with Regrowth. If you’re low on healing cooldowns it’s also ok to set up Rejuv HoTs ahead of time. Make sure you are only casting these 5-10 seconds before it spawns though. There is little value in trying to keep them up the entire fight.
  • After your intermission you’ll get a Skyfall Nova followed by another 25 seconds later. Then you’ll get about a 45s break between the next. This means you can roughly Flourish every 3rd. If you supplement the Novas in between with Tranquility and Convoke the Spirits you’ll have coverage for almost all.

 

Affixes

  • Bursting

    We have some great cooldowns to deal with high stacks, but if you’re going over 6-7 stacks every pack then you’re eventually going to falter. The worst case scenario is 5-8 mobs dying within 4 seconds of one another since Bursting stacks refresh when a new mob dies which means you’ll have to heal through 5 stacks, then 6, 7, 8 without any real chance to recover. We blame the DPS when this happens. You can dispel Bursting and should dispel a party member during almost any large stack. You can also dispel yourself when stacks are low in order to drink more quickly. You’ll only need to do the below if you expect stacks to be bad. If mobs are dying 1-3 at a time then just continue your regular rotation (sometimes even just a Wild Growth is sufficient).

    1. Make sure Efflorescence is down. Make sure at least three people are in it.
    2. Make sure one Lifebloom is on yourself, and one on a DPS of your choice. Often the squishier the better. If you’re playing in a less organized group you can also put Lifebloom on two DPS and then dispel the third. You’re in more control of your own health via Renewal, health potions etc so it can sometimes be safer to prioritize players you’re not as familiar with.
    3. Cast Wild Growth as the damage starts rolling in, and fill your other global cooldowns with Regrowth.
    4. Cast Regrowth until everyone is healthy.
    5. Cast Tranquility if it’s a big stack but do the above first.
    6. If it’s going to be a huge stack you can put Rejuv out on a few people before damage hits but it shouldn’t usually feel necessary.
  • Afflicted

    Afflicted spawns two ghosts that need to be fully healed or dispelled within a 10 second timer.

    Recommended Weak Aura: https://wago.io/6DaFLoBUI

    Any type of dispel works and the ideal strategy is for you to dispel one and have a DPS or tank player dispel the other. Dispel is on an 8 second cooldown so it’s possible to dispel both yourself but this is very tight and shouldn’t be your general strategy. You can also heal one to full though it really is much worse than having someone else dispel one for you. In a pinch Swiftmend + Nature’s Swiftness -> Regrowth will near full heal one alone.

  • Incorporeal

     

    Incorporeal spawns 1-2 spirits that are immune to damage and need to be CC’d before they get a cast off. 

    Recommended Weak Aura: https://wago.io/Jv-5CLYb0

    We’re very good here since all CCs work and Hibernate is spammable.