Mythic+ I: The Basics

You can find the latest Druid Mythic+ guide here: <https://questionablyepic.com/advanced-catweaving/>. This is an old season 2 version of the guide.

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.

Remember: You can contribute much more to a dungeon than just healing. Don’t forget about your powerful damage and utility.

Stats

Mastery = Haste >> Crit / Versatility

Mastery is our best Mythic+ healing stat due to the high average number of HoTs we can have on allies at any one time. Haste is second best since it helps us respond to the burst damage common in dungeons and we are generally able to chain cast without issue in Mythic+. It also increases our DPS so it’s a great allrounder. Crit and Versatility are further behind but are still very useful – particularly while DPS’ing. Think of Mastery as your damage throttle. The more confident you are in healing the key, the less mastery you can get away with (ultra high keys even run with very low mastery builds to maximise damage).

Talents

Read more on Feral vs Balance Affinity below.

Variations to the Standard Build

  • Tiger Dash is a reasonable choice over Wild Charge, especially for indoor dungeons. Renewal is also very good when the dungeon has random spike damage which can be lethal – more common in high keys.
  • Flourish and Photosynthesis are both competitive, but heal in very different ways. Photosynthesis is significantly more healing overall and provides a ridiculous amount of tank healing which is worth a premium in Shadowlands. Flourish on the other hand enables you to more aggressively use your Convoke the Spirits offensively without sacrificing your ability to deal with burst damage.

Utility

Resto pairs strong healing with powerful utility and to not make full use of it is to waste half your kit.

Ursol’s Vortex: Use it to kite mobs, or with Typhoon to tightly pack mobs together.
Soothe: Removes enrage effects from mobs. There’s something to Soothe in almost every dungeon.
Typhoon (Balance Affinity only): Use it to knock mobs out of Sanguine, interrupt most casters, or buy your tank some breathing room. Many mobs can be interrupted this way.
Entangling Roots: You can use Entangling Roots to stop a patrol coming your way, or to separate a melee mob from the rest of it’s pack.
Growl: Use it with Bear Form to tank a boss for a couple of hits to let the tank drop Necrotic stacks.
Bear Form: This is an incredibly underrated defensive ability, and after Barkskin is down it should be the first key you hit if you are in personal danger. If the entire group is getting hit you might have to rely on health potions instead since you aren’t able to heal while in Bear, but make sure you have this keybound all the same.

Season 2 Lieutenants & Powers

Quick power list: Pedestal of Utter Hubris, Champion’s Brand, Stone Ward, Satchel of the Hunt / Portable Feeding Trough

Incinerator Arkolath
Tips
  • Avoid the red circle on the ground.
  • The mini-boss puts a debuff on two targets at a time that increases Fire damage taken. Dispel as many as you can, and heal through the rest.
  • Keep Efflorescence down and use Wild Growth on cooldown. This is not a particularly high healing check, but you’ll want to be actively healing for most of it.
  • If you have a shadow priest in your group, call for a Mass Dispel when there are three debuffs active.
Powers

Pedestal of Utter Hubris: +12% haste in combat but you take 5% of your health in damage every 3s. Must take.
Bottle of Sanguine Ichor: Healing has a chance to cause you to splash Sanguine Ichor, healing up to 5 allies and dealing Shadow damage to up to 5 enemies within 12 yds.
Champion’s Brand: While above 70% health, your Mastery or Critical Strike is increased by 210. Your highest stat is always chosen. Fine, but weaker than Pedestal.

 

Soggodon the Breaker
Tips
  • A very easy one for us. When you get pulled in and rooted, shift forms to immediately move out of the swirl.
  • Soggodon beats the tank pretty badly so you will want to keep them topped. Wild Growth after every Seismic Wave to keep the party healthy.
Powers

The Stone Ward: Shields you for 20% of your maximum health. Refreshes every 45s.
Self Embalming Kit: Self healing is increased by 50%.
Tiny Dancing Shoes: Upon entering combat, dodge the next two melee or ranged attacks made against you. As a spec with a taunt this could be of niche but very powerful value to us. More information to come.

 

Oros Coldheart
Tips
  • This is a very difficult mini-boss. Make sure Biting Cold is displayed on your party frames and chain heal whoever gets it. Prep immediately with Rejuv, and then make use of Swiftmend and a Soul of the Forest Regrowth to keep them healthy as on higher keys it will tick for 25%+ of their health. Remember Nature’s Swiftness.
  • You’ll have to be moving almost constantly which adds extra difficulty to the boss.
Powers

Satchel of the Hunt: You grant all allies within 12 yards 30% movement speed in combat.
Portable Feeding Trough: You eat significantly faster. Saves a few seconds over the key, but isn’t of particularly high value if you are actively drinking between pulls.
Gavel of Judgment: Your auto attacks stun the target for 2 seconds. 30 second cooldown. You generally don’t want to stun targets at near random. Most strats won’t be able to make good use of this.

 

Executioner Varruth
Tips
  • Varruth is reasonably easy on lower keys and scales to be very difficult due to his -50% healing aura.
  • Stack on a teammate for Wave of Terror, and then immediately spread for the Carnage ability that follows.
  • You will want to focus your healing on the person who gets the Carnage DoT since it’s very heavy. Use Ironbark actively here since any damage reduced is particularly valuable due to the aura.
  • Heal liberally here. Use Swiftmend -> Wild Growth to keep the party healthy or Swiftmend -> Regrowth for Carnage.
Powers

Champion’s Brand: While above 70% health, your Mastery or Critical Strike is increased by 210. Your highest stat is always chosen. This is a better pick than last time because it’s up against weaker competition.
Overflowing Chalice: Healing a target has a chance to spawn Loose Mana which gives you 6% of your mana back. You can take this if you’re expecting very long fights, but it comes at quite a large cost.
Stabilizing Diamond Alembic: Standing Still stores healing. Moving releases it to heal the lowest HP player. Just outclassed by better picks.

Dungeon Healing Rotations (With Photosynthesis)

  • Light damage

    Including most general pulls without notably dangerous mobs. 

    • Keep Lifebloom and a rejuv on the tank.
    • Put Efflorescence down. Try and cover as many people as you can but you must hit the tank with it.
    • 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.

  • Medium Damage

    Including moderate tank and party damage. Examples: A bad pug group on Volcanic, Vol’kaal, a tougher trash pull.

    • Keep Lifebloom and a rejuv on the tank.
    • Put Efflorescence down. As above, make sure you hit the tank and as many party members as possible.
    • Keep Rejuvenation on anyone you expect to take damage.
      • This might include anyone with a DoT on them, or the entire party if you’re staring down some large damage.
      • You really can’t be casting these reactively. You need to practice preempting damage so that HoTs are already rolling when it hits.
    • Cast Wild Growth as the damage hits.
    • Use Regrowth as your filler spell. With 2-3 HoTs on each target it’ll put out very high, very fast healing.
    • Use Swiftmend to cover anyone who dips sharply.

  • Heavy Damage

    You expect everyone to be near-death very soon. Say, a Prideful.

    • Often the tank becomes your lowest priority during heavy damage since they have better survivability cooldowns than anyone. It still doesn’t hurt to throw them a rejuv but if you’re short on global cooldowns then use your own judgement.
    • Swap Lifebloom to yourself. Think of this decision as increasing your AoE healing by ~15% while reducing your tank healing by 20%. In times of heavy AoE damage that’s a worthwhile change.
    • Put down Efflorescence.
    • Cast Rejuvenation on anyone that’s going to be hit before the damage hits. This is quite a few global cooldowns so prepare early.
    • Cast Wild Growth.
    • Use Regrowth and Swiftmend on the lowest HP party member to try to stablilize.
    • Ask your DPS to pop personal defensive cooldowns. These can make a huge difference and are often under-utilized.
    • Use Tranquility if necessary and reapply Rejuvenation in between your Regrowth casts.

    Remember: You can, and should, drink between packs to keep your mana bar healthy.

 

Affixes

  • Grievous

    We are well placed to deal with Grievous; however, it eats up quite a lot of our global cooldowns so expect your DPS contribution to take a hit. You really need to focus on prevention rather than trying to recover from 4 stacks on the entire party. Deal with Grievous stacks as they appear and use your big healing cooldowns regularly. You can’t always rely on one rejuv to bring your target back above 90%. Be proactive.

    Dealing with 1-2 stacks:

    1. Keep Rejuv up on anyone you expect to take damage (and thus Grievous) in the next 15 seconds.
    2. Cast Wild Growth if more than 2-3 targets have Grievous.
    3. Use Regrowth (with Abundance) to heal each target to above 90% health.

    I have utterly lost control and everyone has 4 stacks:

    Don’t worry. It happens to all of us.

    1. Cast Wild Growth on cooldown.
    2. Get as much Rejuv coverage on the party as possible.
    3. Pop Tranquility.
    4. Regrowth anyone who’s still a little low.
    5. Ask the entire party to pop defensives while you stabilize.

  • 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 stacks in Shadowlands. You will want to dispel a party member during almost any large stack. You can also dispel yourself when stacks are low in order to drink more quickly.

    1. Rejuv your party when the first mob in the pack hits ~40-50% health.
    2. Drop Efflorescence. Make sure you catch at least three people in it.
    3. Cast Wild Growth as the damage starts rolling in, and fill your other global cooldowns with Regrowth.
    4. Cast Tranquility if it’s a big stack.
    5. If you’re in voice with your party then ask them to pop defensives and health stones. You can recognize if a regrowth isn’t going to reach them in time and take charge. Every spec in the game has a defensive of some kind.

  • You can Soothe off the Raging debuff and you should do so regularly. Expect heavy tank damage during Raging week, particularly in pug groups where several mobs might be DPS’d low at the same time.

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