Restoration Druid: the healing guide for WoW Forever

The Restoration Druid in WoW Forever is still a healer who works ahead of the damage, with HoTs on many players at once. New tools let the spec react as well: Wild Growth, a Swiftmend that keeps the HoT and a free Omen of Clarity. This guide covers the changes, the standard build, macros and the most asked questions.

Role	Healer, strongest in raid healing
Standard build	11 Balance, 7 Feral Combat, 33 Restoration
Key talents	Gift of the Earthmother, Improved Regrowth, Wild Growth
Strength	Raid healing, mobility, utility
Weakness	No Magic or Disease dispel, no shields
Stats and BiS	Not known before the launch

What changes for the healer

• Omen of Clarity is baseline and can now proc on spell casts, about twice per minute. The proc makes the next spell free, so it pays off most on an expensive heal.
• Wild Growth is the new capstone of the tree: a strong area heal on the party of the target.
• Swiftmend no longer consumes the HoT it uses.
• HoTs can crit. The extra crit chance of Improved Regrowth probably also counts for the HoT part of Regrowth. That comes from the game data and cannot be tested on the beta yet.
• HoTs of several Druids stack on one target. A bug still prevents that in some cases.
• Faerie Fire no longer stacks its armor reduction with Curse of Recklessness from Warlocks.
• Mana costs have changed, and Regrowth heals a lot more than before.
• Feral Swiftness and Entangling Roots now work indoors.
• Shapeshifting gets in the way less. Several items, abilities and actions now work in form, and many that used to fail in form now cancel it automatically.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths	Weaknesses
Very strong raid healing	Competes for raid spots with the other Druid specs
Strong burst healing on one target	No external damage reduction or shields
A wide range of utility	Mana needs active management
A lot of total healing	Raid healing takes time to ramp up
The best mobility of any healer	No Magic or Disease dispel
Raid debuffs

The standard build

Most Restoration Druids will run a build close to this one in almost every situation, according to a survey among players of the spec. Open it in the talent calculator: 11 points in Balance, 7 in Feral Combat and 33 in Restoration, 51 points in total for level 60.

Tree	Talents
Restoration (33)	Nature’s Focus 5, Naturalist 5, Reflection 3, Gift of Nature 5, Gift of the Earthmother 1, Improved Rejuvenation 3, Swiftmend 1, Nature’s Swiftness 1, Living Spirit 3, Improved Regrowth 5, Wild Growth 1
Balance (11)	Genesis 5, Moonglow 1, Nature’s Majesty 2, Nature’s Reach 2, Nature’s Splendor 1
Feral Combat (7)	Heart of the Wild 5, Feral Swiftness 2

Gift of the Earthmother is the first milestone talent of Restoration, at 11 points. It lowers the global cooldown of Rejuvenation, Wild Growth and Swiftmend by 0.5 seconds. That lets a Druid cover a whole raid with HoTs, the healing style the spec has always been best at.

Improved Regrowth is now one of the talents with the most value per point.

Tranquil Spirit lost value together with Healing Touch: the stronger Regrowth and the penalties for lower ranks make Healing Touch less attractive. Improved Tranquility is a small buff to a button that was already weak, and will hardly be used.

Balance is free to fill in. What matters is Nature’s Splendor at the eleventh point, which makes Moonfire, Rejuvenation and Regrowth last longer. Some players take the improvements to Wrath together with Moonglow, for more damage and more chances at Omen of Clarity.

Dual Specialization and other builds

With Dual Specialization and Wild Growth as a strong capstone, the old hybrid builds for Restoration will hardly be played. One exception is likely: a build that drops a few strong points in Feral Combat to reach Insect Swarm in Balance, at 16 points. Insect Swarm is expected to stay a strong debuff on bosses.

The change to Nature’s Grace makes a big difference to the value of that talent, for Restoration and for Balance alike. Most of the points in Restoration are fixed: leaving them out costs more than the points gain elsewhere. Other builds can still work in all content, so a build that suits a specific need is a valid choice.

Macros

Some macro conditions do not work as expected on the beta yet. The modern client also does a lot without macros or addons: mouseover casting, click casting and moving interface elements are in the game settings.

Mouseover. Casts the spell on the friendly, living unit under the mouse, otherwise on the friendly target, otherwise on yourself. Remove nodead when you use it for Rebirth or Revive.

#showtooltip
/use [@mouseover,help,nodead][@target,help,nodead][@player] SpellName

Emergency heal. Stops what you are doing and casts an instant Healing Touch with Nature’s Swiftness. Because of a bug on the beta, it may need more than one press for now.

#showtooltip
/stopcasting
/stopattack
/cancelform [noform:0]
/use Nature's Swiftness
/use Healing Touch

One button for utility. Rebirth on a dead ally in combat, Revive on a dead ally out of combat, and Innervate on a living ally.

#showtooltip
/cancelform [noform:0]
/use [@mouseover,help,dead,combat][help,dead,combat] Rebirth; [@mouseover,help,dead][help,dead] Revive; [@mouseover,help][] Innervate

Spells on the ground. Hurricane at the cursor, or an item such as the Advanced Target Dummy at your own feet.

#showtooltip
/use [@cursor] Hurricane

#showtooltip
/use [@player] Advanced Target Dummy

Forms. A macro can do something only in a certain form, with [form:N]:

Condition	Form
form:0	Caster form
form:1	Bear Form
form:2	Aquatic Form
form:3	Cat Form
form:4	Travel Form
form:5	Moonkin Form

Unit frames and the Cooldown Manager

The default unit frames can be adjusted less than players of older versions of the game are used to. Some addons add filters for buffs and debuffs, which helps a lot for a class that heals with HoTs. EllesmereUI is the most approachable and flexible addon for unit frames.

The built-in Cooldown Manager replaces a central group of WeakAuras, and addons can restyle it. On the beta it is still being rolled out step by step. More in the post about the Cooldown Manager.