Restoration Druid Healing Stat Priority — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)

The stat priority for a Restoration Druid depends on whether you plan on healing in a raid or dungeon environment.

Stat values change depending on your gear, the content you are doing, and your spell choices. There are no universal weights. They will change every time you swap a piece of gear.

Having said all that, there will be very few situations where item-level upgrades will not be actual upgrades. Sockets are usually worth roughly 10-15 item levels, Leech on the first 2-3 pieces is worth about 5-10 item levels, and Avoidance is worth around 5.

All secondary stats (Critical Strike, Haste, Mastery, Versatility) have Diminishing Returns. After reaching specific values from the rating, you will receive penalties for further rating acquisitions. The penalties for different stats are different and only affect gains expressed in raw ratings. As such, effects like Heroism / Bloodlust, Power Infusion, Lycara's Teachings, and similar effects do not contribute towards Diminishing Returns. Lycara's Teachings is an important example since we take it in all builds and it's a multiplicative increase to your haste. Some other classes will start having diminishing returns at 30%, but Restoration Druid will need to pay attention to the rating instead. The breakpoints for different stats are as follows:

Your stat priority will look something like this:

1. Intellect
2. Haste = Mastery
3. Versatility
4. Critical Strike

FAQIs There a Haste Cap?

It's generally discouraged to go beyond the second diminishing breakpoint because you will start losing too many stats. You can use the Questionably Epic Live app to fine-tune your stats around breakpoints. There are no Haste Breakpoints in the modern game.

FAQWhy is Crit Such a Bad Stat for Restoration Druid?

Crit is discouraged because Regrowth has a 100% crit chance already due to Abundance which means every other stat gives you more value overall.

FAQDo my stats change in Pre-Patch?

No, you shouldn't need to regear at all in Pre-Patch. The same secondary stats are good.

If you want to know what consumables and enchants to use, refer to our Gems, Enchants and Consumables page.

Gearing in dungeons is more complicated than gearing for raids because you might have competing goals. Maximizing your healing might look different to maximizing your DPS for example. As such, there is only a rough priority available.

1. Intellect
2. Mastery = Haste
3. Versatility
4. Critical Strike

At higher levels, Druids gear for more damage and almost entirely ignore Mastery but I wouldn't recommend this to most players:

1. Intellect
2. Haste
3. Versatility
4. Critical Strike
5. Mastery

For better understanding of gearing in Mythic+, you should use our dedicated Mythic+ page.

Intellect is your primary stat. You should look for this stat in all of your upgrades. It provides you with Spell Power, which increases the power of your heals.

Haste reduces the cast time of your spells, directly increases the healing of your HoTs by making them tick faster, and reduces global cooldown.

Mastery ( Mastery: Harmony) increases the healing you do to targets affected by your HoTs by an amount (determined by your Mastery level) for each active HoT.

Critical Strike increases your chance to critically hit with all spells and abilities. Crits deal double damage by default, but several effects can increase your crit damage, and make crits even stronger.

Versatility increases all your damage and healing done, and decreases all damage taken.