Mists of Pandaria Classic Restoration Druid Rotation and Cooldowns
On this page, you will learn how to optimize the rotation of your Restoration Druid Healer, depending on the type of damage your group is receiving while doing PvE content in Mists of Pandaria Classic. We also have advanced sections about cooldowns, procs, etc. in order to minmax your healing output and your mana efficiency.
Restoration Druid Rotation
If you have not already, we recommend going through the Spell Summary guide first. Knowing how each spell and ability works in detail will greatly increase your understanding of the rotation suggestions below.
Healing Rotation
When healing on Restoration Druid, your goal will be to keep your party and raid members healthy through your various heal-over-time effects. Your priority will look like this:
- Maintain 3 stacks of
Lifebloom at all times. You should keep this ability on a tank or player who will be consistently taking damage for an extended period of time.
- Consume
Omen of Clarity procs as much as possible with
Regrowth.
- Keep
Wild Mushroom active at all times to not only collect healing, but to also keep
Efflorescence active.
- Cast
Wild Mushroom: Bloom during heavy damage windows.
- Use
Wild Growth as much as possible. This is your best way of dealing with AoE damage.
- Cast
Rejuvenation on as many players as possible when healing is needed, overdoing this can be extremely taxing on your mana which will require means you only want to cast it when damage is occurring or about to occur, spamming it will leave you OOM quickly.
- Cast
Swiftmend as necessary to deal heavy single-target healing.
Healing Touch will almost never be used due to the long cast time. Similarly,
Nourish does not provide
enough healing to justify casting it, even when attmepting to refresh
Lifebloom. When you do need to refresh stacks,
you are better off recasting Lifebloom. Finally,
Genesis should only be used when mana permits and during extremely
spiky damage intakes. Given that it will cause your
Rejuvenations to fall off quicker, you can waste a lot of mana
if you don't use this strategically.
Cooldowns
Use your cooldowns Nature's Swiftness,
Tranquility,
and
Incarnation (details on Tree rotation further below) as needed to
respond to incoming bursts of damage or Mana sustain requirements.
When using Incarnation, your rotation will change slightly.
- Use
Wild Growth on cooldown, as it will hit 2 extra targets for a total of 8 during
Incarnation;
- Cast
Lifebloom on as many different damaged players as possible to maximize
Omen of Clarity procs, but remember to refresh your main triple stack whenever close to expiring;
- Use
Regrowth (instant during
Tree of Life) on damaged allies whenever
Omen of Clarity procs, preferably also refreshing a
Lifebloom in the process.
While you can use Rejuvenation during Tree of Life, it only benefits from
the healing increase provided to every spell during Tree, and is extremely mana inefficient
compared to spamming
Lifeblooms.
Remember to use your utility abilities as well:
Rebirth to combat ress anyone who dies;
Innervate to recover Mana once you are at 80% or less;
- Swap to
Cat Form and
Stampeding Roar to increase movement speed during heavy movement mechanics;
- Swap to
Cat Form and
Skull Bash to help interrupt critical casts if no one else can do it.
Symbiosis
Symbiosis can be placed on an ally, granting you both a unique bonus. The player who receives this buff
will be granted a Druid specific ability while you will be granted an ability from their class. Below we will breakdown
what each class gets.
Class | Ability Granted to Target | Ability Granted to Druid |
---|---|---|
Death Knight | Blood: ![]() ![]() |
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Hunter | ![]() |
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Mage | ![]() |
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Monk | Brewmaster: ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Paladin | Holy: ![]() ![]() ![]() |
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Priest | Discipline/Holy: ![]() ![]() |
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Rogue | ![]() |
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Shaman | Elemental/Enhancement: ![]() ![]() |
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Warlock | ![]() |
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Warrior | Arms/Fury: ![]() ![]() |
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When choosing the best target to give Symbiosis to, it will largely come down to the situation
you are in and what form of utility is needed. Generally you will use the buff based on what the target receives
as those abilities tend to be much more useful than what the druid receive.
Spiritwalker's Grace is a nice
personal choice as it will allow you to cast
Tranquility while moving, but providing your tank with
an extra defensive cooldown tends to be the higher value and overall best choice.
More MoP Druid Guides
More Mists of Pandaria Spec Guides from Other Classes
MoP Dungeon Guides
MoP Profession Guides
This guide has been written by Mytholxgy, a former RWF progression raider and analyst for Pieces and Liquid. He is also a Templar in the Paladin Class Discord, as well as one of the class experts in the Evoker Discord. You can reach him on Twitter and watch him stream occasionally on Twitch.