Restoration Druid Leveling Guide from 1 to 80 — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0.1)

The best gearing while levelling is quick and easy upgrades with the highest item level possible, stats are not relevant, and the gear will be swiftly replaced as you go through the levels, so try not to go too out of your way for a single piece of equipment while levelling. Try to avoid Mastery on gear since it does not provide any damage benefit.

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Your first talent row unlocks at Level 10. Choosing Restoration Druid automatically gives you Rejuvenation and Wild Growth.

Note that talent recommendations for leveling will differ from talent recommendations for Mythic+ and raids at max level.

You unlock the talent system at level 10, and gain a point in one of the three trees every level. Talents are bonuses for your character and some are even active abilities. The "Class Tree" focuses on abililties and passives that all Druid specs can use, whereas the "Restoration Tree" focuses on giving you healing abilities.

Leveling as a healer is quite a lot slower than DPS or tank specs since we do not kill things very quickly. It is still more than fine to do so, just expect a longer journey. You can also take advantage of dungeon content to put your healing abilities to use.

Our talent selections will mostly focus on giving you as much damage as possible, while still ticking off major healing talents in case you do group content. While our max level dungeon and raid builds will look a little different, you are still picking up most of the same tools so playing at max level should be quite familiar to you.

Starting at Level 1, you only have one main attack ability: Wrath.

1. Convoke the Spirits is a great spell to damage an enemy and heal your group quickly. Use it as often as possible.
2. Moonfire is a great damage over time spell that you should use against any enemy you are fighting. It's particularly good at pulling new enemies into combat with you.
3. Ferocious Bite deals damage based on the amount of combo points spent. The damage is increased further for each Energy point used beyond 25, up to 25 extra.
4. Use Rip instead of Ferocious Bite if you expect the enemy to live long enough for the DoT to do all the damage.
5. You gain your first talent point, spend it on Rake. Use Rake and Moonfire to DoT up multiple enemies.
6. Cat Form. You move 30% faster in Cat Form. This also unlocks Shred, a single target attack only usable in Cat Form and awards 1 Combo Point. Use Rake instead most of the time.

Keep in mind that most of your abilities for leveling come in the form of talents, and you should path towards them specifically.

If you want an in-depth overview of all your abilities, click on the button below.