Restoration Druid DPS Guide — Season 4

One of the main reasons to do damage as a healer is that damage is damage. Whether it comes from the tank, a DPS, or a healer, all damage contributes equally toward killing the boss. If you neglect your damage, you are hindering your group's chances at a kill by lowering the overall damage output.

While not being as noticeable in raids, the difference between 0 damage healer in a Mythic+ dungeon and a healer that actively uses his damage abilities can be up to 10% of the total group DPS. It is important to remember that enemies only die when their Health reaches zero, not based on the amount of time your allies spend at 100% Health. In some situations, you can afford to heal your group between the pulls instead of during them.

• Moonfire is a strong single target DoT.
• Sunfire is a strong AoE DoT.
• Wrath is a weak single-target damage spell.
• Adaptive Swarm, while not technically a caster form spell since it can be used in any form, will be listed here. It is a powerful tool in our kit that you should actively play around with. More on this spell below.
• Starfire is a cleave spell that damages all targets around your main target.
• Starsurge is a strong single target instant cast spell that increases the power of your Eclipse. It has a 10-second cooldown.

• Shred is a medium strength single target attack. It generates a Combo Point.
• Rake is a solid single target DoT. It generates a Combo Point.
• Swipe is a decent AoE attack. It generates a Combo Point if it hits at least one target. Also usable in Bear Form for no cost and no cooldown, but it does less damage than the Cat Form version.
• Thrash is a strong AoE DoT. Awards a Combo Point.
• Rip is a solid single target DoT. It uses up to 5 Combo Points.
• Ferocious Bite is a strong single-target attack. It uses up to 5 Combo Points. It can use up to 25 extra Energy to deal up to 100% extra damage.
• Maim is a single target stun that deals mediocre damage. The stun duration is equal to the amount of Combo Points used.
• Prowl activates Cat Form and puts you in Stealth. While stealthed, Shred will deal 60% extra damage and have double the chance to critically strike; Rake will stun the target and deal 60% extra damage.

Pandemic is a passive effect that makes it so that when refreshing your periodic damage or healing effects, the remaining duration is added to the new one, up to 130% of the base duration. Understanding this effect is very important to maximizing your damage. For example, if you attempt to refresh Moonfire (16-second base duration) at 10 seconds left, the new duration will become 16 + (16 * 0.3) = 20.8 seconds. You will want to refresh your DoTs in a so-called Pandemic window, defined as any time before the DoT expiration and 30% of its maximum duration. For the Moonfire example, it will be a time frame between 0 and 4.8 seconds. Casting Moonfire at this point will add full 16 seconds, ensuring you lose no damage and your DoT is always on the target dealing damage.

One important thing to note is that you will receive 104% of your Intellect as Attack Power at all times. While technically, your Cat Form and Bear Form abilities scale only from Attack Power, this conversion makes you scale very well from Intellect. It also means that Rake and Rip will deal full damage even when you are not in Cat or Bear forms. Furthermore, you gain absolutely nothing from Agility, so trinkets and weapons with this stat are useless.

While utilizing all of the DoTs, multiple Combo Point generators, and different finishers might look daunting at first, you can do a large portion of your DPS with rather simplistic rotations. Do not use Swipe on this target count, it is a DPS loss to do so over multi-dotting.

1. Use Adaptive Swarm on cooldown according to WeakAura.
2. Use Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points, and the target has a long time to live. Otherwise, use Ferocious Bite.
3. Keep Rake up.
4. Keep Moonfire up.
5. Keep Sunfire up.
6. Keep Thrash DoT up.
7. Use Shred to generate Combo Points on single target.

1. Use Adaptive Swarm on cooldown according to WeakAura.
2. Use Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points, and the target has a long time to live. Otherwise, use Ferocious Bite.
3. Keep Sunfire up on all enemies.
4. Cast Moonfire on all enemies.
5. Use Thrash for the DoT.
6. Keep Rake up on as many targets as you can.
7. Use Starfire, if you are able to cast it without interruptions.

There is a lot of depth to doing damage as a Restoration Druid. Some universal tricks you can use are described below.

• Always try to open on the enemy with Rake out of Prowl unless stun diminishing returns are important on this particular enemy. Refrain from pandemic refreshing this Rake early. Let it drop, and immediately apply a new one. It is a DPS increase if you cast a new one within 2 seconds of letting it drop.
• Night Elf racial Shadowmeld is considered Stealth, so you can use it in Cat Form and instantly apply Rake for a 60% damage increase and a stun.
• You can use Prowl outside of combat in caster form to shift into Cat Form without triggering global cooldown.
• You can use these last two tricks together. Cast Shadowmeld, immediately use Prowl, then cast Rake to stun your target. Remember that you will only leave combat when fighting trash packs, as bosses always keep you in combat.
• Use Adaptive Swarm WeakAura to optimise the usage of this spell. It will highlight friendly targets on your raid frames as soon as Adaptive Swarm comes off cooldown.
• When talented into Master Shapeshifter, you can be more aggressive with Cat Form, since it will do significantly more damage than caster form.

1. Use Adaptive Swarm on cooldown according to WeakAura.
2. Use Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points, and the target has a long time to live.
3. Use Ferocious Bite at 50 Energy and 5 Combo Points, and if there are more than 12 seconds left on Rip.
4. Keep Moonfire up.
5. Keep Rake up.
6. Keep Sunfire up.
7. Keep Thrash DoT up.
8. Use Shred to generate Combo Points.

You want to use as few global cooldowns as possible on shifting into Cat Form. Try to refresh Sunfire as late as possible and immediately after refreshing Moonfire, even if it is not in a Pandemic window yet.

With Master Shapeshifter talented, you will potentially spend more time in Cat Form to apply more Rips. Do not be afraid to drop uptime on Moonfire, if you have enough energy to stay in Cat.

1. Use Adaptive Swarm on cooldown according to WeakAura.
2. Use Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points, and the target has a long time to live.
3. Keep Sunfire up on all targets.
4. Keep Rake up on one target.
5. Use Thrash for the DoT.
6. Keep Moonfire up on as many targets as you can.
7. Use Shred to generate Combo Points.

Do not cast Sunfire until enemies are clumped up. Ideally, you want to spend only 1 global cooldown to put Sunfire on everyone.

1. Use Adaptive Swarm on cooldown.
2. Use Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points.
3. Keep Sunfire up on all targets.
4. Spread Rake if you are talented into Master Shapeshifter.
5. Use Thrash for the DoT.
6. Use Swipe to generate Combo Points if you are specced into it, and enemies do not have much time to live.

There is a possibility that on high target counts (7+), Starfire becomes a much better spell to cast than Cat Form abilities. When that happens, you should drop all Cat Spells from this rotation and just stay in caster form or Moonkin Form during Heart of the Wild.

Convoke the Spirits does the best damage in Moonkin Form on 3 targets and more. On 1 or 2, you should be using Convoke in Cat Form. You will also have to use Convoke for healing in certain spots. Do not try to hold on to it for too long, as the cooldown is short enough for you to just pop it whenever you have an opportunity to do so, unless a huge pull or a very hard boss are going to require it for healing.

Equipping the highest item level pieces without Mastery will give you the highest damage. If you have equal item-level pieces, you will want to prioritize them in the following ways. Technically for pure DPS Critical Strike will be better DPS than Haste, but for practical purposes, where you have to occasionally heal, Haste will outpace it.

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

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