Restoration Druid DPS Guide — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. Introduction to DPS as Restoration Druid

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 towards killing the boss. If you are neglecting 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.

In order to do the most damage possible you will have to spec Feral Affinity and constantly juggle between Cat Form and your normal caster form. This technique is usually called "catweaving".

2. Spells and Passives Summary

2.1. Caster Form

• Moonfire is a strong single target DoT. It is also usable in Bear Form.
• Sunfire is a strong AoE DoT.
• Solar Wrath is a weak single target damage spell.
• Innervate reduces the Energy cost of all your Cat Form abilities.

2.2. Cat Form

• Shred is a medium strength single target attack. It generates a Combo Point.
• Rake is a very strong single target DoT. It generates a Combo Point.
• Swipe is a strong 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 does less damage than Cat Form version.
• Rip is a very strong 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.
• Prowl activates Cat Form and puts you in Stealth. While stealthed, Shred will deal 30% extra damage and have double the chance to critically strike; Rake will stun the target and deal 100% extra damage.

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.

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 a total maximum of 130% of the base duration. Understanding this effect is very important to maximising 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, which is 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.

3. Basic Rotation

While utilising all of the 4 DoTs, 2 Combo Point generators and different finishers might look daunting at first, a large portion of your DPS can be done with rather simplistic rotations.

3.1. 1-2 Targets

1. Use Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points and the target has a long time to live. Otherwise use Ferocious Bite.
2. Keep Rake up.
3. Keep Moonfire up.
4. Keep Sunfire up.
5. Use Innervate when you run low on Energy.
6. Use Shred to generate Combo Points on single target, Swipe on two targets.

3.2. 3+ Targets

1. Use Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points and the target has a long time to live. Otherwise use Ferocious Bite.
2. Keep Sunfire up on all enemies.
3. Use Swipe.
4. Use Innervate when you run out of Energy and continue spamming Swipe.

4. Advanced Rotation

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

• Try to use Innervate after refreshing caster form DoTs to get the most time inside Cat Form without having to shift out.
• Always try to open on the enemy with Rake out of Prowl. Do not pandemic refresh this Rake early, let it drop and immediately apply a new one. It is a DPS increase as long as you cast a new one within 2 seconds of letting it drop.
• Night Elf racial Shadowmeld is considered stealth, so you can use it while in Cat Form and then instantly apply Rake for 100% damage increase and a stun.
• You can use Prowl outside of combat in caster form to shift into Cat Form without triggering global cooldown.
• Last two tricks can be used together. Cast Shadowmeld, then immediately use Prowl, then cast Rake to stun your target. To make this even better, if you couple Innervate with Shadowmeld, you can get 1 extra global cooldown of free Cat Form abilities. Keep in mind that you will only leave combat when fighting trash packs, as bosses keep you in combat at all times.

4.1. Single Target

1. Use Rip whenever you have 5 combo points and target has long time to live.
2. Use Ferocious Bite at 50 Energy and 5 combo points and if there are more than 12 seconds left on Rip.
3. Keep Rake up.
4. Keep Moonfire up.
5. Keep Sunfire up.
6. Use Innervate when you run low on Energy.
7. Use Shred to generate combo points.

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

4.2. 2-4 Targets

1. Use Rip whenever you have 5 combo points and target has long time to live.
2. Keep Sunfire up on all targets.
3. Keep Rake up on all targets.
4. Keep Moonfire up on all targets.
5. Use Innervate when you run low on Energy.
6. Use Swipe 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.

4.3. 5+ Targets

1. Use Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points.
2. Keep Sunfire up on all targets.
3. Use Innervate when you run low on Energy.
4. Use Swipe to generate Combo Points.

While Rip is a DPS increase to use over Swipe until about 10 targets, it is very rare that 5+ target packs live long enough for it to be worth casting. Most of the time you will sit on 5 Combo Points and continue spamming Swipe.

When fighting big trash packs you can use Bear Form version of Swipe when you run out of Energy. It will deal slightly less damage than its Cat Form counterpart, but it is still better than applying Moonfire or waiting for Energy to regenerate.

5. Stat Priority

Just like for any DPS spec, you will want to sim yourself to generate the best stat weights. In general, equipping the highest item level pieces without Mastery on them will give you the highest damage. If you have equal item level pieces, then you will want to prioritise the in the following ways.

5.1. Single Target

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

5.2. 2+ Targets

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

6. Gear and Azerite Traits

For more information about the best Trinkets and Azerite traits to DPS as a Restoration Druid, please read our Restoration Druid simulations page.

7. Changelog