Restoration Druid DPS Guide — Shadowlands 9.0.2
On this page, you will learn how to DPS as a Restoration Druid in World of Warcraft — Shadowlands 9.0.2. We cover rotation, talents, stat priority, gear advice, etc.
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 either
Feral Affinity or
Balance Affinity and
constantly juggle between
Cat Form or
Moonkin Form and your
normal caster form.
With the addition of Heart of the Wild,
Balance Affinity starts doing more damage for Night Fae players, in most
scenarios.
Feral Affinity is still important to learn for
some solo content. On this page we will discuss both of these affinities.
Spells and Passives Summary
Caster Form
Moonfire is a strong single target DoT.
Sunfire is a strong AoE DoT.
Wrath is a weak single target damage spell.
Moonkin Form
Starfire is a strong cleave spell that does damage to all targets around your main target.
Starsurge is a strong single target spell that increases the power of your
Eclipse. It has a 10-second cooldown.
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. Can not hit more than 5 targets.
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.
Maim is a single target stun that deals mediocre damage. The duration of the stun 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 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.
Rotation for Balance Affinity
Before we explain the Balance Affinity DPS rotation, we
will need to explain how
Eclipse works. Eclipse reduces the cast time
of the approprite filler by 8% and increases the damage dealt by
Wrath by 20% and increases the Critical Strike chance
Starfire by 20%. Every
Starsurge in this window further
increases this bonus by 4%. You can not enter the same Eclipse twice in a row
unless you wait ~30 seconds out of combat.
The rotation itself is pretty simple so we will jump straight into it:
1-2 Targets
- Keep
Moonfire and
Sunfire up.
- Enter available Eclipse. Prioritise Solar if possible.
- Cast
Starsurge on cooldown.
- Cast appropriate single target spell for the Eclipse.
3-5 Targets
- Keep
Moonfires and
Sunfire up.
- Enter Lunar Eclipse whenever available. Ignore Solar Eclipses when you enter them.
- Cast
Starsurge on cooldown.
- Cast
Starfire.
6+ Targets
- Keep
Sunfire up.
- Enter Lunar Eclipse whenever available. Ignore Solar Eclipses when you enter them.
- Cast
Starfire.
Using Convoke the Spirits Effectively with Balance Affinity
You should always try to stand at least 10 yards away from any enemies when
casting Convoke the Spirits in
Moonkin Form. One of the spells
that Convoke will heavily prioritise is
Thrash which just does
horrible damage for Restoration Druids.
On single target make sure you apply both Moonfire and
Sunfire, enter Solar Eclipse and only after that use
Convoke the Spirits. The reason for that is that none of the spells cast
within Convoke can trigger
Eclipse, it will never re-apply Moonfire
(giving you a higher chance to cast
Starsurge), and it also has high
chance to cast
Wrath on single target.
On more than one target apply Sunfire, enter Lunar Eclipse and then
use Convoke the Spirits. You can cast 2-3
Moonfires before using it,
but it does not make a very big difference either way.
Rotation for Feral Affinity
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.
Basic Rotation for Feral Affinity
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.
1-2 Targets
- Use
Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points and the target has a long time to live. Otherwise use
Ferocious Bite.
- Keep
Rake up.
- Keep
Moonfire up.
- Keep
Sunfire up.
- Use
Shred to generate Combo Points on single target,
Swipe on two targets.
3+ Targets
- Use
Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points and the target has a long time to live. Otherwise use
Ferocious Bite.
- Keep
Sunfire up on all enemies.
- Use
Swipe.
Advanced Rotation for Feral Affinity
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. 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 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.
- Last two tricks can be used together. Cast
Shadowmeld, then immediately use Prowl, then cast
Rake to stun your target. Keep in mind that you will only leave combat when fighting trash packs, as bosses keep you in combat at all times.
Single Target
- Use
Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points and target has long time to live.
- Use
Ferocious Bite at 50 Energy and 5 Combo Points and if there are more than 12 seconds left on
Rip.
- Keep
Rake up.
- Keep
Moonfire up.
- Keep
Sunfire up.
- 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.
2-3 Targets
- Use
Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points and target has long time to live.
- Keep
Sunfire up on all targets.
- Keep
Rake up on all targets.
- Keep
Moonfire up on all targets.
- 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+ Targets
- Use
Rip whenever you have 5 Combo Points.
- Keep
Sunfire up on all targets.
- Use
Swipe to generate Combo Points.
While Rip is a DPS increase to use over
Swipe, but 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.
Stat Priority
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.
Single Target
- Intellect
- Haste
- Versatility
- Critical Strike
2+ Targets
- Intellect
- Haste
- Versatility
- Critical Strike
Changelog
- 23 Nov. 2020: Updated with Balance affinity rotations.
- 12 Oct. 2020: Page updated for the Shadowlands pre-patch.
More Druid Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been reviewed and approved by Torty, one of the main Restoration Druid theorycrafters. He is an author of the Twig It spreadsheet and DPS action priority list. He currently raids in Pure.
- Shadowlands Season 2 Vicious Mounts Preview
- Rogue Class Changes in Patch 9.0.5 Build 37623
- TCG Pet Bananas Becomes Charity Pet
- No New Customization Options Planned for Shadowlands
- Burning Crusade Classic Will Be Based Off the Final Patch, No Class Tuning and "Some Changes"
- The Wandering Ancient Mount Is Coming in Patch 9.0.5!
- Shadowlands Pathfinder Only Requires Completing the Covenant Campaign
- BlizzConline World of Warcraft Q&A Recap