Restoration Druid Healing Easy Mode — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0)
On this page, we explain how to easily play Restoration Druid in World of Warcraft — Midnight Pre-Patch (12.0), using the simplest rotation, talent tree, stat priority, gear setup, etc., without sacrificing performance.
Foreword
This page is intended for players who are new to the game or class, have no intentions of raiding Mythic difficulty, or want a more straightforward way to play their specialization without being overwhelmed by the numerous subtleties and active abilities that need to be taken into consideration for optimal play.
The Basics of Restoration Druids
Restoration Druids rely on HoTs to set up strong bursts using
Convoke the Spirits in raids or have strong and steady output in dungeons. They
do good healing on single targets but require some time to set up their HoTs.
They require knowledge of the encounter to prepare for the incoming damage.
If you are completely new to Restoration and need more information on your abilities, check out our Spell Summary page.
Talent Choice for Restoration Druids
Best Talent Builds for Restoration Druid
Raid Healing Talents
Use our calculator's 'Export Talents' to quickly import our build!
Dungeon Healing Talents
Use our calculator's 'Export Talents' to quickly import our build!
For more in-depth explanation of all talent choices you can check Builds and Talents page.
Stat Choice for Restoration Druids
Raid Healing
Intellect is stronger than all secondary stats, thus making virtually any higher item level item an upgrade. The only exceptions are rings and necks. You generally want to equip higher item level ones, but there might be small exceptions for those within 5 item levels. Gem sockets are worth 3 item levels. You can also drop 5-6 item levels for a piece with Leech; doing more is too much of a survivability loss to be worth it.
Your stat priority for raiding will look roughly like this:
- Intellect;
- Haste >= Mastery;
- Versatility;
- Critical Strike.
Dungeon Healing
Haste and Mastery are the strongest secondaries for pure healing. However, some players prefer to run as close to 0 Mastery as possible in dungeons. This is mainly done due to Mastery not contributing to your damage output. You should run as much Mastery as needed to heal and invest in other stats. If your priority is healing and nothing else matters, then just equip Mastery because it is by far the strongest healing stat in small group content.
Stat priority for pure healing in Mythic+ will look like this:
- Intellect;
- Mastery = Haste;
- Versatility;
- Critical Strike.
If you want to see the full explanation of the stat priority and the absolute top choices for the priority, head to our full stats page below.
Basic Playstyle for Restoration Druid
Basic Rotations
Restoration Druid Raid Rotation
The following rotation is a rough idea of what you should prioritize when playing. It is not the correct way to play, and there are many small ways you could improve your gameplay, but it will give you a general idea.
- Maintain
Efflorescence under the melee group. Ignore this if running
Lifetreading. - Keep
Lifebloom on a tank or priority target. - Use
Swiftmend on cooldown. Follow it up with
Rejuvenation. - Use
Wild Growth on cooldown. It heals for a good amount and will spawn a
Grove Guardians. -
Cast
Rejuvenation when damage is coming up soon. Follow up with
Regrowth when your
Abundance
stacks are high.
- Cast
Wrath to regenerate Mana (via
Master Shapeshifter). - Use
Clearcasting procs to cast
Regrowth.
The most challenging part of Restoration Druid is the usage of cooldowns. Check the cooldown section at the bottom of this page or, better yet, the Rotation page:
Restoration Druid Dungeon Rotation
- Maintain
Efflorescence under the tank and melee. Ignore this if running
Lifetreading (it's in the default build). -
Keep
Lifebloom on the tank. If they are standing away from the group then it is ok to put it on a DPS.
- Use
Swiftmend and follow it up with either
Regrowth or
Rejuvenation, depending on whether you need healing now or in a little bit.
- Cast
Wild Growth on cooldown during light to moderate damage. - Keep
Rejuvenation on the tank and on members of the group that just
took damage or are about to take damage. - During downtime, use
Moonfire,
Sunfire and
Wrath on enemies to help contribute damage.
For a more detailed and optimized version of the priority list, check the full rotation page linked below. On top of that, doing competitive damage as Restoration Druid can be rather complicated, but there's more information on that on the rotation page too.
Cooldown Usage for Restoration Druid
Tranquility should be used during heavy raid damage or when you are
assigned to use it by your raid leader. Make sure you cast a lot of
Rejuvenation beforehand
since
Tranquility will extend them all.
Innervate should be used as often as possible during the
fight. Refresh
Efflorescence, cast
Wild Growth, and spam
Rejuvenations during Innervate. The basic idea is to use Innervate as
often as possible.
Convoke the Spirits in raids should be used often. Cast some
Rejuvenation
beforehand and try and line it up with the most dangerous moments of the fight.
Ironbark should be used to reduce the damage a tank takes
during critical moments (such as when important boss abilities are about to be
cast). In the absence of such situations, you should use it on players who are
taking damage. You may be assigned to use it at a specific time as part of a
rotation with other healers and the tanks' cooldowns.
Combat Assistant
The Combat Assistant feature introduced in Patch 11.1.7 does not
work for healing. Both Combat Assistant and One-Button will only make you
use damage spells but you are better off just casting
Wrath.
They will also not work at all when you are in
Bear Form.
Changelog
- 19 Jan. 2026: Updated for Midnight Pre-Patch.
- 30 Nov. 2025: Reviewed for Patch 11.2.7.
- 05 Oct. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.2.5.
- 06 Aug. 2025: Showing stat priority as a list.
- 04 Aug. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.2.0.
- 15 Jun. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1.7.
- 21 Apr. 2025: Reviewed for 11.1.5.
- 24 Feb. 2025: Updated for Patch 11.1.0.
- 15 Dec. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.7.
- 21 Oct. 2024: Updated for Patch 11.0.5.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Updated for TWW Season 1.
- 21 Aug. 2024: Updated for The War Within.
- 23 Jul. 2024: Updated for The War Within pre-patch.
- 07 May 2024: Reviewed for 10.2.7.
- 22 Apr. 2024: Updated for Dragonflight Season 4.
- 20 Mar. 2024: Updated for Patch 10.2.6.
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.0.
- 24 Mar. 2023: Changed build recommendations.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.5.
- 29 Dec. 2022: Adjusted recommended talent builds.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Reviewed for Dragonflight Season 1.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Druid Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide is written by Voulk, a long-time Restoration Druid and healing theorycrafter who develops the QuestionablyEpic live healer gearing app. You can also follow them on Twitter and YouTube.
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