Restoration Druid Frequently Asked Questions — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.1

1. What Changed for Restoration Druid in BfA?

A summary of all changes can be found in our intro page.

2. How good is Restoration Druid in Battle for Azeroth (Patch 8.1)?

Druids got substantial buffs for dungeon content: a 10% healing increase to Wild Growth, a small single target damage increase and a minor cleave damage increase. Together with Discipline Priest nerfs and a small Mistweaver Monk nerf, this puts Restoration Druid solidly as one of the best two specs for Mythic+.

Tranquility nerfs hurt Tranquility and Flourish combo a lot. On fights where pulling this combo off was very important, you will see ~2-4% reduction to your healing. On fights where you were spreading Flourish and Tranquility apart, you can expect sub 1% healing nerf. An extra second on Rejuvenation duration via the reworked Autumn Leaves compensates for throughput losses a bit. Despite this, you will find yourself closer to the best raid healing spec than you were in 8.0, due to substantial Discipline Priest damage and healing nerfs.

3. Which race is best for Restoration Druids?

For Alliance, Night Elves are slightly be better, due to the power of Shadowmeld in dungeon content. Both Night Elf and Worgen passive racials are inconsequential in raid content.

As for Horde, you have to choose between a better throughput from Trolls and better utility racials from Taurens and Highmountain Taurens. There is no formula that will help you make this decision, but the differences between all three races are pretty small.

4. How much Haste should I use? Is there a Haste cap?

There are no goals for stats, no set amounts to aim for, no combinations of stat distributions that are good. It is a very common misconception to focus on stats, or aim for the "right" ones. They do not exist. The only stat that will always be correct to pick is Intellect.

Haste increases the healing of all your HoTs linearly, which means there are no, and can not be, any breakpoints.

5. Which Raid Frames Should I Use?

Grid2, VuhDo or ElvUI all provide strong, customisable raid frames options. Standard Blizzard frames, unfortunately, do not offer options to show the same amount information or ways to filter out useless information.

6. Can I Level to 120 as Restoration?

You can, but there are no good reasons to do it. Playstyle in any of the affinities is essentially the same as the specs they mimic, but with much lower damage. If you choose to still level as Restoration, make sure you drop any and all gear with Mastery on it and try to use any trinkets with damage procs or on-use effects.

7. Why Pick Abundance After Healing Touch Was Removed?

Healing Touch was never a good spell to cast in Legion, especially in dungeons, where your Mana mostly does not matter. It had some niche use on certain encounters which forced you to spot heal on the move, but that is about it. Abundance was always picked for increased throughput on Regrowth. This continues to be the case.

8. Do Autumn Leaves Work with Germination?

• They work if Rejuvenation is your only HoT on the target.
• They work if Germination is your only HoT on the target.
• They do not work if you have both Rejuvenation and Germination on the target.

9. Is Darkmoon Deck: Tides Worth Buying?

It is a good trinket for raiding and definitely worth the gold. You will probably not replace it until you start getting Mythic raid level trinkets.

It provides mediocre throughput for dungeons, no damage, and Mana is not worth much. It is good if you want to increase your item level, but you will replace it with good 350-360 item level trinkets. For more accurate trinket rankings please visit our Gear and Best in Slot page.

10. Two-Handed weapon or One-Handed plus Off-Hand?

Pick whichever option provides you the most Intellect. Seabreeze provides slightly less Haste than an equal item level weapon would provide otherwise. The difference is however negligible and you should stick to the highest item level weapon available.

11. Changelog