Restoration Druid Frequently Asked Questions — Shadowlands 9.2

Restoration Druids continue to do one of the highest HPS in game in all forms of PvE content. We can do the most single-target healing in Mythic+ and deliver large bursts in raids through our multiple cooldowns. The downsides remain being a lack of a group-wide damage reduction cooldown and mediocre DPS output compared to Holy Paladins in raids. Our damage is very good in Mythic+, but it remains behind Restoration Shamans. If you are looking strictly to outheal incoming damage in Mythic+ or in Raids, then Restoration Druid is one of the better specs to do it on.

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

Convoke the Spirits is essentially another mini-cooldown. You can pair it really well with both Incarnation: Tree of Life (or eventually Restoration Druid 4-Piece procs) and with Flourish or even use it as a standalone CD. Overall, our strengths are amplified, but the weaknesses still remain: a lack of damage reduction cooldown and low overall damage output. You can overcome some damage issues with aggressively using Convoke for DPS with Heart of the Wild, but not all. The main role of a Restoration Druid in raids remains as a strong cooldown-oriented throughput healer with good survivability and tank healing.

Patch 9.2 damage buffs to Druids and significant Holy Paladin nerfs put us a bit closer to the top. Unfortunately, neither of our set bonuses increase the damage output. Resto Shamans will most likely continue to dominate as meta healers.

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. Finally, Zandalari Trolls offer nothing exceptional, but they are not too far behind that it would realistically make a difference in any content, even cutting edge.

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 cannot be, any breakpoints. You will have a 10% reduction of Haste rating effectiveness after acquiring 990 Haste rating, which will make it slightly weaker overall. At your discretion, you can start gearing for other stats at that point. After 1320 Haste rating you will have 20% reduction, at which point you might want to look into getting other stats instead. Keep in mind, that diminishing returns only work for Haste rating, not for effects that give you Haste percent increases like Bloodlust, Heroism or Kindred Affinity bond.

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.

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.

Right now you should just pick a higher item level of the two. Both combos will provide the same amount of stats with very minor differences in roughly 1-2 secondary stats.