Restoration Druid Frequently Asked Questions — Battle for Azeroth (BfA) 8.3

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

Small nerfs to Mastery: Harmony are almost inconsequential in raid content, amounting to less than 2% healing reduction with Spring Blossoms talented and 2000 Mastery rating on gear.

This nerf affects Mythic+ content a lot more. You will heal for ~4% less in a normal Photosynthesis spec. High Noon trait nerfs will reduce your Sunfire damage by ~4-5% per each trait you are using. This leaves Restoration Druids as still the best healers for Mythic+.

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.

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.

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.

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.

• They work if Rejuvenation is your only HoT on the target.
• They work if Germination is your only HoT on the target.
• The extra healing does not work if you have both Rejuvenation and Germination on the target.

Trait will provide extra 1 second to both Rejuvenation and Germination at all times.

Pick whichever option provides you the most Intellect. Seabreeze provides slightly less Haste than an equal item level weapon would provide otherwise. The difference in stats means that Seabreeze is about 5 item levels worse than another weapon.