Restoration Druid Healing Gear and Best in Slot — Shadowlands 9.0.5

We do not believe a strict Best in Slot list is possible to make due to way stat weights work for Restoration Druids. Secondary stat are extremely close to each other with Intellect increasing the most per each item level. The optimal gearing strategy in this case would be to just equip highest item level pieces whenever possible, excluding trinkets.

Having said all that, there will be a few situations where item level upgrades will not be actual upgrades. Sockets are usually worth a bit more than 10 item levels, Leech on the first 2-3 pieces is worth about 15-20 item levels, Avoidance is worth around 5-10.

For now, the only slots for which we can provide definite Best in Slot recommendations are trinkets, listed below. For the rest, you will have to use whichever items you have available with highest item level, Leech, and sockets.

Slot	Item	Source
Weapon	Spire of the Long Dark	Trade in Abominable Anima Spherule at your Covenant Weaponsmith, dropped from Sire Denathrius in Castle Nathria
Trinket #1	Soulletting Ruby	Kul'tharok in Theater of Pain
Trinket #2	Cabalist's Hymnal	Sire Denathrius in Castle Nathria

Make sure to check our Stats and Enchants pages to check how to fill the rest of your slots and what consumables you need.

You should be picking whichever combination will give you the most Intellect. It does not matter whether you use a 1-Handed weapon with an Off-Hand, or a 2-Handed weapon; only the total amount of stats matters. Right now, 2-Handed weapons of the same item level provide slightly more stats than a 1-Handed weapon and Off-hand combo does. The difference is large enough to make 2-Handed weapon be the default choice in basically any situation.

For direct trinket comparison, use QELive made by Voulk. We will list a few notable trinkets here with some comments on their power level:

1. A-tier — Cabalist's Hymnal and Soulletting Ruby are two clear best trinkets available. Sinful Gladiator's Insignia of Alacrity is a very good trinket as well, though slightly weaker than the other two trinkets mentioned above at equal item level.
2. B-tier — Darkmoon Deck: Repose (from Darkmoon Faire and Inscription) is a very good trinket to start your character with. You will not replace it until you get slightly higher item level Cabalist's Hymnal and Soulletting Ruby. Unbound Changeling is another good trinket, it has solid passive Intellect and a good secondary stat proc. Sinful Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity is another solid trinket. Its 1-minute cooldown makes it usable with pretty much any cooldown you have without sacrificing total uses too much.
3. C-tier — Macabre Sheet Music, Siphoning Phylactery Shard, Manabound Mirror, and Inscrutable Quantum Device. These trinkets are generally good on paper, but are very awkward to use. If you manage to make them work, they can be better than Darkmoon Deck: Repose at slightly higher item levels.
4. D-tier — Vial of Spectral Essence, Lingering Sunmote, Boon of the Archon, Overflowing Anima Cage, and Sunblood Amethyst. These trinkets either have poor numbers, are hard to use, or both. Avoid using them unless they are significantly higher item level than anything you have.

Inscrutable Quantum Device is a very good trinket on paper, but it has unfortunate requirements on the on-use part of it:

1. If your Health or close ally's Health is below 30%, then it will do a small heal.
2. If another healer near you is below 20% Mana, then it will give them small amount of Mana.
3. If someone is crowd controlled then the trinket will remove it.
4. If an enemy is below 20% Health, then it will deal moderate damage to them.
5. If none of the above are true, it will give you a huge secondary stat buff.

As you can see, this trinket is very hard to use effectively in raid scenario. At later points, you will either have some healer at low Mana or boss at low Health when you want to burst. As such, it is a very poor trinket to use in any realistic scenario.

Due to the nature of Mythic+ healing, players usually run at least one damage trinket. Other than that, you can use either one of the raid trinkets listed.

Patch 9.0.5 introduces a new gearing system accessible via Valor. There are not any particularly strong items you would want to upgrade, but there are some you should prioritise over other.

1. Weapon — If you have a weapon below 220 item level, then should get one, then upgrade it. It does not matter too much which you choose, but try to pick one with Haste.
2. Trinkets — The only two trinkets you should ever upgrade are Soulletting Ruby and Unbound Changeling.
3. Any item that is far below 220 item level — Prioritise slots with a higher budget if all other things are equal: Head/Chest/Legs, then Gloves/Shoulders/Feet/Waist, then Rings/Neck, then Cloak/Bracers.