Restoration Druid Healing Gear and Best in Slot — Shadowlands 9.2.5

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.

Your first priority should be equipping tier set items as both the Restoration Druid 2-Piece bonus and Restoration Druid 4-Piece bonus are incredibly strong in raids. For Mythic+ you can skip the 4-piece bonus, only using 2-piece and using normal gearing methods elsewhere.

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 item levels, Avoidance is worth around 5.

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
Trinket #1	Amalgam's Seventh Spine	Blackrook Hold (Legion Timewalking)
Trinket #2	Soulletting Ruby	Theater of Pain

Keep in mind that the Legion Timewalking event will only be available on the reset starting on 12th (NA) or 13th (EU) of April. Until then you will have to use other trinkets. Rankings of them are outlined below.

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.

Genesis Lathe from Lihuvim, Principal Architect in Sepulcher of the First Ones raid is roughly equal to weapons of the same item level. The effect is not too strong, so you should probably prioritise different weapons to it.

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. S-tier — Amalgam's Seventh Spine is by far the best trinket.
2. A-tier — Soulletting Ruby is a good trinket that lines up perfectly for your Convoke the Spirits cooldown. So'leah's Secret Technique is a very good passive trinket. Unbound Changeling and Elegy of the Eternals are slightly weaker than the Ruby and So'leah's Secret Technique at equal item levels.
3. B-tier — First Class Healing Distributor and Auxillary Attendant Chime are decent trinkets, but fall behind A-tier trinkets. Cosmic Gladiator's Insignia of Alacrity and Cosmic Gladiator's Badge of Ferocity are also not bad, but are unfortunately not available at Mythic raid item level and remain slightly behind others even at equal item levels.
4. C-tier — Inscrutable Quantum Device. This trinket is generally decent on paper, but very awkward to use. The Lion's Roar is another trinket that you do not want to use due to its mechanics and power level.
5. D-tier — Reclaimer's Intensity Core, The First Sigil, Vial of Spectral Essence, Lingering Sunmote, Boon of the Archon, Overflowing Anima Cage, Grim Eclipse, 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.

When choosing trinkets for the raid, keep in mind that Amalgam's Seventh Spine is only good when you actually spend all your Mana. If you end the fight at 20.000 Mana, while the trinket gave you 25,000, then you effectively gained only 5,000, which makes the effect horrible. For encounters like these you should be using trinkets listed in the A-tier.

Due to the nature of Mythic+ healing, players usually run at least one damage trinket and sometimes even two. If you run only one damage trinket or even zero, your other options are generally going to be stat trinkets.

1. S-tier — Resonant Reservoir.
2. A-tier — Infinitely Divisible Ooze, Satchel of Misbegotten Minions, Miniscule Mailemental in an Envelope.
3. B-tier — Soulletting Ruby, So'leah's Secret Technique, Unbound Changeling, Elegy of the Eternals.

Patch 9.0.5 introduced 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 prioritize over other.

1. Weapon — If you have a weapon below the highest item level, you 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 S- and A-tier ones.
3. Any item that is far below Heroic raid item level — Prioritize slots with a higher budget that do not have Shard of Domination in them if all other things are equal: Legs, then Waist, then Rings/Neck, then Cloak/Bracers.

In the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid, every specialization will be able to get a tier set with its own two- and four-piece bonuses. For Restoration Druid, these set bonuses are:

• Restoration Druid 2-Piece — Healing from Rejuvenation has a 25% chance to grant Renewing Bloom, healing the target over 8 seconds. Swiftmend can consume Renewing Bloom.
• Restoration Druid 4-Piece — Every 3 casts of Swiftmend grants you Incarnation: Tree of Life for 9 seconds.

Both tier bonuses are extremely strong for raiding. The 4-piece bonus is not that good for dungeons, so you can safely skip grinding it if you are only doing Mythic+. The estimated power of 2-piece is around 7-10% more healing. 4-piece is harder to give an approximation of because so much of it depends on individual play, but it should provide at least 7% and as high as 10% additional healing.

Since tier has 5 possible slots, but you only need 4 to activate bonuses, you should plan on using those that have higher item level, do not interfere with your Legendaries, and possibly provide sockets or Leech. You can use the Creation Catalyst to make tier pieces out of non-tier items, retaining sockets and tertiaries. You can pick Great Vault items with Leech, save them, and transform them into tier pieces.

Domination shards will only work in Torghast and The Maw. They will not work in Sepulcher of the First Ones or Mythic+ dungeons. As such, items that have Domination slots are not valuable in 9.2; they are basically just normal items.