Restoration Druid Healing Mythic+ Tips — Shadowlands 9.1

Restoration Druid is one of the better healing specialisations for Mythic+. It has enough throughput to get through almost any healing situation, good crowd control, and the best tank cooldown in the game. The weakness is a pretty low damage output during heavy healing portions of dungeons.

If you are unfamiliar with Mythic+ and its associated general mechanics, you can read more about it on our dedicated Mythic+ page below.

While there is no specific rotation you should follow in Mythic+ content, it is important to know which spells are most efficient to cast or do the most healing so that you can make better informed decisions.

1. Keep Efflorescence down. This is by far the best spell both in terms of Mana efficiency and healing output per global spent.
2. Keep Lifebloom on a tank by default. Swap it to yourself during group damage if you are playing Photosynthesis.
3. Use Cenarion Ward on cooldown, if you are using the talent. Use it on the tank since it is a poor method of catching up.
4. Keep Rejuvenation on an active tank and any players with debuffs. Avoid casting too many unnecessary Rejuvenations. A lot of small damage can be healed passively by your AoE healing or even self-healed by players themselves.
5. Use Swiftmend to activate Soul of the Forest. Most of the time you will be using this to buff Regrowth, but in any scenario where multiple people are taking damage you should use it on Wild Growth.
6. Use Regrowth as an emergency heal.

During downtime from healing you should be actively looking to deal as much damage as you can. The rotation might be complicated to master fully, but you should still learn which spells to prioritise to time more keys.

For more information about the Restoration Druid spell priority in Raids, refer back to the Rotation page.

Restoration Druid provides much more to the group than just healing. Due to the nature of dungeon content, you will be expected to do damage, crowd control, and heal all at the same time.

• Typhoon knocks enemies in front of you away in the direction the cast was aimed. Use this to knock enemies away from the tank, yourself, or away from special mob-specific mechanics such as Sanguine pools. Keep in mind that you only have access to it through Balance Affinity.
• Soothe dispels all enrage effects from the target. It removes various strong buffs from enemies in dungeons, including Raging.
• Entangling Roots can be used to root patrols. If you apply them to the leading mob in the group, the entire patrol will stop moving. It is useful in tight quarters or to skip certain packs altogether.
• Hibernate puts enemy Beast or Dragonkin to sleep for up to 40 seconds. Any damage will awaken the target. Hibernate works in the same way as Entangling Roots for stopping patrolling packs in dungeons without pulling them. It can also be used to interrupt casts of NPCs without removing DoTs from the target.
• Ursol's Vortex conjures a ground zone for 10 seconds that will slow all enemies affected by 50%. It will also pull them to the center after the first time they attempt to leave the circle. It is an extremely powerful tool for kiting, especially during Necrotic weeks. You can pair Ursol's Vortex with Typhoon to group packs on top of each other for better AoE.
• Cyclone can be used to make certain enemies immune to everything for 6 seconds. You can avoid mobs getting Bolstering stacks, or delay them from dying and refreshing Bursting. Make sure you use it with caution, because you will also make them immune to taking damage, which might slow your group down instead of helping.

Below are the suggested talents for Mythic+, these talents are recommended for all groups and keys at the current time.

Level	Choices
15	✗ Abundance	✗ Nourish	✓ Cenarion Ward
25	✗ Tiger Dash	? Renewal	? Wild Charge
30	? Balance Affinity	? Feral Affinity	✗ Guardian Affinity
35	✗ Mighty Bash	✗ Mass Entanglement	✓ Heart of the Wild
40	✓ Soul of the Forest	✗ Cultivation	✗ Incarnation: Tree of Life
45	✗ Inner Peace	✓ Spring Blossoms	✗ Overgrowth
50	? Photosynthesis	✗ Germination	? Flourish

The most popular and easiest combination to play is Cenarion Ward, Soul of the Forest, Spring Blossoms, and Photosynthesis. The idea behind this build is to keep Lifebloom on the tank most of the time and swap it to yourself during heavy group damage.

You can play Flourish instead of Photosynthesis. The playstyle does not change much, but you will have an easier time managing Bursting depending on how your group decides to handle them. Flourish also provides better synergy with the Verdant Infusion Legendary.

Refer to the Talent page for descriptions of all talents, their strengths and weaknesses.

There is no obvious Best in Slot list possible due to the varying nature of damage intake in different dungeons, but you can get a general direction running mostly Haste and Mastery pieces in the slots with similar item level. Replace Mastery with Versatility and Crit as you feel necessary. Basically, run Mastery up until you do not need more of it to heal damage. Make sure you check the Gear page for trinket and significant item recommendations.

While most affixes do not need any specific advice, there are some that can be abused by a Restoration Druid toolkit or pose a lot more threat than others. We will try to provide some examples and advice here.

This affix will place 4 lieutenant mobs throughout a dungeon. Each of them will drop an Anima Cell that will contain 3 specific powers. Below is a brief overview of what powers you should pick. For more in-depth explanations, check the paragraphs for each lieutenant.

• Incinerator Arkolath: Pedestal of Utter Hubris.
• Oros Coldheart: Portable Feeding Trough or Satchel of the Hunt.
• Soggodon the Breaker: The Stone Ward.
• Executioner Varruth: Champion's Brand.

Arkolath has 3 abilities and an aura you will have to deal with:

• Soulforge Flames is an aura that deals Fire damage every 3 seconds to everyone in the group. The damage from it is not very high and should be easy to manage.
• Scorching Blast will leave a ground patch on the floor. There will be a maximum of 3 patches on the floor at a time. There is not much you can do except move out of them. Try to place patches close to eachother so they cover less ground.
• Melt Soul is a dispelable magic debuff that increases Fire damage taken. There will be 2 debuffs going out at a time, so you will not be able to dispel them all. Make sure you use your dispel on cooldown. Prioritise DPS players since the tank will not be in any danger of dying. Damage will ramp as the fight with this lieutenant progresses. You should look into trying to do a lot of damage early and then focus on healing later.
• Inferno is an interruptable cast that deals heavy damage to players in a 60-yard radius. There is nothing you can do about it if not interrupted. Most of the time if the cast goes through on higher levels it is likely a wipe. If the cast does not go through, it will do nothing.

Anima powers from Incerator Arkolath are the most useful ones your group can get. You will be offered a selection of 3 powers: Champion's Brand, Bottle of Sanguine Ichor, and Pedestal of Utter Hubris. There is really no competition between them as Pedestal of Utter Hubris offers a ridiculous amount of stats with basically no downside. Self-damage will be healed by Ysera's Gift and Efflorescence. The amount of Haste you receive is multiplicative with your Haste. This means that if you have 30% Haste, Hubris will put you to 45.6% giving you a staggering 15.6% instead of the 12% stated in the tooltip.

Aura and abilities from Oros Coldheart:

• Chilling Presence slows the movement speed of all players by 50%. This basically does nothing to a Druid.
• Biting Cold is a debuff that does heavy damage to one player in the group and everyone around them. Make sure you focus most of your healing on them.
• Frost Lance is a simple frontal cone. Keep an eye on players that are out of position and will not be able to dodge it. Ironbark and an emergency Regrowth might save them from dying depending on key level.
• Cold Snap consists of a series of small swirlies appearing on the floor. Just run away from them. Make sure you do not cross paths with other players or run in front of them as that makes dodging a lot harder.

Anima powers from Oros Coldheart are a bit harder to pick, but also do not provide any direct throughput to you or your group. Satchel of the Hunt is a good choice in some dungeons that require a lot of movement or those that are located mostly indoors where you cannot use mounts. If you are confident with your Mana management pick this one. Portable Feeding Trough is not a very strong power. Even if you have Mana issues you will generally benefit from this power maybe 2-4 times per dungeon. The time saved from it will be mediocre at best. Gavel of Judgement is probably the worst power out of all. Random short stuns are in general not good. Putting mobs on stun diminishing returns might be detrimental to your group instead of helping it.

Aura and abilities from Soggodon the Breaker:

• Intimidation makes everyone in the group take 50% more Physical damage.
• Crush is a heavy tank hit. Make sure your tank is always full Health. Keep HoTs up and cast Regrowth as needed.
• Seismic Wave is a simple AoE ability. There is not much need to heal it straight away as there is no other group-wide damage. Simple Wild Growth and Efflorescence healing should be more than enough.
• Massive Smash is going to root everyone in your group. You can escape this ability by a simple reshift. Make sure you help free others with Sunfire and Swipe.

Anima powers from Sogoddon are purely defensive. Tiny Dancing Shoes are absolutely useless, so you can ignore this power immediately. The Stone Ward will protect you from random deaths and heavily reduce healing needed during boss AoE. This should be your default pick in most situations. Self-Embalming Kit does pretty much the same thing as The Stone Ward but in a slightly different way. For bosses or dungeons where you take a lot of unavoidable damage this might be a very good pick. A good example would be the last boss in Plaguefall where Self-Embalming Kit can make healing a little bit easier.

Aura and abilities from Executioner Varruth:

• Thanatophobia is an aura that reduces all healing received by 50%.
• Sever deals high damage on the tank and leave a DoT. Make sure your tank always has HoTs up. If you are using Verdant Infusion make sure to extend Cenarion Ward exclusively on the tank.
• Wave of Terror will deal AoE damage and fear any player not standing on top of another one. The fear itself is a magic debuff that you can dispel.
• Carnage will leave a short bleed effect on a random player. This spell will be cast immediately after Wave of Terror. Make sure you start focusing healing on the target of Carnage immediately. Since your tank should have HoTs on them already and would not have taken damage for a couple of seconds, you should prioritise this debuff a bit more.

Anima powers from Executioner Varruth offer the most interesting choice of all. While Stabilizing Diamond Alembic is very mediocre and should not be picked, the other two offer two different power increases. Champion's Brand is just a flat stat increase. It will give you 6% Crit or 3% Mastery, which is pretty substantial. Overflowing Chalice will proc little orbs that restore 6% Mana when collected. The proc rate is around 2-3 times a minute, which is not that much, but can add up and prevent you from having to drink. On most weeks it is advised to pick Champion's Brand.

This affix usually provides the most problems to all healers. Make sure you are keeping an eye on enemies dying and prepare accordingly with Rejuvenations on entire group. If you notice some mobs dying later, start dispelling Bursting early to get another dispel later. Most often you should dispel the tank, since they have higher total Health and are going to require more healing. You can consider using Cyclone to make sure one enemy will not die, but keep in mind that it is a last resort option. The goal is to go through the dungeon as fast as possible, making enemies immune does not help with that.

Spiteful will spawn Spiteful Shades from dead enemies, which will fixate on players in your group. They have a decent amount of Health, but lose 8% of it every second. They also hit very hard, often nearly killing everyone they come in touch with. Make sure you use all forms of your crowd control on them. The best ability for that is Ursol's Vortex, since it does not interfere with anything else. If you are not already specced into Balance Affinity for a Spiteful week, it is probably a good idea to do that just to stay in range and safely use Typhoon on Spiteful Shades without hitting mobs positioned for melee players by the tank.