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it (read more Restoration Druid Healing Rotation, Cooldowns, and Abilities (Legion 7.3.5)
Table of Contents
General Information
On this page, we list your Restoration Druid core abilities and how they should be used together (rotation) in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3.5. We also explain when to use your various cooldowns. Then, we go deeper and present all the subtleties that you will need to know if you want to excel at playing a Restoration Druid.
The other pages of our Restoration Druid guide can be accessed from the table of contents on the right.
About Our Reviewer
This guide has been reviewed and approved by Torty, a theorycrafter in the Dreamgrove Discord server, author of this Restoration Druid spreadsheet, and currently raiding in Pure.
1. Rotation / Playstyle for Restoration Druids
Your exact healing playstyle as a Restoration Druid will depend on what targets you have to heal, which is normally very closely related to the environment in which you are healing (raids or dungeons).
1.1. Raid Healing
When you are healing the raid, you should do the following.
- Maintain
Efflorescence under the melee group. - Keep
Lifebloom on an active tank. Refreshing it with less than
4.5 seconds left in order to proc the final Bloom and not lose any ticks is
recommended. - Use
Clearcasting procs on one of the tanks. - Use
Cenarion Ward on cooldown. - Use
Flourish and 
Essence of G'Hanir as often as
possible (no need to use them together). - Apply
Rejuvenation to the active tank(s) and members of the raid
who are taking or will take damage. - Use
Wild Growth when at least 6 members of the raid are damaged and
you have some Rejuvenations up.
1.2. Dungeon Healing
When healing in a dungeon there are a few tasks you should perform.
- Keep Lifebloom on an active tank. Refreshing it with less than
4.5 seconds left in order to proc the final Bloom and not lose any ticks is
recommended.
- Use Clearcasting procs on one of the tanks.
- Use Cenarion Ward on cooldown.
- Keep Rejuvenation on the tank and on members of the group that
just took damage or are about to take damage. Keep up both Rejuvenations on
targets on which the damage is too high for a single one.
- Use Wild Growth when at least 4 members of the group are
damaged.
- Use
Tranquility, if group is still taking heavy damage (it does
100% more healing 5-man content). - Use
Swiftmend on a player that just took heavy damage. If they are not in immediate danger, you should apply Rejuvenation to him
first. - Use
Regrowth as an emergency heal. - During downtime, use
Moonfire and 
Sunfire on enemies to
help with the damage. - If you have more free time, shift into
Cat Form (if you have the
Feral Affinity talent) to do more damage; if you do not
have this talent, cast 
Solar Wrath instead.
2. Cooldown Usage for Restoration Druids
As a Restoration Druid you have a few healing cooldowns by default. Additionally, your Artifact weapon grants you one more, and you can gain others depending on your talent choices. Your non-talent cooldowns should be used as follows:
- Tranquility should be used during heavy raid damage or when you
are assigned to use it by your raid leader. It is recommended not to stack it
with anything else. Casting Wild Growth before Tranquility is
recommended to increase the benefits from Mastery.
Innervate should be used as many times during the fight as
possible. Refresh Efflorescence, cast Wild Growth, and spam
Rejuvenations during Innervate.
Ironbark should be used to reduce the damage a tank is taking
during critical moments (such as when important boss abilities are about to be
cast). In the absence of such situations, you should just use it on players who
are taking damage. You may be assigned to use this at a specific time, as part
of a rotation with other healers and the tanks' own cooldowns.- Essence of G'Hanir should be used during heavy raid damage,
when your Tranquility is on cooldown. Ideally, you should use it
together with Wild Growth. Depending on the situation, you can also
couple it with
Velen's Future Sight or Flourish. - Flourish should be used as close to on cooldown as possible.
We cover the cooldowns that are obtainable from talents, as well as a few additional details regarding your other cooldowns in our detailed cooldowns section.
3. Optional Read: Mastering Your Restoration Druid
While playing correctly as a Restoration Druid does effectively rely on using the above spells as we recommend, there is more you need to understand to maximise your performance.
3.1. Understanding Your Spells
In order to make the best use of your heals, it is important that you familiarise yourself with their strengths and weaknesses.
Rejuvenation is an instant cast periodic heal which will make up
a very high amount of your healing throughout most fights. It also provides
a small initial heal. It is not very costly, and as long as it will not
overheal, it is always Mana efficient to use it.
Wild Growth is a spell that heals up to 6 low health raid members
over 7 seconds. The HoT heals for more damage initially and for less and less
as it goes on. Wild Growth is very
expensive, so its usage should be restricted to when there is a lot of burst
damage that you have to heal.
Swiftmend heals the target for a moderate amount. It is instant
cast, and it has a 30-second cooldown. It is an excellent way to react to
sudden spikes of damage.
Lifebloom is a healing over time spell that can only be on one
target at one time. You should always keep Lifebloom up on a target who is taking constant damage, such as the tank. When Lifebloom expires, it heals its
target for a large amount. This also happens if you refresh it with 4.5 seconds
remaining or less, which you should aim to do.
Healing Touch is a relatively cheap heal with a long cast time that heals for a moderately high amount.
Regrowth is an emergency heal. It has a high Mana cost and a low
cast time. It heals for a large amount instantly and a smaller amount over 12
seconds.
Efflorescence creates a healing zone that lasts for 30 seconds,
healing up to 3 players standing in it every 2 seconds.
3.2. Procs and Mechanics
As a Restoration Druid, you have quite a few things that you must keep track of and react accordingly to. Other than using the appropriate spell for the type of damage that is being done, this is really all there is to playing to your maximum potential.
3.2.1. Mastery: Harmony
Your Mastery, 
Mastery: Harmony, increases your healing done to a
target for each HoT that you have on that target at the time.
The amount by which your healing is increased depends on how much Mastery you
have.
3.2.2. Clearcasting Procs
Each time your Lifebloom ticks, you have a 4% chance to get a proc
from 
Omen of Clarity, making your next Regrowth,
cast within 15 seconds, cost no Mana. You should use these Regrowths freely,
as soon as you receive them, to avoid the procs overwriting each other.
3.2.3. Ysera's Gift
Ysera's Gift is a passive ability that heals you for 3% of your
maximum health every 5 seconds. If you are at full health, then a random nearby
injured ally is healed instead.
This effect is entirely passive and does not require you to do anything, but we felt it was worth pointing out.
3.2.4. Living Seed
Living Seed requires a mention as well, even though its benefit is
entirely passive and you will not really have to keep track of it in any
way.
When you critically heal a target with the direct healing portion of
Swiftmend, Regrowth, or Healing Touch, you
place a buff on them, lasting 15 seconds. When the target is attacked, the
buff is consumed and the target is healed for 25% of the amount healed by
the spell that triggered Living Seed in the first place.
As we said, this happens passively, but you should still be aware of its existence.
3.3. Detailed Cooldown Usage for Restoration Druids
In this section, we explain in depth how to use your cooldowns.
3.3.1. Tranquility
Tranquility is a channeled spell that heals all raid members
for a large amount of health over 8 seconds. It is an extremely powerful
spell. It is best used during times of very heavy raid damage.
You should use Tranquility when you can channel it for its full duration (or at least very close to its full duration).
3.3.2. Ironbark
Ironbark should simply be used on the tank, when they are taking a
large amount of damage, or on another player who is targeted by a powerful boss
mechanic.
3.3.3. Artifact Ability for Restoration Druids
Essence of G'Hanir, your Artifact ability, increases the tick
frequency of all your HoTs by 100% for 8-12 seconds (modified by your
Eternal Restoration artifact trait). It is an amazing healing
cooldown, which doubles the power of your HoTs. It should be used during heavy
raid damage or group damage (in a dungeon). Make sure you have
Wild Growth up for it, as well as having a few Rejuvenations
applied. You will need to increase the amount of HoTs you have up before using
this ability, and then tone them back down once it is over.
3.3.4. Innervate
Innervate is not strictly a defensive cooldown, but it is still
a very important part of a Restoration Druid's kit. It has a 3-minute cooldown
and it places a 10-second buff
on a friendly healer (which includes yourself), during which time all spells
cast by the target cost no Mana.
This ability allows the target to save up a large amount of Mana (provided, of course, that they cast a lot of spells while it is active), while also benefiting from their own passive Mana regeneration throughout that time (meaning that at the end, they will have more Mana than what they had when they started).
Innervate is best used 10 seconds before you plan to use
Flourish or Essence of G'Hanir. You want to refresh your
Efflorescence during it, so you also want to time Innervate when
Efflorescence has fewer than 10 seconds left on its duration. You want to cast
Wild Growth and as many Rejuvenations as your Haste allows.
Timing it together with any Haste procs or 
Heroism/
Bloodlust
is a very good strategy.
3.3.5. Tier 1 Talents
If you have chosen 
Cenarion Ward, you should use it on cooldown on
an ally that is taking significant damage (such as a tank).
3.3.6. Tier 3 Talents
Guardian Affinity provides you with the
Frenzied Regeneration active ability, which is not on the global
cooldown. Therefore, if you have just taken a large spike of damage, you can
shift into 
Bear Form and use Frenzied Regeneration to heal yourself
back up quickly.
3.3.7. Tier 4 Talents
If you have taken 
Soul of the Forest, then you will
benefit from a sizeable healing increase to your the first
Regrowth, Rejuvenation, or Wild Growth you cast after
using Swiftmend.
The effect is most useful when used in conjunction with Wild Growth, and if the raid is taking a lot of damage, empowering your Wild Growth casts by using Swiftmend first is highly recommended. The rest of the time (when you trigger this effect but do not need to use Wild Growth), you should just let it buff your next Regrowth or Rejuvenation.
Incarnation: Tree of Life should be used as many times as possible
during the encounter, whenever you feel it will benefit you the most. What
exactly to do during Incarnation: Tree of Life depends greatly on the
situation that you used Tree of Life for. Generally, the best thing to do
is to use Wild Growth on cooldown.
3.3.8. Tier 7 Talents
Flourish extends the duration of all your HoTs by 6 seconds, and
it is an extremely powerful effect when you have HoTs up on many players. You
should try to make as much as of this talent as possible throughout the fight,
although by far the best time for it is after you have used
Wild Growth (since it will extend the Wild Growth HoTs too).
4. ChangeLog
- 28 Aug. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.3.
- 12 Jun. 2017: Revamped both raid and dungeon healing playstyles, and made various other tweaks and fixes.
- 28 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
- 09 Jan. 2017: Checked and confirmed for 7.1.5.
- 25 Oct. 2016: Updated Living Seed description to account for Patch 7.1 changes.
- 07 Oct. 2016: Fixed a typo.
- 31 Aug. 2016: Removed a mention that you need to let Lifebloom expire in order to benefit from its large heal, and added that it can be refreshed with 5 seconds remaining or less.
- 29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
- 23 Jul. 2016: Added a mention of how to use Cenarion Ward, if you have chosen this talent.
- 18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.
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