Restoration Druid Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — Dragonflight 10.2.5
On this page, you will find out the best talents for each tier for your Restoration Druid in World of Warcraft — Dragonflight 10.2.5. We also have default talent lists for various types of content, such as raiding or Mythic+. If you play with Warmode on, we have your PvP talents covered as well.
If you were looking for WotLK Classic content, please refer to our WotLK Classic Restoration Druid talents.
Talent Cheat Sheets for Restoration Druid
While optimizing talents on a contextual basis is the highly recommended method of setting up your build, the talent builds listed below work great for specific purposes.
Multiple talents require a change to your rotation to use them optimally. You can find more information on how your rotation will look after selecting your talents on our rotation page below.
Raid Healing
This is the best generic raid healing build for Dragonflight:
Be sure to use the 'Copy Export String' button on our calculator so that you can quickly transfer our builds ingame!
The build suggested above does not account for specific fights in the current raid tier. You should check out our dedicated page below if you wish to have a boss-by-boss breakdown of talent choices.
Dungeon Healing
This is our recommended build for dungeons:
Be sure to use the 'Copy Export String' button on our calculator so that you can quickly transfer our builds in-game!
If you want more detailed advice specific to Mythic+, check out our page below.
Spec Specific Talents for Restoration Druids
Your main idea when building a talent tree should be to spend as many points at the bottom of the tree as possible since they are the strongest ones. With that in mind, try to pick the bare minimum in the first two sections. We will try to break down the order in which you should pick talents and priorities within each tier.
Rows 1-4
You have to spend 8 points in this section, which generally leaves you with little choice.
- Lifebloom, Nature's Swiftness, Omen of Clarity, and Ysera's Gift are always chosen, no matter what content you are doing.
- Grove Tending is a powerful talent for this tier. You will generally pick this one as well.
- For raiding you will need Abundance and for Mythic+ you will need Cenarion Ward. This means you will pick Nature's Swiftness improving talents or Flash of Clarity. Neither is particularly exciting, so you can use your discretion here. Keep in mind that Mythic+ spec will use double Lifebloom, which will give you more Clearcasting procs.
- This leaves you with 1 talent point unspent. We generally advise Improved Regrowth for Mythic+. For raids, you will pick either Tranquil Mind with Druid Restoration 10.2 Class Set 2pc or Waking Dream without it for raids. None are strong, but they provide slightly more than the alternative in their respective contents.
Rows 5-7
Similar to the first tier of talents, you are left with 12 points to spend here, making selections generally obvious depending on content.
- You will, first of all, always pick the following 3 talents: Efflorescence, Ironbark, Soul of the Forest.
- For raiding, your next obvious choices will be Inner Peace / Dreamstate, Improved Wild Growth, Cultivation, and Unstoppable Growth.
- For Mythic+ you still want Unstoppable Growth, but you do not need an extra target for Wild Growth, so you pick Improved Ironbark instead.
- Both raid and Mythic+ specs will pick Grove Guardians and Wild Synthesis here.
- Raiding spec will have one point left. You spend it on Rampant Growth, if you are pathing towards Spring Blossoms, or on Verdancy, if you are going for Reforestation later.
- Mythic+ specs will need four points to advance further. Verdancy is required to open the path down. You can spend the remaining points on Harmonious Blooming and Rampant Growth.
Rows 8-10
Here is where things start to get interesting. There are a lot of great choices and a few potential options for raids and dungeons. We will not rate individual talents because their value will change greatly depending on other talents picked. For example, Lifebloom enhancing talents will be inferior on their own but will work great if picked all together. The same is true for Rejuvenation talents.
First of all, you will be picking Flourish. This talent is simply too strong for all types of content.
Rejuvenation focused Raid build
Raiding Druids have a lot of mandatory points in this section: Flourish, Luxuriant Soil, Nurturing Dormancy, Germination, Convoke the Spirits / Incarnation: Tree of Life, Cenarius' Guidance. This is 7 talent points out of 10 available. All of these talents contribute to our Rejuvenation sprawl. They feed off each other, and losing any makes your average Rejuvenation count significantly lower.
You have 3 remaining talent points, and you really want to grab Photosynthesis. You can do it in a few ways. The best one is to go through Liveliness. This will leave you with 1 point unspent. Put it into either Reforestation or Spring Blossoms. Both have their upsides and downsides. It is generally better to use Reforestation, especially after you are locked into Incarnation due to Druid Restoration 10.2 Class Set 2pc.
Mythic+ builds
Mythic+ Druids have to make different choices. The only DPS talents left in this section are Adaptive Swarm and Convoke the Spirits. We will pick Unbridled Swarm after that because it is basically an Adaptive Swarm enabler. With these 3 and Flourish, we only have 6 points left to consider.
Due to the small group nature of Mythic+, we will generally prefer Lifebloom-oriented builds over Rejuvenation. For the most healing, we will go into Liveliness, Photosynthesis, Cenarius' Guidance, and Undergrowth.
The last 2 talents are less important. Spring Blossoms will provide the most healing out of the remaining talents. For the last talent, you can pick 1 point in Budding Leaves. Ultimately, neither of these 2 talents will make or break your healing, so you can put them wherever you prefer.
Lifebloom focused Raid build
You have an option to play a more Lifebloom-focused spec in raid after acquiring Druid Restoration 10.2 Class Set 4pc. You can play basically the same one as the Mythic+ version, but replacing Adaptive Swarm talents. You will need to put 2 into Budding Leaves and 1 into Reforestation. The main idea will be to have 2 Lifeblooms, then use all Clearcasting procs for the 4-piece interaction. Your burst healing will suffer immensely, but steady throughput should still be very good.
Class Specific Talents for Restoration Druids
There is no good way to make one spec that will work for all raid bosses or all dungeons at all levels. It is important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each talent path and build something coherent with synergies, making sure that all extra spells you pick up are utilized properly.
Rows 1-4
2 points in Nurturing Instinct are too strong and important to ignore. Improved Nature's Cure should only be picked for dungeons with Curse or Poison debuffs.
All Druids will pick Starfire, Sunfire, and Moonkin Form here.
The major decisions are on the left side of the first rows. Frenzied Regeneration is a good defensive tool, while Rake is a strong DPS spell. Depending on your needs, choose one here. Raiding Druids can skip both.
Raiding Druids going into a more defensive path will have to pick Improved Barkskin, Verdant Heart, and Ironfur. Ironfur is pretty useless, but it opens a path towards Thick Hide.
For Mythic+, you might want to pick Thrash and Rip for single-target DPS.
Rows 5-10
Here, every Druid should be picking the following talents: Natural Recovery, Thick Hide, Soothe, Astral Influence, Rising Light, Falling Night, Stampeding Roar.
Right side into Nature's Vigil is basically locked for every spec. 3 talents in Lycara's Teachings are also must-have.
Raiding Druids will obviously pick Improved Rejuvenation here.
Mythic+
Mythic+ Restoration Druids will almost never go through the left cat talents. Go through middle Bear talents to pick Thick Hide. After that, you will have quite a lot of flexible talents left. It is generally not advised to pick either Protector of the Pack or Heart of the Wild.
You can opt to path towards Incapacitating Roar for extra crowd control. There are also Well-Honed Instincts that provide quite a bit of survivability. So does Renewal.
Raid
After you have invested all the mandatory talents in the middle of the tree, you will have almost no options left. There will be exactly one flexible point which you can invest in either Wild Charge / Tiger Dash or into Matted Fur.
In the last part of the tree, you will have to pick 3 talents in Lycara's Teachings, Ursol's Vortex, Innervate, and Nature's Vigil.
This leaves you with 5 points. We highly recommend Renewal. With the rest, you can decide to spend them on Well-Honed Instincts or on the damage talents.
PvP Talents (War Mode)
You can go into "War Mode." Enabling War Mode provides the following benefits:
- PvP talents enabled in the outdoor world.
- 10-30% increase in World Quest rewards at maximum level.
- 10-30% more experience gained while leveling.
- Earn Conquest Points, which can reward gear every week.
With the benefits of enabling War Mode for leveling and PvE content, it is recommended enabling the feature to maximize your leveling and rewards at maximum level. However, you will make yourself available for open-world PvP, and the possibility of being killed while leveling or doing World Quests exists.
Restoration Druid War Mode Talents
In this section, we will rank the PvP talents best for leveling and doing solo / small group PvE content. Below is a ranking of General PvP Talents and Restoration Druid-specific PvE talents.
Restoration Druid PvP Talents
- Thorns is a good choice that offers a direct damage increase. It is usable in any form and can provide significant damage on big pulls.
Disentanglement, Entangling Bark, Deep Roots, Focused Growth, Early Spring have limited effect on PvE content in terms of increasing your damage in the open-world or healing in a small group setting.
Changelog
- 15 Jan. 2024: Reviewed for Patch 10.2.5.
- 21 Nov. 2023: Updated talent recommendations.
- 06 Nov. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.2.
- 04 Sep. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.1.7.
- 10 Jul. 2023: Updated pathing and talent choice recommendations for Patch 10.1.5.
- 01 May 2023: Reviewed for Patch 10.1.
- 24 Mar. 2023: Updated raid talent recommendations.
- 20 Mar. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.7.
- 24 Jan. 2023: Updated for Patch 10.0.5.
- 29 Dec. 2022: Adjusted talent advice for both Mythic+ and Raids.
- 11 Dec. 2022: Added more Mythic+ build options.
- 28 Nov. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight launch.
- 30 Oct. 2022: Updated Regenesis advice.
- 25 Oct. 2022: Updated for Dragonflight pre-patch.
More Druid Guides
Guides from Other Classes
This guide has been reviewed and approved by Torty, one of the main Restoration Druid theorycrafters. He is an author of the Twig It spreadsheet and DPS action priority list. He currently raids in Pure.
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