Restoration Druid Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — The War Within Pre-Patch

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.

This is the best generic raid healing build for Raiding:

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.

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.

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.

You have to spend 8 points in this section, which generally leaves you with little choice.

1. Lifebloom, Nature's Swiftness, Omen of Clarity, and Ysera's Gift are always chosen, no matter what content you are doing.
2. Grove Tending is a powerful talent for this tier. You will generally pick this one as well.
3. 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.
4. This leaves you with 1 talent point unspent. For all content, if you have Druid Restoration 10.2 Class Set 4pc, you should pick Tranquil Mind. Otherwise, pick either of the 3 talents available, as they will not make much difference.

Similar to the first tier of talents, you are left with 12 points to spend here, making selections generally obvious depending on content.

1. You will, first of all, always pick the following 3 talents: Efflorescence, Ironbark, Soul of the Forest.
2. For raiding, your next obvious choices will be Inner Peace / Dreamstate, Improved Wild Growth, Cultivation, and Unstoppable Growth.
3. For Mythic+, you can choose between Unstoppable Growth and Stonebark + Regenerative Heartwood, but you do not need an extra target for Wild Growth.
4. Both raid and Mythic+ specs will pick Grove Guardians and Wild Synthesis here.
5. 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.
6. Mythic+ specs will need four points to advance further. Verdancy is a pretty good choice here. You can spend the remaining points on Harmonious Blooming and Rampant Growth.

Raiding Druids have a lot of mandatory points in this section: Flourish, Master Shapeshifter, Germination, Convoke the Spirits / Incarnation: Tree of Life, Cenarius' Guidance, Reforestation, Prosperity. This is 7 talent points out of 10 available.

You have 3 remaining talent points. First of all, to make it to Reforestation and Germination, you need to pick Thriving Vegetation. This leaves us with 1 talent point. You can put it in either Spring Blossoms, Power of the Archdruid, or Nurturing Dormancy. If you can utilise Efflorescence well on a boss, then Spring Blossoms is an obvious choice. Otherwise, Power of the Archdruid is a slightly stronger talent than Nurturing Dormancy.

Mythic+ Druids have to make different choices. The only DPS talents left in this section are Convoke the Spirits and Call of the Elder Druid. We will pick either Convoke for more damage or Incarnation: Tree of Life for more healing. We will also always pick Cenarius' Guidance. We will also want either Prosperity or Verdant Infusion. The better choice for most situations here is Prosperity. This leaves us with 7 talents.

Due to the small group nature of Mythic+, we will generally prefer Lifebloom-oriented builds over Rejuvenation. For the most healing, we will always pick Photosynthesis and Undergrowth. We will also want Spring Blossoms due to how strong it is. We are now left with 4 points.

Out of Master Shapeshifter and Liveliness we will most often prefer Master Shapeshifter. It will solve all Mana issues and contribute more damage. Liveliness is a bit easier to execute, but clearly lacks in power.

For the remaining 3 points, we can either put points into Call of the Elder Druid and Dream of Cenarius for full damage, then one talent wherever. More conservatively, we will pick Budding Leaves and Reforestation.

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.

2 points in Nurturing Instinct are too strong and important to ignore. Improved Nature's Cure should only be picked for dungeons or bosses with Curse or Poison debuffs.

All Druids will probably want Rake and Feline Swiftness for 15% movement speed.

The major decisions are on the left side of the first rows. Raiding druids will want to pick defensive options: Frenzied Regeneration, Improved Barkskin, Ironfur, and possibly Verdant Heart.

Mythic+ players will want to pick Starfire, Sunfire, Improved Sunfire, Rip, and Killer Instinct.

Here, every Druid should be picking the following talents: Natural Recovery, Thick Hide, Ursol's Vortex / Mass Entanglement, Soothe, Stampeding Roar, Renewal, Rising Light, Falling Night.

For raiding you will always pick Improved Rejuvenation, but for Mythic+ you can definitely skip this point, if you are confident about your healing, although this is not recommended.

To go into the left side defensive talents you will have to pick Wild Charge / Tiger Dash and either Matted Fur or Ursine Vigor. Matted Fur is not that strong, but is useful more often, because you should not need to use Bear Form until very high keys.

Skull Bash is a good pick for Mythic+ here too, but you will have to pick between getting it, getting Improved Rejuvenation, or any one talent in the last third of the talent tree. It is most likely better to drop something in the bottom to get both the interrupt and a longer Rejuvenation.

In the last part of the tree, you will have to pick 2 talents in Lycara's Teachings and 2 talents in Lore of the Grove.

Raiding druids will always pick Innervate and Nature's Vigil.

If you want to pick defensive talents, then you will pick 2 from Instincts of the Claw, Oakskin, and Well-Honed Instincts.

Mythic+ players will have to choose their utility in this part. 2 points in Instincts of the Claw and Oakskin are basically must-have. Then, you will definitely want to path towards Heart of the Wild. Fluid Form is not a good talent here, as it only saves some Energy here and there, but does not contribute much damage. You will probably save more time in a key using Stampeding Roar more often.

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.

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.

1. 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.