Restoration Druid Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents (Legion 7.3)

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Last updated on Aug 28, 2017 at 15:29 by Vlad 191 comments

General Information

On this page, we present the viable talent choices for Restoration Druids in World of Warcraft Legion 7.3. We detail what each of the talents do and in which situations they should be taken.

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. Talent Choices

Level	Choices
15	✘ Prosperity	✔ Cenarion Ward	? Abundance
30	✘ Renewal	✔ Displacer Beast	✘ Wild Charge
45	? Balance Affinity	? Feral Affinity	✔ Guardian Affinity
60	? Mighty Bash	? Mass Entanglement	? Typhoon
75	✘ Soul of the Forest	✘ Incarnation: Tree of Life	✔ Cultivation
90	✔ Spring Blossoms	✔ Inner Peace	✔ Germination
100	✘ Moment of Clarity	✘ Stonebark	✔ Flourish

Talents can be freely changed when out of combat and in a rested XP area (such as an inn or a capital city). Moreover, Tome of the Tranquil Mind Icon Tome of the Tranquil Mind and Codex of the Tranquil Mind Icon Codex of the Tranquil Mind can be used to temporarily allow players to change talents anywhere, as long as they are out of combat.

2. Tier 1 (Level 15) Talents

✘ Prosperity

✔ Cenarion Ward

? Abundance

Prosperity causes Swiftmend to have 2 charges and a 27-second recharge time (instead of simply having a 30-second cooldown).
Cenarion Ward is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown. It places a buff on an ally, lasting up to 30 seconds. When the player takes damage, Cenarion Ward activates a 8-second HoT on them, consuming Cenarion Ward in the process.
Abundance causes each instance of Rejuvenation that you have active to reduce the cast time of Healing Touch by 10% and increase the critical effect chance of Regrowth by 10%.

Cenarion Ward Icon Cenarion Ward is the best talent in almost all situations. It is a strong, efficient heal, that synergises with your Mastery, Flourish Icon Flourish, and Icon Essence of G'Hanir.

Prosperity Icon Prosperity is generally a terrible choice unless coupled with Soul of the Forest Icon Soul of the Forest (which is not a recommended talent in the first place).

Abundance Icon Abundance can be a useful talent in 5-man content. The bonus to Healing Touch Icon Healing Touch is largely irrelevant, and the talent is picked for strengthening Regrowth Icon Regrowths to improve your spot healing capabilities. Taking this talent devalues Critical Strike slightly.

3. Tier 2 (Level 30) Talents

✘ Renewal

✔ Displacer Beast

✘ Wild Charge

Renewal is an active ability with a 90-second cooldown. It heals you for 30% of your maximum health, it is usable in all shapeshift forms, and it is off the global cooldown.
Displacer Beast is an active ability that teleports you 20 yards forward, activates Cat Form, and grants you a 50% increase in movement speed for 2 seconds.
Wild Charge is an active ability that is off the global cooldown and which differs based on the shapeshift form you are in, as follows:
- No shapeshift form: you fly to an ally's location.
- Travel Form: you jump to an ally's location.
- Moonkin Form: you leap backwards.
- Bear Form: you charge an enemy, immobilising them for 4 seconds.
- Cat Form: you leap behind an enemy, dazing them for 3 seconds.
- Aquatic Form: your swim speed is increased by 150% for 5 seconds.

In this tier, you will have to choose between movement and survivability. For a movement increase, Displacer Beast Icon Displacer Beast is by far better than Wild Charge Icon Wild Charge in almost every way, and should generally be the default choice.

Taking Renewal Icon Renewal for survivability is generally unnecessary, as Restoration Druids are already one of the most durable specialisations.

4. Tier 3 (Level 45) Talents

? Balance Affinity

? Feral Affinity

✔ Guardian Affinity

Balance Affinity grants you the Astral Influence passive ability, which increases the range of all your abilities by 5 yards. Additionally, you gain access to the Balance-spec abilities Moonkin Form, Starsurge, and Lunar Strike.
Feral Affinity grants you the Feline Swiftness passive ability, which increases your movement speed by 15%. Additionally, you gain access to the Feral-spec abilities Shred, Rake, Rip, Ferocious Bite, Swipe, and your energy regeneration is increased by 35%.
Guardian Affinity grants you the Thick Hide passive ability, which reduces all your damage taken by 6%. Additionally, you gain access to the Guardian-spec abilities Mangle, Thrash, Ironfur, and Frenzied Regeneration.

In this tier, we feel that the default choice should be Guardian Affinity Icon Guardian Affinity. The passive damage reduction you gain is extremely valuable during progression content, and even the active abilities can be very beneficial. Notably, Frenzied Regeneration Icon Frenzied Regeneration can be used after taking heavy damage in order to heal yourself to full health in mere seconds, for free.

Balance Affinity Icon Balance Affinity could be used for fights where the raid is spread out, due to the passive increase in the range of your abilities.

Feral Affinity Icon Feral Affinity offers the unique ability to deal substantial damage. This can be useful both on progression content, to help your raid beat enrage timers, or during Mythic+ to help your group clear the dungeon faster.

5. Tier 4 (Level 60) Talents

? Mighty Bash

? Mass Entanglement

? Typhoon

Mighty Bash is an active ability with a 50-second cooldown, which stuns the target for 5 seconds. It is usable in all shapeshift forms.
Mass Entanglement is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown, which roots the target and all enemies within 15 yards of them in place for 30 seconds. Damage done to rooted targets may break the effect. Mass Entanglement is usable in all shapeshift forms.
Typhoon is an active ability with a 30-second cooldown. It knocks back all targets within 15-yards in a cone in front of you, dazing them for 6 seconds. It is usable in all shapeshift forms.

The choice between these talents is irrelevant in terms of your performance. You will simply choose the one which you prefer most, or which best suits the encounter mechanics. That said, Typhoon Icon Typhoon will probably be the most useful talent in the majority of fights.

6. Tier 5 (Level 75) Talents

✘ Soul of the Forest

✘ Incarnation: Tree of Life

✔ Cultivation

Soul of the Forest causes Swiftmend to grant you a buff that increases the healing of your next Regrowth or Rejuvenation by 200%, or of your next Wild Growth by 75%.
Incarnation: Tree of Life is an active ability with a 3-minute cooldown. It does not trigger the global cooldown. It lasts for 30 seconds and it in increases all healing done by 15% as well as increasing your armor by 120% and making you immune to Polymorph effects. Moreover, it improves some of your spells.
- Wild Growth affects 2 additional targets.
- Regrowth is instant cast.
- Rejuvenation has its healing increased by 50%, and its Mana cost reduced by 30%.
- Entangling Roots is instant cast.
Cultivation causes Rejuvenation to place a 6-second HoT on targets that are below 60% health when Rejuvenation heals them.

We consider Cultivation Icon Cultivation to be the best talent choice in practically all situations, and this should be your default option.

7. Tier 6 (Level 90) Talents

✔ Spring Blossoms

✔ Inner Peace

✔ Germination

Spring Blossoms places a 6-second HoT on targets who are healed by your Efflorescence.
Inner Peace reduces the cooldown of Tranquility by 60 seconds.
Germination allows you to apply two Rejuvenations to the same target. When Rejuvenation is already applied on a target, a second cast of Rejuvenation applies a second version of the HoT. From this point on, as long as both HoTs are active on the target, Rejuvenation will always refresh the HoT with the shortest remaining duration.

If the encounter on which you are progressing has regular bursts of damage that come at 2-minute intervals, allowing you to efficiently use Tranquility Icon Tranquility for each of them, then you should take Inner Peace Icon Inner Peace. If not, we recommend Spring Blossoms Icon Spring Blossoms. However, keep in mind that Spring Blossoms is a bad choice on fights where there is a high amount of movement, since re-placing your Efflorescence Icon Efflorescence often is not viable due to its Mana cost.

Germination Icon Germination is viable if you want to dedicate yourself to tank healing, and it is also the preferred choice for Mythic+ dungeons.

8. Tier 7 (Level 100) Talents

✘ Moment of Clarity

✘ Stonebark

✔ Flourish

Moment of Clarity causes your Omen of Clarity to affect the next 3 Regrowth casts (up from one), and to increase their healing by 15%.
Stonebark reduces the cooldown of Ironbark by 30 seconds and increases the healing of your HoTs by 20%.
Flourish is an active ability with a 1-minute cooldown. It extends the duration of all your HoTs within 60 yards by 6 seconds.

For raiding, the best talent in this tier is clearly Flourish Icon Flourish.

We currently consider Moment of Clarity Icon Moment of Clarity and Stonebark Icon Stonebark not to be competitive.

⋘Spell Summary

Artifact Traits and Relics⋙

9. ChangeLog

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28 Aug. 2017: Updated Mass Entanglement's description.
12 Jun. 2017: Made updates to tier 1, 2, and 3 talent sections (descriptions and discussions).
22 Apr. 2017: Clarified that Wild Charge when in Travel Form causes you to jump to the location of an ally, and not to fly to them.
28 Mar. 2017: No changes needed for Patch 7.2.
09 Jan. 2017: Updated talent descriptions to account for Patch 7.1.5 changes.
28 Nov. 2016: Updated tier 5 talent section to reflect that Cultivation is now the best choice.
25 Oct. 2016: Patch 7.1 updates
- Updated Prosperity's description (now reduces Swiftmend's cooldown by 3 seconds, down from 5).
- Added a mention that Incarnation is now off the global cooldown.
- Updated Guardian Affinity's description (Thick Hide now passively reduces damage by 6%, down from 10).
29 Aug. 2016: Updated for Legion's launch.
18 Jul. 2016: Updated for the Legion pre-patch.