Restoration Druid Guide

🚀 Opener & Pull Ramp

Resto never reacts to the pull — it pre-loads. Get your free maintenance HoTs and Efflorescence rolling before the first hit so passive healing is already ticking, lay a thin Rejuvenation bed, then weave damage while the group is healthy. Hold Tranquility, Incarnation and Convoke for the fight's first scripted spike, not the pull itself.

1. A few seconds before the pull, cast Lifebloom on the tank so the bloom and (with Lifetreading) your Efflorescence anchor are already set
2. Drop Efflorescence under where the group will stack — it's your cheapest healing and should be live before the first hit
3. Pre-seed Rejuvenation on the tank and anyone soaking the opening damage so a HoT bed is already ticking
4. Cast Wild Growth into the group right as the pull lands for an instant raid-wide HoT (your tier set makes this cheap and strong)
5. Use Swiftmend on the tank to proc Soul of the Forest + a Grove Guardian, then follow with Regrowth if a real spike appears
6. Open your damage with Sunfire/Moonfire then hard-cast Wrath while everyone is topped so you bank mana and meter
7. Hold Incarnation, Tranquility and Convoke for the first real damage event — burning them on the pull wastes your biggest ramp

🌿 Healing & Damage Priority

Resto is a maintenance-and-ramp spec, not a whack-a-mole healer. Keep your cheap HoTs rolling, build a bed of Rejuvenations before known damage, and weave damage when healing is light. Crit is irrelevant because Abundance already gives Regrowth ~100% crit — value comes from HoT coverage, not big single casts.

1. Keep Lifebloom up on yourself or the tank (refresh in its last ~4.5s to trigger the bloom); with Lifetreading, Efflorescence follows your Lifebloom target
2. Maintain Efflorescence under the group — best mana-to-healing ratio in the kit, near-100% uptime
3. Cast Swiftmend on cooldown (procs Soul of the Forest + a Grove Guardian) and immediately follow with Regrowth or Rejuvenation
4. Use Wild Growth for incoming raid-wide / AoE damage (your tier set buffs it — press it often)
5. Spread Rejuvenation pre-damage to build toward 10-12 active HoTs; that lights up Abundance for free, crit-guaranteed Regrowths
6. Spot-heal spikes: Swiftmend + Regrowth, then Nature's Swiftness + Regrowth, then bare Regrowth
7. When healing is covered, do DAMAGE: keep Sunfire/Moonfire up and hard-cast Wrath (single) or Starfire (AoE) — or Catweave (Rake → Rip → Shred/Swipe) for higher output
8. Refresh HoTs and dump spare GCDs into damage rather than overhealing

💥 Raid Ramp & AoE Healing

The signature Resto play: ramp a HoT bed BEFORE scripted raid damage, then unload cooldowns that multiply that bed as the hit lands. Rejuvenation is the ramp engine; Tranquility, Convoke and Flourish pay it off. Spread your big cooldowns across separate damage events rather than stacking them on one spike.

1. ~10-15s before a known raid hit, blanket the raid with Rejuvenation until you have ~10-12 active HoTs (this also lights Abundance for crit-guaranteed Regrowths)
2. Pop Incarnation: Tree of Life (and Innervate) just before the ramp so the whole bed is cheaper and Wild Growth hits extra targets
3. Keep Efflorescence under the stack and refresh Lifebloom so your two highest-value buffs never drop mid-ramp
4. As the damage lands, press Wild Growth and channel Tranquility for the raid-wide burst — note Tranquility now applies Flourish in 12.0.7
5. Convoke the Spirits into the hit for a massive throughput dump (it fires Wild Growth, Swiftmend, Rejuvenation and mini-Tranquilities with Cenarius' Guidance)
6. Flourish at the PEAK of the ramp — most HoTs out — to extend the entire bed; never on an empty board
7. Keep Swiftmend on cooldown through the window to stack Grove Guardians / Reforestation, and Ironbark the tank for a buster inside the event

⏱️ Cooldowns

Resto's strength is layering cheap cooldowns onto a pre-built HoT bed. Ramp first (5-8s of Rejuvenations), then unload. Don't dump everything blind — line cooldowns up with the boss's scripted raid damage.

🩹 Core Healing Spells

Your bread-and-butter heals and what each is for. Lead with the cheap, proactive HoTs and save the expensive reactive casts for real spikes.

💧 Mana, Triage & Ramp

Resto has the best effective mana of any healer — but only if you respect what each spell costs. The kit is built so that cheap, proactive HoTs do most of the work and expensive reactive casts are the exception.

• Efflorescence - your most mana-efficient healing per point. Keep it down always; it is nearly free throughput.
• Rejuvenation - cheap and the core of every ramp, but spammed mindlessly it drains you. Pre-damage = good; random topping = waste.
• Regrowth - your expensive heal. It is crit-guaranteed via Abundance, so it hits hard, but only press it for real spikes or with Swiftmend / Nature's Swiftness.
• Wrath / damage - casting damage returns mana via Master Shapeshifter and adds to your meters. When the raid is healthy, you should be doing damage, not overhealing.

The ramp (your signature play):

1. ~8-10s before a known damage event, pop Incarnation (and Innervate) so the ramp is cheap.
2. Blanket the raid with Rejuvenation until you have ~10-12 active HoTs (Abundance now gives Regrowth full crit).
3. Refresh Lifebloom and place Efflorescence, keep Wild Growth rolling.
4. As the damage lands, channel Tranquility (extends every HoT +10s) and/or Convoke, then Flourish at the peak to stretch the whole bed.

💚 Personal Defensives

Resto is among the tankier healers thanks to form-shifting and Barkskin. Pre-empt predictable hits on you with these so you can keep casting instead of scrambling to self-heal.

🧰 Utility & Crowd Control

📊 Stat Priority

Raid: Intellect > Haste > Mastery > Versatility > Critical Strike.

Mythic+: Intellect > Mastery > Haste > Versatility > Critical Strike.

• Intellect - by far your strongest stat; take the highest item level in every slot (outside trinkets/tier).
• Haste - faster casts and faster HoT ticks; the top secondary for raid where coverage and ramp speed matter most.
• Mastery: Harmony - increases your healing to any target that has at least one of your HoTs, scaling per active HoT. Since M+ healing is almost entirely HoT-driven, Mastery edges ahead there.
• Versatility - flat healing/damage plus a little damage reduction. Solid but never the priority.
• Critical Strike - the dump stat. Abundance already pushes Regrowth to ~100% crit, so extra Crit rating is largely wasted — every other secondary out-values it.

🎁 Tier Set, Trinkets & Consumables

Tier set — Sprouts of the Luminous Bloom (via Catalyst): 2pc = Wild Growth healing +25%. 4pc = Wild Growth cooldown -2s and mana cost -10%. The set doesn't change your gameplay — it just rewards the Wild Growth you already cast, so build around pressing it on cooldown.

Top trinkets (raid): Gaze of the Alnseer (Mastery + strong primary-stat procs), Locus-Walker's Ribbon (stacking Intellect — best on long single-target fights), Vaelgor's Final Stare (on-use). M+ alts: Heart of Wind, Emerald Coach's Whistle, Volatile Void Suffuser.

Gearing rule: equip the highest item level everywhere except trinkets/tier, preferring Haste/Mastery pieces. Sporefused gear from Sporefall (Rotmire) bumps your baseline item level — grab it.

Consumables: Flask of the Shattered Sun · Combat potion Light's Potential · Food Hearty Silvermoon Parade / Royal Roast · Void-Touched Augment Rune · Thalassian Phoenix Oil (weapon oil). Gems: Indecipherable Eversong Diamond (meta) + Intellect-priority cuts, secondaries in Haste/Mastery (e.g. Flawless Quick / Versatile cuts). Note: cloak and bracer have no enchants this expansion; gem and enchant the rest for Intellect/Haste/Mastery.

🗝️ Mythic+ Tips

• Pre-HoT before every pull: drop a few Rejuvenations + Efflorescence on the way in so the first hits are already covered — you cannot out-react M+ burst without a bed.
• Keep Efflorescence under the melee stack and Lifebloom on the tank; let passive HoT + Mastery carry the steady damage so you can free-cast damage.
• Wildstalker is the recommended M+ tree — its Symbiotic Blooms gives concentrated single-target healing and bigger heal-taken on the focus target without needing to catweave.
• Save Tranquility / Convoke / Incarnation for the big scripted pulls; ramp Rejuvenations a few seconds before they land.
• Affixes — Ascendant: Typhoon or Incapacitating Roar to interrupt the orb casts. Devour: Nature's Cure the debuff off allies (and shift forms to self-dispel). Pulsar: make sure players rotate through each other's orbs within ~15s. Voidbound: chip in DoTs/damage to help break it.
• When healing is light, do real damage — Sunfire/Moonfire + Wrath, or Catweave for top numbers. Resto's M+ value is as much its damage as its healing.

⌨️ Macros & Addons

WeakAuras is not supported in Midnight (12.0) — use Blizzard's built-in Cooldown Manager (importable configs on Wago.io). Addons: ElvUI, DBM/BigWigs, GTFO, and a click-cast frame addon (Cell / Grid + Clique or VuhDo) for mouseover HoTs and dispels. Click-casting is essentially mandatory for Resto.

#showtooltip Rejuvenation
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][@target,help,nodead][@player] Rejuvenation

#showtooltip Regrowth
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][@target,help,nodead][@player] Regrowth

#showtooltip Swiftmend
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][@target,help,nodead][@player] Swiftmend

#showtooltip Nature's Cure
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][@target,help,nodead] Nature's Cure

#showtooltip Ironbark
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][@target,help,nodead] Ironbark

#showtooltip Regrowth
/cast Nature's Swiftness
/cast [@mouseover,help,nodead][@target,help,nodead][@player] Regrowth

🚫 Common Mistakes

• Ramping too late — firing Tranquility/Convoke on a near-empty HoT board. Spread Rejuvenations FIRST so the cooldowns extend a full bed.
• Reactive Regrowth spam — treating Resto like a burst healer. It's expensive and inefficient; pre-HoT and let the green tick.
• Overhealing instead of damaging — when the raid is topped you should be casting Wrath/Moonfire or catweaving, not refreshing full health bars.
• Letting Efflorescence or Lifebloom drop — your two highest-value maintenance buffs; losing them quietly tanks your throughput and Mastery.
• Holding Innervate / Incarnation for 'the perfect moment' — use them early and often, lined up with ramps; a banked cooldown heals nobody.
• Forgetting you have no interrupt — plan Typhoon / Ursol's Vortex / Incapacitating Roar for casts; don't expect a kick you don't have.
• Burning Nature's Swiftness on cooldown — it's your only instant; save it for a real single-target near-death.