Restoration Druid Healing Spec, Builds, and Talents — 12.0.5

After the mid-season patch, Restoration Druid now plays the Wildstalker hero tree in all content. While there are a lot of minor sidegrades available, the following trees will serve you very well:

• Raid - While Keeper of the Grove is not unplayable, the raid playstyle will harness Wildstalkers multiple healing increases to greatly empower our Apex talents. It also offers unrivalled survivability and you will automatically return to full health constantly.
• Mythic+ - Wildstalker will also be our go-to choice in Mythic+, though don't think of it as a cat-focused tree, but a healing focused one. It's a common misconception that playing Wildstalker necessitates Cat Form play, but we will actually be taking talents that empower our healing and caster-based DPS instead.

While you can make arguments for several minor talent swaps in different scenarios, you shouldn't feel like you have to swap talents a lot. The builds below can be used in all levels of content from absolute beginners to Hall of Fame / title-level Mythic+ keys.

Quick Start Import Codes:

The builds listed above are popular recommendations, covering various different loadouts suited to each style of endgame content. Each Talent Build will have it's own rotation, and can also be manipulated further for specific types of content and to better benefit your group.

Combat Information

Rotations and Mythic+

Want to dive deeper? These guides will teach you how to utilize our Talent Builds in endgame content!

RotationMythic+

Apex talents are new to Midnight. They are a new node in your Restoration spec talent tree that you can put up to four points into. Ours is called Everbloom and it's designed around enhancing Lifebloom. Putting points in unlocks the following benefits:

• First Point: Your Lifebloom stacks up to 3 times, automatically stacking every 5 seconds. It heals for 3 times as much, but you still get the same mastery value as without the talent.
• Second and Third Points: Your Lifebloom cleaves 30/60% of its "bloom" healing to up to 6 nearby allies. This includes talents that generate more blooms like Photosynthesis.
• Fourth Point: When you consume Soul of the Forest, your Lifebloom blooms 3 times in quick succession.

In dungeon content our Apex node is incredibly powerful, since it makes your Lifebloom target nearly immortal. The cleave healing to the rest of the party is also very valuable and you get a ton of value every time you press Swiftmend. You'll not only take it in all scenarios but you will take accompanying nodes that further buff Lifebloom like Photosynthesis.

In raid, it is not quite as valuable to make one person immortal since they make up a smaller percentage of your group. The 12.0.5 buffs were enough to make it a good talent though and you should still expect to take it in all content.

Restoration Druid gets to pick between the Hero Talents Wildstalker and Keeper of the Grove, both offering similar gameplay, but with different strengths.

Wildstalker focuses on its unique Symbiotic Blooms heal-over-time effect that greatly buffs the amount of healing the target takes and adds a Mastery stack. It has special synergy with Cat-based gameplay, however its DPS and Healing capabilities are completely separate and Cat Form is not required in order to play the tree. Wildstalker is a mostly passive tree and you don't have to uniquely play into it to benefit from its strengths. This will be our default tree in Mythic+ and other small group content. It is also competitive in raid.

The Keeper of the Grove tree focuses instead on burst healing and our Grove Guardians mechanic. Every time we cast Swiftmend or Wild Growth, we will do more healing for 8+ seconds. Convoke the Spirits will cast plenty of both, which means when we need the healing most we can have 4-5 Grove Guardians active, greatly increasing our healing. Keeper of the Grove is also a fairly passive tree. It's good in raid, and fine in Mythic+ as a damage-oriented alternative (due to the 12.0.5 changes).

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.

Enable War Mode if you enjoy PVP, or if you want a slightly quicker levelling experience. However, you will make yourself available for open-world PvP, and might occasionally be involved in skirmishes.

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 to 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.

Voulk

Guide Author

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This guide is written by Voulk, a long-time Restoration Druid and healing theorycrafter who develops the QuestionablyEpic live healer gearing app. You can also follow them on Twitter and YouTube.