5.2 PVE guide for Restoration Druid

I have written this guide with the intent to help beginners get a quick boost of knowledge about this specialization. The guide contains few numbers and little (if any) math. (Wait, I forgot that I once add two numbers together, sorry). I have however compared some spells to another, pointing out the strength and the weaknesses of the resto, and giving some ideas on how to use your healing cool-downs effectively. There are several decent guides out there, but I feel many focus too much on the numbers and too little on the actual play. The guide is currently a "work in progress" and more will be added in the near future. Please feel free to comment and come with suggestions.

Enjoy.

Wratho  (link to armory)


Table of content

1. The strengths and weaknesses of a Resto Druid
2. The toolbox - our healing spells
3. About hots, ticks and breakpoints
4. Stat priorities
 4.1 "Enough" spirit
5. Talents
6. 5 things to remember while playing
7. How to play resto druid (examples)
 7.1 Regrowth vs Healing Touch
 7.2 Practical examples on Garalon heroic: SotF vs Incarnation
8. Mouseover healing
9. User interface
10. Changes in 5.2 for Restoration
 10.1 Practical consequences of these changes
11. Quick summary


1. The strengths and weaknesses of a Resto Druid

Strengths: When looking at the resto druid toolbox it becomes apparent that most of our healing spells are "hots" - heal over time - spells. Since our strongest spells are hot's the druid shows it's full potential when healing sustained damage over time. We can also do nice healing when we can anticipate the incoming raid damage, and can "prehot" - pre cast our hots- on raid members in anticipation of incoming damage. Prehotting x raid members can become quite costly if the boss chooses to delay his AOE cast, thus causing us to overheal. As of  5.2, 25% of our overhealing from Rejuvenation will get "stored" in our Wild Mushroom, and casting Wild Mushroom: Bloom will release this stored up healing combined with the "base" healing of each Mushroom.

Weaknesses: While doing single target healing such has tank healing our heals are easily "stolen"/blocked by absorb healers such as Discipline Priests and Holy Paladin's mastery. We can't burst heal multiple raid members like holy priests with prayer of healing/circle of healing etc, nor can we prevent multiple players from taking damage (like Disciplines Spirit Shell). All healing specs have their area in which they shine. Our best area is healing "sustained damage over time" on multiple targets.

The little extra: As Druid playing in a group you can assist the raid team in many different ways. High tank damage on an encounter? Give the tank a mitigation cooldown from your symbiosis. Hard raid damage? Give symbiosis to a Shadow priest and he'll be able to cast Tranquility and assist when the damage is heavy- Need to soak damage on Elegon HC explosion or soak sparks on Will of the Emperor Heroic? Np, get deterrence from a hunter. In periods where there is low incoming damage we can use "Heart of the Wild" spec and assist on dps (and push decent numbers for the duration of the buff). We can also provide burst raid movement, combat ress, knockback, aoe root, vortex +++. The resto druid can provide more than just healing. Learn an encounter and check which talents benefit the raid most and who should get your symbiosis. 

2. The arsenal of spells

Lifebloom: A strong single target "hot - healing over time" spell that can have up to 3 stacks on 1 person. Ticks from lifebloom can proc "Clearcasting", a 15sec buff that makes your next Regrowth or Healing Touch spells cost no mana. Keep this rolling on whoever takes steady damage. Glyphed, the 3 stacks of lifebloom can be moved from one target to another. NB: Only 1 person can be affected by your Lifebloom, with the exception of when you are buffed by Incarnation: Tree of Life.

Regrowth: Single target healing spell that leaves a weak hot ticking on the target. It has a short cast time. The direct healing of the spell has a 60% chance to crit. The hot can be used as a "base" for Swiftmend. Glyph of Regrowth removes the hot portion of the spell, but makes the spell have a 100% crit chance. Direct heals that crit leaves a "Living Seed" on the target, equal to 30% of the amount healed. I would strongly recommend that you glyph regrowth. More on that later.

Rejuvenation: Single target healing of time spell (hot) that only has a 0,5sec global cooldown. Heals for a great amount over 12 sec. The signature spell of a resto druid. Rejuvenation on your target enables the druid to cast Swiftmend on the target. Can be cast on multiple targets. Has it's mana cost reduced by 8% in 5.2.

Wild Growth: A "smart" multi target HoT that will heal 5 injured targets (from the player you cast it on over 7 seconds. It's a smart heal, so it will target the most injured party/raid members. The ticks from Wild Growth starts strong and gets weaker towards the last ticks. Wild Growth has a 8 sec cooldown normally, and will heal 5 targets. While using "Incarnation: Tree of life" it will heal 2 additional targets. The spell also greatly benefits from the "Soul of the Forest" talent. Glyphed, Wild Growth will heal 1 additional target, but it increases it's cooldown by 2 seconds. More on Glyph + 4set t14 and SoTF talent later. (As with all hots, Wild Growth can get higher amount of "ticks" with the right amount of haste).

Nourish: Single target direct heal that heals for a "smaller amount". At level 90 it costs 6120 mana, while Rejuvenation (with 2 set t14) costs 8640 mana, but 1 tick from Rejuvenation can tick for more than the whole amount of your nourish cast. Only use if there is only 1 target taking damage, and you have already got Rejuv on it, otherwise your time is better spent on other things.

Healing Touch: Single target direct heal. Has same cast time as Nourish, but heals for a lot more, though cost roughly same as Regrowth. Weaker than Regrowth right now as a "Clearcasting" dump. More on that later.

Swiftmend: Instant and direct healing spell that also leaves a healing circle (8 yard radius) on the ground for 7 seconds. The circle is a "smart heal" and it will heal the 3 most injured targets that stand inside the circle (1 tick per 3 players per second). The spell has a 15 sec cooldown, but 4set bonus from t14 lowers it by 3 sec. You can only cast Swiftmend on a target that has Rejuvenation or a Regrowth hot on them. It doesn't matter if it's you who gave the target the Rejuvenation or not. The "Soul of the Forest" talent effect is proced by the Swiftmend cast.  More on that later.

Tranquility: Strong channeled raid wide healing spell that heals the 5 party or raid members with the lowest health within a 40 sec radius. It's a smart heal, and with every "tick" of the channel it will determine who has the lowest current health. Tranquility leaves a stacking hot on the people healed by it. As restoration druid, the spell has a 3 minute cooldown. You can boost your Tranquility with temporary buffs such as Incarnation: Tree of Life and/or Nature's Vigil (both are talents).  The Soul of the Forrest talent proc will not boost the amount healed by Tranquility in any way, but makes you channel it faster. 

Wild Mushroom: Bloom - Detonates the mushrooms you have placed on the ground. Heals all nearby targets for a small amount. As of 5.2 the mushrooms will grow from your overhealing with Rejuvenation, and boost their overall healing by up to 100% of the druids hit points (1/3 of our total hp per Mushroom). Without having tested it: Let's say you have 400k hp and you have overhealed for the total of 400k hp with your Rejuvenation (after you placed the mushrooms). When casting Bloom the mushrooms will bloom and causing it's initial healing + 400k healing (spread among all affected targets). 

Ironbark: The target takes 20% less damage for 12 seconds. Has a 2 minute cooldown. Use on a target that is taking hard damage  (like burst damage incoming on a tank). It's worth noting that Ironbark doesn't stack with some cooldowns such as Pain Suppression, so avoid casting it on targets affected by PS.


3. Hots, ticks and breakpoints

Hots are affected by haste. With the right amount of haste your hot can get one more tick of. The "right amount" of haste needed to give 1 extra tick varies somewhat with the spells. The "right amount" is called Breakpoints, a number of haste that will give you 1 extra tick for a given spell. If you have 1 haste rating lower than the breakpoint, you lose the extra tick. Having 300 haste over the breakpoint for a given hot gives 0 benefits to that hot.

Let's take Rejuvenation as an example.  With 12.51% haste (from gear and buffs) your Rejuvenation will get an extra tick. Rejuvenation has "5 ticks" as a base, and hitting the 12.51% breakpoint makes it tick 6 times instead of 5, a flat 20% "boost" to every Rejuv you cast. Having say 15% haste instead of 12.51% will give 0 direct benefit to your Rejuvenation spell. 

It's easier to go for "ratings" instead of percentages. You need 5320 haste (if not affected by 5% spell haste from SP, Elemental or Bomkin) to reach 12,51% haste, thus gaining the extra tick. Though if you have 5% spell haste buff, you only need 3039 to reach 12,51% haste. Hence, 3039 is an important breakpoint for a Restoration druid. The main thing to remember: Go for breakpoints, but don't go far beyond them. You are a "hot healer", and any haste rating beyond your breakpoints is a point that could have boosted either your crit/spirit/mastery rating.

The important breakpoints for a PVE Resto druid in 5.2 (assumes you have 5% spell haste buff):
 
- 3043: Ensures 1 tick from Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, Hot portion of Tranquility, Wild Growth

- 5437: Ensures 1 extra tick from Wild Growth IF using the "Soul of the Forest" talent proc. 

            Wasted breakpoint if you don't play with SotF talent.

- 6652: Ensures 1 extra tick of Wild Growth and Swiftmend (compared to the 3043 breakpoint).

In short: Running with 4250 haste as a 5.2 Resto Druid will make your char look like a n00b. Mind the breakpoints religiously! (Table for haste breakpoints for the 5.2 change to Soul of the Forest will be added once some great math head has crunched the numbers for the new SofF boost).
(The current breakpoint numbers have been borrowed from The Inconspicous Bear)

4. Stat priority

Spirit > Haste breakpoint >Int> Mastery>Crit> Haste beyond the haste breakpoint

With my current play style I prioritize my own stats like this: Maintain 3043 breaktpoint> stack as much spirit as possible > Intellect > Mastery >Crit> Haste over the breakpoint. At the moment of writing this I'm running with 3043 haste. Once I get rid of an item or two with crit on it I will push for the 6652 breakpoint (at least for some fights). However, some breakpoints are great for some encounters while being worse for some. The 6652 breakpoint boosts WG and Swiftmend ground effect, but the loss of mastery will also nerf my Rejuvenation and other healing spells. On a fight where I seldom or never will use Wild Growth I'd still favor the 3043 breakpoint over the 6652 one. If you are happy with your mana regen it's fine to put spirit further down the priority list for a while. 

4.1 "Enough" spirit?
As a Resto Druid in MoP our main ways of regaining mana are through innervates and the mp5 from spirit. Many guides and high skilled players will tell you to go for "enough spirit", and then go for output stats such as more int, mastery and/or more haste for a further breakpoint. However there is no magic number to what's enough. It's different from encounter to encounter, play style to play style, player to player. However, if you end most of the fights with a lot mana left you may want to give it a try with less spirit and more output stats. To this end, I'd also advice using trinkets that have passive int and spirit proc, since then 1k ---> 1k2 int on those trinkets provide a steady spellpower boost.

The amount of spirit you'll need on a different encounter also changes depending on whom and what class you heal together with in a raid. Mana Tide Totem from shamans give a nice mana regen boost, and with a priest in the raid a Hymn of Hope can give you back a big chunk of mana. 

Personally I go for socket bonuses right now, and prioritize spirit. This is not best for all encounters, but overall I don't feel that my spells need to be stronger in order to keep the raid alive. So for now I prioritize mana regen > max output.

5. Talents

L15: Movement: Any movement  talent can be viable, choose whichever fits the fight or you are most comfortable with

L30: Play style/single target healing cd

- Nature's Swiftness makes next healing spell that has a cast time instant and free. The healing spell will heal for 50 more. A very nice talent when someone drops low. Nice to have macroed together with favorite healing spell.
- Cenarion Ward is a hot, that you can precast on a player, and starts ticking the moment the player takes damage. Heals for 100% more in 5.2 compared to 5.1. Especially nice for when you are healing a target that takes high sustained damage over time. 

L45: Crowd control
Choose whatever is most useful or fun. Personally I love Typhoon. Especially great on Feng and Will Heroic.

L60: Play style/healing cd
- Soul of the Forest: Grants your next spell a 75% haste increase after casting Swiftmend. Can be used with tranquility to get it of faster, hurricane to get faster cast time and faster ticks, Wild growth to grant 6more ticks on each target, etc. As resto it's a very nice talent when healing sustained raid damage over time because of the added ticks to Wild Growth when casting it after Swiftmend.

- Incarnation: An ability that lasts for 30 seconds, boosts healing by 15% for the duration, and enhances some of your healing spells. During Incarnation you can have cast Lifebloom on multiple targets, you're wild Growth can heal 2 additional targets and Regrowth becomes instant.

- Force of nature: Summons 3 treants that will assist you with healing. The healing mechanic of the treeants has been improved compared to 5.1, and its healing has been boosted by 100%. Worth trying out. This spell has a relative high uptime.

L75: Crowd Control

Take whichever talent you find most fun or useful. Vortex can be very useful on fights such as Feng Hc and Will of the Emperor Hc.

L90: Cooldowns and play style

- Heart of the Wild: Gives a 6% flat boost to int, agi and stamina. When activating the ability you can boost your tanking and dps capabilities. Lasts 45 sec with a 6min cd. The boost to intellect will give slightly higher healing overall. Nice talent if you know there will be a period of time during an encounter where you won’t be required to heal, but every ounce of dps counts.

- Dream of Cenarius: Some dps spells will give a boost to your next healing spell, and visa versa. Imo its a really clunky talent for Restoration. It could be worth trying out, but in an intense healing situation you don’t want to have to rotate in Wrath spells in order to heal properly. I’d not use this talent in it's current form.

- Nature’s Vigil: Ability that boosts your healing and damage by 10% for 30 seconds. Single target healing spells will damage nearby enemies for 25% of the amount it heals for. Single target damage spells will heal nearby friendlies for 25% of the damage done. The “dps to heal” conversion is especially strong on bosses that take increased damage such as Windlord heroic during Recklessness.

6. 5 things to keep in mind while playing

1. Mastery - Harmony: The restoration mastery boosts our hots and direct healing by a % based on our mastery rating. Harmony has to be activated by a direct healing spell, and lasts for 20 sec (and will refresh if reactivated during that time). The spells that proc mastery are: Swiftmend, Healing Touch, Nourish, Regrowth and Wild Mushrooms: Bloom. Make sure you keep Harmony active at all times. Easiest way to do this is to use Swiftmend everytime it's not on cooldown.

2. Maintain 3 stacks of lifebloom on a target that takes steady damage. With glyphed Lifebloom you can move the 3 stacks from 1 target to another with 1 cast of lifebloom. Useful when tanks are rotating on having aggro. Lifebloom ticks also procs Clearcast state.

3. If you have time, dump clearcastprocs by casting regrowth. If you don't have time to take of the Clearcast proc because you are busy blanketing the raid with Rejuv then its fine to just ignore the Clearcast.

4. Get the most out of your aoe spells. If you have no special healing assignment, it's usually good to use Swiftmend on a melee (since they are generally grouped up). Wild Growth has a larger area of healing from the "cast target". From experience I can say that casting Swiftmend on a hunter will generally guarantee that the hunter will be the only one benefitting from the ground effect of Swiftmend. Thankfully that is better in Mop due to no range limit for hunters. One way to help your Swiftmend realize it's full potential is either knowing where a player stands in relation to others, or using a raid interface that shows "Clusters of players". I use Vudho for this. 

Screen of the raid part of the ui I use. Vuhdo is the only raid UI I know that can show clusters of people

5. Direct heals (Regrowth, Nourish, Healing Touch) can refresh the lifebloom timer on a target. If you have a Clearcastproc, dumping the Clearcastproc with a Regrowth on the tank with lifebloom will refresh the timer, and not demand that you refresh it with a lifebloom cast. 

The "4" under "Cluster Indicator arrow" on my raid frames indicates that if I Swiftmend on "Psyca", a total of 4 people are near enough (to the target) to be affected by the "circle" ground effect of my Swiftmend. As seen on this screenshot, had this been an actual raid situation where the whole raid was taking damage, I'd avoid using Swiftmend on myself since I'm the only one that would be affected by the ground effect. I have set the indicator to show how many are within 8 yards, so by watching the cluster I can prioritize my Swiftmend on a target that is within 8 yards of others.

7. How to play Resto (many roads to Rome)

The play style should be adapted to the encounter. For me personally I have 2 basic specs that I play with in raids, and the 2 key talents that I sometimes change are Soul of the Forest and Incarnation: Tree of Life. Both talents can generally be used for any given encounter. They both have their strengths and weaknesses however. Play style can also vary depending on what you are assigned to heal.

I recommend trying out different talent combinations, in general and on certain encounters to see what feels best.  

Regrowth vs Healing Touch

Regrowth has 1,5sec cast time, cost roughly 17,8k mana, and glyphed it has a 100% crit chance. Every crit from a direct healing spell will proc a living seed for 30% of the amount healed. So if your regrowth crits for 90k, you get 120k heal (with regrowth and a 30k living seed). Healing Touch costs 17,3k mana and has a 2,3sec cast time. The crit chance of Healing Touch is equal to the crit chance of your character.

Actual testing (unbuffed): (Section will be rewritten)

Regrowth crits for around 85k. This gives 25,5k Living Seed on the target. This gives a total of 110,5k heal. With the glyph it's guaranteed to crit thus always procing the living seed.

Healing Touch heals for 81k. I currently have 14,5% crit chance, unbuffed. Thus making it highly unlikely that Healing Touch will outperform Regrowth over let's say 10 casts.

Conclusion: With ~ equal to same mana cost, and Regrowth being a much faster spell, I'd pretty much recommend you lay of healing touch for now. Keep it on your bars (so you are used to having it there), but choose Regrowth as the "big" single target heal and Clearcast dump.
I will support this better with numbers later.

Examples of how to heal as Resto

How I heal on Garalon hc - SotF vs Incarnation

Soul of The Forest on Garalon I'll keep 3 stacks of Lifebloom(LB) on either a tank or the person taking pheromones (or someone else, depending on where I am positioned). I have 4set t14 which lowers the cd of my Swiftmend, and to sync up cooldown on Swiftmend and Wild Growth, I use glyph on WG. I will use Swiftmend everytime it's of cd, followed immediately by Wild Growth on a raid member (not the player with pheromones). Otherwise I'll keep using Rejuvenation on raid, and when I have time, and someone is low, I'll use Clearcast-proc to cast Regrowth. I'll use Tranquility when raid is low, and the crush is not imminent. Right before a crush i'll pop of a Swiftmend on a raid member that is clustered, followed by Wild Growth to ensure that we don't drop too far during the crush. I'll usually sync up tranquility with Nature's Vigil (talent), to boost the healing of the tranq by 20%. If raid is not low I'll throw a dot on boss and nearby legs, to make the dot function a bit as a HoT (while Nature's Vigil is active).

Strengths of SotF spec on Garalon:
- Constant raid damage and a clustered raid (if people stack) realize the full potential of the extra ticks from Wild Growth. With constant raid damage incoming SotF + WG will not cause overhealing

- Can use SotF proc to cast tranq faster.

Cons: Lining up Swiftmend and Wild Growth is mandatory (or SM + Tranq) making for a bit static play style (but very powerful when sustained raid damage on multiple targets).

Incarnation: Tree of Life on Garalon
The play style with Incarnation is the same in regards to lifebloom targets, when I'd use Tranquility, etc. Incarnation can help a lot on healing, and supports burst healing when stacked with cd's such as tranq + nature's vigil etc, but it can also be a great way of saving mana. While using Incarnation I'm free to cast Lifebloom on multiple targets. Things to keep in mind: LB lasts 15sec, I want to keep my Harmony (mastery) up full time, and my WG hits 2 extra targets while Incarnation is active.

This is one way I like to do it:

- Choose 2 raid groups to focus on.

- Pop Incarnation: Tree of Life Right after a crush, so I have 30ish sec time to work magic with the buff

- Cast 1 LB on each player till all have 1 stack, refresh mastery with swiftmend on cd, use wild growth on cd

- Continue building 1 more stack on each player, keep using swiftmend and wg on cd (since it's constant raid damage)

- Build a third stack on each player. Keep using swiftmend and wg on cd.

NB: I'd use it on 9 targets, to allow for a little more breathing space considering that you have 9 gcd's (global cooldowns) just from the LB, 0,5 gcd from Rejuv, 1 gcd from swiftmend, and 1 gcd from wg. When my Incarnation buff wears of I just stop using LB, allowing the stacks on my 9 targets to bloom (except perhaps for the last one). This way of stacking up 3 lifebloom stacks is called "rolling" and is very effective in situations with constant, but not overwhelming raid damage. Considering how cheap lifebloom is, this "rolling LB spam" during incarnation can save a lot of mana. Keep in mind that you also get Clearcastprocs that you can dump with an instant Regrowth (instant during Incarnation) and thus refreshing LB on a target (but it won't build stacks, only refresh).

- With good timing the Incarnation should be over around the time of the next crush, leaving 3 stacks of LB ticking on 9ish raid members. When the LB's bloom (during crush or right after) they can crit for 200k ish each (depending on the buffs you had while you cast them).

- When done with incarnation Rejuvenation again becomes the most important healing spell

Strengths of Incarnation: Tree of Life spec on Garalon

- Several ways to use the talent
- Rolling LB spam on multiple targets thus doing high amount of healing, while conserving mana
- Instant Regrowth while buff is up can save members with low health
- Wild Growth can hit 2 more targets during Incarnation.
- Gives a flat 15% boost to all your healing while it's active.
- Incarnation stacks with Nature's Vigil, and both can be used to boost Tranquility if needed.
- Cons: Delivers lower HPS (healing per second) while Incarnation is on CD compared to the SotF spec.

I used Garalon as an example since it has mechanics that are great for druids. Druids are not the best BURST healers, but we can really shine during sustained raid damage on bosses such as Garalon (normal and HC), Will of the Emperor Heroic, Tsulong Night phase etc.

8. Mouseover healing

Mouseover healing is a way of casting spells without having to click on a player/npc to cast on it. All you have to do is hover your mouse over their name on the raid frames and click the spell. This will save you a lot of time over the course of an encounter. With a good mouseover macro you will cast on the person you have set as target if you don’t hover your mouse over anyone. A practical example: On any given boss I like to assist on damage when I can. So I have the boss targeted. I have my mouse hovering over the next likely target to take damage (tank), and spam my wrath. When LB is about to run out I just cast a LB on the tank without having to change target from the boss. Saves me time, clicks and let's my mouse hand relax some.
Here is my mouseover macro for LB. I use similar macro for all my other healing spells, ironbark etc.
#ShowtooltipLifebloom
/use [@mouseover,exists,nodead,help]Lifebloom;Lifebloom

I’d strongly advise you to utilize mouseover healing for a more effective gameplay. 

9. User interface

Having a good interface can mean A LOT. Here’s a checklist with advice:

- Use raid frames that shows which hots you have on each target, preferably also remaining timer. Lifebloom stacks and timer is also important

- Monitor your cooldowns duration and cooldown. Weak Auras offer some great ways to do this.

Highly customizable. You can also import settings others have made.

- Being able to see clusters (players that are near each other) can make your healing that much more effective, output and mana wise. Vuhdo is the only raid frame that I know that supports cluster finding. Highly customizable. Can take a bit of time to setup, but there are some good guides out there.

- Monitoring raid cd’s can be nice either as healing officer or healer in general. Let’s you see when another healer uses his cd, and how long time it's till he has it ready again. I currently use BLCD (bloodlegioncooldown) for this, but you can also use ORA3.

Here is the ui I currently use

List of add-ons I use to create my UI:
 
- Moveanything
- Vuhdo raid frames
- BLCD to see who has used their healing cd’s who should have them ready
- Skinner (to make the “lower curtain” that covers the lower part of my screen)
- Chatter
- xPERL (player frame)
- Sexy map
- SacriRaidBuffed
- Quartz cast bars
- Skada
- Cooldown count: to show big numbers on abilities that are on cd.
- Weak Auras (to monitor boss cd’s, healing cd’s, debuffs, monitor duration on mastery, show when     DM trinket is up).

10. Changes in 5.2 for Restoration
- Naturalist: This new passive learned at level 10 by Restoration Druids increases all healing done by the Druid by 10%.
- Wild Mushrooms will now gain 25% of the overhealing performed by the Druid’s Rejuvenation effects, up to a maximum of 33% of the Druid’s health in bonus healing, and growing larger as they do so. When Wild Mushroom: Bloom is cast, this bonus healing will be divided evenly amongst targets in the area of effect.
- Rejuvenation now costs approximately 9% less mana.
- Nature's Vigil now has a 90-second cooldown (was 3 minutes), and now increases damage and healing done by 10% (was 20%).
- Soul of the Forest for Restoration: Now grants 75% Haste on the next spell cast after the Druid casts Swiftmend. (was 50% in 5.1)
- The Treants summoned by Force of Nature now deal more damage and healing, and the Force of Nature tooltip will report the capabilities of these summoned pets.
- The healing granted by Cenarion Ward when a target takes damage has been increased by 100%.
- Revive and Mark of the Wild now cost 55% less mana.

10.1 Practical consequences of these changes 
- 10% healing flat healing boost. Great :)
- Mushrooms will actually do some healing. Hopefully Weakauras or the like will have a way of tracking how much our mushrooms are "charged". Start putting the shrooms up and use them!
- Cenarion Ward will be buffed, making it an interesting substitute for Nature's Swiftness.
- SotF will be buffed quite a bit for resto. Without doing serious math, we should at least be getting 1 extra tick at the 5730 breakpoint compared to before (14ticks).
- Treeants will do more healing, making it somewhat more interesting than it has been so far in MoP. Actual testing is needed to know how much it will actually push.
- Cheaper Rejuvenation! Basically a T14 2 set bonus for free.
- Nature's vigil is in effect nerfed, and becomes less "mandatory" as a cd. Personally I will probably end up using HotW.

The most interesting thing of all is that our 3 "output" tiers are changed, giving us more choices when it comes to spec. I would recommend experimenting with the different specs to see how strong they feel. And from that decide what you will use for which encounter. I will be afk at the very start of 5.2 and it would be very nice with some feedback from people that have tested the changes ingame.


11. Quick summary

The healing spells that should be used in pretty much every encounter:

Keep 3 stacks of LB up on a target that takes constant damage. Can be cast on multiple targets during Incarnation: Tree of life. Procs Clearcast.

Rejuvenation is a cheap and very strong hot. It can be cast on multiple targets. Rejuv is used for a base for Swiftmend.

Wild growth becomes effective when many raid members have need healing. Smart heal that heals the lowest players within 30 yards of the player you cast it on.  

Swiftmend is cheap and should pretty much be cast on cooldown, either as a single target heal or AOE heal. 

Tranquility is a great raid cooldown. 

Ironbark is a very nice mitigation cooldown. Use it on tank if he is taking heavy damage to lighten the healing load and up the chance of the tank surviving. 

Barkskin is a very nice personal cd that reduces damage taken by 20%. It also makes you immune to “spell pushback”. Use in times of heavy incoming damage. 


This guide is a “work in progress” and still misses some paragraphs such as glyphs, more encounters, etc. I will be adding to it in the following week and the goal is to have it 100% ready at the launch of 5.2. Constructive feedback is highly appreciated. If you feel something is not explained fully, or you feel something is missing: drop a comment and I will take it into account.



Wratho@Frostmane of  Holy Warriors



Holy Warriors on World of Logs