Resto druid raiding guide NOTE : This guide will be undergoing changes in the next few years to bring the calculations up - to - date with patch 2 . 4 . All spirit - related calculations are outdated unless otherwise specifically indicated . This guide was originally created by Dezzi of Twisting Nether ( US ) for the druids in his guild . After spending so much work on the guide , he decided to post it here so it could be available for everyone . This guide focuses less on technique ( because skill and technique come best through experience ) , and more on mechanics , gear , and stats . The information in this guide is intended for level 70 raiding druids . The calculations in this guide are based on the game mechanics of Patch 2 . 4 Specs . There are two cookie - cutter resto specs : Pure PvE Tree Form This is the basics for PvE tree raiding . Of course this spec can be altered by removing Nature ' s Splendor and Nature ' s Majesty to instead use 3 points in Replenish . This will drop the healing of a Druid but to slightly help increase raid DPS . The Major Glyphs used should be used and the minor glyphs will help . ( Except for Aquatic Form , just my preference since there ' s nothing else . ) PvP Tree Form You could also swap 3 points from Nature ' s Focus into Subtlety if you prefer . This is an acceptable raid build since you really don ’ t lose anything except 15 % spirit and a few points in Subtlety . Now that is a lot of spirit , but it ' s understandable if you spec this way since now you can PvP / Arena and raid without shelling out 100g a week . The loss of the spirit talent may affect your trinket choice , but we ' ll discuss this more later . The regen you lose from the extra spirit can be made up for with a few extra mana pots . Dreamstate Healing Touch Spec Some druids used a Dreamstate / Resto spec for specialized roles in BC . While it remains a strong solo spec with a hybrid of healing and dps ability , that same hybridization makes it too weak for any specific role in end game PVE play . Dreamstate / Resto is not recommended at this time . Spirit vs . Mana / 5 . While not in the FSR ( while not casting ) : However , while in the FSR : Raid buffed you ' re going to have a Blessing of Kings , and spirit will stack with this , mp5 wont . Also remember that the Living Spirit talent ( + 15 % spirit ) will stack with Blessing of Kings . These two buffs will affect the mp5 to spirit conversion : Innervate and You . Prior to patch 3 . 1 . 2 , Innervate restored an amount of mana based on the target ' s spirit . Now it reads : " Causes the target to regenerate mana equal to 225 % of the casting Druid ' s base mana pool over 10 sec . " Assuming a level 80 druid casts the spell , it will always restore 7866 mana . Now , the target of an innervate should always be the raid or party member that will best benefit the group by gaining extra mana . Obviously it will be wasted on a prot pally or an enhancement shaman , but it can freely be used on any healer or caster dps as the group needs . Maximizing Your Raid Healing ( How To Beat Shamans ) . So , you want to know how to beat shamans on the healing meters ? Well sorry to burst your bubble , but it ' s nearly impossible at the moment . But here ' s the thing folks , healing meters are NOT the most important thing when it comes to raid healing . If you can keep people alive long enough to down a boss , then you ' ve done your job . So why do we look at healing meters ? Because meters are an indication of how WELL you ' re doing your job . If another druid with comparable gear is putting out 30 % more healing than you , then you ' re not maximizing your healing potential . . . that is , you ' re not doing your job as well as it COULD be done . So how do you maximize your healing potential ? The Golden Rule of Tree Form Healing . Spend every moment of every boss fight throwing HoTs or casting Regrowth . Every second you ' re not in the global cooldown is a second too long . If your tank is the only one taking any damage , keep all 3 HoTs on him ( LB , Rejuv , Regrowth HoT ) and then escape - heal with regrowth . Gear Implications . If your mana pool doesn ' t allow you to continuously throw HoTs and Regrowths every second of a boss fight , then you don ' t have enough regen or you didn ' t bring enough pots . It is better to have a little less + healing , but be able to heal every second of every boss fight . Generic HoT Cycles . Now , here ' s some basic HoT cycles I like to use ( depending on the situation ) . I have to give credit to Gian from elistjerks . com who helped me improve my game by showing me some effective HoT Cycles . This is all situational , there is no " cookie - cutter " rotation that will work for everything . Your skill as a healer is your ability to adapt and adjust quickly to changing situations . . . but these are some general rules : High - Damage Boss Fights ( Single Tank ) On certain " high - octane " boss fights ( like Bear in ZA , or Phase 2 Prince in Kara ) you ' ll want to be focusing your entire attention on the tank . Keep every HoT you can on them . . . LB stacks , Rejuv , and the Regrowth HoT and then have your finger hovering over the Swiftmend Button . You should also be " escape - healing " with Regrowth . This means you let a Regrowth charge up , and then hit ESCAPE right before it goes off IF the tank doesn ' t need the heal . This way if the tank gets hit with a huge amount of burst damage your heal is already on its way . Keep in mind that the FSR doesn ' t start until a cast has actually finished , by escape - healing keeps you out of the FSR and saves mana . Raid Spot Healing ( 1 MT ) - 6 second cycle If you ' re assigned to spot heal , then you STILL want to keep an LB triple stack up on the tank at all times ( this is just too much healing to ignore ) . There are exceptions ( times when you just have to spend all your time healing the raid ) , but mostly you want to use a rotation like this : 2 Main Tanks With two main tanks you should easily be able to keep LB stacks and Rejuv on both of them for the duration of the fight ( and have some in - between time to raid heal if you so choose ) . Here ' s a cookie - cutter rotation : LB Tank 1 , LB Tank 2 , Rejuv Tank 1 , ( downtime ) , LB Tank 1 , LB Tank 2 , Rejuv Tank 2 , ( downtime ) , etc . . . 3 Main Tanks If you have a perfect connection , you should be able to keep LB on all 3 tanks , and Rejuv on 2 of them . Here ' s how you do it : LB 1 , LB 2 , LB 3 , Rejuv 1 , LB 1 , LB 2 , LB 3 , Rejuv 2 , repeat With a less - than - perfect connection , you can still keep LB triple - stacks on all three tanks without any trouble . 4 Main Tanks Keep LB stacks on all 4 tanks ( if your latency is good enough ) . Macros can really help out in boss fights where you have to heal multiple tanks during certain phases ( Hydross and Kael come to mind ) . An interesting idea is to use targeting macros on hotkeys F1 - F4 for those phases . A macro like this works well : If you hold shift while pressing this hotkey , you will cast Rejuv , otherwise you will cast LB . Be sure to test that this macro works before you try to use it in raids . For example , if you bind this macro to F1 , you also need to make sure that Shift + F1 is not bound to anything else ( otherwise the modifier won ' t work ) . Once again , if find that your mana pool doesn ' t allow you to continuously throw HoTs every second of a boss fight , then you ' re only gimping yourself in terms of your maximum healing capabilities . You need more regen gear ( or you need to spend more money on pots ) . How Latency Affects Maximum Healing Potential . Latency plays a huge role in determining how effectively you can heal and what your maximum healing potential is . Consider this , if you are spamming heals with a 1 . 5 sec cast time , then you could potentially make 40 heals per minute . However , add in 100 ms of latency , and suddenly your cast time becomes 1 . 6 sec . In this case , you can only cast 37 times a minute . Now this may not seem like a huge difference but look at it this way . With 300 ms ( therefore a 1 . 8 average cast time ) , you could cast 33 times in 1 minute , which means that you could have suffered a 17 . 5 % loss in your maximum healing potential . The subtleties of latency are intricate and so perhaps I am overstating the facts a bit , but any way you run the numbers you are still gimped in your healing ability depending on your latency . Take another example . If 300 ms translates into 0 . 3 sec of extra cast time , then there would be no way I could keep LB stacks on 4 targets at once . 1 . 5 x 4 = 6 . 0 sec 1 . 6 x 4 = 6 . 4 sec 1 . 7 x 4 = 6 . 8 sec 1 . 8 x 4 = 7 . 2 sec Each cycle now exceeds 7 sec ( the time of LB ) and therefore keeping 4 stacks on 4 targets would now prove impossible . That being said , it ’ s probably possible to make a 4 - target cycle work with latency over 300 ms just because of the intricacies of latency ( which I don ’ t understand thoroughly enough to give comment or direction ) . But for our purposes , we ’ re going to " assume " that 300 ms of latency translates into 0 . 3 extra seconds of cast time . How This Information Affects Trinket Selection The main thing I want to use this information for , is to discuss the way certain trinkets proc if they have a standard chance per cast to proc . For example , if a trinket has a proc rate of 2 % per cast , then we assume that it will proc once every 50 casts . With absolutely no latency , this translates into 1 proc every 75 seconds ( 50 x 1 . 5 = 75 ) . However , with 300 ms of latency , this changes the proc rate significantly to ( potentially ) 1 proc every 90 seconds ( 50 x 1 . 8 = 90 ) . This can significantly change the value of that particular trinket , so when choosing which trinkets are right for you , please be conscious of your average latency , and how it will affect that trinket ' s performance . General Gear Recommendations . I ' m not gonna list every last piece of gear that you could possibly get and rate it to tell you how good it is . Because , in reality , you should be looking more at your total stats than each individual piece of gear . These are just general pieces of advice : General Rules of Tree Gear . PS - or are the ONLY idols you should be using for PvE . . . period . Spell Coefficients . I assume that you all know what spell coefficients are . If not , go here and read up . All of this data is taken from the WoWWiki page : Spell power coefficients . How do talents like " Empowered Rejuvenation " Affect Coefficients ? The Empowered Rejuvenation talent reads : " Increases the bonus healing of your heal over time effects by 20 % " What this means is that for all HoT effects , you take your current + healing and add 20 % . So if you had 1000 + healing , your HoTs would act as though you had 1200 + healing . Gift of Nature increases the effect of all healing spells by 10 % . Does this stack with + healing ? Yes . For example , if your healing touch would normally heal for 2800 , and you had a 1000 + healing , then here ' s what this talent would do for you : With Empowered Touch ( + 20 % Bonus Healing on Healing Touch ) and Gift of Nature , here ' s how the math works out : Gems . These are the best gems for a resto druid at the moment ( using patch 2 . 3 mechanics ) . I am not including Black Temple gems because I figure if you ' re at that point in your game , you know enough to make decisions for yourself . Remember , heroic gems will not be unique - equip in 2 . 4 , so stock up ! Updated with WotLK gems on 19 - 05 - 2009 . Blue & Red Sockets : Red Sockets : If you already have tons of regen you could skip regen completely and go for straight + healing gems . I prefer gems that give + healing and regen to straight + healing gems , but there ' s no award at the end of a fight for how much mana you have left . If you have enough regen , then these are viable options : Yellow & Blue Sockets : Yellow & Red Sockets : Yellow Sockets : These gems add purely intellect and primarily increase your mana pool . Intellect also increases spell critical strike and as of patch 2 . 4 , increases Spirit regen as well . Blue Sockets : Gems for Spirit . Generally useless , as you should be going for MP5 rather than Spirit . Any Socket : These prismatic gems require you to have Jewelcrafting as a profession and have at least 350 skill points in the profession . You can only equip gear with a total of three of these gems at any one time , but you can have more of them socketed on gear in your inventory . ( WotLK ) - mana pool ( WotLK ) - + Healing ( WotLK ) - Spirit Meta Sockets : " Requires 2 Gems of Each Color " This is the best meta gem for a ToL druid . . . period . Has a 2 % chance on spellcast to restore 300 mana . If you ' re spamming instacasts ( which you should be ) that ' s the equivalent of 20 mp5 . Although , in reality , it will be a little less than this , that ' s still a LOT of regen . " Requires More Red Gems than Blue Gems " There are only two reasons to take this gem over the Insightful Earthstorm Diamond : you already have plenty of regen , or you can ' t meet the gem requirements to get the other gem . Otherwise I would definitely take the regen . . . just because it ' s much easier to replace + 26 healing than it is to replace 20 mp5 . Enchants . I didn ' t list Glyphs / Inscriptions / Leg Enchants here because those should just be obvious . . . Chest : , or Major Spirit gives you more regen only if you have the + 15 % spirit talent and kings . Otherwise Restore Mana Prime is better for regen . Cloak : , or Shadow resist can be useful in raids situationally , but it gives a small chance to resist fears ( a small chance , but a chance none - the - less ) . Subtlety is better in 5 - mans , but SR is the enchant used by a lot of high - end raiders ( because an amazing number of debuffs are shadow based . . . and because they ' re in BT ) . Wrist : , or This is one of the few times I ' ll say to take Healing in place of Mp5 . It ' s just because 30 healing is a LOT of healing when compared to 6 mp5 . Take whichever you need more of . Gloves : Boots : Weapon Every good druid will have three weapons that they swap between while healing : Let me explain : You see Spellsurge gives you ( and your group ) a lot of regen , and currently it has a fairly high chance to proc . However , Spellsurge also has a hidden cooldown ( it ' s 45 or 50 sec ) during which it cannot proc again . So what you want to do is swap your weapons . Start with Spellsurge , as soon as it procs switch to your 81 Healing weapon , and then switch back to spellsurge after 45 seconds have passed . With this rotation you will spend about 45 sec every minute with your primary weapon , and about 10 - 15 sec with your spellsurge weapon ; thus , you want your best weapon to have the 81 healing enchant . There is a mod called CasterWeaponSwapper that will swap for you automatically : Because this mod is so buggy , I ' ve written a guide on how to use it ( with a link to the latest version ) here : How to use CasterWeaponSwapper .