Resto Druid PVE

Restoration Druid

Mana Management

1. Specs

Important talents for mana are as follows:

Heart of the Wild
Revitalize
Malfurion's Gift
Furor (feral tree, tier 1)
Moonglow (balance tree, tier 2)
Sample build for healing heroic dungeons:



Also be sure to use Glyph of Rebirth, so battle rezzed player will have full HP.

2. Itemisation and Gearing

The recommended stat priorities are:

Intellect > Spirit > Haste (to 915 with 5% buff/1182 with 3% buff only/1601 for no haste buff to get 5th tick of Rejuv) > Crit

Mastery is bugged.

A common mistake made by resto druids is that they always go for the highest item level gear because they get more Intellect, but in doing so they end up with gear that does not have Spirit on it. It's ok to mix in spell leather without Spirit, but if you are clearly having mana issues be sure to get gear with Spirit. You can reforge Mastery and Crit into Spirit but the amount of Spirit you get that way is a lot less than actually getting a Spirit piece in the first place.

Make sure you are not wearing any cloth piece. If you are using full leather gear you get +5% Intellect from Leather Specialization, and this is a significant bonus.

Fully gem and enchant your gear when you start healing Heroics. General guidelines are as follows:

Quest greens and blues below 333: Put cheap WotLK gems and enchants - because you'll be replacing them soon
Blue level 333: Put the best WotLK enchants and gems or cheap Cata enchants and gems
Level 346 non-BiS gear: Put cheap Cata gems and enchants because they are not Best-in-Slot for you - unless you can afford best gems and enchants
Level 346 BiS pre-raid gear: Put the best Cata gems and enchants on these. It is still early in the new expansion so some best enchants are not readily available - in this case you can put the best one you have access to

3. Use Lifebloom and Keep Up Replenishment

Lifebloom is very cheap, and when 3 stacks of Lifebloom are allowed to bloom it can heal quite a lot (I have seen 30k+). In addition, every time you cast or refresh it you get Replenishment which will give you 1% mana back every 10 seconds.

Always make sure the tank has 3 stacks of Lifebloom, and keep an eye on Replenishment - you may have to refresh Lifebloom early to keep Replenishment up at all times (I use ClassTimer addon for tracking Replenishment). Note that there are some other classes that also bring Replenishment and yours may get overwritten. This is fine - less work for us to keep the proc up

4. Make Use of Mastery

Our Mastery bonus gives us 10% extra healing on a target that already has a HoT, and additional Mastery from gear will increase this amount. The tank will automatically benefit from this. As for others, you might want to follow up Wild Growth with Nourish/Healing Touch/Rejuvenation, or if you need to heal someone up then put Rejuvenation and then follow up by Nourish/Healing Touch.

Mastery will get triggered only if the spell you are casting is not the same as the HoT already present i.e. if you cast Rejuvenation on a target that has Rejuvenation as the only HoT, then you don't get Mastery bonus. On the other hand, if you cast Rejuvenation on a target that has Wild Growth then your Rejuvenation benefits from Mastery. Efflorescence does not trigger Mastery.

5. Do Use Clearcast Proc

When Clearcast proc goes up, you'll see shining leaves around your character. This means that the next spell you cast will be free, but this does not apply to all spells. For healing, the only spells that become free are Swiftmend, Regrowth and Healing Touch.

Since Swiftmend is already cheap and Regrowth does not heal much, you want to use Clearcast for Healing Touch as much as possible. However, there are times when using Regrowth is better. For example:

Someone is about to die and you need to cast fast healing spell because you don't have 2.5 seconds to cast Healing Touch
You desperately need to Swiftmend someone who doesn't have Rejuvenation or Regrowth, and you want to save mana by casting Clearcast+Regrowth rather than Rejuvenation
Everyone is at or near full health and you want to use Regrowth as a touch-up
Movement fight that doesn't allow you to stop and cast Healing Touch
You are in Tree of Life form. Since Tree of Life form has limited duration, you may want to use the proc on Regrowth rather than Healing Touch so you can cast more Lifebloom

6. Cast Nourish On a Target with a HoT

Nourish doesn't heal much so you want to get everything you can out of the spell. It heals extra 20% when there is at least one HoT present on the target.

7. Use Rejuvenation Sparingly

Rejuvenation cost has gone up since last expansion, so if you spam it like you did in ICC, you will be out of mana in no time. Think before you use Rejuvenation!

As a general rule of thumb, if the tank has health deficit then put Rejuvenation on the tank, and if DPS's HP is less than 50% put Rejuvenation. For a movement fight, you may not be able to make a good use of Clearcast or have time to cast 2.5 seconds healing spells anyway, so you may want to increase the HP threshold of Rejuvenation cast for something like 60-70%.

8. Use Innervate Early

If you use Innervate early, you may be able to use it again later in the fight. Use an addon such as Power Auras to find out when your mana is less than 75% and Innervate is available.

Use this post for setting up your PowerAuras.

9. Crowd Control

Crowd Control will reduce the amount of incoming damage so it's a huge mana saver. Until you are fairly well geared, you will have mana issues with groups that do not CC or very light on CC, and this is not your fault.

Since you are a healer, often your group does not assign a cc target for you. This does not mean that you don't cc - in fact if you can contribute then you should! Prevention is always better than the cure!

Rooting a melee with Glyph of Entangling Roots is quite handy. If a pull goes wrong then you may want to Cyclone a mob that is not your group's current target. You can also Hibernate Dragonkins if there is a Dragonkin caster standing away from the group.

10. Buff Up

You can get buffs from scrolls, food and flasks. Intellect scrolls do not stack with Int flask, but do stack with Int buff food.

Scrolls:

Scroll of Intellect IX: +100 Intellect for 30 minutes - better than the Spirit scroll
Scroll of Spirit IX: +100 Spirit for 30 minutes
Food:
Pickled Guppy: +60 Int. Mats can be fished from pools in Twilight Highlands
Severed Sagefish Head: +90 Int. Mats can be fished from open water in Twilight Highlands. Drop rate seems to be around 20~25%. This is the best buff food so always take a stack of these for raiding
Whitecrest Gumbo: +60 Spi. By far the cheapest option and this is what I use for Heroics. You can buy Blood Shrimp in bulk from AH and cook a few stacks of these
Delicious Sagefish Tail: +90 Spirit. The comment for Severed Sagefish Head also applies here - more time consuming to farm mats than other buff food. Since ingredients are the same, you should use Severed Sagefish Head rather than this one
Flasks (currently over 200g each in AH so only use these for raiding):
Flask of the Draconic Mind: +300 Int (This flask most likely outperforms Spirit flask in terms of MP5 except in a very long encounter. Calculation here)
Flask of Flowing Water: +300 Spi

Potions (remember you can use only one potion per fight!):

Mythical Mana Potion: Restores 9250-12750 mana. Always carry at least one stack of this
Potion of Concentration: Restores up to 22000 mana over 10 seconds. Situational but if you can afford the time to sit down and channel, this restores more mana than the Mythical Mana Potion. Great for Magmaw encounter
Mighty Rejuvenation Potion: Restores 7200~8800 mana and health. Since it restores less mana than other potions, I generally don't use this. However, these may be handy if your HP is also very low and you need just enough mana to last until Innervate comes off CD or the end of the fight
Other things to note are buffs available from Key Stones in Archaeology for 5-man heroics, and bandages. Actually bandages are very good - I think Heavy Embersilk heals more than Rejuvenation - so it's worthwhile to level your First Aid

11. Review Your Healing Goal

In the previous expansion, our healing goal was to keep people topped up. In Cataclysm, our goal is to prevent people from hitting 0% HP. If you are trying to keep everyone at 100% you will burn your mana very fast. Sometimes you have to let DPS sit low on HP and wait for Clearcast.

12. Research Strategies

It is really important to know strategies for boss fights, so you know the best way to heal the encounter. For example, you do not want to top people up too much for the first boss in Shadowfang Keep between Asphyxiate, because doing so will make you go oom. Instead heal people just enough so they don't die, as their HP will drop to 1% again when Asphyxiate hits anyway.

13. Emergency Plan

If you do run out of mana during an encounter, you have to switch to emergency healing plan:

Keep at least one stack of Lifebloom rolling for Replenishment. Try to get 3 stacks rolling on the person taking the most damage as soon as possible
Swiftmend is cheap, instant and heals a good amount so try to use this as much as possible
Use Clearcast proc for Healing Touch, unless someone needs a heal fast in which case use it for Regrowth to Swiftmend
Nourish
If the Lifebloom target (usually a tank) needs a large amount of healing, you might have to let Lifebloom bloom if casting Swiftmend/HT is not viable for some reason. Generally it's best not to let it bloom due to the time and mana cost of re-stacking Lifebloom, so think before using this strategy
Bandage!

On Pull

Make sure the tank has at least one Lifebloom, and follow up with Rejuvenation when the tank's HP dips for the first time, so Rejuvenation can get Mastery bonus and the upfront instant healing component doesn't overheal. I generally try to have 2 stacks of Lifebloom on pull, and then cast Rejuvenation when the tank takes the first damage, and then put the third Lifebloom so both Rejuvenation and Lifebloom gets Mastery bonus early. (Note: This "sandwiching" strategy is also very good in PvP when your opponent has a dispeller)
Note that we no longer cast Thorns on the tank. Thorns costs more mana than any of our healing spells and does not do much damage anyway

Keeping tanks up

Maintain 3xLifebloom on the tank that is taking the most damage. Remember Lifebloom can only be on one target unless you are in Tree of Life form so be mindful of tank switch. If you put Lifebloom on the second target, the first lifebloom will simply end without blooming
Keep Rejuvenation on all tanks that are taking damage if mana is not an issue. If it is an issue then keep it running on the tank that is taking the most damage and spot heal others
Keep tanks up by Nourish (if HP deficit is not much), Healing Touch (if HP deficit is large - say the tank is at 50% or less), or Regrowth (if the tank is about to die) or Swiftmend (if you don't need to keep SM for emergencies, or if mana is an issue, or you want heal melee as well with Efflorescence, or a tank needs instant healing immediately)
It's cheaper and faster to refresh Lifebloom with another Lifebloom, rather than using Nourish (2/2 Empowered Touch) if the target does not require direct heal. Refresh at 2 seconds left to allow for latency
It would be generally best not to let Lifebloom to bloom as you have to stack Lifebloom again. Blooming should only be done in emergencies when you cannot cast other healing spells for some reason (e.g. Swift mend is on cooldown and you cannot afford the long cast time of HT)
(3) Emergency healing

If someone is about to die if you don't heal NOW, we have several options:

Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch (1/1 Nature's Swiftness)
If there is either Rejuvenation or Regrowth already on the target, Swiftmend
If there is no HoT on the target, Rejuvenation (3/3 GotEM for instant upfront heal) followed by Swiftmend/Regrowth
If there is one second left on Lifebloom, let it expire
If you have a few seconds to heal before the person dies:

Regrowth to buy time until: Swiftmend comes off cooldown OR enough time to cast Healing Touch
If a person needs direct heal spammed fast

If you have points in Nature's Grace and haven't used Regrowth in the last one minute, Regrowth to get haste buff and spam Healing Touch
Use on-use Haste buff (e.g. Trinket, Lifeblood from Herbalism) and cast Regrowth/Healing Touch
If Regrowth spam is not big/fast enough, Tree of Life + Regrowth spam until safe,as Regrowth becomes instant when you are in Tree of Life form

Keeping the raid up

Spike damage on select individuals:

Swiftmend
Rejuvenation + Nourish/HT
Regrowth (if you cannot afford longer cast time)
AoE damage in small area:

Wild Growth
Swiftmend to get Efflorescence (3/3 Efflorescence)
AoE damage when spread out:

Wild Growth (30 yards range from the target)
If mana is not an issue, Rejuvenation
Use hasted Nourish from Nature's Bounty talent - note that it's best to have a HoT on the target before using Nourish
Use Tranquility if you don't have to move and can channel for majority of the 8 seconds channeling period - remember this has 8 min CD as well so only use this if multiple players have significant health deficit. Ideally you will cast Tranquility after Wild Growth to get benefit from Mastery. If there is only one heavy AoE phase in the encounter, go tree first and then use Tranquility so you get extra healing from Tree Form
Go Tree of Life and spam Lifebloom to fish for Clearcast proc then use it for Regrowth

Cooldown usage

Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch (3 min cd)

Instant, big, emergency healing
Tree of Life (3 min cd)

ToL benefits are mainly for raid healing i.e. allows more than one Lifebloom, adds two extra Wild Growth targets, and makes Regrowth instant
Cast Lifebloom on as many people as possible so you have better chance of getting Clearcast proc. When you get Clearcast proc use it for Regrowth so you'll have more time to cast more Lifebloom. Only use it for HT if Swiftmend is on CD and someone desperately needs a large amount of healing
Tranquility (8 min cd)

Need to be channeled, so it's good if you can stay in one spot for at least most of 8 seconds channeling period
The spell picks new targets for each tick (ticks every 2 seconds), so even a few ticks can be very effective in 10-man
You may want to cast Barkskin first so you don't need to move to avoid minor damage while channeling


Spec

There are still a lot of debate about which talents are worthwhile for us to pick up, given the shortage of talent points at level 85. A sample heroic 5-man healing build may look something like this:

Fast ingame use:



WowTal