Introduction
This guide was written by Heregellas.
Heregellas, or Alisza on his priest, is mostly playing disc/holy priest or resto druid during progress. He previously raided in From Scratch, and in Impact as an officer & raid leader before joining Method.
Restoration Druid is a versatile healer with access to damage, crowd control, mobility, and robust healing throughput that makes them great healers for Mythic+.
In raids, they will be able to provide a huge amount of healing during some specific regular windows with a proactive type of healing (what we call “a ramp”), and can completely carry the healing throughput on the whole raid during those.
What has changed
Patch 10.1.7 Changes
In the 10.1.7 patch, some changes were made by Blizzard:
- All healing reduced by 6%. This is mostly to offset the additional changes we’ll have in the talents set-up below.
- New Talent: Master Shapeshifter - Your abilities are amplified based on your current shapeshift form, granting an additional effect.
- Bear Form: Ironfur grants 30% additional armor and generates 2,500 mana (at level 70).
- Cat Form: Rip, Ferocious Bite and Maim deal 60% additional damage and generate 10,000 mana (at level 70) when cast with 5 combo points.
- Moonkin Form: Wrath, Starfire and Starsurge deal 30% additional damage and generate 2,500 mana (at level 70).
- New Talent: Grove Guardians - Summons a Treant which will immediately cast Swiftmend on your current target. The Treant will cast Nourish on that target or a nearby ally periodically. Lasts 15 seconds. Maximum 3 charges. Replaces Nourish.
- Wild Synthesis has been updated - If talented into Grove Guardians, now causes your Treants from Grove Guardians to also cast Wild Growth immediately when summoned, healing allies within 40 yards over 7 seconds.
- Embrace of the Dream is now a 1 point talent and its healing has been decreased by 20%.
- Deep Focus has been removed.
- Forest’s Flow has been removed.
Regarding Master Shapeshifter, as this talent won’t be used in the future talents set-ups for the 10.1.7, some specifics:
- The mana addition from this talent is dampened, at the time, by the Rashok’s Molten Heart trinket, covering a lot of your mana issues.
- As long as there is not a lot of downtime during an encounter, you’ll be less likely, unfortunately, to spare that many GCDs to swap forms here and there.
Do note that the talent is interesting and can see some play in the future. The only limiting factors for now are the two listed above, and can/will be changed over the course of the expansion and the last tier.