Talent specs
     Below haste cap
     Raid healing @haste cap
     Tank healing @haste cap
     5 man healing

Talents explained
     Core talents
     Optional talents
     Undesirable talents
 
Spells and Abilities
     Core abilities
     Other abilities
     Buffs

Spell rotations
     Raid healing
     Tank healing
     Dungeon healing
     General tips

Gear and stats
     Stat priority
     Haste levels
     Gems
     Glyphs
          Raid healing
          Tank healing
          Other glyphs
          Minor glyphs
     Idols
     Trinkets
     Consumables
     Enchants
     Professions

User interface
     Helpful addons
     Macros
     Keybinds

Levelling as Resto
     Talents
     Gear
     Glyphs
     Tips and strategies

Resources
     Other resto guides
     Theorycraft & math

This guide will be re-written for Cataclysm, but in the meantime please visit the above link for information on how to heal in 4.0.

The below information is NOT updated for 4.0.

~ Keeva
US-Caelestrasz

Last updated: 30 Apr 2010 patch 3.3.3

As a resto druid, your talent choices will vary slightly depending on whether you are healing in raids or dungeons, and whether your assignment in raids is to heal the tank or the entire raid. These are some suggested talent specs for each task, including optional points in balance to boost your haste if you are under the haste soft cap.

For more information about haste, see the Haste levels section.
To understand more about the talents and abilities in these specs, see the Spells and abilities section.

Below the haste soft cap - 18/0/52 +1      Link to build

Under the haste soft cap, you can opt to take points in the balance tree to pick up Celestial Focus. This is a quick and simple way to boost your haste substantially, until you can hit the soft cap with gear. You can take points back out as your haste increases, and put them into other talent spaces.

You will need to take 18 points in the balance tree to have 3/3 Celestial Focus. The point in Brambles can be put into Starlight Wrath, Improved Moonfire or Nature's Reach, depending on your preference. It is just the last point you need in order to get down to the 4th tier and Celestial Focus. In the resto tree you have one leftover talent - if you mostly raid heal, you might like to put this into Revitalize. If you tank heal, you might like to put it into Living Seed. Again, you can put this into another spot if you want to.

Raid healing (at or above the haste soft cap) - 11/0/55 +5      Link to build

This spec gives you all of the core resto talents, plus 3/3 in Revitalize, to return mana/energy/rage/runic power to your raid. This is an optional talent, but if you're filling out a raiding spec, you have plenty of room for it.

You have 5 points left over; you can put these wherever you want to. Living Seed is helpful if you do a little tank healing, or for fights where people may take repeated damage. Improved Barkskin is nice for progression fights, to reduce your damage taken. You could also put points into Tranquil Spirit, but this is only useful if you find you are using Nourish a lot and it is giving you mana troubles.

You could also put points into Nature's Grace in the balance tree, which benefits your Rejuvenation if using the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation; but since it relies on casting a crit heal, which you may not be doing much of as a raid healer, it may be of limited benefit.

Again, it's best to read through the abilities section and judge for yourself which talents would give you most benefit for your situation, your assignment, and your usual play style.

Tank healing (at or above the haste soft cap) - 14/0/57      Link to build

This is my suggested tank healing spec. It includes Nature's Grace to speed up Rejuv ticks (with the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation) and Regrowth casts, but won't give any benefit to Nourish if you are already haste soft-capped. However, if you are doing 10 mans or are in a raid without full haste buffs, it can benefit Nourish too. I always found it handy on "spammy" fights, but particularly in 10 man raids where I don't have access to full buffs.

It also picks up 3/3 in Living Seed, but does not include Revitalize as you won't likely be throwing HoTs around the raid anyway. You'll notice I took 2 points out of Living Spirit; many people choose to do this to be able to pick up Empowered Touch. 5/5 Tranquil Spirit will help with mana problems while spamming Nourish; but if you find you don't have mana issues, you can swap points out to invest in throughput talents instead. Use your judgment.

5 man dungeon healing - 18/0/53      Link to build

If you are only doing dungeons and not raiding, you can vary your talents a little. Some talents useful for raiding are nearly pointless for 5 mans, and vice versa. There are talents that many people think are "bad", but can be helpful while running dungeons and heroics. Improved Tranquility, for example, is a great talent for 5 man dungeons, but pretty bad for raiding.

You'll notice that I've included Celestial Focus - this is because it is usually hard to approach the haste cap with dungeon and badge gear only. Certainly it's not a concern that you won't be able to HoT a 25man raid as quickly as possible, but haste is still handy in 5 man dungeons when your tank is perhaps a little undergeared and requires bursty healing.

I've put in 2/2 Improved Tranquility, bringing the cooldown to 4 minutes. This is personal taste - I loved using this in 5 man dungeons, but it's certainly not mandatory. See how you feel. I've had to remove 1 point out of Living Spirit to do this; while 5 man dungeons are generally not marathons where you run out of mana on each pull, if you feel hindered, and you're not finding much use for Tranquility, then feel free to rearrange those points.

Below is a list of our key talents, and how they boost our healing. Note: Some talents also boost our offensive spells; in the interest of being as brief as possible, I've ignored these boosts. You should ensure that you read the tooltips for yourself to fully understand each talent. Don't simply grab a spec and run with it; make sure that you understand what each talent does for you.

Core talents
	Genesis (balance)	Increases the healing done by your HoTs by 5%. Anything that boosts our HoTs is important.
	Moonglow (balance)	Reduces the mana cost of your Healing Touch, Nourish, Regrowth and Rejuvenation spells by 9%. For tank healing, a mana saving on Nourish is particularly useful. For raid healing, we often cast Rejuvenation very frequently, so this quickly adds up to a lot of mana saved.
	Nature's Majesty (balance)	Increases crit chance of Nourish and Healing Touch by 4%. This in itself isn't amazing; Nourish already has high crit thanks to Nature's Bounty, and high crit on HT isn't particularly important as we don't use it frequently (although more crit on emergency heals isn't a bad thing), but we need these points to get down to the next tier.
	Nature's Splendor (balance)	Extends your Rejuv by 3 seconds, your Regrowth by 6, and your Lifebloom by 2. More HoT uptime for fewer GCDs makes this talent invaluable.
	Imp Mark of the Wild	Increases the effects of your Mark/Gift of the Wild by 40% (applies to anyone receiving your buff) and increases your total attributes (stam, str, agi, int, spi) by 2% (applies only to you - does not increase anyone else's attributes). Note: these increased effects will not show up in your Mark/Gift tooltips on your screen.
	Nature's Focus	Reduces pushback while casting Healing Touch, Nourish, Regrowth and Tranquility by 70%. Not terribly essential, as you shouldn't usually be taking damage, but good for emergencies and fights with "pulse" damage. Mostly required to get to the next tier.
	Subtlety (2/3)	Reduces the threat generated by your restoration spells by 20%. Only 2 points are required to get to the next tier. Threat and aggro should not be much of a problem with today's tanking threat, so it's really not necessary to put a third point in this talent.
	Natural Shapeshifter	Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifting by 30%. Not too much of an issue in PvE healing, as you will generally stay in Tree form most of the time, unless getting out of snares etc. Required for next tier.
	Intensity	Allows 50% of your mana regen to continue while casting. Key regen talent.
	Omen of Clarity	Your heals have a chance to proc "Clearcasting", which makes your next heal or attack free. The buff lasts 15 seconds, and if not used, will expire. Very handy for timing expensive spells such as a Lifebloom stack refresh, or a Tranquility. Many people don't realise how important this talent is, and will skip it - but Clearcasting procs often, giving you a lot of free spells. It is an excellent mana-saving ability. 5.83% chance to proc from spell casting. Does not proc from shapeshifting (and is not consume by shapeshifting either). Gift of the Wild cast on multiple people has a very high proc chance.
	Master Shapeshifter	Increases healing in Tree of Life form by 4%.
	Tranquil Spirit (1/5)	Tranquil spirit reduces the mana cost of Healing Touch, Nourish and Tranquility. This talent is only really useful if you are tank healing (with a lot of Nourish), AND you need the mana. If you don't have any mana troubles, then this talent is a waste of points. It's not a bad talent - it's just situational, and you should consider its worth before you put points into it.
	Improved Rejuvenation	Increases the effect of your Rejuv spell by 15%. No brainer - Rejuv is our staple, and this talent boosts it by 15%.
	Nature's Swiftness	Grants the ability Nature's Swiftness (see abilities below)
	Gift of Nature	Increases the effect of all healing spells by 10%. Another obvious choice.
	Empowered Touch	Your Healing Touch spell gains an additional 40% and your Nourish spell gains an additional 20% of your bonus healing effects. Essential for tank healing, but also extremely good for emergency healing or times when you need to bust out some direct heals to save the day. Personally, I consider this talent mandatory, but some people choose not to use it if they hardly ever use Nourish. Use your best judgment - but remember that it does add a substantial amount to your emergency NS+HT combo.
	Nature's Bounty	Increases the crit chance on your Regrowth and Nourish by 25%. Another essential tank healing ability, but also works with other talents like Living Seed, Nature's Grace, etc - and is very good for emergency raid healing.
	Living Spirit ***	Increases your total spirit by 15%. This gives you regen, but also converts to spellpower through your Tree of Life talent. However, the regen and spellpower are relatively small buffs, and now that Innervate is not based on your spirit, the benefit from this talent is seen by some as marginal - in which case they choose to make Living Spirit an optional talent, should they need points for something else.
	Swiftmend	Grants the ability Swiftmend (see abilities below)
	Empowered Rejuvenation	The bonus healing effects of your HoT spells is increased by 20%. Another obvious choice.
	Tree of Life (ToL)	Reduces the mana cost of HoTs by 20% (note: you do not have to be in ToL for this benefit), grants you the ability to shapeshift into ToL form. While in ToL form you incrase healing received by 6% for all party/raid members, but you can only cast restoration spells + Innervate + Barkskin + Nature's Grasp + Thorns. The 6% healing buff does not stack with a paladin's Improved Devotion Aura.
	Improved Tree of Life	Increases your armor and increases healing spellpower by 15% of your spirit while in ToL form. This talent takes your spirit and converts it into spellpower - so while in ToL form your heals and HoTs are more potent. If you drop out of ToL form, they will be weaker.
	Gift of the Earthmother	Increases your total spell haste by 10% and reduces the base cooldown of your Lifebloom spell by 10%. This is a core talent, and extremely rare that you would remove points from this, even if you have plenty of haste. It is essential for reducing our GCD down to 1.0sec, and reduces the GCD of Lifebloom a further 10%. By having a GCD at or close to 1.0 seconds, you can cast more in quick succession, which is particularly valuable when casting instant cast HoTs across the raid. Simply put - a GCD of 1.5 seconds rather than 1.0 seconds means that you would have to wait an additional 0.5 seconds each time before you can cast your next heal. Even fractions of a second can make a difference in fast-paced healing environments. This talent is a simple and economical way to boost your haste quite substantially.
	Wild Growth	Grants you the ability Wild Growth (see abilities below)
Optional talents
	Nature's Grace ** (balance)	All non-periodic (ie, no HoTs) spell crits have a 33/66/100% chance to increase spell casting speed by 20% for 3 seconds. Basically - it gives you a bunch of haste for 3 seconds. Great if you have low haste, and for fights that are "spammy". Note though that if Nourish is already a 1.0s cast, Nature's Grace will cause you to "clip" your Nourishes, meaning that the Nourish will be faster than the 1.0s GCD, and you'll have to wait for your GCD to finish before you can cast another Nourish. Does not proc from crit Rejuv ticks (4pc T9) or from the bloom of Lifebloom.
	Celestial Focus ** (balance)	Increases your spell haste by 1/2/3%. Celestial Focus is taken if you are below the haste soft cap. It is an easy way to get an extra 3% haste, until you have enough haste from gear.
	Revitalize	Your Rejuv/WG spells have a 5/10/15% chance to restore 8 energy, 4 rage, 1% mana or 16 runic power per tick. Basically, when you put Rejuv or WG on your targets (or yourself), you have a small chance to return power to those targets, according to the power type that they use. Not bad for mana classes, but they often have Replenishment effects. However, melee DPS classes don't have any other buffs that return energy, rage, or runic power, so they love this ability. Where mana is not an issue, I try to cycle Rejuvs and WG through melee, even if they are not taking very much damage, because it will boost their DPS and speed up the fight.
	Living Seed	When you crit with Swiftmend, Regrowth, Nourish or Healing Touch, you have a 33/66/100% chance to plant a Living Seed on the target for 30% of the amount healed. This seed will bloom when the target is next attacked. Lasts 15 seconds. Basically, when you crit with one of your direct heals, LS leaves behind a heal 30% the size of that crit, ready to explode and heal your target the next time they take a hit. It is 30% of the gross healing, including any overheal. Unfortunately, it blooms on next hit, not on next damage taken, so if your target is shielded or otherwise at full health, the LS will still go off when they are hit, and will overheal. This is still a good talent for tank healing or for fights with "bursty" damage that requires direct healing, as it helps to buffer the next spike of damage while you are winding up your next heal.
	Improved Barkskin	Grants 80/160% additional armor while in travel form or not shapeshifted, increases the damage reduction granted by Barkskin by 5/10%, and reduces the chance your Barkskin is dispelled by 35/70%. The extra damage reduction is quite good for progression raiding, for encounters with heavy raid damage. Damage mitigated by you is damage not required to be healed, which means more healer time on the tanks or other people. On fights where survivability of each single player can mean success or a wipe, this ability can be very valuable.
	Tranquil Spirit (more points)	As above - you only need to fill this talent out if A) you're using Nourish a lot and B) you find it is taxing on your mana. If you don't have mana troubles, then you don't need this talent.
	Natural Perfection	Grants 1/2/3% crit. This was considered a good talent to have with 4pc T9 (for critting Rejuv ticks), but generally isn't very good value point for point. 3 points for 3% crit, when crit isn't particularly valuable for us, is not a great investment - unless you have points left over. This may change in Cataclysm when HoTs can crit; crit rating may become more enticing for us.
	Improved Tranquility	Reduces the threat caused by Tranquility by 50/100%, and reduces the cooldown by 3/6 minutes. Threat isn't usually an issue; the main benefit here is reducing your cooldown from 10 minutes to 7 minutes or 4 minutes. This has extremely limited use in raids as it is party-limited, but a 4 minute cooldown can be great if you mostly run dungeons and heroics. Rarely taken in raiding specs, but quite good for 5 mans.
	Subtlety (last point)	As above, threat is rarely an issue, but if you feel that you need the extra point, go for it.
Undesirable talents
	Anything other than the above listed balance talents
	Furor	This is a feral/balance talent only.
	Naturalist	This is a great talent for levelling, particularly as feral, but almost entirely useless in endgame PvE. Healing Touch is rarely used, and making it a short cast is pointless because Nourish trumps it. Naturalist is only used in PvE healing extremely rarely, for single bosses that perhaps require a unique approach (eg Anubarak 25man heroic). Don't take it in a normal raiding spec.
All core talents are taken to max rank, unless otherwise stated. ** These talents are core if you are below the haste cap *** Some people choose to give up Living Spirit in favour of other talents. Living Spirit is relatively weak.

In this section, I'll go through the key abilities that you would normally use to heal a party or raid. If a defensive or other spell has a frequent use in healing groups, I will include it also, but in the interest of brevity the focus will be on healing spells and their strengths/weaknesses.

We have five types of heals:

Type Spells Use Instant HoT Rejuvenation Lifebloom Wild Growth (group) Tank buffer/stabilisation Topping up small amounts of raid damage Blanket raid healing (Rejuv) on encounters with widespread, steady raid damage Instant direct heal Swiftmend Emergency heal (can only be used with Rejuv or Regrowth on the target) Direct heal with HoT Regrowth Tank buffer/stabilisation Can be used for raid healing if target is missing a chunk of health and you expect them to continue to take damage, which makes the HoT portion useful. (For topping up players who are unlikely to take more damage soon after, use Nourish.) Direct heal Healing Touch Nourish Tank healing, topping up larger amounts of damage that HoTs are unlikely to handle quickly Channeled Tranquility Group-wide heal, usually used when concentrating on healing one person at a time would mean others would die.

Here's an explanation of each of our healing spells, and what they are used for.

Core abilities
	Rejuvenation	Instant HoT Single target	Instant cast HoT that ticks every 3 seconds for 15 seconds (18 with Nature's Splendor). If using the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation, the overall duration will be shorter, but the ticks will be closer together (depending on your haste levels). This is our staple HoT for both tank healing and raid healing. It is used to help stabilise tanks, to top people off, or to provide a buffer against steady and predictable raid damage. It can also be Swiftmended for a fast, direct heal, and applying it to a target will buff the size of your subsequent Nourish casts.
	Lifebloom	Instant HoT Single target, stacks to 3	Instant cast HoT that ticks every second for 7 seconds (9 with Nature's Splendor, 10 with Glyph of Lifebloom). Can be used as a single stack for a small amount of healing (eg, topping up a raid member), or stacked to 3 for a potent stabilising HoT on tanks or anyone else taking sustained damage. When allowed to expire, it "blooms" for a good-sized direct heal (which can crit), and also returns 50% of the base mana cost of the spell. "Rolling" Lifeblooms refers to creating a 3 stack and continuing to "roll" it by refreshing the stack before it is allowed to expire and bloom. This is very high HPS (healing per second) but also very expensive. A more efficient method is the "slow stack", which refers to casting 1 Lifebloom, going back to other healing until the LB is about to expire, casting a second Lifebloom (to create a 2 stack), once again doing other healing until it's about to expire, and then coming back to cast a third Lifebloom to create a 3 stack. The stack is then allowed to expire, and the cycle repeats. Building the stack slowly like this is still high HPS but is less punishing on your mana. Also buffs the size of your Nourish casts.
	Wild Growth	Instant HoT Up to 6 targets, smart heal. Range dependent.	Instant cast multi-target HoT that ticks every second for 7 seconds, with a 6 second cooldown. The initial tick is the strongest, tapering off to the weakest tick at the end, meaning that the heaviest healing will be at the beginning of the spell. Targets up to 5 friendly units (up to 6 with glyph) within 15 yards of the target that you cast the spell on. Can be cast on hostile units. This means that you can cast WG on a boss, and it will target 5 of your raid members within 15 yards (very handy for healing melee). It is also a smart heal - it will target the people who require healing the most, but is range-dependent, and can also target pets. Only useful on fights where sufficient people are clumped together; if spread out, and only hitting 1 or 2 people, it is not worth casting. Also buffs the size of your Nourish casts.
	Swiftmend	Instant direct Single target	Instant cast direct heal that consumes either a Rejuvenation or a Regrowth from your target. This Rejuv or Regrowth can be yours or another druid's. Will always choose the spell with the shortest duration left. This is our staple emergency top-up heal - excellent for tank healing but also for spot raid healing. If Rejuv is Swiftmended, the heal will be equivalent to 12 seconds of the Rejuv (note: Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation has no effect on this). If Regrowth is Swiftmended, the heal will be equivalent to 18 seconds of the Regrowth. Scales with your spellpower; affected by your talents that boost HoT strength (not duration); can crit. A Swiftmended Rejuv will be larger than a Swiftmended Regrowth, so you should generally try to Swiftmend a Rejuv if you can - but in emergencies it is not a big deal to worry about this. If using Glyph of Swiftmend, the HoT is not consumed, and continues to tick as normal.
	Regrowth	Direct + HoT Single target	2 second cast (less with haste) heal with a direct portion and a HoT portion that ticks every 3 seconds for 21 seconds (27 seconds with Nature's Splendor). Good for tank healing or for healing someone who has lost a portion of their HP and may take further damage in the next 20-30 seconds. Can be Swiftmended for an instant emergency heal. Initial direct portion can crit; HoT ticks cannot. Also buffs the size of your Nourish casts.
	Nourish	Direct Single target, buffed by No. of your HoTs on target	1.5 second cast (less with haste) direct heal. Small base heal, but can be buffed by adding a HoT to your target first, in which case Nourish will heal for 20% more. If you also have the Glyph of Nourish, each HoT will heal for an additional 6% (note: Lifebloom counts as a single HoT, regardless of the number of applications on the target). Only your own HoTs count towards boosting your Nourishes - other druids' HoTs do not have an effect. Used for tank healing, or for topping people up quickly (in cases where HoTs will not top them up quickly enough). Can be used without HoTs on the target, but this is inefficient, and it is best to have at least a single HoT on them to boost Nourish by 20%.
	Healing Touch	Direct Single target	3 second cast (less with haste, less with Naturalist - but this is not a raiding talent). Large direct heal; its slow cast time means that it is hardly ever used for raiding other than with Nature's Swiftness for a big emergency heal. Very occasionally used with Glyph of Healing Touch but usually only for cutting edge heroic content (highly situational) and while levelling. Using the glyph means that your emergency heal is cut in half, which is undesirable for raiding (but fine for levelling, where fast heals are generally more important than big heals).
	Tranquility	Channeled Party only, range dependent	Channeled, party-wide spell that ticks every 2 seconds for 8 seconds (with haste, ticks are closer together and overall duration is reduced). 8 minute cooldown (less with talents - although generally not taken for raiding). Ticks cannot crit. This is a powerful group heal for emergencies where healing one person might mean that others will die - for example, when everyone in your party is taking damage at once, and HoTs or single target healing won't keep them alive. In a raid, this spell can only target people in your own party (and if those party members are out of range, they will not be healed). This spell must be channeled, and any damage will shorten the duration. If you are likely to take damage while you are casting, use Barkskin before you cast Tranquility.

Other abilities
	Barkskin	Barkskin reduces damage taken by you, and prevents you from being interrupted while casting. Excellent for emergencies where you have to channel or cast direct healing spells. Can be used in any form. Barkskin is invaluable. Use it on encounters where you take predictable damage; you can time it to reduce damage before it happens. Or, you can use it defensively to reduce unexpected damage - for example, if you pull aggro it can help you survive long enough for a tank to save you. Less damage taken means less healing that you'll need, which in turn means more time focusing on the tank or other people who need healing.
	Entangling Roots	Occasionally you may be asked to use Entangling Roots as a form of crowd control in raids, or you might use it defensively, to keep something away from you. Warning: If you root something immediately next to another player, that mob will most likely turn around and melee that person. Be careful!
	Innervate	The target regenerates mana equal to 225% of the druid's base mana pool over 10 sec. 3 minute cooldown. At level 80, this is 7866 mana (9439 with Glyph of Innervate). This is the same amount regardless of who you cast innervate on (yourself or another person). You can choose to give your Innervate away, or keep it for yourself. If used on cooldown, it is the equivalent of ~220mp5 added onto your regen. With a short cooldown, you should try to use early so that it is available again ASAP. I wait until I'm ~8000 mana down and then use it.
	Nature's Grasp	Nature's Grasp is now a 3-charge spell. You can cast it in any form, and it is a brilliant defensive ability. If you are being pursued by a mob, or you need to get away because one is beating on you and interrupting your casts, you can use Nature's Grasp, wait for the mob to hit you and proc the roots, and then step away. Works 3 times - either 3 times on a single mob, or once each on up to three mobs. As above - if mobs are rooted next to other people, they may be meleed.
	Nature's Swiftness	Nature's Swiftness makes your next nature spell instant cast. Can be used with heals such as Healing Touch (most often), Regrowth or Nourish (not worth it), or for an instant battle resurrection with Rebirth. It works on any nature spell, so it can also be used on offensive abilities, but in the case of the PvE resto druid, you will almost exclusively use it with Healing Touch, and sometimes Rebirth. You can create macros to link NS with Healing Touch and Rebirth, to reduce it to a single keypress (see the macro section). Note: if you use this ability but don't consume it by casting a nature spell, the cooldown doesn't start. It starts from the time that you cast your nature spell and consume the NS effect.
	Cure/Abolish Poison	Removes poison effects from your target. Abolish Poison attempts to cure a poison immediately, and then (like a HoT), attempts to cure a poison every 3 seconds for 12 seconds. This is handy for poisons with multiple stacks, or poisons that are reapplied in quick succession. You can either use Abolish Poison as a "set and forget" cleansing spell, or you can apply Abolish, and then use Cure Poison in conjunction with it to remove the applications of poison as fast as possible. Never "spam" Abolish Poison, because it resets the duration and wastes the cleansing ticks. Apply an Abolish Poison, and then "spam" Cure Poison if you need to. (Note: This will change in Cataclysm as Abolish Poison will be removed.)
	Remove Curse	Removes a curse effect from your target.
	Revive	Our out-of-combat resurrection spell.
	Rebirth	Our in-combat resurrection spell, also known as "Combat Rez" or "Battle Rez" or simply "BR".

Buffs
	Mark/Gift of the Wild	A single or party/raid-wide buff that provides extra armor, a buff to stats (stam, str, agi, spi, int), and resistance to all schools of magic. This is a core raiding buff.
	Thorns	A single-target buff that causes damage to an attacker when the target is hit. Can be applied to as many targets as you like. Apply this to your tanks for a small amount of added threat. Use it on yourself while soloing, for a small amount of added damage. Don't use it on non-tanks in groups; if they get aggro, you don't want to exacerbate the problem with thorns damage (however minor). Stacks with a paladin's Retribution Aura.

Healers don't use set rotations in the same way that a DPS class would, in order to maximise DPS. Certainly on some fights, the incoming damage is quite predictable and we can follow a quasi-rotation; but there will always be times that we need to judge the rise and fall of incoming damage, and make quick judgment calls on which of our abilities best fits the situation.

Here are some suggestions for how to use your spells. Remember: it's up to you to get the "feel" of fights and judge for yourself which abilities to use - but this will give you a starting point. Standard disclaimer: Your mileage may vary according to the size of your raid, your assignment, how many people stand in fire, the number/skill/gear of your other healers, etc.

Stat priority

Haste (to soft cap) > Spellpower > Spirit > Crit > Int > MP5

At low levels of gear you may find that you need to juggle a little more regen - an OOM healer is a useless healer. So, temporarily your stat priority may look more like:

(Spellpower) + Enough regen to get the job done > Haste to soft cap > Spellpower > Spirit.... (etc)

Remembering that spellpower is always important, and getting to the haste soft cap is still your primary goal (maximising spellpower after that).

Haste levels

With recent changes to our talents and our haste soft cap, we now have to strive for higher levels of haste to reach the haste "soft cap", which is the amount of haste required to reduce our global cooldown (GCD) to 1.0 seconds. This is as low as the GCD can go.

Reducing the GCD from 1.5 to 1.0 seconds means that we can squeeze in more spells in the same period of time. In the case of instant cast spells for example, with a 1.5 second GCD we would be able to cast 10 instants in 15 seconds. With a 1.0 second GCD, we would be able to cast 15 instants in those 15 seconds. Obviously this is extremely valuable, because it means we can cast heals faster and this means being able to heal more people at once (or save more people in an emergency).

How much haste do I need? Haste rating 32.79 haste = 1% spell haste % Haste required to reach 1.0s GCD 36.36% (with 5/5 GotEM) or 1192.36 haste Other haste talents Celestial Focus (3%) Raid buffs Improved Moonkin Aura OR Swift Retribution Aura (3%) Wrath of Air Totem (5%)         With all haste buffs at 5/5 Gift of the Earthmother, 735 is the haste soft cap with 3/3 Celestial Focus. Without Celestial Focus, the soft cap is 856. If you don't have points in these talents, or if you are missing a haste buff (which is quite likely in smaller groups), then your haste soft cap will be different. Refer to this table for more information.

Gemming for haste

You can use haste gems to top up your haste levels to reach the soft cap. However, if you are missing a large amount of haste, it is best to take Celestial Focus for an extra 3%. This is the equivalent of approximately 100 haste, which is 10 Reckless Ametrines or 5 Quick King's Ambers - and this is excessive. It is far more economical to give up some talent points (temporarily) to take CF, than it is to try to gem to reach the cap. You should really only gem for haste to get that last little bit to the cap - not for hundreds of haste.

For more information on gems, see the gem section.

Gems

The basic rule for gemming a resto druid is to aim for straight spellpower (Runed Cardinal Ruby), except:

• If you need to activate a meta gem, use hybrid gems to activate it.
• If you need to activate a good socket bonus (7 or 9 spellpower), use hybrid gems to activate it.
• If you need more regen, use Purified Dreadstone or Luminous Ametrine hybrids.
• If you need more haste, use Reckless Ametrine (preferred) in red or yellow slots, or Quick King's Amber in yellow slots.

Slot	Preferred	OK	BAD
Red	Runed Cardinal Ruby - 23 spellpower	Reckless Ametrine - 12 spellpower/10 haste	Only use the gems listed. In particular, never use these: +20 int +20 spirit +12 spellpower/+5mp5 +10mp5
Yellow	Reckless Ametrine - 12 spellpower/10 haste Luminous Ametrine - 12 spellpower/10 int	Quick King's Amber - 20 haste
Blue	Purified Dreadstone - 12 spellpower/10spirit
Meta	Insightful Earthsiege Diamond Ember Skyflare Diamond

Remember that hybrid gems (orange, purple, green) count as two colours when matching sockets or activating meta requirements. So a Reckless Ametrine fits in both yellow and red slots, but for a meta gem it counts as both a yellow gem AND a red gem. So if a meta gem requires you to have a red gem and a yellow gem, a single orange gem will meet this requirement.

For meta slots, Insightful Earthsiege Diamond is an exceptional amount of regen in a single slot, and is quite valuable. You could also use Ember Skyflare Diamond for more spellpower, but you are essentially trading off ~50-100mp5 for 25 spellpower. If you are putting regen anywhere else on your gear (such as trinkets), you should consider the IED instead. For more information, read my article here.

Glyphs

Idols

Trinkets

There are three types of trinkets that are good for resto druids: spellpower, regen, or hybrid spellpower/regen.

Type	Example	Effect
Spellpower	Illustration of the Dragon Soul Althor's Abacus Scale of Fates	Pure spellpower/throughput.
Regen	Ephemeral Snowflake Spark of Hope	Pure regen, mana return, or mana savings.
Hybrid	Solace of the Fallen/Defeated Purified Lunar Dust Sliver of Pure Ice	Spellpower plus mana regen effect.

If you find you have mana problems, hybrid trinkets are excellent because they provide you with spellpower but also some regen. If you're really struggling for regen, you can swap in a regen trinket to help out.

Otherwise, you should always aim for the highest spellpower trinkets that you have access to.

Avoid trinkets that are based around intellect, crit, or require you to activate them for a spellpower effect.

Consumables

Type Recommended Food Fish Feast, Tender Shoveltusk Steak, Firecracker Salmon Flask Flask of the Frost Wyrm Potion Runic Mana Potion / Crazy Alchemist Potion / Runic Mana Injector

Enchants

Professions

Helpful addons

I'm not going to go into much detail here - mostly I just want to suggest a few UI elements that you really should have, and then link to a few suitable addons. Choosing the right ones is quite personal and will depend on how you want your UI set up - but you should consider using some addons to make healing as a resto druid a little more organised.

At the very least you should have good raid frames, and a way to time your HoTs, whether it is a bar-style tracker, or text timers. There are plenty of other addons that are great - but not necessarily essential. The below addon types are the basics.

For more druid addons, visit Curse.com's Druid section.

Macros

Here are some of the macros that I use, that you may find helpful. I don't have many; I mostly use the standard mouseover macro for all of my heals and cleanses.

The mouseover macro will first attempt to heal whoever you have your mouse on (either on frames, or on their character on the screen). If you don't have your mouse on someone, it will attempt to heal someone that you have targetted. If you don't have anyone targetted, it will heal you instead.

For more macro help:

Keybinds

See my article on keybinds - including suggestions and instructions.

Once upon a time, levelling as resto was seen as inefficient and perhaps a bit masochistic. Feral is still the fastest way to level solo, as you are not reliant on mana, which means much less downtime. But with the introduct of the Looking For Dungeon (LFD) system, new healers can now level mostly through dungeons, reducing the need to "grind" as a healer.

Talents

Here's my suggestion for how to spec from 1-80 if you're looking to level by healing in dungeons. Note: if you're going to be solo questing quite a bit, you might want to put more emphasis on some balance/damage dealing talents. Having a hybrid healing/DPS spec up to 40 won't hinder your healing ability much, but it will give you a little more power for the times that you are out questing. At 40 you can then take advantage of dual specs to have a pure healing spec and a solo/DPS spec.

But since more and more people are interested in how to spec resto all the way through low dungeons, here's what I would suggest.

You'll notice that I spec deep into the Resto tree before swapping back to Balance. While there are some great talents for healing early in the balance tree, by going deep resto you will get to the iconic and powerful healing talents as early as possible. That is, Nature's Swiftness at 30, Swiftmend at 40, Tree of Life at 50, and Wild Growth at 60.

You could choose a more balance-oriented spec, but personally I would aim for those instant life-saving spells ASAP, and to get to Wild Growth as early as possible, too. As much as I like talents like Nature's Splendor, having to wait 10 extra levels for Nature's Swiftness (for example) isn't what I want to do. But this is just my personal choice, of course.

Lvl   Talent Benefit 10 Improved Mark of the Wild 2/2 Improves your Mark spell and increases your attributes by 1% 11 12 Nature's Focus 3/3 Reduces pushback on a range of your spells. Good for soloing and in groups - but also needed to access the next tier. 13 14 15 Naturalist 5/5 Reduces your HT cast time - which is valuable for low level dungeons, as it will be your staple heal. 16 17 18 19 20 Omen of Clarity Clearcasting will save you a lot of mana, and save lives in groups when you're low on mana but can still heal if you get a clearcast proc. 21 Intensity 3/3 Regen - you'll want as much as possible at low levels! 22 23 24 Subtlety 1/3 Aggro isn't usually a big problem, but we need 1 point to get to the next tier. 25 Tranquil Spirit 1/5 This will save you a little mana, but again, mostly to get further into the tree. 26 Natural Shapeshifter 1/3 This is mostly for later, and to get to the next tier. 27 Improved Rejuvenation 3/3 Stronger Rejuvs. 28 29 30 Nature's Swiftness A life-saving ability! 31 Gift of Nature 5/5 Improves all of your healing spells - an obvious choice. 32 33 34 35 36 Empowered Touch 2/2 With HT your main heal in low level dungeons, this will boost it. Your spellpower may still be low, though, so it's not a huge boost - better than other options at this level, though. 37 38 Nature's Bounty 2/5 Boosts your Regrowth crit. 39 40 Swiftmend Another life-saver. 41 Living Spirit 3/3 Another regen booster. 42 43 44 Nature's Bounty 3/5 More Regrowth crit.		Lvl   Talent Benefit 45 Empowered Rejuvenation 5/5 Boosts all of your HoTs. Staple talent. 46 47 48 49 50 Tree of Life Hooray, you're a tree! 51 Improved Tree of Life 3/3 Converts your spirit to spellpower while in ToL. 52 53 54 Natural Shapeshifter 2/3 Need this to get further in the tree 55 Gift of the Earthmother 5/5 10% spell haste 56 57 58 59 60 Wild Growth Our iconic group heal! This will make groups a lot easier to heal. 61 Natural Shapeshifter 3/3 Need this to get to Master Shapeshifter 62 Master Shapeshifter 2/2 4% extra healing in ToL form 63 64 Genesis 5/5 Boosts HoTs and Tranquility by 5%. 65 66 67 68 69 Moonglow 3/3 Another mana saver for your main spells. 70 71 72 Nature's Majesty 2/2 More crit on your HT (while you wait for Nourish) 73 74 Nature's Splendor Extends the life of your HoTs - meaning more healing for fewer casts - and less mana 75 Nature's Grace 3/3 Gives you spell haste after you crit with a direct spell (at this level, HT, Swiftmend or Regrowth) 76 77 78 Either 2 more points in Nature's Bounty, or, if you need the mana, 2 points in Tranquil Spirit. 79 80 Go respec to a level 80 spec of your choice!

Gear

Glyphs

Tips and strategies

Here are some dungeon healing strats, in no particular order.

• Always take plenty of water to dungeons - you will need to drink a lot, especially if your party takes a lot of damage.


• If you can, take mana potions too. They can save the day. Make sure you always keep the strongest ones in your bag.


• Learn First Aid and don't be afraid to bandage your party instead of using your heals, in an emergency. I always try to conserve mana for the tank (and myself). If a DPS has taken damage, I top them up with a bandage, rather than using my mana. Just remember that you can't bandage someone who is still taking damage, so if they still have aggro or if they have a ticking debuff, a bandage won't work.


• Buff your party with Mark of the Wild, and your tank with Thorns also (don't put Thorns on yourself or other party members except the tank - if they pull aggro, you don't want Thorns making things worse).


• Start with a Rejuv and perhaps even a Regrowth before the tank pulls. Your HoTs will be fairly weak at low levels, but it's good to have them up. Once you get Swiftmend, you'll want at least a Rejuv up all the time, anyway. If you can, quickly sit and drink before he runs in, so that you can then run in with full mana.


• A HoT ticking on the tank as he runs into combat will not cause the mobs to aggro onto you, while you are out of combat. So it is best to set up your HoTs and then stand back out of combat (a perfect opportunity to drink) while the tank establishes aggro. If you immediately start bombing the tank with heals, you will probably pull the mobs off him.


• Fill in the gaps with HT. Try to get a feel for how much HT lands for, and wait for the tank to be missing that much damage before you heal him, so that you aren't wasting mana by overhealing.


• If your party takes damage, you can use Rejuvenation to top them up a small amount, or you can use Regrowth or Healing Touch to top them up if they are missing a chunk of health. Or, as mentioned above, you can use a bandage on someone who is no longer taking damage.


• Mana gets a lot easier at 40 when you get Innervate. But before then (or even after), if you happen to get a bear tank of 40+, don't be afraid to ask for his Innervate! It will help the group move faster.


• You'll get Tranquility at 30 - you can use this if more than one person is taking damage and you don't think you will be able to heal each of them in time.


• Once you get Barkskin at 44, use it whenever you pull aggro or you think you might pull aggro. It will reduce damage and prevent pushback while you heal - which could save the day. Get into the habit of hitting Barkskin whenever you get aggro or something bad happens. Later in your druid life it will be one of your most valuable abilities - so learning to use it on autopilot will really help you later.


• Don't stand in melee range to heal. You will get aggro much more easily in melee range than if you stand back (also, mobs sometimes cleave or do AOE attacks, so you don't want to be in close).


• If you do aggro something, never run away from the tank - run towards him, so that he can pick up the mob and save you! If the tank has to chase you, he probably won't be able to get the mob off you.


• If you do have aggro and you need the mob to stop hitting you so you can continue to heal, hit your Nature's Grasp spell, wait for it to root the mob/s, and then take a few steps away to continue healing. You can also do this to step away and bandage, if you are low on mana. Nature's Grasp and a bandage has saved my life many times.


• It may be tempting to use Entangling Roots on a mob to help out - but remember that if you root a mob next to someone, it will turn around and melee that person. Beware of rooting mobs next to clothies - they go splat.


• Don't forget to look for poisons and curses on your group and remove them promptly. You will be able to remove poisons at 14, and curses at 24.


• Nature's Swiftness paired with Healing Touch is a life-saving ability. Swiftmend is also extremely useful and on a fairly short cooldown. Don't think you have to "save" these for a special occasion - if someone is missing a lot of health, top them up fast with these instant spells.

Rolling Hots: A View from the Trees has a great guide for healing 1-80. I recommend reading it for a more in-depth explanation of strategies as you pick up your various abilities and talents.

Other resto guides
Restokin	How to heal in 3.3: Restoration PvE healing
Druid Heal!	Resto Druid Guide
Ensidia	Restoration Druid Guide: Part 1
WoW.com	Shifting Perspectives column
Theorycraft and math
Elitist Jerks	Resto PvE Compendium and General Discussion
The Druid Wiki	The Druid Wiki - Druid Game Mechanics
Druid Heal!	Resto Druid Guide