Restoration and You

[fiere redfern]

Though we only have a few resto druids in the guild, I thought I'd put this together to provide a baseline for potential restoration druids to look at. By no means should this be taken as gospel, this is just me thinking out loud and sharing what works for me.

Spec:

Restoration has a few different viable specs for raiding and PVP. The ones I'll go over are not the only specs available, but they'll at least give you a template to work off of.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0VhZZf0IubugVuAIst (8/0/61) (2)

The first, I feel, is pretty much the standard raiding spec with two points left over for wherever you'd like to put them. Just about all the non-HT talents are covered in restoration, and by virtue of being 80 we can have all those and still pick up a few of the restoration-oriented talents in the balance tree. These two talents, [spell=57814]Genesis[/spell] and [spell=16847]Moonglow[/spell] are very handy for trees, since they increase the amount of healing per tic and decrease the amount of mana used by two of our most-used spells by 9%.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0VG0uZZf0IubuxVuAust (14/0/57) (0)

This is my current build. I need to do some larger-scale testing with it to determine its real viability in raiding, but in healing five-mans and watching the proc's off random people in Dalaran, I kind of like it. The crit proc off of [spell=61346]Nature's Grace[/spell] is really nice when spam-healing a tank back up to full - I tend to not use HT at all (with the exception of being coupled with Nature's Swiftness), so my biggest heal hits for about 4k and 6k on a crit.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0VGMuVcohbZZf0IubuxVdN (30/0/41) (0)

I haven't had the opportunity to try this build, but on paper it -looks- viable as a dreamstate healing build. Something to mess around with in arenas, anyway, when the new season hits. I chose the talents in the balance tree that would give me mana regen and some of the +spellpower I'd lose by not having treeform, and still be able to get the enemy off my ass without too much of a problem. In the restoration tree, I took pretty much the same talents I would for the basic template. This spec could be tweaked to make you a boomkin with extra healing capabilities without too much of an issue, though I wouldn't recommend going the other direction.

Gear:

WotLK itemization just confuses me, really. Because of the change to spellpower and the "merger" of caster-dps and healing gear, we trees end up with a lot of stats that would normally make us scratch our heads and toss the gear in the "Do Not Use" pile. I'm looking at you, crit rating and haste.

Now, that said, I've come to appreciate the benefits crit and haste have given me. This doesn't mean you should gear for them exclusively, though.

The Breakdown:

• mp5 - mp5 is mana per five-second regeneration. It does not take into account the five-second rule* present for spellcasting that spirit regen does, it just sits there and quietly regenerates your mana pool. However, it is NOT affected by the spirit-based regen talents like [spell=34153]Living Spirit[/spell].
• Spirit - Spirit increases your mana regen outside of combat and out of the five-second rule*, as well as increases your spellpower.
• Spellpower - Spellpower increases the amount each heal heals for, so more spellpower means your heals will hit their targets for more.
• Intellect - Intel increases the size of your mana pool and adds to your crit.
• Crit Rating - Increases the chance a spell has to crit, which in turn affects procs like [spell=61346]Nature's Grace[/spell].
• Haste - Decreases the amount of cast time on spells/abilities. This is useful up to the 1-second softcap (342 or so with [spell=51179]Gift of the Earthmother[/spell] talented) determined by the GCD. Any more haste after the cap is useless because you won't be able to cast another spell until the GCD finishes.

*The five-second rule is the time it takes for your spirit-based regen to kick in after casting a heal. If you cast no spells for five seconds, then you will begin to regain mana based on your spirit. If you cast another spell within that time, however, you will continue to regain mana based on the "XXX mana restored while casting" value.

When starting out, your gear priorities should look something like this:

Spirit -> mp5 -> Spellpower -> Intellect -> Crit -> Haste

Spirit/mp5 should be looked at first. As a tree, you want enough spirit so that your Innervate grants you a full mana pool and mp5 so you're able to last through boss fights without running OOM midway through. After you've achieved those two goals, start gearing/gemming using Spellpower as your primary stat:

Spellpower -> Intellect -> Spirit -> mp5 -> Crit -> Haste

to make your heals more powerful and increase the size of your mana pool. It's a balancing act, but it'll make you a well-rounded healer in the long run.

Gemming:

When I am gemming gear, I look for a couple things:

• Do I need the socket bonus?
• What stats am I low on?

Resto socket bonuses are kind of hit or miss at the moment. Most of the gear I've found has either crit/haste (including the tier gear) or spirit as its bonus. While the haste and crit is alright, I wouldn't recommend gemming for them unless the gems you choose happen to fit the color combination out of coincidence. Do, however, try and pick up the +spirit bonuses. A little extra mana regen never hurt anyone. As for stats, look to your stat priorities and keep in mind a few rules. As far as gems go, spirit is ALWAYS preferable to straight mp5. If you're short mana regen in the rest of your gear, gem for spirit. Otherwise, go for spellpower where you can.

As far as gem recommendations go, here's a shortlist of what gems you should look for:

Meta
[item]Ember Skyfire Diamond[/item] - Just a good all-around gem. Increases your mana pool and the amount your heals hit for.
[item]Bracing Earthsiege Diamond[/item] - If you find yourself pulling aggro from heal tics frequently, this may be something to consider.

Primary Colors
[item]Sparkling Sky Sapphire[/item] - Great gem if you're looking for a regen boost.
[item]Brilliant Autumn's Glow[/item] - Boosts the size of your mana pool.
[item]Runed Scarlet Ruby[/item] - Preferable out of all the gems listed here, as long as you've hit a comfortable place with your mana regen.

Secondary Colors
[item]Seer's Forest Emerald[/item] - Of the green gems, if you're looking for a socket bonus, go for this one. Again, gemming for spirit is always preferable over gemming for straight mp5, and the only other spirit gem has haste on it. 
[item]Luminous Monarch Topaz[/item] - Again, for straight healing and socket bonuses, this is a great gem.
[item]Purified Twilight Opal[/item] - This gem won't be in the game until 3.0.8 goes live, so right now if you really really really want the socket bonus and don't feel like throwing something else in the slot, use [item]Royal Twilight Opal[/item].

Enchanting:

I'll round out this guide with a few things to keep in mind when looking at enchants:

- If you are a profession with soulbound enchants such as the Leatherworker's embossing or the Tailorer's embroidary, USE THEM. They are better than any of the generic enchants for their slots.
- Most of the high end enchants are -extremely- expensive with the state of the wow economy since the expac, while their lower level counterparts are exceedingly cheap and relatively easy to obtain. If you think you'll be replacing a piece of gear fairly quickly, go for the low-end enchant first.
- Keep in mind your stat priorities. If the gear you're using isn't giving you enough mp5 to get by on, enchant for spirit. Otherwise, where possible, enchant for spellpower.
- The exception to the idea above is the chestpiece. [spell=44623]Enchant Chest - Super Stats[/spell] and its higher level (+10 stats) counterpart are simply better than any of the other available healing enchants.

[Lynette]

Very nice guide, Fi.  Although I'm not new to healing, I am new to WoW druid healing - so this is good info for me.  I'll post my typical healing rotations for feedback, as I am always looking for ways to improve.

One thought that jumps out at me regarding itemization...Don't ignore stamina.  The extra health that comes with increased stamina can very well make the difference b/w a wipe and not.  Along those lines, I have chosen the +18 stamina enchant to shoulders right now since I am too lazy to grind Hodir faction to exalted and the alternatives are just not that impressive.