Restoration Druid Mythic+ Dungeon Guide

Restoration Druid Mythic+ Guide

World of Warcraft Guide Patch 11.1.5

Pros/Cons

Pros & Cons

Tier: B

Pros

High, sustained single-target damage. Decent AoE.
Offers variety and engaging gameplay with Cat weaving.
Great party buff in Mark of the Wild granting additional Versatility to your party.
Utility spells like Rebirth, Ursol’s Vortex, Stampeding Roar, Incapacitating Roar.

Cons

Can be difficult to play
Highly GCD dependent with a HoT based class, including a lot of things to track.
High Skill Ceiling, several tricks you can do with druid such as soaking big burst damage by quickly swapping bear form.

Talents

Talent Calculator

Import: CkGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAshZGLmZmZmFz2MDYZhtFbzAAAAAAAAAAAAYZQzGMZYGjZxsMzYZGzMDAAAAAAAMGAACAAY2mZbmlZ2shZGYMzCoB

How To Play Restoration Druid

Overview

Healing as a Restoration Druid is all about preparation. Your strength comes from layering Heal-over-Time (HoT) effects across your group or raid and enhancing them with well-timed cooldowns. When executed properly, this creates powerful healing windows that can carry your team through intense damage phases.

Healing Style

Restoration Druids rely on a proactive healing style. You’ll be constantly placing HoTs like Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, and Efflorescence, while planning your big cooldowns around moments of high incoming damage. The key is to keep your most efficient abilities active as much as possible and use stronger cooldowns for planned damage events.

Cooldown Coordination

Restoration Druids have several impactful cooldowns. These include:

To get the most out of them, plan their usage around high-damage mechanics. Use cooldowns proactively, not reactively—don’t save them “just in case.” They are most effective when they prevent deaths rather than respond to them.

Mana Management

Mana is a limited resource for Restoration Druids, and your healing efficiency depends on how well you manage it. Here are a few key tips:

Use Rejuvenation primarily during high-damage periods. Avoid spamming it aimlessly during lulls.
Master Shapeshifter can help regenerate mana; alternate between heavy healing and regeneration phases.
Cast Wrath during downtime to conserve mana and generate some return.
Use Innervate before a planned burst of Rejuvenation casts to make the most of your free-casting window.

Understanding Ramps

One of the most important concepts in Restoration Druid healing is the ramp. A ramp is a planned sequence of spells leading up to a burst of healing output. It has two main phases:

Build-Up Phase

Refresh Efflorescence
Begin casting Rejuvenation across the raid roughly 10–15 seconds before expected damage
Prepare cooldowns like Flourish, Grove Guardians, and Incarnation: Tree of Life

Payoff Phase

Cast Swiftmend into Wild Growth (for a boosted Soul of the Forest effect)
Drop Grove Guardians (off-GCD, cast rapidly)
Use Flourish to extend all HoTs
Use Regrowth spam while buffed by Abundance—these will be nearly free and extremely fast due to Wildwood Roots

This cycle delivers massive healing during critical moments, and understanding how to execute it well is key to mastering the spec.

Tranquility Usage

While Tranquility is a powerful healing spell, it functions a bit differently from other cooldowns. It’s best used on its own rather than stacked with other abilities like Flourish. A few active HoTs and a recent Wild Growth are enough to make it impactful. Its main value often comes from providing cooldown reduction through talents rather than raw healing output.

Rotation Priority

Keep two Lifebloom‘s active as much as possible (This is possible thanks to Undergrowth).
Continue to place Efflorescence on the ground.
Keep people topped with general HoTs. HoTs for the most part should be able to sustain current health pools.
Use Grove Guardians if healing is required (one charge for some rot damage, all 3 charges for burst healing).
Cast Regrowth with any Omen of Clarity Procs, and snipe health pools with Swiftmend + Regrowth.
Sunfire packs of mobs and Moonfire some of them.
Auto Shift into Cat Form via Rake/Shred (thanks to Fluid Form) and Thrash, then Swipe during AoE, if you have some spare GCD after your Sunfire and Moonfire.
In Single Target, Rake (ideally in stealth thanks to Prowl before an encounter, but be careful on small mobs since it will stun them and can spread them from the rest of the pack)
Keep going with Shred to grind your Combo Points.
Apply Rip at 5 Combo, if not present, or if duration < 10 seconds.
Otherwise, you can use Ferocious Bite at 50 energy!
When your energy is depleted, and your Cat DoTs applied, time to refresh Moonfire & Sunfire, and throw some healing abilities if needed before going back to Cat Form (via Rake/Shred).

Tier Set

Roots of Reclaiming Blight

2-Set: Your spells have a chance to add the Insurance HoT to players, healing them over 15 seconds. If they drop low they’re instantly healed and the HoT is consumed.
4-Set: When Insurance expires or is consumed it adds a free Resto Druid HoT to your target. It’ll prioritize Rejuvenation > Germination > Regrowth > Wild Growth depending on what’s missing. Lifebloom has a 30% chance when it blooms to add Insurance to the target.

General Tips

Maintain High Uptime on Core Abilities

Keep spells like Efflorescence, Swiftmend, and Wild Growth on cooldown as much as possible. Prioritize maintaining Efflorescence in stacked groups for maximum healing efficiency.

Use Major Cooldowns Strategically

Coordinate powerful cooldowns like Flourish, Incarnation: Tree of Life, and Tranquility with your team. Don’t hold them unnecessarily—use them often for effective healing and mana value.

Mana Management

Time mana-heavy spells like Rejuvenation for periods of high incoming damage, and follow with regeneration phases. Make use of Master Shapeshifter and Innervate to sustain your mana over long fights.

Stat Priority

Haste: Increases attack speed and spell casting speed. This also applies to pets.
Critical Strike: Chance for extra effectiveness on attacks and heals (double damage/healing).
Mastery: Increases the effectiveness of Mastery Harmony.
Versatility: Increases damage and healing, and reduces damage taken.

1. Intellect- As with all specs, main stat will be top priority.

2. Haste- Haste increases spell speed, adds extra HoT ticks, and reduces the global cooldown, making it very valuable. While traditional haste breakpoints are mostly outdated due to partial ticks, Haste still improves healing efficiency—especially with Rejuvenation stacking and Flourish synergy. Also, Druids receive a free 6% multiplicative Haste that bypasses diminishing returns.

3. Mastery- Mastery: Harmony increases your healing based on the number of HoTs on a target, making it highly valuable—especially during healing ramps and in small group content. Even a single HoT boosts healing, and its impact grows with more HoTs active. Note: This is not all of your healing that is increased, just healing done to that specific target.

4. Critical Strike – Pretty Straight forward, double effectiveness for a healing spell. Since we have so many healing ticks going out per second, you will critical strike a lot.

5. Versatility – Flat damage & damage reduction, good for higher key survivability if needed.