Resto Druid
Welcome to the Restoration(Resto) Druid Class Summary Page. This page will take you through all you need to know to get started as a Resto Druid and to educate you so that you can be the best Resto Druid Healer you can be, with links to different areas throughout the site so you can learn more. Hopefully you have already had a read through the Healing Class Summaries page to get an idea about all the available healers and their play styles and you’ve decided to go with the Resto Druid. Excellent! Read on…
Class Summary/Role
We covered the Resto Druid briefly in the Healing Class Summaries, which you have hopefully taken a glance at to get an idea of what you’re getting yourself into! But let’s go over the basics of a Resto Druid Healer and what is required of them.
Druids are connected to the natural order of things which makes Healing one of their favourite things to do. While they can play any role, one of the greatest aspects of Druid game play is Restoration (Resto) Healing. With the ability to shapeshift into multiple forms, including the healing-form, a Treant, the Resto Druid can quickly become a very fun class to play.
The Resto Druid play style has a strong emphasis on using Heals over Time, or, HoTs. These are different to cast-time or instant heals as they basically give your target a “rolling” buff that for a duration, which heals the target every few seconds (also known as “ticks”). This can be useful in many aspects, as you’re able to move around a lot and at the same time have many rolling HoTs on multiple targets.
Where a Resto Druid is great at HoTs, their cast-time heals are somewhat limited. This doesn’t mean they’re not a great healer, it’s just a different type of healing. This type of healing is often referred to as proactive healing, as opposed to reactive healing. This means that as a Resto Druid you need to be preparing for incoming damage, placing HoTs before damage occurs to that target while also being somewhat of a reactive healer as well. Being more proactive in your healing allows you to better prepare for larger bursts of damage to the group.
Your arsenal of spells includes multiple HoTs, such as Rejuvenation and Lifebloom. You have some cast-time heals such as Healing Touch and Regrowth (Regrowth includes a HoT as well). You also have some great utility spells such as Tranquility and talents such as Incarnation: Tree of Life, which turns you into a Tree momentarily and increases your healing power. Not only do you have all these abilities, but you can fulfil 3 other roles as the Druid class: Melee DPS (Feral), Tank (Guardian) or Ranged caster DPS (Moonkin/Boomkin). A very versatile class.
What Races can I play as a Resto Druid?
As a Resto Druid, the races that you can choose are limited as compared to the other classes. As a Horde, you can choose between Troll or Tauren. As Alliance, you can choose between Night Elf or Worgen. To find out what races you can play for all classes and the benefits of each, head over to the Race & Class Combinations page.
Spells
We take you through all the spells a Resto Druid will have in your arsenal once you hit level 100. We give you a quick run down of how to use each spell, what level you receive each spell and we give you a suggestion for the keybind for each spell.
Talents & Specs
We take you through the most important talents that you can take as a Resto Druid and provide you with a base talent selection that will work for almost all situations, giving you something to start from and grow your knowledge of your specialization.
How to Play
After leveling, choosing your talent specialization, learning what your talents do, learning what your spells do and have set up your key binds, it’s time to learn how to play. We cover buffing your group, spell priority and general gameplay.
Stat Priority
Now that you know how to play a Resto Druid, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty. Gear is dropping and it’s time to enhance it, but you’re not sure what stats you should focus on, so we’ll do our best to help.
Enchanting
A way of adding the stats you learnt about in the previous section by way of enchanting your gear and items. We take you through what are the best enchantments (depending on your budget) for you and your class.
Gemming
Another way of adding stats to your gear is by inserting gems into said gear which has empty sockets available. We’ll show you what gems you should go for, depending on what stats you already have and according to your budget.
Reforging
Reforging was a method used to adjust your stats by taking away stats you don’t need and putting those numbers into stats you have more need for. This has since been removed with the release of Warlords of Draenor.
Professions
Professions can provide your character items to craft & use and items to craft & sell. We’ll go through each profession and provide you with the benefits those professions can give your class.
Consumables
Consumables are elixirs and potions your character can drink (consume) to further enhance your healing ability, albeit for a limited time (usually 1 to 2 hours). We’ll show you the most beneficial consumables to increase your healing ability.
