*Patch 4.0 Guide*

This is a quick and dirty guide for how to heal in Patch 4.0.

This is for 4.0 ONLY, not a Cataclysm guide.

My Resto Druid Guide is still available, but much of the information will be incorrect once 4.0 hits. I am in the process of completely rewriting my guide for Cataclysm, but it is far from ready, so rather than re-write my guide in a hurry for 4.0 (which would be quite a big job), I’ve created this supplementary guide. I’ll be leaving my other guide up for now, but keep in mind that things like stats, specs and strategies will be dramatically different. I’ll be adding a disclaimer to my guide to make sure people come to the 4.0 mini-guide first and foremost. I don’t want people jumping into my guide in 4.0 and wondering why it’s all out of date info!

I do apologise that this isn’t terribly comprehensive – it is meant more as a quick-start guide for 4.0; the bigger and beefier guide will be released with Cataclysm.

And finally, it almost goes without saying, but this information is subject to change. Resto druids aren’t finished yet, so specs, abilities and strategies may be elastic between now and 4.0. I’ll try to keep it as up to date as I can so that when 4.0 hits, it will be accurate for you to use.

Additions and corrections are welcome.

Enjoy, such as it is!


Talent spec

At 85 we’ll have a few more points to play with, and so a little more flexibility to choose between specs – for example high regen, etc. For now though, we’re pretty restricted because we must spend 31 points in the resto tree before we can pick up any points in the other trees – meaning that we can’t get very far down at all.

There has been a lot of speculation regarding how much will change in 4.0 for us, and how much will stay the same. A lot rests on whether our Rejuv-centric style will persist, and if so, talents that are considered to be quite weak, such as Blessing of the Grove, will feature in the talent specs of min/maxing raiders, while core Cataclysm talents that work with Nourish and Healing Touch may actually be a big fat waste of points if we’re still barely using them.

It’s important to consider how much airtime a particular spell is going to get before you take talents to boost that spell. If, realistically, you’re still only ever using HT with your Nature’s Swiftness macro, then why waste time and talents bringing the cast time down? If you hardly used Nourish in 3.x, will you really get a chance to use it in 4.0? And so on.

So here are a few options, plus a few FAQs that have been asked.


1. General purpose
http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#00bZZrfzIdcbu0Go

All bases covered, you plan to use all of your different spells, you want Rejuv to stay strong (and have a 1.0s GCD). This is a good all-purpose build for raiding or dungeons, and is also good if you’re a tank healer, because it includes the Nourish abilities and maxes out your HoTs.

2. I’m crying out for more mana
http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#00bZcZMfzIuc0u0Go

If you run this spec you’ll need to refresh Lifebloom with Lifebloom (won’t be a huge leap) instead of Nourish. It drops Blessing of the Grove – so your Rejuvs will be slightly weaker. BotG is weakish, but if you want it, to max your Rejuvs, and think you won’t use Nourish/HT much, go for the next build.

3. My 4.0 raid healing strat is the same as 3.x, I don’t need Nourish/HT
http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#00bZcZrczIuc0u0Go

No Empowered Touch or Naturalist, which shouldn’t bother you if you’re not using Nourish or Healing Touch. Furor for mana and Blessing of the Grove to max out your Rejuvs.

4. My healing strat hasn’t changed, my mana is fine, gimme more survivability
http://cata.wowhead.com/talent#00bZZrcdIdc0uMGo

As with 3 above but ditches Furor and 1/3 Revitalize in favour of Nature’s Ward and 2/3 Perseverance.

—

Talent FAQs:

Why no Nature’s Cure?
Basically – up til this point we haven’t been required to remove magic debuffs, so I don’t think we need to worry about using a precious talent point to spec into doing it for the next two months. Other people in the raid usually have it covered. However, if you generally only run 5 mans OR smaller groups where you tend not to have magic dispellers, you might want to swap a point into it. For 25man raiders, I wouldn’t bother (unless your raid leader IS expecting you to start doing this job).

Is Gift of the Earthmother worth it taking? Will I ever be letting Lifebloom expire?
No, you’re generally not going to let Lifebloom expire on the tank, so the Lifebloom bloom part is not useful in PvE; but we will still be doing a lot of Rejuving in raid healing, so a 15% instant mini heal is going to be handy on fights where we “blanket” the raid with Rejuvs on people who are already at a health deficit (think Blood Queen).

Why are we taking 2/2 Swift Rejuvenation? I thought it was bugged?
It is bugged and doesn’t stack with your haste, meaning that you must either take 0/2 or 2/2, or you’re basically gimping your Rejuv GCD. As above, since we’re still going to be doing a lot of Rejuving, reducing your Rejuv to a 1sec GCD is going to be valuable, and after doing a lot of reading and a lot of navel gazing I have swapped my stance from SR being pointless to SR being good if you’re out to min/max your healing, so I’ll be including it in my build.

Why no Malfurion’s Gift? I thought it was great for mana?
I’ve skipped Fury of Stormrage + Malfurion’s Gift as a lot of people on the PTR say that mana at 80 is still not an issue. It also relies on you being able to cast non-instant spells fairly regularly, otherwise the Clearcasting procs are wasted. There’s no point having a million Clearcasting procs if you don’t have the need/chance to cast as many direct spells. No doubt in 4.0 we will be casting Regrowth and Nourish a little more, but probably not as much as at 85.

What’s the deal with haste now?
The new haste level to aim for is 1015 (assuming raid buffs) in order to cram an extra Rejuv tick into the duration. Stacking haste is not about getting as many HoTs on as many people, as it was before – now it is about hitting certain break points to allow your HoTs to squeeze in extra ticks, which means extra bang for your mana buck. Go read Rank4HT’s haste info for a quick explanation on this. Type “H” for Heals explains how Haste will work with HoTs.

What spec will you run with?
Probably (3) until I feel my mana is still limitless, and then I would swap to (4).

(1) is a safe starting point for most people, and (2) is good for those with some residual mana issues.


Abilities/Talent changes to keep in mind

Tree of Life is now a buff, not a passive form. It is a 30 second buff with a 3 minute cooldown, which boosts your healing by 15%, armor by 120%, makes you immune to Polymorph and enhances some of your spells:

• Lifebloom: allows an unlimited number of Lifebloom targets.
• Wild Growth: allows an extra two targets to receive WG.
• Regrowth: instant-cast.
• Entangling Roots: instant-cast, damage increased by 200%.
• Wrath: cast-time reduced by 50%, damage increased by 30%

Mark of the Wild is now party/raid-wide, and costs no reagent. Gift of the Wild no longer exists. Be aware that Blessing of Kings will overwrite Mark of the Wild.

Thorns is no longer a weak shield-like buff that you cast before combat and then refresh after 10 minutes (or an hour, with glyph). It is now a 20 second buff on a 45 second cooldown, and does considerably more damage. Handy for throwing on a tank at the beginning of a pull so that whatever hits him will stick.

All healers now have three heals: fast/expensive, moderate healing but efficient, and big hp but expensive. In our case, Regrowth is our fast heal – changed to a 1.5s base cast, and the HoT reduced to 6 seconds (3 ticks). Nourish is our okay-but-cheapish heal, and is now a 3s base cast (before talents/haste). Healing Touch is our punchy but expensive heal.

To reiterate, Regrowth is now a 1.5s cast heal with a 6 second HoT.

Rejuvenation is now a 12 second HoT.

Wild Growth is now on a 10 second cooldown.

Hot ticks can crit.

Haste shortens the time between HoT ticks, but does not reduce the total duration (ie, adding extra haste will squeeze extra ticks into your HoT duration: free extra ticks).

If talented into Efflorescence, Swiftmend now produces an Efflorescence puddle 8 yards wide, at the foot of the target, healing anyone inside the circle over 7 seconds. This can be used for tank or raid healing. Swiftmend also no longer varies in its healing according to whether it consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth; it is now a set amount.

We no longer have Cure Poison, Abolish Poison or Remove Curse. Instead, we have Remove Corruption, which removes 1 Curse, 1 Poison, and (if you spec into Nature’s Cure) 1 Magic debuff. So you need to be aware that we no longer simply remove poisons and curses – we have to watch for dispellable magic debuffs also.

Rebirth can only be used once every 30 minutes, and once used, puts all of the Rebirths in the raid on cooldown. That is, all druids in a group share the same 30 minute cooldown.

Omen of Clarity and Insect Swarm are now trained abilities, not talents.

Tranquility now heals 5 nearby lowest health party or raid targets within 30 yards, rather than being group-specific. It has changed to a heal+hot, but must still be channelled.

Lifebloom can only be put onto a single target at a time, other than while you are in ToL form. Lifebloom no longer returns mana when it blooms, which means there is no point in using the current strategy of stacking and allowing it to bloom for better efficiency. Lifebloom lasts 10 seconds.

Nourish refreshes Lifebloom if you are specced into Empowered Touch.

Restoration druids now bring Replenish to their groups, when specced into Revitalize.




Raid buff changes to keep in mind
(Thanks Shelendil for suggesting this addition)

Spirit: Divine spirit removed, spirit component of Mark/Kings removed
Intellect: Mark/Kings 5% buff instead of 10%, AI now buffs mana instead of int
Haste: Stacking 3% haste from ret aura removed BUT Moonkin is now 5%. Wrath of Air Totem remains 5%.
Healing aura: 6% from ToL or Imp Dev Aura removed
Armor: Stoneskin and dev aura no longer stack (less armor for tanks)

Kings also overwrites Mark of the Wild.




Stats

Spellpower will now only exist on caster weapons; all other sources of spellpower have been converted to Intellect. For example, all of your Runed Cardinal Rubies will turn to Brilliant Cardinal Rubies. MP5 is also being removed; Spirit will be our regen stat. Just as we prioritised spellpower before, we will prioritise intellect in 4.0. Intellect also gives regen through Revitalize/Replenishment.

Mastery has been added; the resto druid mastery is Symbiosis, which increases your healing when you heal targets that already have one or more of your HoTs on them. Mastery is another stat that you will see on gear, just like Intellect, Crit, etc. The more Mastery you have, the more effect your Symbiosis will have.

Haste speeds our ticks up, shortening the time between them, but the duration stays the same; and since we will be casting a lot more direct heals, haste is important. So even though in Cataclysm there will apparently be less emphasis on being GCD-locked, haste will still be valuable. We have also lost a chunk of haste through changes to GotEM, changes to other buffs, and the loss of Celestial Focus as a haste option. Type “H” for Heals explains how Haste will work with HoTs.

Crit is a lot more desirable now, as our HoTs have the ability to crit when they tick. Regrowth (our quick heal) has high crit stitched in through talents; but our other HoTs also benefit from taking crit on our gear now. Crit direct heals mean bigger Living Seeds and Efflorescence healing. Basically, Crit is no longer the red-headed step child of our stats.

Note: while Mastery is going live with 4.0, I’m don’t think we actually see any Mastery on items until Cataclysm (correct me if I am wrong – although we might be able to reforge small amounts onto our gear?), so our general stat priority would be:

Tank healing

• Intellect – top priority
• Spirit – longevity
• Mastery – boosted healing by default whenever you have a HoT on the tank
• Haste – gives extra HoT ticks plus faster Nourishes/Healing Touches
• Crit – crit ticks, crit heals, bigger Living Seeds, bigger Efflorescence ticks

Raid healing

• Intellect – top priority
• Spirit – longevity
• Haste – faster top-ups (more/faster HoT ticks, faster direct heals)
• Crit – faster top ups (crit ticks/heals, bigger Efflorescences
• Mastery – boosted healing (but not as reliable as with tank healing)

If you find that at 80 and in current content that your mana is still excellent, then you could consider Reforging spirit off your items for Haste, Crit, and presumably Mastery.

Remember also that if you wear all leather pieces, you’ll get a bonus 5% Intellect (mana & spellpower). So you might want to go through your items and check what your 4.0 set will look like; if you have cloth items you should consider what you can replace them with, so that you don’t miss out on +5% intellect.

For more information on Cataclysm stat changes, visit the Cataclysm forums.


Runed Cardinal Ruby becomes Brilliant Cardinal Ruby
Reckless Ametrine becomes Reckless Ametrine
Luminous Ametrine becomes Brilliant Cardinal Ruby?
Purified Dreadstone becomes Purified Dreadstone
Quick King’s Amber is unchanged.

Ember Skyflare Diamond becomes Ember Skyflare Diamond
Insightful Earthsiege Diamond is unchanged.
(WTB math on IED’s mana return vs ESD’s 2% mana, considering Replenishment etc, reduced number of spells being cast)

So – if you were gemming with Runed, Reckless, and Purified, you don’t need to do anything.

If you are using the Insightful meta and were using all Luminous Ametrines in your yellow sockets, you will need to swap in a Reckless Ametrine somewhere, because the Luminous Ametrines will become rubies and so you won’t be filling the yellow requirement for the meta gem.

Buy your replacement gems before 4.0 hits to avoid the rush and the inevitable gouge-fest.



Spellpower enchants on armor/weapons appear to be unchanged, eg gloves.

Spellpower/mp5 head/shoulder enchants are now Intellect/Spirit; Spellpower/Crit seems to still be Spellpower/Crit (this may not be intended)

If your mana is not an issue in 4.0 you should change to the Crit versions for HoT crits, bigger Living Seeds, bigger Efflorescences, etc.



Glyphs become learned when you use them, so you will be able to change glyphs between encounters without carrying extras with you. You’ll need a reagent to do this though – Vanishing Powder. Still, it’s better than carrying a bunch of different glyphs with you and having to destroy them!

Glyph slots unlock as follows:
* Level 25 – 1 Prime, 1 Major, 1 Minor
* Level 50 – 1 Prime, 1 Major, 1 Minor
* Level 75 – 1 Prime, 1 Major, 1 Minor

- this means that at 80 we will have access to all 9 slots.


Prime

Glyph of Lifebloom – must-have

Glyph of Swiftmend – Important because having a HoT stay on the target will buff our other heals through Symbiosis (Mastery), and if there are other druids in the raid, they can also Swiftmend your same target for another Efflorescence HoT.

Glyph of Rejuvenation – not bad, Rejuv will still do a fair bit of our healing, so this glyph is useful.

Glyph of Regrowth – might be ok for 4.0 while people still drop low; may be weak in Cataclysm depending on how often targets are allowed to drop under 25%.

My choice: Lifebloom, Swiftmend, Rejuvenation.


Major

Glyph of Healing Touch – obviously only useful if you are speccing into NS!

Glyph of Innervate – Team up with another druid and swap innervates for extra mana.

Glyph of Rebirth – Players resurrected by Rebirth are returned to life with 100% health.

Glyph of Wild Growth – same as before – WG can hit up to 6 targets.

Glyph of Entangling Roots – makes your roots instant-cast. Handy for times when you may be expected to CC mobs.

Glyph of Thorns – if you can spare the GCDs for this, it’s a good glyph, but I think it would be of more use in instances or on trash – I don’t think we’ll really have the spare GCDs in 4.0 to use it every 25 seconds in raiding.

My choice: Wild Growth, Rebirth, Innervate
Note: my choices in Cataclysm will be different, I am modelling these choices off 4.0 content. Entangling Roots is a nice glyph, but we don’t need to CC often in current content, so I don’t think there’s a need to take it. As above, I don’t think we’ll have room to use Thorns every 25 seconds, a 45 second cooldown is adequate. I don’t really need the Innervate glyph as mana shouldn’t be a problem, but when I give away my Innervate then a free mini-top up is nice.


Minor

Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth – never be caught without reagents again!

Glyph of the Wild

(plus one extra – there are no more resto-relevant glyphs)



Some reminders:

Make sure your proc cooldowns are obvious. You’ll want to keep an eye on things like Tree of Life time remaining/cooldown, Clearcasting procs (to use intelligently with your expensive spells), Nature’s Grace, Swiftmend, Nature’s Swiftness, etc.

Don’t forget to have your frames show Magic debuffs from now on.

Bind your CC abilities as well as Thorns, as they will be getting more use in the future.



From WoWiki:

Reforging (also called thaumaturgy) is currently being developed in Cataclysm which allows undesired stats on gear to be exchanged for more useful stats. As of June 2010, reforging allows 40% of a secondary stat (such as critical strike, dodge, haste, hit or parry rating) or spirit to be exchanged for another secondary stat or spirit, and reforging is handled by NPCs known as Thaumaturges located in the major cities. The cost of reforging an item is equal to its’ sale value. As of the Blizzcon 2009, stats could only be exchanged for other stats which were not already on the gear, it is unclear if this restriction remains.

You can reforge:
* Critical Strike Rating
* Dodge Rating
* Expertise Rating
* Haste Rating
* Hit Rating
* Mastery Rating
* Parry Rating
* Spirit

You cannot reforge:

* Agility
* Intellect
* Stamina
* Strength

For more information on Reforging, visit WoWiki.



Spamming a 5+1 Rejuv/Wg rotation is no longer possible. WG is now on a 10 second cooldown, for a start, but Rejuv is also shorter in duration and more expensive. However, our mana at 80 is still almost endless in ICC gear, so “blanketing” with Rejuv is still a common tactic. You just won’t be able to cover as many people (unless you were a Rapid Rejuv user, like I was, then it won’t be much different).

Lifebloom can only be placed on a single person. It should be kept on the tank at all times, regardless of your assignment, as it feeds us with Omen of Clarity and Revitalize procs, through talents. Be careful not to put Lifebloom on a non-tank as this will strip your tank’s LB off. Unless of course you are in ToL form, in which case you can apply LB to unlimited targets. Use Nourish to refresh your tank’s Lifebloom stacks.

Regrowth is our “flash heal” – fast, but expensive. Use it to get someone out of danger quickly, but don’t “spam” it, or you will go out of mana quickly.

Omen of Clarity’s Clearcasting procs can only be used on your direct healing spells – Regrowth, Nourish, Healing Touch and Swiftmend. Keep an eye on your procs and use them for your expensive spells – Regrowth and Healing Touch – where you can, to save maximum mana.

During ToL, place Lifeblooms on as many targets as you can, for raid healing, and to dramatically increase your Clearcasting procs from Malfurion’s Gift. Whenever you get a Clearcasting proc, you can use it to throw a direct healing spell as needed.

Swiftmend’s Efflorescence effect (if talented) can either be used for extra tank healing (as a potent HoT on the tank over 7 seconds) or for raid healing, particularly in encounters where the raid is stacked up. If your tank stands in range of the melee, you can also Swiftmend him and get “free” healing on the melee members.


Tank healing

• Keep Lifebloom on the tank at all times.
• Refresh LB with Nourish if the tank needs healing; otherwise refresh with LB (cheaper/faster).
• Keep Rejuvenation up.
• Direct heal with Nourish and Healing Touch.
• Use Regrowth as a “flash heal” if the tank dips low
• Add Swiftmend if required, particularly if the Efflorescence HoT will be valuable.

Raid healing

• Keep Lifebloom up on the tank at all times; refresh with Lifebloom (it’s faster/easier than Nourish).
• Do not “blanket” the raid with pre-HoTs, but you can do it for aura damage fights.
• You can pre-HoT intelligently – ie, if you believe someone is about to be hit.
• Use Regrowth on single critical targets, follow with Rejuv and/or Nourish as necessary.
• Use Rejuv to top up non-critical single targets.
• Use WG to top up small damage over several people in a wide area.
• Use Swiftmend/Efflorescence for greater damage in a smaller area.
• Use Tranquility for heavy damage over the raid.
• Use Lifebloom ONLY during ToL.
• Try not to use Nourish on un-HoTted targets as it is weak/slow.

In Cataclysm with larger health pools and more heals required to top people up, healing a critically injured player will probably be through Regrowth to get them out of danger and place a small HoT on them, Rejuv to get an extended HoT on them so that your subsequent 12 seconds of direct healing benefits from Mastery PLUS Nourish has two HoTs (Regrowth & Rejuv) to start with, for strongest healing, then at least one HoT (Rejuv) to continue topping up. Regrowth (Swiftmend as desired), Rejuv, Nourish (repeat Nourishes or use HT as required).

In 4.0 though, at 80, we’ll still have relatively small health pools, so I think we’ll have little chance or need to bomb critical targets with a string of direct heals. In which case I think that we’ll just need to Regrowth to get them out of danger, then either Rejuv if they no longer need urgent healing, Nourish if they need healing fairly quickly, OR both Rejuv+Nourish if they need more healing, relatively urgently.

Honestly though I think that in 4.0 in current contact, by the time you send out a Regrowth, a Rejuv and/or a Nourish, plus other healers do their thing, there won’t be much health to be topped up. Your mileage may vary according to the encounter, your healing team, the raid size, etc etc.

Want more numbers? Head to Elitist Jerks.
Looking for other 4.0 druid resources? Restokin has a list.

Thank you to everyone who has linked this guide – particularly on your guild websites etc. I can see links coming in from all over the place and I really appreciate it!



Fixed typos and some small mistakes – thanks readers!
Removed a line about reforging as it was incorrect.

1/10 Added extra info on Mark of the Wild, Rebirth.
1/10 Added suggestion to reforge Spirit off if you have plenty of mana.
1/10 Added suggestion to buy glyphs/gems ahead of the patch.

2/10 Split specs into an all purpose and a more-mana build. In particular I have dumped FoS/MG because bulk OoC procs are probably not going to be able to be used as much at 80 (because of less need for direct heals) than at 85 – so 4 points for a hit-and-miss mana saving ability is not economical.

2/10 added link to Type “H” For Heals’ explanation of haste + HoTs.

12/10 changed Swift Rejuv info and talent specs. Added raid buff changes section