Restoration Druid Guide for The War Within - Dragonflight 10.2.7 (2024)

Last updated on Jun 18, 2024 at 10:00by Torty67 comments

Welcome to our War Within expansion guide for Restoration Druid.Ahead of launch, this page will contain everything you need to know about theRestoration Druid spec in the forthcoming The War Within expansion,including changes, Hero Talent Trees, and some light predictions on the stateof the spec going into the expansion.

This page is a constantly evolving work in progress, with regularchanges expected as updates hit the War Within beta. This is not meant to bea launch guide for Restoration Druid, but instead serves as aresource for you to keep up to date with how the spec is evolving on Beta, andwhat you can expect from its playstyle and feel on launch.

Restoration Druid has received some significant changes to theclass tree. We can now pick almost all damage talents while picking prettymuch all defensive options on top. There are some quality of-life changes,where certain talents no longer require multiple points. 15% movement speedis now a one-pointer in the second tier, which means we can pretty muchalways pick it. The damage reduction talents now require less points and wecan pick more damage reduction on Barkskin. We also completelylose access to Moonkin Form.

There are some decent changes in the spec tree too. We can no longer pickboth Photosynthesis and Flourish since they share the nodenow. In most situations we will probably pick Flourish in raids and Photosynthesisin dungeons. Adaptive Swarm is completely gone. So is Luxuriant Soil( Rejuvenation spread talent). In compensation for this, we gotsignificant Rejuvenation buffs.

The War Within has major implications for all specs thanks to the HeroTalent Tree system, new tier sets, and the natural reduction in secondarystats when entering a new expansion.

Restoration Druid gets to choose between the Keeper of the Groveand Wildstalker Hero Talent Trees. In sections below, we will talk moredeeply about the implications of these Hero Talent Trees for the spec, and somethoughts on what looks strong and weak ahead of launch.

Gameplay-wise, this tree provides completely passive bonuses. The onlysomewhat active choice you will have to make is to cast Regrowthevery 10 seconds to keep 8% Crit buff. There are a lot of damage and defensivetalents in this tree that provide no healing benefit. It is hard to imagineit working well for us in raids unless all the healing nodes receivesignificant buffs. For Mythic+ it also relies on Cat form to providemost damage benefits.

Power-wise, it is currently undertuned and impossible to play around. Mostextra HoTs proc on random targets, the healing gain is very smooth and notbursty at all.

Defensively, it only provides extra self-healing, which is somewhat bad forRestoration Druid, since we already have a ton of it.

Overall, a weird choice for Restoration. It does not play into our strengths,does not have good numbers, and does not fill any meaningful niche we aremissing.

Keeper of the Grove Hero Tree Talents are primarily based on Grove Guardians.You will have to pick both of the talents in the spec tree for this to workat all. Although, you would have picked them because they are too strongcompared to competition.

Gameplay-wise, this talent tree provides a major shift into how you willwant to use Grove Guardians. You will no longer be able to just usethem whenever. Each active treant will provide you with a stacking 3% healingbuff and stacking 5% buff to Rejuvenation, Efflorescence, and Lifebloom on top.This increases the power of our burst windows significantly.

There is also a very nice new hero talent called Control the Dream. Itsubtracts cooldown from some of your spells ( Nature's Swiftness, Incarnation: Tree of Life, Convoke the Spirits) by up to 15seconds, if they were off cooldown before being used. Crucially, this worksfor the first cast of the raid encounter too. This has a potential to makehealing CD assignments a lot more interesting.

Power-wise, this tree is in a good spot, because it adds healing to ourburst windows. There is not much more to ask, except for it being tied tostationary pets. You might lose quite a bit of healing if raid movementis needed, while your Grove Guardians are left behind out of range.Your treants will also cast Moonfires when spawned, adding some free damagewith no input from you.

Defensively, it is not very exciting. There is only one defensive talentand it makes you take 8% less damage while having a Regrowth HoT up.Definitely not bad, but rather boring.

Below are the Tier Set Bonuses for Restoration Druid in The WarWithin. After the wording of the bonus, you will find a brief note/commentarythat is italicized.

• Druid Restoration 11.0 Class Set 2pc — Regrowth, Wild Growth, and Swiftmend healing increased by 10%.Not much to say here, passive increase to our healing.
• Druid Restoration 11.0 Class Set 4pc — Your healing is increasedby 8% when consuming Soul of the Forest's bonus and for6 seconds afterward. This bonus while not very strong in total, providesyet another multiplier to our burst windows.

Both set bonuses are completely passive and are not expected to have anygameplay impact. You will play exactly as you played without them.

The set bonus is numerically somewhat weak. With current tuning we gain~4-5% for both bonuses combined. However, so are all the otherhealer set bonuses, quite a few of them are significantly worse.