WoW Resto Druid guide: Shadowlands covenant, races, talents, stats

❘ Published: 2022-01-21T23:26:09

Blizzard Entertainment

For those who want to be one with nature in World of Warcraft while keeping your raid alive, WoW’s Restoration Druid class can’t be beat.

World of Warcraft’s ever-expanding universe is filled to the brim with a whole host of different races and classes for you to try out.

One of these is the humble Druid, a caster with an unrivaled connection to nature and the ability to channel its rejuvenating properties to both heal allies and deal damage.

The most popular build path for this class though is the Restoration Druid, and we’ve put together a guide on how to become the best resto healer Azeroth has ever seen.

What is the Restoration Druid in WoW?
Best race
Talents build
Best stats
WoW Shadowlands: Best Covenant

What is the Restoration Druid in WoW?

Night Elves are the quintessential Druids in WoW.

There are a few different options for Druids in WoW, all depending on how you want to play the game. There’s the damage-dealing Balance druid (which also grants the awesome Moonkin form), DPS-focused Feral, and Guardian Bear Tanks. However, our focus for this guide will be the ol’ reliable Restoration Druid.

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Channeling the power of nature, Resto Druids are reliable healers that can keep raids alive and reactively handle multiple different kinds of damage, depending on what the raid throws out. Most Resto Druids spells have no cast time, which makes them a highly mobile class compared to other healers.

Best Races for Restoration Druid in WoW

If you want to go down this agile nature-loving path, you’ll be able to do so as one of these races:

Night Elf
Worgen
Tauren (includes Highmountain)
Troll (includes Zandalari)
Kul Tiran

Looking at the grand scheme of things, Night Elves are the best choice for Alliance Druids thanks to their Shadowmeld racial passive. For the Horde, Tauren and Trolls are the best choice. Tauren’s War Stomp and Endurance greatly increase survivability, while Troll’s Da Voodoo Shuffle greatly reduces the duration of slows.

Trolls are a great race to roll for Druid on the Horde side.

Best Talents for Resto Druid

As you progress throughout your WoW journey, you’ll very quickly start acquiring a whole host of new traits which, in turn, influence how you play out the game.

The generic best talent path that we’d recommend for the Restoration Druid is:

Talent	Level Acquired	Description
Abundance	15	For each Rejuvenation you have active, Regrowth’s cost is reduced by 6% and critical effect chance is increased by 6%.
Tiger Dash	25	Shift into Cat Form and increase your movement speed by 200%, reducing gradually over 5 sec.
Balance Affinity	30	Increases the range of all of your abilities by 5 yards. You also learn: Moonkin Form Starsurge Starfire Typhoon
Heart of the Wild	35	Restoration Affinity Restoration: Healing of your Restoration spells increased by 30%, and mana costs reduced by 50%
Soul of the Forest	40	Swiftmend increases the healing of your next Regrowth or Rejuvenation by 200%, or your next Wild Growth by 75%.
Spring Blossoms	45	Each target healed by Efflorescence is healed for an additional (21.6% of Spell power) over 6 sec.
Flourish	50	Extends the duration of all of your heal over time effects on friendly targets within 60 yards by 8 sec, and increases the rate of your heal over time effects by 100% for 8 sec.

You can swap out Balance Affinity for Guardian Affinity if you want the damage reduction instead of increased range, and access to bear form. Furthermore, you can also choose Incarnation: Tree of Life instead of Soul of the Forest for even more damage mitigation.

Restoration Druid: Best stats to level

As soon as you start accumulating more and more items, it becomes pretty easy to get overwhelmed with all of the different buffs that accompany them.

For Restoration Druid, the attributes you want to focus on maximizing are your Mastery, Haste, Versatility, and Critical Strike.

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Mastery: Harmony, awards additional healing to each target, while Haste decreases the cast time of spells that aren’t already instantaneous.

Versatility and Critical Strike provide great buffs to your healing output as well, with Critical Strike giving you the chance to dish out double healing with spells.

Restoration Druid: best Covenant in WoW Shadowlands

Night Fae is the way to go for Restoration Druids.

With WoW Shadowlands came the Covenant system. Each player has to select one of the game’s four different sects to join, each of which has added benefits for different players.

For Resto Druid, we recommend either joining the Night Fae or Venthyr Covenants:

Night Fae Druid ability: Convoke the Spirits – Channels a rapid fury of 16 Druid spells and abilities over 4 seconds.
Venthyr Druid ability: Ravenous Frenzy – Druid spells cast for 20 seconds increase damage and healing by 2% and Haste by 1% stacking.

Of these two, we recommend the Night Fae Covenant, as it is most effective when responding to incoming burst damage you’re most likely to encounter during raids in Shadowlands, especially in the Sanctum of Dominion.

So that’s it for the Restoration Druid in WoW Shadowlands! If you’re looking to throw out massive heals, this guide has everything you know to make a good start.

For more tips and tricks to help you become the best adventurer Azeroth has ever seen, check out our other guides: