Restoration Druid

Is Restoration worth levelling?

Viable but the slowest of the four, and the source says so without hedging: "While it is very possible to level as a healing spec like Restoration Druid, it will result in a much longer journey than levelling as Feral or Balance instead. You will be very hard to kill, but our damage is just too low to do the job efficiently. If you're open to the other specs, then it can be best to level as one of those, and you can still heal dungeons while you level if you like."

Take that advice literally. Level Feral, respec to Restoration when you want to heal. Druid respeccing costs the same as anyone's.

Your talent points

Level 20 — 11/0/0, and there are genuinely two different builds depending on what you are doing.

Dungeon healing — and two sources publish this exact same eleven points independently:

1. Nature's Focus, 5 points
2. Naturalist, 5 points
3. Gift of the Earthmother at 20

The stated trade: "This build will forgo Improved Wrath so that it can get Gift of the Earthmother at Level 20 — a massive increase to how responsive our Rejuvenation is."

Solo and world content: Nature's Focus 5 / Genesis 5 / Nature's Reach 1 — five points in a Balance row-1 talent for damage and downtime. ⚠ That page's prose names Improved Wrath where its own calculator encodes Genesis. Both sit in the same row; treat either as the intended solo pick.

A third published build takes Nature's Focus 5 / Naturalist 3 / Natural Shapeshifter 3 and no Gift of the Earthmother at all.

The warning attached to the dungeon build is fair: "You can definitely heal dungeons 100% fine with the World Content build… this alternative will be much worse at killing enemies by yourself."

Level 30 — 21/0/0. Two published builds, and they disagree on whether to keep Gift of the Earthmother: one takes Reflection 3 · Gift of Nature 5 · Swiftmend 1 plus 2 Feral points and drops it; the other keeps it and adds Improved Rejuvenation 3 and Nature's Swiftness 1.

Healing priority

Level 20:

1. Pre-cast Thorns on the tank before the run starts
2. Rejuvenation on the tank and anyone taking light damage
3. Healing Touch to top up
4. Spare global cooldowns → Wrath or Moonfire on the boss

Level 30:

1. Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch as your instant emergency
2. Tranquility for party-wide damage
3. Swiftmend as the instant spot heal
4. Blanket Rejuvenation ahead of damage you know is coming
5. Regrowth on tanks; Regrowth or Healing Touch single-target

Three rules that will catch you out:

• Wild Growth is not an eligible effect for Swiftmend — a tank with only Wild Growth ticking is not prepared
• Swiftmend heals for the full periodic duration of one eligible effect, not merely the ticks left on its timer — and in Forever it no longer consumes the effect
• Gift of the Earthmother does not shorten Swiftmend's own 15-second cooldown

Multi-target: Tranquility at 30 is your only party-wide heal until Wild Growth at 40. Before that, pre-blanket Rejuvenation — and Gift of the Earthmother's 1-second global cooldown is precisely what makes that affordable.

Stat priority

Healing Power and Spell Power equally, then Intellect, Spirit, critical strike, Haste.

"Intellect decides how long you can keep casting, Spirit how quickly the bar refills once you stop. Stamina counts for very little here, and spell damage for nothing." One published list puts Haste third instead — that disagreement is unresolved, and note that healing over time does not scale with haste at all. There are no haste breakpoints for it.

Item level first while levelling: take the higher piece.

What defines Restoration

What Forever changed for Restoration

• Wild Growth and Gift of the Earthmother are both new, and Swiftmend no longer consumes its trigger. Together that is the "modern Resto" rework.
• Wild Growth follows the target's party, not the raid's lowest health bars. Stated explicitly so you do not treat it as smart healing.
• Healing over time can now critically strike — "Rejuvenation can now land critical hits, as can Tranquility and Wild Growth", per the September 24 patch. One guide's FAQ is stale on this and still says only Regrowth can crit.
• Three new talents: Gift of the Earthmother, Living Spirit and Wild Growth, plus Reflection rebuilt — 50% of mana regeneration continues while casting at 3/3, where Classic's 3/3 gave 15%.
• Naturalist now also grants +5% to all your damage at 5/5, where Classic only cut Healing Touch's cast time — which is why Feral and Balance both want it.
• Nature's Focus and Subtlety were broadened from a named-heal list to all Arcane and Nature spells. Furor was rewritten, so the Cat energy trick is gone — its Bear half is untouched. See the Feral — Cat page.
• Revive was added — out-of-combat resurrection at level 12. Regrowth's mana cost was cut from 120 to 70 at rank 1. Natural Shapeshifter moved in from Balance; Insect Swarm moved out to Balance. Improved Mark of the Wild and Improved Enrage are gone as talents — and Enrage now front-loads 10 rage baseline, which is what Improved Enrage used to buy. Mark of the Wild now lasts 1 hour and Gift of the Wild covers party and raid.
• Still absent, and confirmed as such: any version of Tree Form, and Lifebloom.

At level 60

Unknown. Whether Wild Growth plus 1-second-cooldown Rejuvenation blanketing is mana-sustainable in a raid is untested — nobody has cast Wild Growth — and one guide still does not know whether all healing over time will crit at launch.