Druid Heal!

This is part 3 of my rewritten Resto Druid Guide. This episode is about talents. Play styles can make you decide whether not to take a talent or to take a talent. Remember that there a more roads that lead to Rome and that a talent might work for you. I have not commented to all talents because its not needed because it speaks for itself or you just must have it!

Talents from the restoration tree, the first tier:

- Improved Mark of the Wild (2/2), must have.
- Nature’s Focus (3/3), must have.

You have no use with Furor as a restoration druid. Next up tier 2:

- Subtlety (3/3) : lower your threat, in most builds you see a maximum of two points in this talent (they are needed to get to 10 points). Threat is not much of a problem for a restoration druid (mainly raiding druids).
- Naturalist (5/5) : This talent will lower your Healing Touch spellcast from 3 to 2,5 seconds. If you do not intend to use the glyphed healing touch, don’t use this talent. Spent your points in the shapeshifters talents.
- Natural Shapeshifter (3/3) : the goodies come from the next talent : Master Shapshifter.

Tier 3:
- Master Shapshifter (2/2) : get 4% extra healing while in tree form!
- Intensity (3/3) : Must have period, a druid without a decent amount of mana regen while casting can’t do his job properly!
- Omen of Clarity (1/1) : gives you a mana free spell every once in a while.

Tier 4:
- Improved Rejuvenation (3/3), must have.
- Tranquil Spirit (5/5): If you are going to use Healing Touch (a must for the glyphed Healing Touch users) and Nourish a lot this talent is a good one since it will lower your mana cost of the spells by 10%.  If you have no mana problems, you might consider spending some points in other talents.

Tier 5:
- Nature’s Swiftness (1/1) : If you have glyphed your Healing Touch chances are you won’t be using this spell much. If you don’t glyph you healing touch, get it. In combination with a Healing Touch it is a very powerful tool.
- Gift of Nature (5/5) : Must have, period.

Tier 6:
- Empowered Touch (2/2): Since this talent buffs Healing Touch and Nourish this talent is a must have. If you don’t use these spells a lot, skip it.
- Nature’s Bounty (5/5): improves your crit and thus higher heals, with mana regen in mind higher heals (25% crit is a lot!) are welcome.

Tier 7:
- Swiftmend (1/1), must have.
- Living Spirit (3/3): must have period! (Spirit also buffs your Spellpower in Tree form!)
- Natural Perfection: A few % extra crit for the people that need it. If you look at Nourish it seems to benefit a lot from crit, this talent is worth spending points on when you got some to spare.

Tier 8:
- Empowered Rejuvenation (5/5), must have;
- Living Seed: This is mainly a Main Tank heal, opinions differ about it. I have raided with and without it and I can’t say I missed it.

Tier 9:
- Tree of Life (1/1);
- Improved Tree of Life (3/3);
- Revitalize (3/3) : With patch 3.1 it procs from Wild Growth too making a chance for a proc higher.

Tier 10:
- Gift of the Earthmother (5/5): It will lower your Global Cooldown with 20% for your instant healing spells, which means you can cast more of these spells in the same time;
- Improved Barkskin: this is a pvp talent, not needed for pve.

Tier 11:
- Wild Growth (1/1), needed for raids.

Talents from the balance tree:

- Genesis (5/5): It buffs your healing over time and damage over time spells with 5%;
- Moonglow (3/3): It will reduce the manacost of Moonfire, Starfire, Starfall, Wrath, Healing Touch, Regrowth, Nourish and Rejuvenation spells by 9%. Less mana, more heals;
- Nature’s Majesty (2/2): You need to take this talent to get Nature’s Splendor, crit is not as important on lower levels of raid content but crit is becoming more important as we progress to t9/t10 level content.
- Nature’s Splendor (1/1): This is the real talent you want from the balance tree, an 8 second Lifebloom, 15 second Rejuvenation, 27 second Regrowth. Need I say more? This would mean more rolls on your raid/party and the time to cast other spells like Abolish Poison or Remove Curse.
- Nature’s Grace (3/3): It will grant you with 20% off your cast time and is worth thinking about a lower cast time could mean life or death.

The most common raiding build is  14/0/57 see wowwiki for more builds.

Next episode will be about attributes.