Tips & Tricks: T16 Normal – Restoration Druid – Part I

Welcome to the second installment of our Tips & Tricks series.  We tested the waters with it back in Throne of Thunder, and we were met with a lot of positive reactions.  Due to this, we plan on rolling out a Tips & Tricks segment for all healing specs!  Remember, these tips and tricks articles are not encounter guides.  Rather, as the name suggests, we offer unique insights on the fights that you may not have previously thought about.  Also, remember that these are tips and tricks for normal mode Siege of Orgrimmar — our heroic tips and tricks guide will be out soon!

As always, feel free to reply to this article with any comments, questions, etc. or shoot us a tweet @Healcraft and we will respond ASAP.  Finally, this article will be continually updated throughout the tier as we discover new tips.  Check back frequently for new tips and tricks!

Immerseus

• Wild Charge – Rarely ever will I recommend taking this talent, but it finds some use on this fight.  With this talent you can go bear form and stun a DPS add for 4 seconds.  Faerie Swarm, Typhoon, Mighty Bash, and Ursol’s Vortex also give similar utility.
• Incarnation – Another talent that I rarely recommend.  However, Tree of Life really shines on this encounter.  With tree form you can spam a bunch of healer adds to full extremely quickly.  Also, due to the nature of the fight, you will not be having any mana issues to worry about from spamming regrowths.
• Wild Mushroom – This is incredible on this fight.  Most ground AoE do not heal the adds; however, the blooming effect of the mushrooms will heal any adds within their range.  If you can fully grow a mushroom before each phase you can instantly heal up adds (if you are lucky enough to have a bunch of healing adds clumped up).  This can help you get multiple stacks of the healing buff right at the start of the add phase.  It is important to take Sprouting Mushroom minor glyph here, so you can position mushrooms to maximize their bloom (this applies to nearly all other encounters as well).
• Tranquility – You probably want to use this as the adds are about to start hitting the center of the room.
• Symbiosis – Take Spiritwalker’s Grace from a shaman.  Due to the large size of the room, your tranquility will not hit many people standing in one place.  Walk around with tranq to heal more people.

The Fallen Protectors

• Soul of the Forest – SotF is really good on this encounter because of the constant raid damage.  SotF really shines on any spread out fight where your super-charged Wild Growths will not mostly overheal.
• Nature’s Vigil – NV is becoming almost a cookie cutter choice for us this tier, but it is especially strong on a fight with a lot of raid damage (just like SotF).  The 12% more healing and 25% splash healing are incredible when they do not result in large overheals.
• Ursol’s Vortex – This talent can be nice for keeping all the small adds during Sun Tenderheart’s Desperate Measures stacked up for melee AoE.
• Due to the spread-out nature of this encounter, position your mushroom/efflorescence under the current kill target to heal melee and the tank.  Also, blooming a fully grown mushroom in melee after each Calamity will be huge.  Finally, make sure you have a fully grown mushroom going into Sun Tenderheart’s Desperate Measures.
• Tranquility – This is best used during Sun Tenderheart’s Desperate Measures.
• Symbiosis – Take either Deterrence or Ice Block from a Hunter or Mage respectively.  You can use these abilities to immune the Inferno Strike ability and reduce raid damage.

Norushen

• Displacer Beast – You can use this blink to go through the cutter beam, and avoid having to run around the entire room.  Just blink through it once it gets near you and resume tunneling healing.
• Force of Nature – Treants are extremely underused, yet extremely powerful.  SotF and FoN are really close to each other in terms of throughput.  When choosing between the two I generally think:  A) Is the raid mostly stacked or spread on the fight?  B) Will the SotF’d Wild Growths mostly overheal every 15 seconds?  Essentially, what are the damage patterns like?  If the answer to A is that you are mostly stacked, then Force of Nature has an advantage.  If the the answer to B is that there is consistent raid damage so WG will not mostly overheal, SotF has an advantage.  If these answers give you conflicting information, for a given fight, then you need to use your personal judgement.  This is the case for Norushen.  The fight has constant raid damage so WG will not be mostly overheal, and we are also mostly stacked for the fight.  I choose FoN for this fight because of it’s versatility.  You can drop all three treants at once in an emergency where there is a ton of AoE, or you can just keep one up all the time for sustained throughput.
• Nature’s Vigil – Once again, really strong for this fight.  There is constant raid damage throughout this encounter, so you will generally be using NV off CD.
• Tranquility – For the most part you can use this off CD on this encounter.  Additionally, pairing this with Nature’s Vigil and/or your Legendary Cloak proc will result in a large amount of healing.
• Symbiosis – Nothing is really important to take on this encounter.  However, you can take Fortifying Brew from a Monk to reduce the damage you take.
• Most groups do not bother purifying healers, so feel free to help out the team and soak up an add’s void zone with your “free” 25 corruption.
• Finally, most groups stay stacked for the majority of this encounter, so position your mushroom under the group.

Sha of Pride

• Displacer Beast – This can be handy for getting to a far prison quickly.  Feline Swiftness is also a viable choice here, mostly personal preference.
• Force of Nature vs Soul of the Forest – This choice really depends on two factors.  Does your raid use a stack or spread strategy, and what are you more comfortable using?  If you are mostly stacked, use FoN.  If you are mostly spread, use SotF.  However, both are good here, so if you are more comfortable with one over the other, go with the one you are better with.
• Ursol’s Vortex – If you do not have a few Death Knights this can be very useful.  Drop this on the group when Self-Reflections are spawning to keep them all clumped up for AoE.
• Heart of the Wild – This is one of the few fights where I am not taking Nature’s Vigil.  Most of the fight has pretty low to moderate damage with no clear time to use Nature’s Vigil.   You could just use it off CD for a small throughput increase, but most of it will result in overhealing.  Most of the healing on this encounter happens during the 30% to 0% burn phase, where the boss is doing ticking raid damage.  This is perfect for Heart of the Wild.  The long 45 second duration of the healing buff from HotW should last the entire burn phase.  Additionally, the 6% intellect will serve you better in the first phase than Nature’s Vigil.
• If your raid is doing the stack strategy, then place your mushroom in the group.  If you are staying spread then put the mushroom under the melee.  Blooming the mushroom in the group/melee when Swelling Pride is cast is ideal.
• Tranquility – Use this on as many Swelling Prides as possible.  Remember to start channeling before the cast goes out.  Also, make sure this is up for the final phase to pair it with HotW for the increased raid damage.
• Symbiosis – Ice Block can be taken to remove the Mark of Arrogance debuff without any pride gains.

Galakras

• Displacer Beast – This is especially useful if you are assigned to a “tower team.”  If you happen to get caught in the middle of one of the tower boss’s cones you can blink out of it.  Also, if you are late and get hit by cone, you can immediately blink and avoid getting knocked off the tower.  Finally, you can use Displacer Beast to blink out of the Skull Cracker ability quickly (if you aren’t assigned to a tower).
• Typhoon – This can be used to get an add off of the NPCs if they are close to death.
• Mighty Bash – Similar usage to Typhoon.  You can stun an add that is attacking an NPC close to death.  Additionally, you can stun the Shamans to avoid them casting a heal or dropping Healing Tide.
• Soul of the Forest – This encounter has a lot of constant and unpredictable raid damage while the raid is spread out.  Due to this, SotF really shines.  Wild Growth will not be overhealing a lot, so this is an easy choice.  Also, there is a neat trick to pad your throughput and also do something useful.  The NPCs in this fight will almost always be taking damage, and their health pools are so massive that you can basically spam them nonstop the entire fight.  Using SotF to swiftmend then rejuvenation a NPC will result in a huge heal with zero overhealing.
• Nature’s Vigil – Another cookie cutter NV choice.  NV can be used off CD here for good throughput gains.
• Tranquility – Use whenever the raid is taking moderate to high damage.  Also, make sure that this up for the final phase.
• Symbiosis – Taking Spiritwalker’s Grace from a shaman is a solid choice here.  There is a bunch of stuff you need to be moving out of, so having the utility to move while tranq’ing is great.
• Try to position your mushroom in the melee pile for phase one, bloom it whenever they take damage.  For phase two position the mushroom either in the melee or ranged stack, depending on if you have more ranged or melee.  Whichever role is larger in your raid team, put the mushroom there.  Bloom it every time Flames of Galakrond explodes.

Iron Juggernaut

• Displacer Beast – This talent has a neat trick for this fight.  When the boss casts Shock Pulse and knocks everyone back, if you cast Displacer Beast right as the knockback starts, you stop getting knocked back and can avoid the entire mechanic.
• Soul of the Forest – SotF is really strong on Iron Juggernaut.  There is just a lot of damage in this fight, and rarely (if ever) will the entire raid be topped off.  Finally, the raid is never stacked up.  This is the ideal situation for SotF.
• Nature’s Vigil – Just like SotF, this shines on fights with a lot of damage.  Use NV off CD and you’ll do great.  You should be able to use NV at least once in every single phase.
• Symbiosis – This is similar to the Displacer Beast suggestion.  If you don’t want to take Displacer Beast, for whatever reason, taking Demonic Circle:  Teleport from a Warlock does the same thing.  However, I recommend taking Displacer Beast and getting something else from Symbiosis.  There are a lot of choices for symb here.  You can take Spiritwalker’s Grace, from a shaman, to be able to safely cast tranquility.  Alternatively, you can take Fortifying Brew, from a monk, to use as a cooldown for taking Crawler Mines.
• Tranquility – Tranquility is best used during the Siege Mode phase in between Shock Pulses.  Pairing this with Nature’s Vigil and/or Legendary Cloak proc will help as well.
• As a Druid, we are excellent Crawler Mine soakers.  On normal mode, being at full health and in bear form is sufficient.  However, if you want to be extra safe and reduce the risk of dying, you can rotate Bear+Barkskin -> Bear+Might of Ursoc -> Bear+Barkskin -> Bear+Fortifying Brew -> Bear+Barkskin -> etc.  We can also throw Ironbarks into the mix as well, but that just seems like overkill.
• Place your mushroom in the melee for this fight.  Although the melee will not be taking large chunks of damage this fight, just bloom whenever you see they are below 80% for decent throughput.  Additionally, bloom the mushroom under melee whenever you get a legendary cloak proc, this will shoot the overhealing from the bloom out to the raid as a smart heal.

Kor’kron Dark Shaman

• Displacer Beast – The blink from Displacer Beast can be useful for getting across walls/void zones, without taking damage, created during the fight.
• Soul of the Forest – Yet again, another great fight for SotF.  There is a lot of damage in this encounter and SotF’d Wild Growths are really strong here.  Also, you can use it to make your tranquility channel faster.
• Nature’s Vigil – Starting to sound like a broken record, but Nature’s Vigil is great here.  Use this off CD, but make sure it is up for when the boss casts Bloodlust at 25%.
• Symbiosis – Spiritwalker’s Grace, from a shaman, is an obvious pick up here.  There is more ground AoE, void zones, lines of death, etc. in this encounter than you can count.  Chances of you being able to stand still for an entire tranquility channel is unlikely.
• Tranquility – This can be used off CD whenever the raid takes damage.  However, it is most useful later in the fight once Kardris starts to cast Falling Ash, which does high raid damage.  Make sure you have Tranq up for 1-2 Falling Ash.
• You will be moving your mushroom a lot throughout this encounter.  Generally you just want to make sure you keep the mushroom under the melee pile, and bloom it with cloak procs and/or when the melee takes damage.

Thanks for reading Part I of our T16 Normal Mode Resto Druid Tips & Tricks!  If you have any comments or questions feel free to comment below or tweet us @Healcraft.  Happy healing!