Welcome to my Emerald Nightmare tips and tricks guide for Restoration Druids. Please remember that the suggested talent builds are meant to provide the best assistance to the raid team during mythic progression. These are not the only viable talents, and various talent combinations work for many of these fights. Also, remember that the talents are selected to maximize the potential for success on progression, not for parsing. Finally, many talents are situational and are better for different raid teams, strategies, and healing compositions. Do not take these talent suggestions as law, they can be changed based on the individual situation. If you have any further questions please comment below or tweet me @Healcraft.
Nythendra
Talents
Prosperity, Soul of the Forest, Inner Peace
Strategy
Assuming your raid is not taking avoidable damage, this fight does not have many abilities that require healing. Inner Peace finds value because Spring Blossoms is not useful considering the ranged and melee should be spread for Rot. Use a Soul of the Forest buffed Wild Growth and/or Tranquility when Volatile Rot explodes (the tank debuff). This is the only major source of damage. Soul of the Forest is also great for sustained healing if your raid gets high stacks of Infested.
Elerethe Renferal
Talents
Prosperity, Soul of the Forest, Spring Blossoms
Strategy
Soul of the Forest is helpful on Renferal due to the large number of raid wide damaging mechanics. Additionally, the sustained throughput of Soul of the Forest is great for healing while the raid is moving between platforms. Spring Blossoms is very good if your raid remains stacked for most of the encounter (which most strategies dictate). Be sure to use a Soul of the Forest buffed Wild Growth each time the boss does Feeding Time, Gathering Clouds, and Violent Winds. For Violent Winds, wait until the players soaking take a few ticks of damage so Wild Growth will correctly smart heal all of them. The tank soaking Violent Winds will likely require heavy healing or an Ironbark. Finally, Ursol’s Vortex/Typhoon is useful for grouping up Venomous Spiderlings.
Ursoc
Talents
Cenarion Ward, Cultivation, Inner Peace
Strategy
Ursoc is the healing and DPS check of the tier. While he does not have any challenging mechanics, he requires high DPS and healing throughput. Additionally, he consistently brings the raid below 50% health often, making Cultivation extremely valuable on this encounter. The tanks take heavy damage from Ursoc, and Cenarion Ward is a highly efficient way to help keep the tanks alive. Finally, Inner Peace is useful for providing your raid more flexibility with raid cooldown assignments. While the raid is stacked most of the fight, the frequent movement makes Spring Blossoms less valuable than it is regularly. Be sure to use cooldowns (including Innervate) early and often to maintain maximum throughput.
Dragons of Nightmare
Talents – Main Platform
Prosperity, Soul of the Forest, Germination
Talents – Portal Duty
Cenarion Ward, Incarnation: Tree of Life, Germination
Strategy
Dragons of Nightmare is another sustained healing check encounter. However, depending on if you are healing the main platform or portals will drastically change your build and playstyle. The main platform requires a lot of sustained raid healing. This is perfect for Soul of the Forest to deal with. Also, I suggest taking Germination to assist in healing Nightmare Bloom and Volatile Infection targets. However, if you are dealing with the portals then you should focus on small group healing talents. Depending on your portal DPS, you will spend a large amount of time as a 5-man group taking ticking damage. Cenarion Ward is good to put on the person tanking the Lumbering Mindgorger (tanks do not go into portals). Incarnation and Germination provides a lot of instant cast throughput for the portal group.
Il’gynoth, The Heart of Corruption
Talents
Cenarion Ward, Incarnation: Tree of Life, Inner Peace
Strategy
This boss has a lot of flexibility in talent selection. If you require more tank healing and more cooldowns, the talent build above will be useful. Cenarion Ward is very efficient for healing tanks which Nightmare Horrors and/or Dominator Tentacles. Incarnation and Inner Peace allow you to use cooldowns more often to heal through Nightmare Explosions, Death Blossoms, and Cursed Bloods. However, if you require more sustained raid healing, Prosperity and Soul of the Forest are great options.
Cenarius
Talents
Cenarion Ward, Cultivation, Spring Blossoms / Inner Peace
Strategy
Cenarius has a high degree of unavoidable sustained raid damage along with frequent periods of burst damage. Due to this, Cultivation has a very high rate of free triggers. Additionally, the majority of the raid can be close together for most of the encounter which makes Spring Blossoms valuable. However, if you require more raid cooldowns and/or you have the Tranquility legendary, Inner Peace can find a lot of value. Additionally, this fight will challenge your mana consumption, so use Innervate early and often to maximize mana efficiency. Do not use Innervate during Tranquility. Finally, you can shape-shift out of the Nightmare Brambles damage over time ability.
Xavius*
Talents
Prosperity, Soul of the Forest, Spring Blossoms
Strategy
Xavius is another encounter that has fairly sustained raid damage throughout most of the fight, but especially in later phases. Soul of the Forest proves useful for healing each Corruption Meteor along with other damaging raid mechanics. Additionally, the raid will be stacked for most of the fight starting in the second phase. Due to this, Spring Blossoms provides a lot of free healing. Remember to use all of your cooldowns and mana before exiting The Dream. When you exit The Dream all cooldowns will be reset and health/mana will be restored to 100%. This includes short cooldowns such as G’hanir and Flourish.
Conclusion
Thank you for checking out my Emerald Nightmare tips and tricks guide for restoration druids! If you have any questions or comments please respond below or tweet me @Healcraft. Remember that the talent suggestions above are highly situational dependent on your personal healing composition, raid team, strategy, and legendary items. Use personal judgement when selecting your talents for each encounter.
*Indicates that the tips & tricks for that particular mythic boss is still a work in progress. Please check back often for more detailed information!
Healcraft 
Thanks for this!
I found taking Germination on Nythendra to be nice, could easily heal through rot debuffs on people with 2 rejuv’s.
One question though in regards to the above comment about trinkets, is it better to take a lower ilvl version of one of these trinkets over a HC WF Horn of Cenarius?
Hey I really like the post and it helped me out a lot. I do have a quick question I would like to ask. I’m having trouble with mana during Emerald Nightmare. Especially Mythic, I’m guessing its because I cast wild growth a little too much. What do you suggest? and I also have mana pots, but even then I go oom.
Try mixing in a Wrath or two any time there is nothing going on, most fights have a few seconds of time here and there that allow this. Not only does this help with DPS, but allows you to spend more time regenerating mana rather than spending it. Other than that, just make conscious decisions about what you’re casting and when. If something will be almost entirely overheal, don’t bother casting it. Most of this is based on feeling and knowing the damage patterns of fights, both of which come with experience.
Thanks Lavathing, can you give us some suggestion about trinkets, wich are better for some fights or its a best for all cases.
Thx
In terms of Emerald Nightmare trinkets, I recommend Heightened Senses and Vial of Nightmare Fog in basically all scenarios. You can pick up Cocoon of Enforced Solitude if you really really really need mana though.