Restoration druids are in a rough spot at the moment, because several aspects of the game aren’t suited for us at the moment. We did  get a 10% buff to our HoTs in patch 4.2 after we cast a direct heal (Swiftmend, Nourish , Healing Touch) but it’s not enough.

Our Survivability:

We are really susceptible to switches. The mechanic of having to stack the lifebloom 3x so we can have an over time heal that heals as much as a Healing stream totem (it was healing more than than the lifebloom in vicious gear). Melee cleaves absolutely destroy us.  The combination of barkskin and our HoTs aren’t enough to outheal the current damage of the game. With Tree of Life up, we can’t shift out of snares.. so we would just go out of mana because we are spamming Regrowths to stay alive.

Blizzard needs to change druids. Here are the proposed changes that I would give to make the class work again in arenas:

-Lifebloom should stack 3x after one cast. The mechanic is outdated and wasting three global cool downs for 1600 HoT is not suitable at this stage of the game.

You should be able to keep the tree of life buff for the entire duration , even if you shift. This would allow us to kite melees by shape-shifting and we would be able to keep our bigges CD for the duration without having the need to cancel it.

The Regrowth needs to be buffed to bring it in line with other “fast cast heals” such as Flash of Light, Healing surge and Flash Heal. Either a straight % increase on the direct heal or big increase on the HoT would be fine.

Now for the setups:

We current have to run setups, where we need to rely on our partners to have a lot of defensive cool downs for themselves and for us.

Enhancement shaman, Warrior, Resto Druid:

This setup has a lot of damage with CC’s like hex and shocks to neutralize casters and has the ability to get you out of fears.. which is incredibly huge for us at this point.  The Enhancement shaman should have the enemy healer on focus and shock as many heals as he can so the other team falls behind and force them to play defensive.

Mage Lock Druid:

This setup is a very known one and is still strong, because of both of your partners survivability and the ability to peel for you if you need it.

Having 3 CCs , all with different schools is really powerful. CC Chains on the healer are your friend. Also as your job, the druid, try to peel as much as you can with either roots or cyclones for your teammates so they can free cast. However, this setup would be better with a shaman instead of a druid :p.

Druid Shadowplay:

Like I said on the priest article, this setup is really strong at the moment, but requires a lot more coordination than the shaman version. You have a lot more CC, but the heals are definitely weaker.  Spread the most possible damage that you can If coordinated really well, it can reach really high ratings!

Druids will get buffed eventually guys, so when we do, get ready to dominate even harder!!

Kitty Cleave (Hpally/Warr/Feral) – Kitty cleave, is known as one of the strongest comps in arena today. Its amazing because of the synergy between the three classes, the cc, and just pure damage output

PHDK (Hpally/Dk/Hunter) – This comp. will be a lot more powerful come 4.0.6 patch with hunter buffs. This comp. is very strong for the fact that it can pump out so much damage on multiple targets. With spread diseases and the ability for hunters to swap so easy, it makes this comp one of the best swapping target comps out there.

WLP (Hpally/Warr/Lock) – This comp is similar to WMP, but in this case the lock can/needs to over extend to gain an advantage on the opposing team. This comp is great for warlocks, because it allows them to play extremely offensive and to control the other team. Its also very good for swap kills. Whenever the lock can fully dot an “off target”, its good for the warrior to swap and assist burst on this target.

WMP (Hpally/Warr/Mage) – This comp involves a lot of coordination and needs perfect positioning to be successful. The mage and warr cannot over extend to put the pally in a spot where he can get cc’ed or swapped too. This comp can create tons of situations to get kills through swaps and mage cc. Swap a lot when playing this comp.

Shadow Cleave (Hpally/Lock/Dk) – This is one of the strongest comps out there right now. Dk damage and survivability is through the roof, and seems to be getting better. Dk and lock have unreal synergy, and coupled with strong pally heals, this comp can almost seem unbeatable.

RLP (Hpally/Rogue/Lock) – This comp is also very similar to RMPally. The biggest difference with the lock vs. mage is, the fact that its now more about rush down kills, than playing defensive. With lock dots, and the ability for rogues to swap combo points, makes this comp very viable and potent. This comp. is great for shutting down cleave teams; such as TSG.

RMPally (Hpally/Rogue/Mage) – This comp requires a lot of coordination and can be compared to RMPriest. The main difference having the pally over the priest, is you can save your offensive cool downs a little while longer. With the priest version, its pretty much blow all your cd’s at the same time, and usually at the start of the game, to get a kill. With a pally, you can hang tight and survive through more damage, and set up a kill. This comp has tons of survivability but will require a lot of synergy between your mage and rogue.

TSG (Hpally/Warr/Dk) – One of the most popular comps in arena. It is known as one of the best rush down team. The pally’s job in this comp. is to basically keep the warrior and dk free at all times. The zergy style of this comp. allows for a lot of enjoyment and fun times. Although the comp. has some weakness, mainly to heavy CC teams, its one of the best comps to grind out rating.

Private Lessons!

So, I’ve been getting a ton of mail about private lessons, and what we do on them. Basically how we do things, is we schedule a date that we can both meet on, you stream on x-fire, and we hop on vent/skype, and go from there. Most people choose to do live arena games, and I critique/fix your game play. Some people choose to just go over the basics, and get a firm grasp on gems/enchants to bindings/mods. It’s basically, whatever your game needs, we will work on.

Lately, people have been throwing the idea around, that if we cant find a time for you and your partners to meet and play arena while you stream, you could instead, fraps your arena games that you have played at a prior time, and I will watch with you, and go over them in great detail. This might be a very interesting and successful way to improve, watching your own game play and noticing your flaws has been known as one of the greatest teaching methods out there for everything (Ex: NFL teams watching footage of prior games, to fix positioning/etc).

It is an hour long session, that usually goes about 15 – 20 mins over to make up for time we may have lost (sitting in queues). It’s $20 for first lesson, and then $15 if you schedule another lesson within 3 weeks of your last. Everyone that has done a lesson with me so far has been very pleased, and if you get a chance to talk with any that have, you should.

being dominant aswell in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Ingame Communication included. Players in the video: Hotted, Imbad (3100 rated warlock and Arenapwnage Novoz.

First off, i will start by explaining some of the abilities that we got at 85:

Wild Mushrooms and exploding the mushrooms:

I really had my hopes up with this ability because i thought: ” Hey this ability sounds amazing! we will be able to use it in many situations!!” . Boy was i wrong! You can plant 3 wild mushrooms at a time with a 5 minute duration and a .5 second cast time. If you play against a warlock, a smart way to use the wild mushrooms is to plant them on top of his portal and explode them as soon as he uses the portal . Also, you can place them on top of yourself and explode them as soon as they switch to you.

You won’t get to use this ability this much and it’s not game breaking if you don’t use it as resto at all, so if you don’t have any extra binds or you think it would complicate you more than help you, just forget about it. Each mushroom does 4k damage when exploded and the ability didn’t crit over the 100 tests i did on beta. ~12000 damage for this ability is not really insanely good considering everybody has around 110.000 HP in Cata at level 85.

Prehotting!!!???

Our main prehotting abilites are gone.. for this particular purpose. Lifebloom can only be casted on one target without treeform and unlimited targets with Tree of Life, but since ToL is on a 3min CD with a 30sec duration we can’t really count it in as prehotting.

Regrowth has a ~1.5 second cast with a pretty decent heal but only a 6 second HoT duration which also hurts us in the whole prehotting topic.

And last but not least Rejuvenation. rejuvenation is our only reliable prehot we have in Cataclysm. I’d recommend keeping Rejuvenation up on every target including yourself even if you’re not taking damage so you’re able to swiftmend yourself if the opponents switch to you.

Defensive playstyle or offensive playstyle?

During all the games i did on beta, i found myself playing a lot more offensive that i did in Cataclysm , since we have instant Entangling Roots, moonfire and insect swarm. Since our cyclone cast is now up to ~1.7 seconds long and only a 20 yard range you have to be really careful in the positions you put yourself in.

Also another thing that motivates playing offensive is the Tree of Life! Since you can cast every spell that you have while ToL is up, you could use it to put out alot more pressure. How? The Wrath casts are reduced to 1 second and do around 6000-9000 Damage so if your team is not getting hit really much and you are confident that you won’t need the ToL for the defensive part, use it for the offense! I’d suggest dotting the target with IS+MF and then start wrath-ing if you decide to play this way.

What i personally learned from the beta is to not cyclone offensively against an offensive dispeller like a resto shaman for example if your teammates or yourself are under purge spamming. Resto/enhance Shamans are possibly in the best shape of that they can be. Their mana efficiency with heals/purges or damage/purges in the case of enhancement shamans is amazing and we really have to watch out for them! Shamans are now even more deadly than before, because they can purge 2 buffs and we don’t have a dispel resistance anymore and we can fall behind really fast. If you think they countered us in WotLK  they counter us x100000 in Cata. So we’re kind of forced to play really defensive against them.

Getting Sheeped! Oh noes!

Since we’re now sheepable we really need to watch out for mages! You can easily avoid sheeps if you shape shift into travel form right before the cast ends. Remember, Sheep is now a 1.7 second cast, just like cyclone, so we have some time to realize that we’re about to get sheeped. If you are unable to shapeshift, for example if you get stunned with a Deep Freeze, you can tell your teammates to interrupt that cast or if you play with a shadow Priest he can just dispel you if needed!

I suggest Prioritizing focus on Mages (sheep’s)  and Shamans (Hex’s).

Thanks for reading the article and more coming soon!

Hey guys!

There’s a lot of ground to cover in this post because Restoration Druids got Revamped.

One of the most significant changes is the obligation to spec 31 points in one talent tree before taking talent from another tree. This might be silly now, but it’s all oriented for level 85 where Blizzard has stated that “everything will be balanced at 85″ (let’s hope that).

My experience so far is that we are unkillable in duels and battlegrounds, however we might have some difficulties in arenas because we have to change our playstyle  a bit for Cataclysm.

The most important change for Druids would be the cooldown on Tree of Life:

It’s now on a 3min cool down and it lasts for 30 seconds. You get amazing abilities though:

-Your Regrowths are now instant.

-You can Lifebloom multiple targets where u can only hot 1 with lifebloom outside of tree form.

- Entangling Roots are now instant inside of Tree form without the need of the glyph

-Armor is increased by 120%.

- Thons has now a 45 second CD, but it does alot of damage to whoever attacks the target affected with Thorns with melee damage.

-You can cast Wrath and Roots inside of  Tree-Form.

This of course brings  a negative side on arenas:

- You can be sheepable outside of  travel,bear and cat form and can’t shift out.

- You can be sapped in arenas if you don’t get in combat quickly enough.

- You have considerable less armor than pre 4.0 since we don’t have a Tree form without CD.

One of the Glyphs that are new but really helpful will be the instant Entangling roots but it gives them a cool down of 5 seconds which is a really good tradeoff for not having to cast them in dangerous situations.

And to close this post I will leave with a level 80 spec  that should work for you in arenas for Restoration. I will create another post later about the changes for Balance Druids.

Nature’s Ward was also redesigned, now if we fall below 50%, we get an instant Rejuvenation without a mana cost on ourselves which is insanely good if we swap to us and drop to less than 50% of health during a silence/stun.

This was all for now, i hope you enjoyed post and i’ll be putting up the changes to Balance Druids soon.

Direct URL for the Spec: http://wowtal.com/#k=q51QP5q.a67.druid

Feral

2v2 -

• Feral Druid / Discipline Priest - Feral/Disc is one of the best druid 2v2 comps, with innervate on a 3 minute cool down coupled with shadowfeind and divine hymn you’re priest wont be going oom.
• Feral Druid / Rogue – While not as good as Feral/Disc this comp is viable at high ratings, although playing double dps there are just some teams you go up against with no way you can possibly win. (ex. holy paladin, dk)

3v3 -

• Feral Druid / Rogue / Priest – This comp has a  lot of front load damage, offensive dispels from a disc priest along with the damage a feral druid can push out during a berserk with enveom damage from a mutilate rogue.
• Feral / Arms Warrior / Holy Paladin - Commonly refereed to as ‘Kitty Cleave’ this comp is extremely viable and what I would recommend to anyone going for there tier 1 or even tier 2 weapons as feral.

Moonkin

2v2 -

• Moonkin / Discipline Priest - Moonkin/Disc isn’t the greatest comp, it is however viable to around 2200 if you’re looking to have some fun with a friend I definitely suggest this comp as playing Moonkin can be very fun!
• Moonkin / Frost Mage – With the right coordination Moonkin/Frost Mage can be a very good comp, playing this comp will however require synergy between you and the Mage, as always playing a double dps comp there will be counters that no matter how hard you try you can’t beat.

3v3 -

• Moonkin / Elemental Shaman / Disc Priest – This team can be a nuisance for pretty much any rogue team, if you’re a Moonkin going for tier 2 weapons this is what I would recommend playing in 3v3

5v5 -

• Moonkin / Ele Shaman / Dest. Warlock / H. Pally / Frost Mage – This comp is easily one of the best 5v5 comps out there, the damage a moonkin can put out with starfall and the rest of the casters turreting into something with bloodlust popped can easily get a kill without much cordination, any Moonkin in desperate need of a t2 weapon, this is what I recommend playing.

Restoration

• I’m going to withhold making a 2v2 category for Resto, simply because you can play with almost any dps class and have a positive win rate, if you have any questions about specific comps just send me a pm

3v3

• Warlock / Elemental Shaman / Resto Druid – Refereed to as LSD, the damage this comp can do is unhealable at times, if you want to play one of the easiest comps in the game, that’s almost fun to play just because of the damage that Warlock/Shaman can put out I suggest playing this.
• Warlock / Warrior / Resto Druid – This comp has it’s strength and weaknesses, most any mutilate rogue team with an offensive dispel will be a weakness, but if played right this team can have only one hard counter, (rogue, shaman, lock) while being able to counter so many top tier comps like dispel cleave.
• Warlock / Hunter / Resto Druid - The damage that a marks hunter and warlock can do is sometimes unhealable if timed well, this is a top tier comp, the only reason this comp isn’t played as much as others is because of the lack in good hunters that can kite out rogues and warriors. This team is by no means as easy as LSD, but very viable to reach 1800 – 2200.

There are certainly more comps you can play as a druid and do well, I just wanted to go over some of the more successful line ups that you’ll have an easier time with!

Thanks for reading, any questions you have for me feel free to post or pm!

1)     Bauble of True Blood (H): http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50726

Drops off Blood  Queen Lanathel 25man Heroic Mode.

This is in my  opinion the best trinket u can aim for resto.

Bauble of True Blood
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277 
Equip: Restores 86 mana per 5 secs 
Use: Instantly heal a friendly target for 7400 to 8600.

Why is this the best Trinket u can obtain? You can use it while you’re under the effect of a Silence and even if  you’re interrupted. The heal can crit and has 1minute less CD than the Battlemaster Trinket and you can use the effect on your teammates.

2)     Bauble of True Blood Non Heroic: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50354

Drops off Blood Queen Lanathel 25man.

While its use is the same as the heroic one, it has 10mp5 less.

3)     Sollace of the Fallen (H): http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47432

Drops off Lord Jaraxxus in Trial of the Grand Crusader 25-man.

Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 258 
Equip: Increases spell power by 168
Equip: Each time you cast a spell, you gain 18 mana per 5 sec. for 10 sec. Stacks up to 8 times.

This trinket is preferred by some Resto druids because you can keep the stacks up with offensive spells such as cyclone/roots and insect swarm/moonfire. Plus the more spellpower you have , the better.

18×8 Equals 144mp5 if u manage to keep the 8 stacks up which shouldn’t be hard since you should always keep a Rejuvenation on Yourself.

4)     Sollace of the Fallen Non Heroic: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=47271

Drops off Lord Jaraxxus in Trial of the Crusader 25-man.

Equip: Increases spell power by 150
Equip: Each time you cast a spell, you gain 16 mana per 5 sec. for  10 sec. Stacks up to 8 times.

16×8 equals to 128mp5 if u manage to keep the 8 stacks up which shouldn’t be hard since you should always keep a Rejuvenation on Yourself.

5)      Purified Lunar Dust : http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50358

Obtainable with 50 Emblems of Frost.

Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264 
Equip: Increases spell power by 179
Equip: Your spell casts have a chance to grant 304 mana per 5 sec for 15 sec.

Since the proc is only for 15 seconds u have to divide 304/4  because it has a 45 Second internal Cool down.  And it would leave you with constant (this is an approximation) of 76 mp5.

If you can’t manage to get one of these trinkets for your  team, I’d suggest you to use the Battlemaster trinket.

If you have any Questions regarding Restoration Gearing post below and ill get back to you.

I personally bind all my targets and gladius targets, binding targets/gladius targets saves alot of seconds, if you watch druid videos where they clicktargets they’re usually wasting a lot of time

my binds for party are f1, f2, f3, f4, f5

my binds for gladius are shift+A, shift+S, shift+D

Nature’s Swiftness Healing Touch Macro

/cast Nature’s Swiftness
/stopcasting
/cast Healing Touch

Shift Modifier Cyclone (My Cyclone is bound to G, if I hit shift+G it will cyclone my focus target).

#showtooltip Cyclone
/cast [target=focus, modifier:shift] Cyclone; Cyclone

Shift Modifier for Entangling Roots

#showtooltip Entangling Roots
/cast [target=focus, modifier:shift] Entangling Roots; Entangling Roots

This is a macro I don’t recommend for everyone, it toggles between my PvP weapon, and my Heroic LK weapon (which increases my mp5 by about 150, at the cost of  resilience) if you’re caught in a stun or silence without your PvP weapon you may take a lot of damage with the lack of resilience.

#showtooltip 16
/equip Archus, Greatstaff of Antonidas
/equip Wrathful Gladiator’s Blade of Celerity
/equip Wrathful Gladiator’s Compendium

Hello this is Beleta, currently known as Mirandasings on Kel’thuzad Alliance.  I have just recently been hired on the arenapwnage staff.  Since they have not released my bio yet I will go over a brief description.  I have been playing resto druid for about 3 seasons, have 2 gladiator titles and earned r1 title last season in two brackets.  Currently playing ret/warrior/druid at 2900 mmr, and also good friends w/ current arenapwnage pro irreplacable.

Addons:

Addons as a druid, very basic addons you want of course is the first of which is

Gladius, a great addon for starting and veteran arena players alike helps you target easier and see cc’s on targets and how long they last for. 

Interrupt bar: Recommend this addon, greatly.  This shows cooldown of interrupts like counterspell and kick.  As a druid knowing when you’re able to free cast is a huge thing, being able to free cast nourishes and cyclones all day is a huge thing.  But knowing when you’re susceptible to interrupts is a key part in losing and winning matches.  There is also a new interrupt bar which also shows CD’s on Clos and deep freeze and death grip and bunch of other things.

Spell Alerter:  An addon that shows you right in the middle of your screen what CC is going and a huge arrow pointing to which target.  How can you go wrong?

Gladiminish:  This shows you diminishing returns on your CC, stuns etc.  Huge for druid class, the difference between waiting one second and getting a full cyclone on a target compared to cycloning for half duration can be game breaking. 

HoT Addons: There are some addons that show which HoT’s are on which target, i personally do not like them, but alot of people do i feel it just gets to clunky.  If you do like them they’re out there.

Macros:

I’m not gonna go to much into macros, because i did see Spoh released that and to save me some time i’ll just give you a link to that

http://www.arenapwnage.com/2010/03/11/restoferal-macros-part-one/

Your comps (3v3), what should you run?:

These are my most recommended comps to run as a resto druid.

Warrior/Warlock/Druid (WLD):  Fairly difficult comp, requires great synergy between warlock and warrior, I would not recommend playing this right away, as if your team members aren’t up to snuff it can get pretty exhausting.

Ret/Warrior/Druid: Comp I currently run, its a very fun comp but also fairly difficult.  With this being s8 and the absurd amount of wizard cleave and rogue/lock/healer comps it can be difficult.  This comp you may want to run prot instead of ret.  Prot paladin has weaks and strengths, obvious strength they can basically never die, they do alot of sustained damage with a big burst every 30 seconds (being avenger’s shield).  I would def say Prot/warrior/druid can get you to 2200, of course to get higher you’re going to need ret utility, such as freedom out of stuns Art of war procs. 

Lock/shaman/druid (LSD): As far as difficulty goes I would say this is probably the easiest comp a druid can run.  3 classes that are hardest to oom, do really good damage, have great cc, have bloodlust, have great heals.  I would recommend this to any beginner or anyone struggling in arena. 

Mage/Lock/Druid (MLD):  Difficult but tricky.  In this comp the warlock should be destruction.  As far as wizard cleaves go this is the least popular.  Although, this comp does have 3 great cc’s each one not affecting the other classes diminishing returns it can be sticky if communication is not great, having all the cc’s is fine but if they’re all overlapping each other it becomes useless.  Also having two interrupts is important to have that communcation or you might just end up wasting those. 

For all these comps the druid playstyles are very different.  One example, when you’re playing w/ any warrior you always want to stand close enough to where he can get an intervene off on you, far enough to avoid cc’s.  (Which for a druid will always be 24 yds., since the only cc that can affect a druid the closest is just 24 yds.) 

These are the comps that I would most recommend any beginner or struggling player to run.  Not saying that they’re the easiest thing in the world to run, but probably the easiest to pick up and learn quickly.

Thanks for reading everyone, this is just my first article here at arenapwnage.  I would like to go into more detail but i just got home from work and thought that i should release something, since i have seen very little druid content.  I will be releasing much more content about resto druid playstyle, when to heal when to cc etc. etc.    I also hope to begin recording my 3v3 matches and 2v2 matches.  Stay tuned!:)

Like i mentioned on the title, there are different Specs you can choose as a Resto Druid and i will explain you when to use theese specs and why.

2v2 Spec

For the bracket 2v2, a restoration druid should really play aggressive using every GCD (Global Cooldown) he has free to assist with cc/dps. Therefore you should use the most talents on the balance tree to help you fulfill that task without sacrificing to many talents that are vital on the restoration tree.

Recommended 2v2 spec:

On this spec, you have from the Balance Tree the reduced cast time of wrath, which will be your main nuke spell while you’re assisting on DPS with your partner, Increased range for Balance spells (such as cyclone, roots, Wrath, Insect Swarm) Insect Swarm, which is a very mana efficient spell that does quite some damage and the increased spellpower for your heals and damage.

If we go to the other side on the Restoration Tree, I leave out spells like Living Seed, Living Spirit, Revitalize which are decent talents but aren’t mandatory for the 2v2 spec.

Why did i leave out Wild Growth and Gift of the Earthmother when they are really good talents?

Because you wouldn’t be allowed to take talents from the balance Tree to be able to assist with the DPS.

The standard glyphs for this spec are: Glyph of Innervate ( you can use barkskin instead if you’re undergeared), Glyph of Swiftmend and Glyph of Insect Swarm.

Link to the 2v2 spec:
http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=11&tal=4532000120331000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000230033312031502401350013200

3v3/5v5 Spec:

For the 3v3/5v5  bracket, the only offensive talent that you should be taking is the increased range on the Balance spells so you can assist your teammates when you can with CC (in form of Cyclone, Roots).
Another vital thing, druids are a pretty good target or the worst target to go on… it all depends on your positioning… so beware when you’re going to go offensive with the Cyclones and roots.

Recommended 3v3/5v5 Spec:

On this spec, we take all the good talents of the restoration tree ( with the exception of living spirit ), to be able to keep up with the huge amount of damage that all the classes are doing. You also see the Talent “Revitalize” on my spec, which in my opinion is an excelent talent that helps you and your team a lot with mana regeneration and rage/energy regen ( if you have rogue/warrior/feral druid? partners).

Glyphs: Glyph of Barkskin , Glyph of rapid rejuvenation (only if you have over 400 haste, if not, get innervate), and Glyph of Swiftmend.

Link to the 3v3/5v5 spec:

http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=11&tal=0532000120000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000230033312031502401353213251

This is all for now concerning 2v2/3v3/5v5  specs, be sure to check out my upcoming videos guys!
See ya later!