Contents
Overview
Restoration is what most raids want from a druid, and for good reason. You keep heal-over-time effects rolling on the tanks, land big direct heals when they’re needed, and carry two of the best cooldowns in Classic: 
Innervate and 
Rebirth.
What most guides skip is that druid healing in Classic is a mana game more than a speed game. Max-rank spells will drain you in a few minutes. The healers who last are the ones who know which rank of 
Healing Touch to press, and when a 
Rejuvenation does the job for a fraction of the cost.
Lower ranks of Healing Touch are your most efficient heals. Rank 4 is the single most mana-efficient heal in the game. Keep several ranks on your bars and use the smallest one that covers the damage.
Strengths & Weaknesses
Resto druids are strong tank healers and solid raid healers. Where you struggle is being the only one assigned to heal the whole raid.
- Heal-over-time effects you can keep on several targets at once, and that keep working while you move.
Swiftmend and 
Nature’s Swiftness give you two instant emergency heals on a tank.- Innervate can hand another healer a fresh mana bar, and Rebirth brings back a dead tank mid-fight.
Tranquility is a strong group heal cooldown when a whole party takes damage at once.
- Mana runs out fast if you only use max-rank spells.
- Being the only raid healer on a fight is hard. Your strengths are tanks and small groups.
- Healing Touch has a long cast time, so you need to start heals before the damage lands.
- You don’t have a dispel for magic, so priests and paladins have to cover those.
Talents
Hover over any talent to read its tooltip. Calculator not loading? Open the Druid talent calculator on Wowhead.
This is the deep Restoration Swiftmend build: 8 Balance, 0 Feral and 43 Restoration. It’s built for tank healing and for newer healers, and it covers everything you need in your first raids.
Key Choices:
- Swiftmend consumes a Rejuvenation or
Regrowth on the target and heals them instantly for 12 seconds of Rejuvenation or 18 seconds of Regrowth. It’s your emergency button on a tank. - Nature’s Swiftness makes your next Nature spell instant. Pair it with max-rank Healing Touch to save a tank, or with Rebirth for an instant battle res.
Gift of Nature adds 10% to all your healing, and Improved Rejuvenation adds another 15% to Rejuvenation.- Improved Healing Touch takes 0.5 seconds off Healing Touch’s cast, and
Tranquil Spirit makes it 10% cheaper. 
Reflection keeps 15% of your mana regeneration going while you cast. On a long fight that’s a lot of extra heals.
Nature’s Focus gives a 70% chance to avoid being pushed back by damage while casting Healing Touch, Regrowth or Tranquility.
Subtlety lowers the threat of your heals. You’ll be happy to have it on the first pull where adds go for the healers.- Improved Regrowth adds 50% crit chance to Regrowth, which makes it a much stronger direct heal.
Moving to raid healing instead of tank healing? The usual answer is a Regrowth build that drops Swiftmend and goes 21 points into Balance for 
Nature’s Grace: Regrowth’s high crit chance keeps triggering a faster next cast. Learn the Swiftmend build first, then switch when your raid needs it.
Stat Priority
Healing power makes every heal bigger, and the rest of your stats decide how long you can keep casting.
- 1
- Healing Power
your top stat. Every heal and every Rejuvenation tick scales with it.
- 2
- Intellect
15 mana per point and a little spell crit. A bigger pool means more heals before you need a potion.
- 3
- Spirit
regenerates mana, and
Reflection keeps part of that going while you cast.
- 4
- MP5
steady mana that ticks whether you’re casting or not. Close behind Spirit for this build.
- 5
- Spell Crit
nice to have, but lowest for this build. Crit matters a lot more if you switch to the Regrowth build.
Don’t stack healing power at the cost of all your regen. A healer with big heals and no mana at the end of the fight did less healing than one who kept casting.
Rotation
Healers don’t have a rotation, they have choices. Here’s which spell to use by situation. The pattern for a tank is simple: keep your heal-over-time effects rolling at all times, and top them up with direct heals as damage comes in.
OPENER
- 1.
on the tank as the pull starts. It’s cheap and it’s already ticking when the first hits land.
- 2.
a lower rank on the tank to add its heal-over-time on top of Rejuvenation.
- 3.
save it. Know before the pull who’s getting it and roughly when.
PRIORITY
- 1.
keep it on the tank all fight. Refresh it when it falls off, not before.
- 2.
your main direct heal. Use lower ranks for steady damage, they cast faster and cost far less.
- 3.
when the tank takes a burst of damage and you need a heal now plus a heal-over-time behind it.
- 4.
an emergency heal on a tank who already has your Rejuvenation or Regrowth. Instant, and it doesn’t wait for a cast.
- 5.
into max-rank Healing Touch when a tank is about to die. Three-minute cooldown, so don’t waste it on a top-up.
AOE
- 1.
on anyone in the raid you know is about to take damage. Heal-over-time effects are best placed before the damage.
- 2.
a channeled heal for your whole party when everyone is low at once. Five-minute cooldown.
- 3.
a 30-minute cooldown. Save it for a tank or another healer, and only on a serious attempt.
Nature’s Swiftness also works on Rebirth, which normally has a cast time. An instant battle res on a dead tank is one of the best plays a druid can make.
Consumables
Healer consumables are almost all about mana. Bring enough to keep casting through the longest fight of the night.
- Flask
2,000 extra mana for two hours. The standard healer flask.
Flask of Distilled Wisdom- Weapon Buff
healing power and mana regeneration on your weapon for 30 minutes.
Brilliant Mana Oil- Potion
about 1,800 mana every two minutes.
Major Mana Potion- Rune
mana for health, on a separate cooldown from potions.
Dark Rune does the same job.
Demonic Rune- Potion
12 mana every 5 seconds for an hour.
Mageblood Potion- Food
8 mana every 5 seconds.
Sagefish Delight is the cheaper option.
Nightfin SoupGear
Healing gear is shared with priests, paladins and shamans, so expect some competition. Take healing power first and don’t ignore Intellect and Spirit. Druids can wear cloth healing pieces when leather ones aren’t dropping, and enchants add a lot: healing power on gloves, bracers and your weapon is worth the cost.
- Weapon
a healing power staff or main hand and off-hand
enchant it with healing power, or Intellect if you’re short on mana.
- Head and legs
healing power pieces
both slots take a Zul’Gurub enchant for healing, so they’re worth upgrading early.
- Shoulders
the best healing power shoulders you have
the
Zandalar Signet of Serenity enchant adds healing power.
- Everything else
healing power, then Intellect and Spirit
cloth is fine when the leather healing piece isn’t dropping.
Tips & Tricks
Keep three or four ranks of Healing Touch on your bars. Most of your casts should be the cheaper ones.
Don’t refresh Rejuvenation while it’s still ticking. Recasting it early throws away the rest of the old one.
Talk to your other healers about Innervate before the pull. A healer who knows it’s coming plays differently than one who doesn’t.
Pre-cast Healing Touch on the tank before a big hit you know is coming, then cancel it if the damage doesn’t land. Waiting until the health bar drops is too late for a long cast.
Use 
Remove Curse and 
Abolish Poison. No other healer in Classic can remove curses, and raids lean on you for it.
Related Guides
- Druid Leveling Guide (1-60) — get to 60 as feral, then respec for raids
- Druid Balance DPS Guide (Level 60) — Moonkin, and the Balance talents the Regrowth healing build borrows
- Druid Feral DPS Guide (Level 60) — cat damage at 60
- Druid Feral Tank Guide (Level 60) — bear tanking, and what your tank needs from you
- Molten Core Raid Guide — your first raid as a healer