<<--pvp-- -Rdruid guide->>

[tifaz]

guide is pretty indeep posted by a person on AJ (Awesomez)
link: [Guide] Resto Druid Arena Compendium (V1) - Arena Junkies Forums
(THIS IS NOT MY GUIDE)

guide is split into different sections, showd in the "content"
guide has give the viewer a good idea about specs/comps
guide also recommand comps and rank them on "difficulty"
overall a great guide and i hope this help some new druids during the end of the season

Resto Druid – Arena Compendium


Table of Content

•Introduction

1.Talent Trees

2.Gearing Choices

3.(most) Viable set-ups

4.Offensive & Defensive Play + CC

Introduction

Hello, my name is Mos. You might’ve seen me before on WarcraftMovies if you played in TBC or
were interested in Feral early WoTLK. Basicly, I’ve been playing mainspec restoration ever since the
release of Vanilla. I can also play a Holy Paladin at high level as well as a rogue, but I’ve never even
considered swapping my restoration druid for any other class due to its wide variety of utility. A resto
druid can make things happen and carry an average team to the top by Crowd-Controlling in a way
that no other class in World of Warcraft can do and most likely will ever be able to do. The HoT’s
are a unique concept, it gives you a chance to do something different than to stand at 40 yards and
turret heals the entire game. I can only encourage people to pick up the class because it’s by far the
most fun healer to play, not to forget that it also has really strong DPS trees.



1. Talent Trees

Restoration – Wild Growth Variations

The most healing-efficient build

Here you’ll see I preffer having 5/5 in Nature’s Bounty over 3/3 in Living Spirit or 2/3 in Living Spirit
and 1/3 in Revitalize. Why? It’s quite simple. Nowadays, you won’t (generally) be able to pick up
your team with only HoT’s, they’ll do their job to keep someone up against setups that don’t do an
absurd amount of burst damage over 15 seconds (thinking of a TSG that’s popping all it’s CD’s and a
PHDk or Hunter/Ret/Shaman variation & Beastcleave, etc.) The reason I take 5/5 in Nature’s Bounty
is that it stacks incredibly well with Living Seed and Glyph of Nourish (6% extra healing on Nourish for
every HoT currently applied to the target). You can do more healing than a Bloodlusted Restoration
Shaman or Holy Paladin using this setup of Glyphs and Talents, on another note I’d be using Glyph of
Barkskin and Swiftmend when using Glyph of Nourish , which I’d drop Innervate for. I simply don’t
need the additional mana Glyph of Innervate gives. 45% from druid based mana pool is 1573 mana,
which isn’t a big deal at all in my book because of the amount of Spirit there is on the mainset, offset

and the huge mp5 trinkets out there (Bauble/Solace/PLD). I wouldn’t use this setup when playing in a
double healer team.

My WLD/RLD Build

So this is the talent build I use for RLD and WLD with a mutilate rogue (ShD Rogue, see 1st talent
tree). You pick up Revitalize and some mp5 from the Living Spirit (which’s also bonus healing in
Tree form) I’ve found that Revitalize can really help out Warriors and Rogues because it proccs all
the time. There’s simply no reason not to take it, if you have enough mp5 by default you can easily
drop the points in Living Spirit and pick up 5/5 Nature’s Bounty again, although for these setups
I’d probably not use Glyph of Nourish depending on the gear sets your partners use. Usually for
WLD and RLD your team’ll be stacking resilience pretty heavily to not instantly die to RLS, mainly.

Super Rush-Down Burst Build

This build is good for very few setups and I do not recommend using it for any other setups because
Gift of the Earthmother is incredibly huge. This build is made for stacking Haste and not Resillience
(ideally use full PvP gear with yellow SP/Haste or just blank Haste gems depending on your 2nd
trinket). I really don’t like this spec myself for any setup but found it’s the best for setups that include
an Enhancement shaman and a warrior/rogue. Why? If you don’t manage to kill anything in the
Wolves/Bloodlust, you have a very high chance of losing. This setup of talents makes it so that your
Nourishes will hit ridiculously hard and fast, you should still keep full HoT’s on the target you’re
healing because you’d be using Glyph of Nourish (and Barskin/Swiftmend). As I said before, this setup
of talents is made exclusively for these setups and have very low utlity in anything else.

My perfected Double Healer/Warrior build

This build has everything you need for playing an offensive double healer setup (shadowmourne!
) the 4 points in Starlight Wrath are so huge that sometimes I’d even pick up 5/5 in Starlight Wrath
and 3/5 in Genesis, depending on how good my second healer is. I’ve found this setup to work a lot
better than a smite specced discipline priest because you don’t lose as much healing and defensive
utility he does. This setup basicly makes you half a DPS when you spam damage, assuming every
Wrath hits for 2.4k, and you’d be pumping out 5 in a row, you’d be looking at 1.2 or 1.1 second
wraths depending on your gear setup, this an insane amount of damage for very little mana. As far
as Glyphs go, I would use Barkskin/Swiftmend/Innervate because Glyph of Nourish isn’t that useful
when you’re playing with a second healer that actually casts 80% of his (her) heals.

Mp5 Oriented WLD/RLD build

This is close to the same one as the first one I posted with more defensive utlity and mp5, this is your
best choice when you play with a warrior which has nice PvE gear. 3/3 Living Spirit means you’ll have
a bunch of mp5 and you’ll be sitting in Tree form most of the time, which isn’t a bad thing when your
warrior counts for one and a half DPS. This setup of talents and class composition (with the right
gear) really allows you to stay back until your team goes for a kill.



Restoration – 2vs2 Resto/DPS Variations

Burst Insect Swarm Build

This is a build I use frequently when playing with a Death Knight that’s wearing a ton of PvP gear,
when I’m doing the same (really, full PvP gear with Solace, Rep Ring and PvP Ring). Playing at close
to 1400 resillience to compensate for the loss of restoration talents. This build has close to the
maximum burst damage a restoration druid can do. You’ll be spamming 1second wraths that’ll
crit a lot, with Nature’s Grace where you’d just pop a Starfire costing the same amount of time an
untalented wrath would. This means you can drop a priest or Paladin (without Sacred Shield) in a
swap, without even having to Strangulate (Gnaw/War Stomp!). Even if you don’t kill him, your DK
and you’ll have DoT’s ticking on his second target which means you can just turn around and start
turreting his partner down while putting him in a Cyclone/Cyclone/Strangulate chain.

Cookie-Cutter Insect Swarm / Warlock, Warrior, Rogue, .. Build

This is the most standard Insect Swarm build, you can do a substantial amount of damage while
keeping your most important Restoration talents. I’d use this build with nearly anything that isn’t a
PvP Geared Death Knight, because if you play with Warlocks you’ll want as much haste as you can get
for those warrior/Paladin pet swaps and throwing out one dot one second Cyclones (less chance of
getting reflected, even though if you play against a good warrior you should definatly not try doing it
without juking). If you find that your gear supplies enough Haste you can drop the points in Celestial
Focus and throw them in Improved Moonfire for that extra Moonfire crit.

Super-Fun Feral Charge Surprise in a box-Build

Please, believe me when I say this still works if you play with a warrior with the most ridiculous PvE
gear, this is also close to the only thing it’ll work with. It gives you this funky TBC feeling. I don’t
recommend using it if you’re going for high rating in 2vs2, you can still get rank one with it but don’t
expect a 100% W/L because Rogue/Shadow Priest will most likely take a dump on you. But this
spec I swear to god is super fun. Not to mention Survival Instincts is badass. You can also get a free
cyclone by opening with Pounce -> Rake -> Shred -> Maim and Cyclone. Again, this’s basicly show-off
material, nothing too serious (BUT IT’S HELLA FUN!)

2. This is a very delicate topic because it depends a whole lot on your play-style and the gear you have
available. I’m going to try and cover as many topics as I can.

No PvE Gear – Resto Set

I’m going to assume of the least gear you can currently get, if you can’t get your hands on the
ring and trinket use the Friendly version of the ring or whichever reputation stance you’re at, and
battlemaster (spell power) trinket. This is not a good gea r setup because you barely have any haste.

Gearing Choices[/size]

Super-Drool PvE Set (BIS)

This is a perfectly reasonable motivation for raiding and not going outside, if you can get your
hands on this gear setup you’ll approach divinity. This is EASILY the best setup for ANY setup
at all, and by that I mean double healer to MLD to ShD RLD to WLD to Kitty Cleave 2x Druid.

MP5 Oriented MS/Caster or MS/Cleave setup

This’s probably the easiest set to get nowadays if you do any PvE at all, obviously you can swap out
the 277 Sindragosa ring for Marrowgar’Frigid Eye (5k on AH, usually less!). This will get you to rank
one aswell if you have the skill for it. It’s the most common setup of gear (close to mine).

3.1 Gemming

This’ll always be a very personal choice. Most people will follow the guide and just go with resilience
(believe me, it’s the best) but some people’ll want more haste. A general rule of thumb is don’t
drop below 1150 resillience when trying to get a lot of haste and don’t go below 3080 spell power
(assuming no bauble). I can see that Haste might fit some players their playstyle more, but remember
in Cataclysm the base cast for Cyclone’ll be increased to two seconds, so don’t get used to your 1.1
second cyclones. But situationally, this might be best for some setups if you have skilled enough
partners to peel from you when you’re getting jackhammered by a legendary TSG. I can see a haste

set working with most rogue setups and mage setups. Always socket +23 SP in red sockets, NO
EXCEPTIONS.

•
I know that my first gear set has too much hit rating, the gem in the boots should be removed
but Chardev won’t let me.

Moving on!

3. Most VIALBE setups (from 1 to 10).

#1 LSD

This setup has everything, it’s your easiest way to rank one. You can have your warlock run either
affliction or destruction, I see the trend is Europeans take Affliction and most American players (and
region) take Destruction. I can tell you that I haven’t played on the European realms since Season 5 so
I have no prejudice, but I feel that Affliction has a really strong advantage over destruction, you can
maintain an absurd amount of pressure with DoT’s even if your warlock would eat a sheep or cyclone,
when your shaman’d be turreting lightning bolts and lava bursts, chain lightnin’s. The only reason I’d
pick a destruction warlock is if I was 100% sure what my opponent was running, in which case I’d only
have him spec Destruction against a good WLD or a good RLS, against any other setup I’d play
affliction. Why spec destruction for these setups? Well, the RLS and WLD will most likely swap
between you and your warlock all the time. Nether protection reduces their damage by an immense
amount and 6% flat damage reduction from ‘Molten Skin’ is also pretty huge. But most importantly,
Shadowfury is close to the best peeling talent in-game. Announce it on ventrilo, couple it with a
travelform escape and you can get away every time and land a Cyclone on something that’s trying to
kill you without any risk of getting melee interrupted (beware for Sprint Glyphed rogues with no slow!
). Other than for RLS and WLD I’d definatley not go destruction, a few reasons; As I mentioned before
it’s a lot less continuous damage, it’s all about the burst. Also it’s a really predictable burst and won’t
do nearly as good versus double healer teams. Not being able to cover your fears or your shaman’s
Flame Shocks, roots, your druid’s roots, etc. is really big of a deal. But this is merely my opinion, I’ll be
the last to say that you cannot get really high as destruction, I just don’t think you’ll have an easier
time against mirrors and dispel heavy teams, your burst is predictable and depends on a dispellable
debuff on your enemies.



# 2 MLD

This is no doubt a really good setup, denying it would be a blatant act of stupidity. The highest rated
team in the world plays MLD (although I don’t believe they have much competition). This setup can
beat everything, including LSD. Although I don’t feel that it has the same amount of sustained
pressure LSD does, it’s all about setting up a killer CC train on two things and killing a third. I really
enjoy playing the setup because it feels a lot more rewarding than LSD (props to Shouri here!). I
would put it right next to WLD and a little below RLD on the rewarding-per-play level. You basicly run
Destruction/Frost because of the ludicrous burst a Destruction lock can do coupled with a mage

shattering on something. Although nowadays a shatter isn’t required to actually kill something. Either
way you’ll get very frustrated when you meet ATC. You’ll lose the first few times you meet them, no
doubt. I’ll give you a quick walkthrough on how to beat them (you’ll still have the casual 10 crits in a
row on your mage –loss, I’m sure this’ll be confirmed by Vileroze & co.). There’s not much you can do
when your sheep, cyclone and fear are on DR on the Paladin or the Hunter, Warrior. Generally I tell
my mage to pillar as soon as my Cyclones on the Warrior or hunter are on their 2nd DR because you
simply will have a much harder time to kill the warrior then you’d have when you can get a full clone
on the hunter with a sheep on the paladin (or fear, etc.). Something you should definatley try is to
get a moonfire debuff on yourself as much as possible, by moonfiring (rank one) into a spell reflect.
This’ll mean that the hunter won’t be able to scatter/Trap you at any point and reduces their pressure
by an enormous amount. When you see your mage is getting fried because they’re popping all their
cooldowns, turtle. Their setup is really gay and hardly takes any coordination (yes, I hate all of you
prot warriors that haven’t beaten 2.2k before). So I don’t feel bad at all LoS’ing and CC’ing their
offensive cooldowns, for your own sake, please don’t try to be a hero and kill a hunter with Rapid Fire
or a Warrior with Recklessness if there’s no CC on the second DPS, the damage IS NOT healable. You
might kill them once because they don’t expect you to turn the tide around with an NS Clone on the
[insert class here] to kill the [insert class here]. It’ll work once, maybe twice but not three times. The
third time they’ll be max range and your mage will be toast. Another thing I can highly suggest is not
bothering going for kills when there’s no CC out on one target, it won’t happen against a good team.
The strength of MLD is #1 CC and #2 burst potential, in that order. If you want to cleave some noobs
down, play LSD or MLS (even MLS requires some CC).

#3 WLD

This is a very consistent setup with a handful of counters. The most difficult setup is by far a PvE
geared RLS from my experience, they can tunnel your warrior the entire game and succeed or make
you blow your trinket and make the customary swap to the druid, even though that usually doesn’t
kill me, if you watch your positioning and keep hot’s on yourself, your teammates should be able to
peel enough. I can tell you right now a good RLS won’t allow you to rush them down the way they
rush you down. They’ll open on your warrior with a blind/fear on your and a hex on your warlock
(here’s where you trinket for the sake of your warrior’s mental health if you’re facing a series of
RLS). The way this setup is played is by knowing when to go defensive and when to throw out your
damage. You should always pre-dot a target before you swap, and you should swap frequently.
Intervening Cheap Shots and Blinds are a huge+ (your druid should be able to see them coming).
Also, intervene traps. There’s not that much I can say about this setup because in order to get high
you need demi-gods of every three classes and they’ll most likely have to develop their own play-
style.

#4 Double Healer/Warrior

This generally only works with a GOOD priest as second healer, you’d be mainly there for CC’ing
healers and adding the abolish, hot, healing block cyclones. Don’t be mistaking, only PvE gear won’t
get you there. Your warrior has to know that if an RLS tunnels him during Bloodlust, he shouldn’t

pop recklessness and Bladestorm, he will die because of the CC an RLS can put out during the first
30seconds of a game. Other than that if your warrior has nice pve gear and the three of you are good
players, still rank one viable.

#5 RLD

This setup requires godmode players, it can beat everything with enough practice; I wouldn’t
recommend playing it if you’re not too good with your class because it’ll be a LOT harder to get in
Gladiator range if you’re not playing with a very good rogue and warlock. Affliction/Shadow Dance
is the way to go for this setup, a lot of ArP gear is definatley a big + for the rogue. There are no solid
strats for this comp as it can kill anything.

#6 SP/Druid/Elemental

Dreadfully boring to play, not rewarding, won’t make tactics for this. If you do play it, contact me on
Skype and I’ll verbally instruct you.

#7 HLD

Destruction/MM is definatley the way to go here. By Uck’s example, it’s a really good setup with an
insane damage output. I haven’t played this setup before so asking someone that has would be a
better idea as far as tactics go. Although I’d imagine it’s all about CC’ing one target and bursting the
other one down with focus interrupts on the healer (or DPS if caster). It’s not an easy setup but It’s
definatley not rocket science.

#8 (Prot)Ret/Warrior/Druid

Kill warlock pets, tunnel stuff and you’ll win. Rating scales with gear. Easy way to glad if you’ve got
mourne.

#9 Enhancement Cleaves

These’re all about the Bloodlust & Wolves, Warrior’s Bladestorm. Eventhough it’s pretty faceroll for
the two DPS’ you’ll have to get some clutch Cyclones out in order to effectively kill stuff.

#10 I’m out of comps so I’ll just say Shadowplay with a Druid

Same as Shadowplay with a Shaman, played better as Afflicton than destruction, not as good as
Shadowplay with a shaman, nonetheless rank one viable on a bad battlegroup.

I’ll be really honest here and say that I ran out of good setups right after RLD, the other
setups are either faceroll or incredibly lame, hence I haven’t played them myself.

4. Offensive & Defensive –play + CC Guide
This is probably the most important part of this entire guide. This is what a restoration druid is all
about, we don’t have the healing capabilities of a Holy Paladin, that’s why we have the CC we have.
I’m going to go over each spell we can use to CC and tell you in what situation it can be useful.

A) Cyclone

- This is easily our best spell, you can use this in both ways. A defensive cyclone on something
will reduce their damage by 100% unless they play Affliction or have a ton of DoT’s (?). If you use it
defensively you have to make sure you juke melee interrupts or counterspells, you’ll be as good as
done if you don’t. If you’re going to try and Cyclone a TSG of f you, it’s always a good idea to pop
Nature’s Grasp first or Shadowmeld to remove focus. War Stomp is obviously the best racial for a
druid, you can just war stomp the warrior and put him in a full Cyclone. Beware, most warriors will
trinket this and get right back ontop of you, so if he hasn’t used his trinket yet you’re better off trying
to kite them with Travel form and peels from your teammates. Don’t be afraid to cast, you will NOT
survive a good geared TSG with only HoT’s, they don’t care, they just nuke you straight through your
Barkskin and HoT’s. Anyway, I’m dwelling off subject. You should mainly Cyclone when you’re not
about to drop, unless you NS Cyclone (this is usually better than a 5k NS Healing Touch), jus try to get
away.

Personally I like clutch Cyclones aka NS Cyclones. If I see a Paladin bubble, his teammate’s on 15%
and one of my teammates or both are CC’ed, throw an NS Clone onto the target, try to chain it three
times. This means you’ll have blocked the Paladin’s heals for about 10 seconds or force his teammate
to trinket. If you see the paladin isn’t in position to actually heal his teammate yet, don’t use NS,
just cast it. You can also NS Cyclone a paladin’s trinket when he’s about to bubble, this usually
catches them offguard because they’re counting on that immunity right after their trinket. Against
restoration druids that pop barkskin when your team is nuking him, cyclone him when his HoT’s are
<5seconds (Lifeblooms). They’ll bloom in your Cyclone, his Barkskin’ll be down and he’ll be f*cked
infinitely afterwards.



B)Entangling Roots

- This is also a very good spell. You can lock out a rogue that isn’t playing with a dispeller for 15
seconds or force him to cloak. You ALWAYS couple your Roots with a Faerie Fire, preferably put FF up
before you root. I don’t see a lot of druids doing this, for no apparent reason. It also works really well
against other melee’s, don’t forget to put up Faerie Fire even if it’s not a rogue, because if there’ s a
good warlock on the team he might try to devour the roots and FF will reduce the chance he’ll get it
by 50%.



C) Bash & Demoralizing Roar

- Bash can be really clutch. Getting a Bash on a healer or Rogue when your teammates are
DPS’ing means he won’t be able to cloak at 5% or penance himself to full when CS’s are down. You
can also use it defensively and chain a Cyclone ontop of it, mainly done in 2vs2. As far as
Demoralizing Roar goes, you can break Stealth so much with it. Countless times, a rogue would vanish
right besides me and I’d just Roar him out. Beware! Put a HoT on a teammate who’s in combat
before you do it because if you drop combat, a good rogue will sap you in Bear Form before you get
him out. You can also use Taunt to pull warlock pets out of Line of Sight and then free-cast for 9
seconds.

D) Hibernate

- An incredibly clutch CC, stays for 10 seconds. Have your teammates kill tremor if you’re going
to hibernate a shaman. An NS Hibernate out of a root on a shaman who’s LoS of his teammates (the
ones that are currently being blasted on by your team) will naturally try to ghost wolf to them. If you
Hibernate him, it’ll not only make his team very likely to lose, you can also scream on ventrilo that
you Hibernated him and proclaim yourself best druid in the world afterwards.

[abhorsenjay]

If we wanted to see an elitist jerks guide we would go to elitistjerks. Shameless copy paste.

[tifaz]

If we wanted to see an elitist jerks guide we would go to elitistjerks. Shameless copy paste.

whats with the hate? its a pretty detaild rdruid guide

im just sharing info here and yes ur feel free to go read this up on whereever u like for all i care

btw its from AJ not EJ

[ohmaigawd]

My eyes are bleeding! Please atleast add some color to it...

[abhorsenjay]

whats with the hate? its a pretty detaild rdruid guide

im just sharing info here and yes ur feel free to go read this up on whereever u like for all i care

btw its from AJ not EJ

You're right, I misread AJ for EJ and for that I apologize, however, it's the same thing. You just copied and pasted the entire article when we could have just gone there and seen it for ourselves. I'm not trying to hate, honest, but what is to be gained by just copying and pasting an AJ post?