This is a little guide I threw together for my guild‘s forums.  It’s nothing too fancy, everything is straight to the point.

Resto Druid 101

Stats

Spirit > Spellpower > Int > Mp5 > Crit/Haste

Spirit: increase regen and also +healing in treeform
Spellpower: pretty obvious, the more of this, the greater your numbers will be
Int: this is an interesting stat as it increases your mana pool and your regen
Mp5: it’s a good stat but never take it over a spirit item
Crit/Haste: the only reason you should have these stats is if it comes with the item. If you’re starting out, don’t focus on these stats

There is nothing wrong with building a crit or a haste set. So if you want to experiment with those stats, go for it.

Enchants

Head: 30 spellpower 8mp5 (Wyrmrest rep)
Shoulder: 24 spellpower 6mp5 (Sons of Hodir rep)
Cloak: wisdom
Chest: 10 stats
Wrist: 30 spellpower
Gloves: 28 spellpower
Legs: 50 spellpower 20 spirit (tailoring)
Boots: 18 spirit
Weapon: 63 spellpower

These are the best enchants you can get. Of course if you are an enchanter, scribe or leatherworker; you do have better choices.

Gems

Red socket: 19 spellpower (runed scarlet ruby)
Yellow socket: 9 spellpower 8 int (luminous monarch topaz)
Blue socket: 9 spellpower 8 spirit (purified twilight opal)
Meta socket: 25 spellpower 2% int (ember skyflare diamond)

In all cases and my opinion I highly suggest you should aim for the socket bonus. If you are lacking stats in one area, you do have the options of other gems.

Talents

11/0/60
This is the basic spec most druids look at. You don’t have to follow this build exactly and you are free to move some points around in balance and resto. It depends on your play style and what your raid may need.

Glyphs

Innervate
Rejuv
Regrowth
Swiftmend

Those four are probably your best choices. Out of the four, innervate and swiftmend are both required for raiding. I personally use rejuv because it is my most frequently used heal. I did used to use the regrowth glyph a lot, since I enjoy the HoT attached to it. But once again, it’s your choice.

Spells

There is no real rotation to use. However, there are tips that you can use. Always use the rejuv + swiftmend combo for tight situations. If it’s a fight where the tank takes horrible spike damage, you can use nature’s swiftness + healing touch for an extreme heal.

Rejuv should be your primary heal, especially for raid healing. Only worry about using lifebloom on tanks, or a target that is undergoing heavy fire.

Now, for a short direct heal, it’s either nourish or regrowth. It depends on the situation and mostly a judgement call. Regrowth does have the hot attached but nourish is affected by all the hots and has a shorter cast.

A resto druid should always be casting something. Even if a target has full health, there is always the chance he will take damage. I believe there is no excuse to ever be standing still.

It also helps if you know abit about what classes you have tanking for you, so you can determine which direct heals would benefit more. It especially helps if you know their gear and if they are able to take a few hits before you can get a direct heal off.

Addons

I only use X-perl, that’s it.

It enhances the raid frames, highlights who has aggro so you can anticipate incoming damage, has a HoT counter, highlights who is being healed, debuffs etc.

I don’t believe in using addons to help heal.

Achievements are the devil.

I don’t know how else to put it. I love to hate them. But I also really, really love them. If that makes any sense.

Ever since Blizzard has announced they are removing the Plagued Proto-drake from the game, my 10 man has been on high alert and wanting everyone to be serious faced at all times when we do our runs. There have been moments where we have wanted to slap some people across the head for saying, “I don’t really care about achievements…” and other such nonsense.

Our 10 man only truly consists of six static people that have been gunning for Glory of the Raider since December. The other members simply don’t care which has put strain on us. But luckily, this impending doom on not being able to get the drake after 3.1 has changed some peoples views on how we handle the 10 mans.

We finally got the Undying on the weekend. Now we only have to conquer 6min Malygos (which we know we can do since we were only 20secs short last week) and of course… 3 drake OS… Yay.

I know, I know.

“Where have you been?”, “Why aren’t you blogging anymore?”, “We mis you!”

Okay, maybe I lied a bit.  Nobody has been saying those things but oh well, I still felt bad for not writing anything.  So the story goes a little something like this

I became overwhelmed with raiding, Arcis were raiding nearly every single day.  And if it weren’t 25 man content, our super 10 man group or my 5 man heroic group would be going around tearing things apart.  But I hit a wall.  The 25 man content was becoming unfun to me because of a certain few people who refused to learn the mechanics of their class, couldn’t understand the fights and wouldn’t ask for help.  Loot was going to people who clearly did not deserve it, especially so early on in the raiding season.  And one of those raid nights, I snapped.  I’m not going to mention names or classes or specs because that would just be silly and I’m over it but certain people were getting gear and I said something, a whole lot of something.  I shouldn’t have but I did.  And yeh, I felt silly.

So I stopped doing the 25 man content with my guild for nearly two weeks to try and cool off.  I still did the 10 man content, especially Naxx, because I find it to be really fun.  The 10 man versions of the raids are, in my opinion, relaxing.  No dramas.  But now I’m back in the 25 man raids and I just don’t care anymore.  I’m there to help my raid leaders, cause they’re good friends.  I’m not going to let my selfish elitist attitude ruin raiding for me.  I hate myself sometimes.  And the only thing I can really say is, that shit happens.  Excuse the language.

I really don’t know what to say. It’s simple, don’t stand in the fire/ice/acid/stuff on the ground. If you haven’t learnt that by now, please delete yourself, or give me your login details and I’ll do it for you.

I did regular Occulus today and on the 3rd boss he drops an ice slick on the ground that does a DoT, it was no problem to heal through it during the fight, so I said nothing about it since my HoT’s healed more for what they did. Anyway, after he died, everyone kept standing in the ice, so I ask them to please move out of it. Nobody does, they’re too concerned about the loot. So I ask again, nothing. Then I simply say, “If you don’t move out of the ice I will let you die.” So what happens? Someone dies to it and the rest drop down to 500ish health. I was laughing and shaking my head. Someone got so angry at me for not healing them through their stupidity that they dropped group.

DO NOT STAND IN THE FIRE!

The end.

LOL, that’s all I can say about that screenshot, I mean… Awesome, pure awesome.

And this one is just plain cute. Me and my critter army!

There was nothing unusual about this day at all, just another boring day in Stormwind. The sky was forever blue, the chatter amongst the people gathering in the Trade District echoed through the canals and what greenery stood within the city lay undisturbed by the gentle breeze. However, members of the Argent Dawn had seemed to be visiting the major cities of late, as if anticipating an attack of some kind. Most ignored them and thought nothing of it. Others knew in the back of their mind something was not right. It had been on Kalfurion’s mind a lot lately, something was stirring in the Emerald Dream, thoughts most unkind. He had seen many restless nights, never sleeping more than a few hours but being the strong willed one he is, he never let it show. Unlike someone.

Kalfurion was, like most days, hanging out in the park of Stormwind by the moonwell, gathering his thoughts and planning his days. He wasn’t alone. Saresa had been tagging along in his journey’s lately. Why? Apparently she was bored and needed a Druid to laugh at. She didn’t have a care in the world. It was the middle of the day and she was asleep on the grass in front of the well. The shadow of our hero made Saresa stir in her sleep and she was eventually brought back from the dream land.

“Afternoon.” Kalfurion simply stated. Sighing to himself as his gaze met the sleepy head.
“Huh? Wha?” She replied, truly being care free and unable to sense the looming shadow Kalfurion had been feeling lately. “Oh, right. I suppose I should get up and…” She paused as she sat up, looked to the Night Elf then the moon well and grinned to herself, “Fish!” With that said, she crawled her way to the edge of the well to sit cross legged and stare into the sacred water.
“…Again?” Is all Kalf was able to come up with, not really surprised she wanted to do something to tease him, once again.

While Saresa fiddled with the fishing rod that seemed to never leave her side, the Druid gazed off into the sky. Something was not right. His arms came down from his chest to lay at his sides, hands curled into fists as his gaze became fixed on an object in the distance heading closer to the city.

“I don’t think fishing would be the wisest thing to do at this moment dear Saresa.”
“Oh don’t be like that, I thought you’d be used to-” Her sentence was cut off as Kalf gripped her shoulder rather tightly. “-Hey hey hey! That hurts you stupid tree!”
“The Scourge are upon us, it all makes sense as to why the Argent Dawn have been so active as of late.” The Night Elf snarled as the image became clearer. What he was starring at were masses of Frost Wyrms, ready to assault the harbour. Saresa had actually listened to him for once and was watching the same scene unfold.
“Maybe you’re right for once Kalf. All your silly worrying was getting annoying.” She popped up from her seated position, dusting off her robe and stood by the Druid. “Since you’ve been worrying about it for so long, you must have a plan or something. Right doofus?”
“I-” Before he could reply, cannons had begin to fire and after they had settled for a moment a heroic voice could be heard.
“For the Alliance! Show those Scourge scum what it means to threaten us!” It was the King himself, at the front lines of the siege it seemed.

The Night Elf did not bother waiting for Sar to gather her things and promptly shape shifted into something a little more convenient to get to the harbor quicker. The Warlock sighed at his eagerness to see what was going on but she did admire him, she knew how selfless he could be in the heat of battle. She shook her head and began casting a spell to summon her Dreadsteed into this realm. In a matter of minutes the pair were at the top of the harbor starring at a most unfriendly sight. Scourge had nearly taken over the harbor, masses of the Argent Dawn had arrived to fend them off, with large numbers of the Alliance forces fighting, pushing the Scourge back to where they came from. Kalfurion shifted back from his travel form and turned to watch Saresa dismount from her Dreadsteed.

“The war has begun. I think we’re off to Northrend.”  The Druid simply stated.
“You know what Kalf? I think you’re right for once.”

So my brain has been a bit dead when it comes to anything to blog about, especially with the next expansion so close.  I was chatting to Sar a few minutes ago about my current adventures in WoW and she tells me I should blog about it.  Well duh, I’m such a dork sometimes.  She has always been the brains in our friendship.

Anyway, I love achievements, I’ve been grinding them like a crazy person.  I’m sitting at 281/745…

And something that shocked me today.  Sar was actually impressed at the dedication I put into getting the mounts together to obtain the Albino Drake.  It made me feel special!  She usually calls me a dork for doing such things.

The other thing I think is kind of cool and appropriate for stepping into Northrend is having such an awesome title, just like this:

And in other random news, my guild, Arcis, finally took down Illidan and I got his sexy mace!

This is a general rant, more than anything.  I haven’t blogged in awhile, mostly because I haven’t been inspired to write much, especially with Wrath just around the corner.  Sure I’ve had fun adventures with my new found power and godliness.  But the true test is still yet to come.

Since patch 3.0.2 my guild has been powering their way through raids, such as BT.  8/9 on the first weekend of the patch.  Before the nerf we were sitting at 4/9, which isn’t too bad.  The nerf did make the rest of the instance look like a joke, with only the big man Illidan standing in our way.  Well not really.  The second weekend in we fixed our mistakes, ironed out the creases and beat the living crap out of the Night Elf mongrel.  Sure it was satisfying at the time but, meh.  That’s all I can really say.  It wasn’t a true victory, sure I got all girlie seeing him dead but whatever.  It’s nice to see the rest of the content.  But to be content about the content at this point?  I can’t answer that yet.

So I have my hands on some Tier 6, yay.  Would have been nice if I got it a few months ago when it would have made a difference, now it’s just a nice change to what Kalf looks like, along with his new hairstyle (I still don’t know if I should go with purple hair, if anyone has an opinion, please feel free to say something).  Ah well.

I think that will do for now.  It’s all I really had to say.  I’m sure more rants of this nature will pop up until Wrath hits.

My fellow readers, I am sorry about the intrusion by our fellow Warlock friend. Don’t listen to her stories. Sure, it’s the greatest feeling ever to be able to bring someone back from the dead without having a stupid cooldown to wait for. And sure, I wanted to test it out a lot.

When I first logged in when the patch hit, I spammed in Guild, Trade and LFG for someone to go die so I could rez them. Nobody wanted to. But what Sar was saying was not the truth. I asked her to come along on that RFD run so I could get myself the achievement for finishing the place since I’m sure everyone is aware not everything was retrospective, which sucks, especially when you have Kael’s Hawkstrider and have the achievement for that but yet, and this is humorous, I haven’t finished Heroic Magister’s.

Anyway, I thought I would ask Sar to bring her baby hunter along for some easymode exp, yeah she did get A LOT, about half a level or so. I do not hold myself responsible if she feels up to wandering off and not following close behind and then die. I was moonfiring the casters just to make sure they’d have full attention on me! I bet she was attacking the caster mobs that were lagging behind just so she could get some more attention from me and then in the end just blame the death on me.

Unless of course. Earlier in the day she was telling me how she’s never watched a female Draenei die before. Hmm, it’s all starting to make sense. If she can blame me for wanting to use my out of combat rez, then I can blame her for wanting to see her Draenei die. And she’s a hunter! Why didn’t she feign?

The mind of a Warlock is such a mystery, an evil mystery sometimes.

On a side note, I love my AoE heal. /hug Wild Growth

Once again, I am infiltrating and taking over with my Warlocky ways. Of course, I am doing this for the greater good of you, the reader. Sure, Kalf may sound nice. He may have convinced you that there could be nothing sinister in those flailing branches. Druids are awfully good at conning people, and sometimes we forget about their shifty natures.

Today, I was merrily questing on my lovable hunter, Jaq. I had a new pet turtle who needed some exercise and training, so we were running around, taking on some menacing bears, and saving the populace of Southshore from being eaten as soon as they walked out the door. Next thing you know, Kalf sends me an invite. ‘How about you come to RFD with me?’

Since, as I have endlessly mentioned, I am really a kind and loving soul (you are what you eat!), I let him know that I would accompany him – despite the immense trek that was involved for me, having no flightpath further south than Stormwind – on the proviso that I could put myself on auto follow from Ratchet to RFD, as I had some washing to get off the line. No problemo, he says. Excellent, sez I. I eventually make my way their, put my delicate self in his ‘capable’ hands, and set off to get the washing.

Lo and behold, when I return, what do I see but one very dead hunter, and a lazy druid sitting next to her body! All he had to say on the matter was ‘Um… it never happened’. Tell that to my broken gear. Tell that to my brand new pet! His faith in me must have been considerably shaken after that happening. Poor Caesar.

Well, I released and started to run, when he rezzed me. I thanked him, jumped back on my elekk, and we wound our way in. Kalf ran ahead with barely a thought for my poor self trying to keep up, and picked up a few mobs. By a few I mean half an instance. Of course, he didn’t KEEP all of these mobs on him. No sirree. The casters decided it would be a great deal of fun to pick on me instead. I honestly don’t know why, it wasn’t like I DID anything to them! He was the one spamming Moonfire! I came close to death a few times, but managed to survive. Clearly I managed slightly too well.

So, Kalf pulled even MORE mobs. Sure enough, some of the casters decided my much younger and more attractive self would be more fun to beat upon. So they did. So I died. Which, of course, gave Kalf another chance to rez me. He was distinctly unapologetic. I was starting to suspect he actually ENJOYED using his new power.

Sure enough, a few more mobs in, and I managed to die – AGAIN! This just confirmed it! He was trying to kill me! That sneaky, shifty Druid was intentionally letting me die so he could chuckle and rez me. To boot, he managed to let me die on the way out when he ‘didn’t notice’ a couple of mobs come running right towards me. Then he let me die outside as he pulled all the mobs along the way, ‘trying’ to help. Of course. Until they got tired of chasing him, started to run back, and saw me ambling along after him on my much slower elekk. One Shield Slam and several other blows later, and I had to be rezzed again.

Clearly he has no restraint. Give the guy an inch, and he will take a mile. Give him a rez, and he will let you die JUST for the opportunity of using it. Trees could take a lesson or two from Spidey: With great power comes great responsibility.