Talent Spec: Leveling Restoration/Balance
January 19, 2008Categories: Lunar Guidance, Spells and Talents
Visitors frequently ask for recommendations or critiques on prospective talent builds. These builds range from builds for leveling to just starting out in Karazhan, to specs that allow for a mix of farming (hello, Epic Flight Form) and instance/raid healing. This is the first in a series of posts designed to address these types of questions, giving me something to which I can refer readers who write in.
While it’s possible to level purely Restoration, I don’t recommend it unless you have a constant companion for the duration of your leveling experience. Instead, I encourage players who want to level up while learning to heal to consider a talent spec that mixes Balance and Restoration. Because although many Druids opt to level with a Feral spec, if your passion is for Healing, you’re more likely to gravitate toward and derive more enjoyment from damage dealing via spells than claws. I also think that the synergy between Balance and Restoration is stronger than that between Feral and Restoration. Here is a guide of recommended talent selection from levels 10-70 with an emphasis upon Healing talents alongside a smattering of Balance talents to provide you with the firepower to get to the Outlands (where, as we all know, the real fun begins).
| Talent | Total | Level | Notes | |
|
5
|
Starlight Wrath Reduces the cast time of your Wrath and Starfire spells by 0.5 sec. |
5/5 | 10-14 | |
|
2
|
Improved Moonfire Increases the damage and critical strike chance of your Moonfire spell by 10%. |
2/2 | 15-16 | Although you will eventually need Focused Starlight to unlock Vengeance, Improved Moonfire provides more “bang for your buck” at this level. |
|
5
|
Improved Mark of the Wild Increases the effects of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 35%. |
5/5 | 17-21 | While I take issue with the value of this spell at later levels, it’s nice when leveling. |
|
5
|
Naturalist Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch spell by 0.5 sec and increases the damage you deal with physical attacks in all forms by 10%. |
5/5 | 22-26 | At around this level, you will gain access to the stronger, slower ranks of Healing Touch. Naturalist will make the use of these — both while soloing and group healing — more viable. |
|
3
|
Nature’s Grasp While active, any time an enemy strikes the caster they have a 65% chance to become afflicted by Entangling Roots. Only useable outdoors. 1 charge. Lasts 45 sec. |
3/5 | 27-29 | As Nasirah points out, “[Control of Nature and Nature's Grasp] serve very similar functions.” My preference is for Nature’s Grasp. If you prebuff with Nature’s Grasp, cast Entanging Roots to begin combat, and begin nuking, you can usually rely upon NG to reroot the mob once it gets loose, reducing the amount of time during the fight spent casting non-damage spells. |
|
1
|
Insect Swarm The enemy target is swarmed by insects, decreasing their chance to hit by 2% and causing X Nature damage over 12 sec. |
1/1 | 30 | More DoTs! More DoTs! |
|
3
|
Intensity Allows 30% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting and causes your Enrage ability to instantly generate 10 rage. |
3/3 | 31-33 | |
|
2
|
Nature’s Focus Gives you a 14% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting the Healing Touch, Regrowth and Tranquility spells. |
2/5 | 34-35 | Investing 2 points here will unlock the next tier of Restoration talents. We’ll come back to Nature’s Focus later on to continue fleshing it out. |
|
2
|
Focused Starlight Increases the critical strike chance of your Wrath and Starfire spells by 4%. |
2/2 | 36-37 | |
|
2
|
Nature’s Reach Increases the range of your Balance spells and Faerie Fire (Feral) ability by 20%. |
2/2 | 38-39 | Nature’s Reach will allow you to initiate attacks from 20% further away (6 yards on Wrath). That’s more time to cast damage spells before the mob reaches you. |
|
5
|
Vengeance Increases the critical strike damage bonus of your Starfire, Moonfire, and Wrath spells by 100%. |
5/5 | 40-44 | |
|
5
|
Nature’s Grace All spell criticals grace you with a blessing of nature, reducing the casting time of your next spell by 0.5 sec. |
1/1 | 45 | |
|
3
|
Moonglow Reduces the Mana cost of your Moonfire, Starfire, Wrath, Healing Touch, Regrowth and Rejuvenation spells by 9%. |
3/3 | 46-48 | You may be surprised to find that we stop here without picking up Lunar Guidance. Because your Intellect won’t be particularly high at this level, you’re better off moving back over to Restoration to augment your healing and to pick up Lunar Guidance once you’re seeing the high Intellect totals afforded by Outlands gear. |
|
3
|
Improved Rejuvenation Increases the effect of your Rejuvenation spell by 15%. |
3/3 | 49-51 | |
|
2
|
Nature’s Focus Gives you a 42% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting the Healing Touch, Regrowth and Tranquility spells. |
4/5 | 52-53 | |
|
1
|
Nature’s Swiftness When activated, your next Nature spell becomes an instant cast spell. |
1/1 | 54 | Druids don’t get Vanish or Feign Death. The second you’ve picked up this talent, it’s time to create a macro that ties it directly to your highest available rank of Healing Touch. It’s a great survival tool. |
|
5
|
Gift of Nature Increases the effect of all healing spells by 10%. |
5/5 | 55-59 | |
|
4
|
Subtlety Reduces the threat generated by your spells by 16% and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 24%. |
4/5 | 60-63 | You’re in the Outlands now and should be running instances to help you level, collect gear, and learn to heal in a group environment (an opportunity which may not have been available until now). |
|
1
|
Swiftmend Consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on a friendly target to instantly heal them an amount equal to 12 sec. of Rejuvenation or 18 sec. of Regrowth. |
1/1 | 64 | Druids gain access to Lifebloom this level and many opt to switch to a more HoT-oriented build that includes the Tree of Life form. This type of build will be discussed in a later article. |
|
3
|
Lunar Guidance Increases your spell damage and healing by 25% of your total Intellect. |
3/3 | 65-67 | Outlands gear is rich in Intellect, making this an attractive option now. |
|
2
|
Empowered Touch Your Healing Touch spell gains an additional 20% of your bonus healing effects. |
3/3 | 68-69 | Again, your +Healing is probably beginning to flesh itself out, making this talent a better value than it might have been before. |
|
1
|
Subtlety Reduces the threat generated by your spells by 20% and reduces the chance your spells will be dispelled by 30%. |
5/5 | 70 | You may instead opt for another point in Nature’s Focus according to your preference. |
Assuming you chose a fifth point of Subtlety at level 70, this build looks like this. This build emphasizes the use of Healing Touch over HoTs which generally fare better at higher levels of gear than you will have first starting out. It’s more or less a variation on the popular Dreamstate build which dips deeper into the Balance tree at the expense of Swiftmend. I’ve gone back to this build several times, and it remains one of my favorites, being especially useful in Heroic instances since you will rely heavily upon the high HPS of your Healing Touch — at least at first — whether specced for Tree of Life or not.
There are, of course, several other possible viable talent builds at level 70, but I’ll save those for a later time.
If you are looking for a build that more heavily emphasizes the firepower of the Balance tree and are comfortable with learning the in’s and out’s of Druid healing later, check out the great guide Beneficial Balance Builds from Nasirah’s “A Tale of Two Druids”! And for Big Bear Butt’s perspective on a Feral leveling build, check out his recent article over on WoWInsider.com! Note that you are only permitted to use one of these two specs if you promise to spec back to healing once you hit 70. /shakes finger
34 Comments
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@Graylo: Oh, my mistake!! I’ve adjusted the description to be more clear.
January 19th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Great mix of Balance and Resto talents. I’ve never attempted to level non-feral (the appropriate gear seems too lacking for my taste) but I imagine this would serve very well. Enough Balance talents to bring the pain, but great abilities to keep yourself (and others) alive while doing it.
And thanks for the link to my article.
January 19th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Awesome job , Phae.
January 19th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I leveled as feral and it was a breeze. Can’t imagine any other way. Zero resting required, especially after you get LoTP.
January 20th, 2008 at 12:36 am
I levelled Feral after my group kept asking me to go kitty for instances (imagine that, being asked to go kitty). My original plan was to be Balance! At least now I know what I was missing out on. >_>
January 20th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Awesome insight! I leveled my druid in balance until 43, when grinding timbermaw rep on my warrior in felwood, the warden staff dropped, and I just had to go feral. I didnt look back until level 70 when I started healing 5mans, kara, and later SSC in the tree build. Since then i’ve gone back to feral, but now i’m thinking I want to try this new resto/balance spec out. gotta try everything
and I just love spending gold respeccing 
January 20th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I’ve followed the advice and been playing this build as a level 54. I’m curious about two things:
1. What is the recommended spell cycle against regular mobs? Root, starfire, moonfire, insect swarm, wrath, wrath?
2. Are we supposed to go more ranged? in that case is omen of clarity that needed anymore? since using this build, i have almost never gone melee?
Thanks for a great site, and some really good advice here..
January 20th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
@Nasirah: I have many time considered levelling a second Druid using a Feral spec, but it just doesn’t appeal to me as much as say … levelling my Draenei Priest. I think part of the problem is that I would have to play a Night Elf (not wishing to play a Horde character since all my friends and guildmates are on Alliance side). If there were another race that I could choose, I’d probably roll one up in a heartbeat. Well, at least create her.
@Auryann: <3 Thank you!
@Horns: Feral is widely considered the most efficient means of levelling a Druid. However, if you plan to play as Restoration at the endgame, it won’t really give you much sense of our healing style(s).
@Bellwether: Mr. Phae pressured me to go Balance at the start of the Burning Crusade so I wouldn’t just be “mooching” off his CRAZY OP Warrior DPS all the way to 70. One instance run later through Ramparts and I was Restoration again. ^_^
@Fenlar: Well, cool! This is a really fun build. Writing it up has made me want to try it out again. I haven’t tried it with Omen of Clarity (which is something that’s less useful at 70 than it would be while levelling), but that might actually be cool for my current “HoT and DoT” method of farming.
@Jonas: Recommended spell cycle? That’s a good question. I’m far from an authority on this as my DPS is more like a “cast spells till it’s dead” technique, but I would recommend:
Cast Nature’s Grasp (make sure you have Thorns too). Root your target from max distance. Moonfire. Insect Swarm. (You want to give your DoTs the most time to be effective, and they are less likely to break your root than the large DD Starfire.) Starfire until the root breaks and the mob reaches you. Back out of range. Refresh DoTs as necessary. When it gets free a second time, you could switch to DoTs + the faster casting Wrath. Or you could hit it with your stick for a free OOC proc if you’re running low on mana.
You make a good point about OOC. You might opt to drop this from your build if you never find yourself using it for the free spellcast. I have always really enjoyed having it, though, especially while levelling since there are some mobs that you can afford to get up close and personal with. =)
January 20th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
From my experience at 70 (I hadn’t tried balance before), I think it’s better to open with Starfire, Moonfire and then roots. Even without Nature’s Reach you’re at a respectable distance to let the mob get closer between MF and roots, and roots may break with one SF or even just a MF crit (so roots->SF would make you root again).
I then use Insect Swarm, wrath and, while wrath is flying, starfire (so if wrath breaks roots I’ve bought a bit of time anyway).
To avoid drinking, the best thing to do is SF/IS and rooting when needed, but I sometimes just switch machine gun mode on and start spamming wrath
MF can speed things up with Nature’s Grace, but it’s a bit too expensive.
Also I check mobs’ health (addons please). I know how hard my spells hit, so I can say “oh, wrath will be enough to finish it off, no more starfires” which reduces mana spent too.
Aaand I don’t have omen of clarity when I go x/0/>41. The only use I would find for it would be when I can’t use roots to keep mobs away. I don’t like being too close (even though in healing gear a lifebloom now and then keeps it up); call me paranoid, but I’m sure it would affect my repair bills
January 21st, 2008 at 10:11 am
I initially levelled as Feral, but went Balance at 62 and never looked back. My thought is that you should never be in melee with mobs, so OOC is a little useless. My spell rotation goes roots, insect swarm, wrath until roots breaks, rinse and repeat. Wrath doesn’t seem to break roots nearly as much as moonfire and starfire.
I’m 43/0/18 though - a fairly standard moonkin raiding build.
January 21st, 2008 at 5:18 pm
I wish I could find a good level by level guide like this for every class… my rogue is such a mutt. haha
Looks like a cool spec to try out for a week or so to get out of my 0/0/61 doldrums.
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:38 am
I’ve edited the mention of OOC to indicate that you could instead take a point of Nature’s Focus if that’s more your cup of tea. I actually am considering speccing into it right now due to my current style of stand in front of the mob and let it try to bash my face in while I DoT it to death and HoT myself to life. Thank you all for the feedback! =)
@Maerdred: Yeah, my little Rogue is pretty confused herself. Come to think of it, I’m not sure if I ever respecced her after the last Rogue talent reset! =D
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:49 am
Just wanted to add that the problem with casting spells in melee is they reset the weapon swing timer, so in order to let it proc you have to stop casting.
Given that that the only spell you can really spam in melee is wrath, that’s about 250 mana (no moonglow). If, instead of waiting for a few swings, I keep spamming wrath, mob will die sooner, and I’ll get that mana back in less than 5 seconds. Of course if you keep auto-attacking for a while your mana regen in combat goes up too but I’m not very enthusiastic about this.
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:51 am
I’m curious- do you not run into mana trouble with that build? I had a modified 27-0-34 for about a day; the increase in spell costs hurt me too much while instancing, even granting that soloing got easier. I presume that 34-0-27 would make life simpler due to Dreamstate, but I want to let my respec cost drop again before I try (plus, my raid leader would probably throttle me if I showed up in front of Karazhan in moonkin form
).
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:40 am
@Phaelia
I applogize if someone else has pointed this out before but you have the wrong description on subtlety. It looks like you have given it the discription of Gift of Nature.
@Jonas
1. Your rotation depends on your build and your prefered style of play. If you use If you use a heavy healing build like the one Phaelia as provided I would go with some thing like Moonfire, Root, Insect Swarm, Starfire, root, Starfire, and backing up when necessary. I cast moonfire first because it is likely to break the root otherwise, since IS doesn’t do damage right way it won’t break the root as soon as you cast it, and then starfire because it is the most damage.
If you are more of a balance build then I would suggest: SF, MF, IS, Wrath til dead. Since you should have moonkin form you can take a few hits, and celestial focus will let you get the wraths off while being hit.
2. I am one of the people Phaelia is refering to when she says OOC is a contrivercial talent. I think it is a feral talent and unless you do a lot of melee in cat or bear form then it isn’t worth it at all.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:10 am
[...] Read | Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments [...]
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:22 am
Okay, okay. You’ve all convinced me. I’ve replaced OOC with an additional point in Nature’s Focus. But I still really like the ability. Maybe it’s nostalgia from using it while levelling with Mr. Phae’s paladin 3 years ago. /pout
@Graylo: Thank you! Copy and paste FTL. Corrected. =)
@Llanion: Well you are picking up the 9% reduction in mana costs for your DD and DoTs, and you can switch to lower mana cost spells if you find yourself pressed for mana. I haven’t used this build myself in a while and when I did, my gear was better than it might be while levelling so I can’t really speak to whether or not you’d have mana issues. Maybe some other readers trying it out will better be able to answer that question!
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:22 am
Phae,
Thank you SO much for your post! It was incredibly informative! I wrote a few weeks ago when i was having difficulty choosing how to lvl my dr00d. I have since really found my niche in feral and enjoy it immensly. I plan on turning him resto when he hits 70, as i have alot of experience with resto dr00ds on the PTR.
I look forward to scouring your site for the perfect resto build.
Avid fan and daily reader,
~Rethic
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:48 am
My husband and I have just started a pair of druids to level together. He’s going to go feral, and I want something to compliment his build. This looks very tempting, but any suggestions would be most appreciated.
January 22nd, 2008 at 12:36 pm
@Rethic: You are very welcome! I’m glad that you are enjoying your Feral build. No doubt levelling as Feral will help give you a sound background for interacting with the tanks you heal in the future.
@WarcraftMom: I actually think this build would be a great complement to a Feral build. You’ll be able to keep your husband healed up while retaining the ability to do damage yourself. I think levelling a pair of Druids together would be a blast! You guys can do anything!
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
@Phae and @ WarcraftMom: When I leveled my druid I did so with a friend. I was feral and he was balance/resto. Our downtime was minimal, and was usually just letting him stop and drink as I pulled the next mob. By the time I needed him, he would be back up and running. It was also very fun. I could smack stuff around and he could sit back and cast like a maniac.
January 29th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I hit Outland a couple of days ago. I stayed feral from 58 to 60 and collected all of the caster druid gear rewards from the first quests. At 60 I respecced to the hybrid spec above.
I ran into mana issues and I was drinking after pretty much every fight. Part of it may have been my gear as I didn’t have every slot filled out yet with caster gear; I was still wearing some feral pieces.
I respecced to full resto (one of my points is in Omen of Clarity) and for soloing I’ve been wearing feral gear. Granted, I kill slowly, but there is less downtime than I had with the balance/ resto spec.
I want to heal Outland instances; I know I could do it with less points in Resto but I really enjoy having Tree of Life and all of the other resto goodies. I’m not in a gigantic rush to hit 70 so I can live with the slower pace.
I may try the balance/ resto spec again later after I have more gear upgrades.
For the moment though, this is not a bad way to do it for druids that want to heal instances from 60-70.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Thank you so much for this build Phaelia! My druid’s up to 29 already! Although I think I may switch to full resto once I hit Outlands, is this a good idea?
January 29th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
@Ariaya: Sorry to hear that you had mana difficulties with this spec, even if part of the problem might have been a lack of appropriate gear. Unfortunately, I can’t see anything that can be done to make it more mana efficient. Are you using the more mana efficient Starfire over Wrath? Always using Insect Swarm (which very well may be the most mana efficient DoT in the game)?
@Edmond: If you intend to level up through instances and instance-related quests, you could probably go from 60-70 more purely Resto-specced. However, your playtime will be largely dependent upon your ability to get groups and your levelling speed handicapped by the playing ability of those groupmates. I would recommend keeping at least enough points in Balance to get Insect Swarm, even if you do spec deep Resto.
January 29th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Hi Phae. I was using Wrath most of the time, rather than Starfire. That’s a good point.
I think it’s a very solid spec and I may go back to it.
Tooling around in my feral gear today, I had a crit for 1406. This really surprised me. I didn’t have tons of crits like that but I did have some consistent decent ones. It’s not as slow as I had anticipated it would be. If you do run around though as resto in kitty form, definitely make sure you are wearing feral gear. Solo questing as a resto spec in resto gear would be absolutely dreadful.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:55 am
[...] down well enough. So in trying to find this balance, I applied a recent post of hers regarding speccing Balance/Resto. While this spec is great and saw my DPS increase by about 100, I find the distinct lack of [...]
February 18th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
[...] February 16, 2008 by Ozeb I got Akki up to level 67 following an unsuccessful Caverns of Time: Old Hillsbrad run. We got up the point where we have to rescue Thrall when miscommunication between the tank and others got us killed once. That was okay because the encounter resets anyway. So we ran back and restarted and again miscomunication and a heated exchange between the warrior tank and one of the others in the group got bad. The player left the group and the warrior decided he did not need to tank anymore and ran away, leaving me his aggro and killing me. I wanted to finish the instance but I didn’t think it would happen that night. So I went to Nagrand soon after and got the remaining experience on the abundant wildlife while skinning. The problem with a PUG (Pick Up Group) is that if two players don’t get along, one of them can leave, and when I leaves, everyone panics and begins to leave as well. On the plus side, I did successfully heal it with the resto/balance leveling build I developed after reading Talent Spec: Levelling Restoration/Balance. [...]
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
[...] - Is at the top of my list. Number 1 spot. Since I started levelling my Resto Druid, any tips, information and general healy goodness I can usually find here. Phaelia has some excellent theorycrafting and [...]
April 17th, 2008 at 2:58 am
“I’ve never attempted to level non-feral (the appropriate gear seems too lacking for my taste)…”
Don’t be afraid of cloth!
April 24th, 2008 at 12:47 am
[...] you know, there it was a handy guide right there on her site, saying she loved her variation of the dreamstate build! She had hope! What a relief to know what you want to do when you grow up. [...]
June 27th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Hey Phae! This build looks very interesting. I have not been playing WoW for a good 3 months, and i have recently started a druid. It is currently lvl 12, but i plan on getting her as high as possible before WOTLK
Do you believe that even after the recent patches, this is still a good spec to have to have the capability of questing solo, and healing for instances all the way to level 70? I’ll check back and see if i can get an answer =D it would be most helpful. Thanks!
June 27th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
@Ria: I definitely think so. Things have only improved for hybrid builds like these with the change such that +Healing gear also grants +Damage.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
[...] Moonkin Talent Spec for Leveling [...]
July 19th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Hi Phae! I was just wondering real quick which stats were best for resto/balance druids? I’m very confused on which stats i should look for first over others, if you could reply i’d be most appreciative =D
July 19th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
While leveling, I think you’ll want to focus on your stats in this order:
- Spell Damage (also gives you +Healing); I’d save any +Healing pieces you can pick up for when you instance, though)
- Intellect
- Spirit
- Spell Crit
The Intellect/Spirit will help you minimize downtime between Dreamstate and the boost it provides to your Innervate. Spell Crit is something you’ll probably pick up as a consequence of collecting gear with spell damage on it, but I wouldn’t suggest focusing on it.
Once you’ve hit 70, you probably won’t want to use such a hybrid spec as the one outlined above and then you’d want to switch to the stat priorities that are most appropriate for your max level spec.