Shifting Perspectives: Gearing a new restoration druid, part 3
Legs
As with any advice concerning the gloves slot, you may want to wait to see if Toravon coughs up the tier 10 legs for you before you spend a ton of gold or time on anything else.Enchant Brilliant Spellthread
- Sanctified Lasherweave Legplates The ilevel 264, tier 10 pants. Dropped by Toravon.
- Leggings of Woven Death An Icecrown tailoring BoE. Very expensive to have made, but crammed full of useful stats (except, regrettably, spirit or MP5).
- Leggings of Unrelenting Blood If you can get an ICC-10 PUG that makes it to Deathbringer Saurfang, this is a really nice piece.
- Lightweave Leggings Another Icecrown tailoring BoE, and just as expensive as the first option listed. If you're haste-capped or need more mana regeneration, go for these.
- Lasherweave Legplates The ilevel 251, tier 10 pants.
- Legwraps of Unleashed Nature The leatherworking equivalent of Lightweave Leggings. Lightweave is slightly better, as it gives you a little more spirit and a little less crit, but the pieces are virtually the same.
- Malfurion's Leggings of Triumph (Alliance)/Runetotem's Leggings of Triumph (Horde) The ilevel 245, tier 9 legs available for 75 Emblems of Triumph and 1 Trophy of the Crusade.
- Wrathful Gladiator's Kodohide Legguards Dropped by Toravon.
- Malfurion's Leggings of Conquest (Alliance)/Runetotem's Leggings of Conquest (Horde) The ilevel 232, tier 9 legs available for 50 Emblems of Triumph.
- Wildstrider Legguards Available for 39 Emblems of Conquest.
- Titan-Forged Leather Legguards of Salvation Available for 40 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.
- Leggings of the Snowy Bramble Drops from the Champion's Cache in heroic Trial of the Champion.
- Rimewoven Silks Dropped by Scourgelord Tyrannus in normal Pit of Saron.
All hail a best in slot (well, pretty close to it, anyway) BoE item! If you're going to dump money on anything, make it the boots.
Enchant Tuskarr's Vitality is the way to go if you ever plan on raiding, and it can be helpful even for 5-man work. Otherwise, Enchant Boots -- Greater Spirit.
- Blessed Cenarion Boots A leatherworking BoE from Icecrown. Hugely expensive to have made, but worth it; it's not something you'd realistically expect to replace unless you managed to get the boots off heroic Festergut-25 or the ToGC-25 ones off Faction Champs.
- Sandals of Consecration The tailoring equivalent of Blessed Cenarion, but you can ignore them as you're getting the leather ones made (right?).
- Boots of Unnatural Growth If you get an ICC-25 PuG, you may find these dropping off the Faction Gunship encounter, but they're not as good as the Blessed Cenarion Boots.
- Boots of Fiery Resolution: If you get Flame Leviathian Must Die! as a weekly raid quest, try to find a 25-man PuG for a shot at these because they're still pretty amazing.
- Boots of the Frozen Seed Dropped by Lady Deathwhisper-10. Oriented more toward moonkin, but still a fine resto piece.
- Wrathful Gladiator's Boots of Salvation Dropped by Toravon. Otherwise, you'd better have 68,200 honor and a team/personal rating of 1400 in hand.
- Spellslinger's Slippers (try saying that five times fast) If you're hurting for money but still need something good in the boot slot, try to get this older tailoring BoE. Lots of meaty stats to be had here.
- Prelate's Snowshoes Dropped by Scourgelord Tyrannus in heroic Pit of Saron.
- Boots of Wintry Endurance Also an older BoE, but this time from leatherworking. You'll get more out of the +haste on Spellslinger's, however.
- Ice-Steeped Sandals Dropped by Forgemaster Garfrost in normal Pit of Saron.
This is definitely one of the easier slots to fill, if for no other reason than the existence of a great Triumph badge ring and the Ashen Verdict reputation ring.
Enchant If you're an enchanter, you'll want to slap Enchant Ring -- Greater Spellpower on both.
- Ashen Band of Endless Wisdom You can get this even without raiding as long as you're willing to bore yourself silly farming Icecrown Citadel trash.
- Marrowgar's Frigid Eye This is a BoE drop from Lord Marrowgar, and whether you'll find it on the auction house or not depends on your realm and circle of friends. Frankly, even though it's a good piece I wouldn't bother spending the gold on it, as there are plenty of good options here.
- Ring of Maddening Whispers Dropped by Lady Deathwhisper-25. A good piece if you're haste-capped.
- Ring of Rapid Ascent This drops from Faction Gunships in ICC-25, but it's oriented more toward caster DPS. Expect stiff competition.
- Band of the Invoker The ilevel 245 ring available for 35 Emblems of Triumph. A very, very good piece.
- Runed Signet of the Kirin Tor As I wrote on the bear post, I'm not a big fan of the Kirin Tor rings, because they're ridiculously expensive for what you get. But if you've got money to blow, this is a decent (albeit easily replaceable) option.
- Runed Loop of the Kirin Tor See above.
- Polished Dragonslayer's Signet One of the rewards from the quest started by the Head of Onyxia (25-man).
- Band of Channeled Magic Available for 25 Emblems of Valor.
- Wrathful Gladiator's Band of Dominance Dropped by Toravon, or available for 52,200 honor.
- Glowing Ring of Reclamation Dropped by Flame Leviathan-25.
- Heartmender Circle The other caster ring available for 35 Emblems of Triumph, but not really oriented toward restoration druids.
- Polished Dragonslayer's Signet One of the rewards from the quest started by the Head of Onyxia (10-man).
- Titan-Forged Band of Ascendancy Available for 15 Wintergrasp Marks of Honor.
- Wyrmrest Band Dropped by Sartharion-25. As above.
- Oath of Empress Zoe Dropped by the Captain's Chest in heroic Halls of Reflection. Really not a druid piece, but if all else fails ...
Blizzard is generally reluctant to make a lot of great trinket options available outside of raids, but you can limp along with badges pieces if needed. However, trinkets are hard to rank, and you should customize them to whatever your needs are at the time. If you're having regen issues, you should prioritize anything with an MP5 use or proc (or, failing that, intellect, due to how mana regen from spirit scales with intellect). If you're not, go for as much throughput as you can.
If you're an alchemist and just starting out, you may get some use out of a Mercurial Alchemist Stone.
If you're an engineer, you may get some use from a Noise Machine.
If you're a jewelcrafter, you may get some use out of a Figurine -- Sapphire Owl.
- Althor's Abacus If you snag an ICC-25 PUG, be on the lookout for this lovely, lovely trinket off the Faction Gunships fight.
- Purified Lunar Dust Available for 60 Emblems of Frost.
- Sliver of Pure Ice Dropped by Marrowgar-10. If you use the trinket on cooldown, it amounts to a little less than 68 MP5.
- Nevermelting Ice Crystal Dropped by Scourgelord Tyrannus in heroic Pit of Saron. The use effect is definitely more of a DPS thing, but it could be useful for tank healing in hairy moments.
- Je'Tze's Bell A world-drop BoE. Much less expensive than it used to be, and still useful.
- Ephemeral Snowflake: Dropped by Marwyn in heroic Halls of Reflection. Yes, it returns mana on EVERY HoT tick!
- Darkmoon Card: Illusion Mostly useful for the spellpower, as the use effect isn't too worthwhile in any advanced content.
- Tears of the Vanquished Dropped by the Black Knight in normal Trial of the Champion.
- The Egg of Mortal Essence Available for 40 Emblems of Heroism.
- Soul Preserver Dropped by the Dark Runed Chest (i.e., Mal'Ganis) in normal Culling of Stratholme.
- Talisman of Resurgence This is a lot better for other healing classes than it is for us, but it's usable in a pinch. Available for 50 Emblems of Triumph.
- Darkmoon Card: Greatness Because of how mana regeneration scales from intellect, this is actually a better card for us than the spirit version.
- Spark of Life Dropped by Sjonnir in heroic Halls of Stone.
- Shiny Shard of the Scale Dropped by Onyxia-25. On its own, it's nothing more than a chunk (albeit a large one) of MP5. If you manage to get Shiny Shard of the Flame as well, you get a 250 spellpower bonus and a free 2.5-3k heal on occasion. Obviously, the heal proc is less useful to us than to healers more reliant on direct heals, but I thought I'd mention it.
- Purified Shard of the Scale Dropped by Onyxia-10. As above.
As a general rule, you'll get more out of using a 1H weapon and offhand than you will out of a staff, but this gets complicated if you're hurting for haste. Fact is, most of the really good haste weapons are staves.
Enchant Enchant Staff -- Greater Spellpower if you have a staff.
- Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff If you find an ICC-10 PUG that can make it all the way to Deathbringer Saurfang, look for this.
- Engraved Gargoyle Femur Dropped by Scourgelord Tyrannus in heroic Pit of Saron. It's got hit on it, so don't go for this ahead of a caster DPS.
- Unspeakable Secret Dropped by Forgemaster Garfrost in normal Pit of Saron.
- Blood Boil Lancet Dropped by the Devourer of Souls in normal Forge of Souls.
- Staff of Restraint Keep an eye out for this if you get Sartharion Must Die! as a weekly and can snag a 25-man PUG.
- Staff of Draconic Combat Dropped by the Cache of Eregos in heroic Oculus.
If you're just starting out, your best bets are drops from the new Icecrown 5-mans and possibly Onyxia; everything else is going to be pretty competitive (ICC drops) or pretty expensive (Battered Hilt).
Enchant: Enchant Weapon -- Mighty Spellpower
- Frozen Bonespike In that wonderful, mythical Marrowgar-25 PUG where you get to win everything you want off the big galoot, this is your best bet for a one-hander (even though -- barf -- there's crit on it).
- Hammer of Purified Flame One of the rewards from the Battered Hilt quest line, and very lovely. It's equally expensive.
- Midnight Sun If you can get an ICC-10 PUG, this drops off of Faction Gunships.
- Honed Fang of the Mystics Dropped by Onyxia-25.
- Guiding Star If you get Razorscale Must Die! as a weekly, look for this.
- Sharpened Fang of the Mystics Dropped by Onyxia-10.
- Surgeon's Needle Dropped by Forgemaster Garfrost in heroic Pit of Saron.
- Spectral Kris Dropped by the Black Knight in heroic Trial of the Champion.
- Chilled Heart of the Glacier Dropped by the Captain's Chest in normal Halls of Reflection.
- Bone Golem Scapula Dropped by the Captain's Chest in normal Halls of Reflection.
- Mariel's Sorrow Dropped by the second boss (Eadric or Argent Confessor) in heroic Trial of the Champion.
- Dagger of Lunar Purity (Alliance)/Scalpel of the Royal Apothecary (Horde) Available for 25 Champion's Seals from city quartermasters at the Argent Tournament.
- Titansteel Guardian A blacksmithing BoE.
- War Mace of Unrequited Love Dropped by Keristrasza in heroic Nexus.
Honestly, there aren't really a ton of well-itemized offhands for us out there, and almost everything drops in a raid anyway.
- Shriveled Heart Dropped by the Captain's Chest in heroic Halls of Reflection.
- Antediluvian Cornerstone Grimoire Dropped by Onyxia-25.
- Handbook of Obscure Remedies Available for 25 Emblems of Heroism. Guess what yours truly had to buy recently when Trauma dropped?
- Temple Crystal Fragment Dropped by Novos the Summoner in heroic Drak'tharon Keep.
- Faces of Doom A BoE from Inscription.
- Prison Manifest A BoE zone drop from heroic Violet Hold.
Every week, Shifting Perspectives treks across Azeroth in pursuit of truth, beauty and insight concerning the druid class. Sometimes it finds the latter, or something good enough for government work. Whether you're a bear, cat, moonkin, tree or stuck in caster form, we've got the skinny on druid changes in patch 3.3, a look at the disappearance of the bear tank, and thoughts on why you should be playing the class (or why not).Filed under: Druid, (Druid) Shifting Perspectives
Patch 5.2 interview with Dave Kosak
Inside an old alt's vault
The latest patch 5.2 news
All of the latest Mists of Pandaria news






Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Arainna May 4th 2010 9:26PM
I was just going to say that about the staff =P
Also, the purified lunar dust trinket is mentioned as being bought with triumph, when it is frost emblems =)
Allison Robert May 4th 2010 11:51PM
Fixed, thanks! After paging through so many Wowhead entries I think my brain just rolled over and gave up.
jonahb May 5th 2010 5:30PM
DK tank want guide for gear really dont know what to do at this point execpt stack stam do a shitload of daily heroics to get enough emblems for my tier 9 and 10 tank gear. It seems to be nigh impossible to find a good 2 handed tank weapon better than http://www.wowhead.com/item=41257 titansteel destroyer. HELP?
Allison Robert May 4th 2010 11:53PM
I'll pass your request along to Daniel Whitcomb, who write our columns on death knights.
Boobah May 5th 2010 3:12AM
Pretty much any wrath purple two-hander you can equip is going to be an upgrade from the Titansteel Destroyer for tanking. Even the hunter/feral polearms look pretty good, though it usually involves trading some threat for avoidance.
Your top five pre-raid blood tanking weapons:
1) Tyrannical Beheader, heroic Pit of Saron
2) Marrowstrike, heroic ToC-5
3) Mourning Malice, regular Halls of Reflection
4) Orca-Hunter's Harpoon, heroic Halls of Reflection
5) Garfrost's Two-Ton Hammer, regular Pit of Saron
Levi May 4th 2010 9:24PM
Mag'hari Chieftain's Staff drops from ICC 10 not 25
Otherwise awesome info! Thanks
jonahb May 4th 2010 9:25PM
need help DK fresh 80 tank guide PLZ?
Ithal May 4th 2010 9:53PM
I think someone mentioned it above, but the Ephemeral Snowflake is just about tailor-made for Resto Druids. 11 mana each and every time my HoTs tick? An on-use for emergency haste? Yes please! Plus, it drops from HoR, so it's very get-able for up and coming trees.
Allison Robert May 5th 2010 1:22PM
With the Ephemeral Snowflake equipped, an Insightful Earthsiege Diamond, and a Spark of Hope from Kologarn-10, I was amused to find myself *gaining* mana spamming Rejuv. I still have the Snowflake banked in case the Cataclysm content patch puts the mana efficiency changes in early, which would be a bummer for a lot of ICC content.
TonyMcS May 4th 2010 11:21PM
Don't forget PvP gear. With the investment of a few hours, a few random bgs and a few Wintergrasp wins and quests you can have L264 Cloak, Wrist, Trinket, Ring, Neck, L251 shoulders and L245 boots etc and level 232 the rest.
Sure it will cut down a little on one of your main stats and replace that with resilience, but a L264 item is still better than a L200 PvE item and picking these up while waiting for drops and emblems can make your PvE work a little easier. It also helps with the boredom.
It also helps with the Gear Score snobs as most won't even look to see your gear is PvP, but instead concentrate on GS and a GS of 5000 or above is easy to get with PvP gear.
So if you're gearing up an alt, waiting for a drop or have just been unlucky in filling a slot, try some PvP.
falcon13 May 5th 2010 1:02AM
Only nitpicking here but your haste numbers are assuming you have every haste buff available. I'm only saying because I have the misfortune of never raiding, even in 25 mans, with a shaman who drops wrath of air totem.
That's 5% haste that I'm losing, meaning in order to get haste capped i have to raid with 935 haste, not sure what the numbers are if you don't have a ret pally or boomkin, because i always have one of those with me. I'm sure that it would make the article a lot more complicated, but a link to a post explaining what haste numbers you need with each buff would be nice.
Neyssa May 5th 2010 9:46AM
My comment got lost in the system.
My question is, could you please add idols? Right now as a resto healing ICC, I have a wrathful idol, adding to Lifebloom, i think it is pretty good. Should I change it to the 30 frost badge idol (i am pretty slow frost-collector, and i could use it elsewhere, for example for the chest piece), or any good drop somewhere?
Allison Robert May 5th 2010 1:27PM
/headdesk -- I can't believe I forgot idols. I'll add that as soon as I can. In general, the Lifebloom-oriented badges are better for PvP than PvE unless you tank-heal a lot in PvE. Off the top of my head, a good PvE-oriented idol without dipping into Frost badges is the Idol of Flaring Growth, available for 25 Emblems of Triumph.
The best Idol for PvE purposes is definitely the Idol of the Black Willow, but it'll cost you 30 Emblems of Frost. You almost certainly won't replace it until well into Cataclysm, however. There are some heavy raid-damage fights, however, where it might be worthwhile to switch in Idol of Awakening (25 Emblems of Valor) to boost your efficiency.
Neil May 5th 2010 10:47AM
Allison,
Thanks so much for a great guide :) Your columns are always a pleasure to read, and this one will be a great reference for me as I start working on building my Resto offset.
Also, the effort you put into responding to comments was awesome. It makes us commenters (or at least this commenter) feel like we're being read and taken seriously :) If only all this site's columnists had the time, effort, and Troll Resistance Gear to do so regularly!
Looking forward to the next installment of the column :D
Allison Robert May 5th 2010 1:37PM
I'm really glad that people find them useful. Some weeks it's tough to get the time to respond to as many comments as I'd like, but they are ALL read and very much appreciated (even the trolling ones, because even though people may not be polite about it, they sometimes have a point over something you got wrong). Thank you :)
Cerelith May 5th 2010 11:23AM
I dont understand the fascination with stacking haste, especially over spellpower. I gem and enchant everything for spellpower unless for meta. Never had any problems or had to concern myself overly much with haste. Havent had any problems in 10 or 25 icc.
Vogie May 5th 2010 11:41AM
It's a playstyle thing. Mostly rolling hots? Haste doesn't matter *that* much for a Resto "roller" because you have 3 to choose from (Rejuv, LB, & WG), and than your "flash heal" Nourish gets better when there's something rolling on it. The Hot is your end-all, so gemming for spellpower makes them much more efficient.
However, tank healing druids or those dealing with lots of spike damage, haste is much better because you can use your most powerful direct heals (Glyphed Regrowth, unglyphed Healing touch) which are more powerful & more efficient for single target healing faster, while HoTs act more like a mini PW:S or earth shield... a means to an end, instead of an end in & of itself.
Allison Robert May 5th 2010 2:07PM
The deal with stacking haste (especially compared to the pre-3.3 world and the change to Gift of the Earthmother) is that, as of patch 2.4, it affects your global cooldown. If you reach the haste cap, you change your global cooldown from 1.5 seconds to 1 second. This may not sound like a big deal, but it changes how quickly you can apply HoTs or other heals to a raid.
Let's take two druids and call them Druid A and Druid B. Let's assume Druid A has 0 haste and Druid B is at the haste cap, and keep both of them casting, say, Rejuvenation on the global cooldown. This is what they'd look like (assuming good latency):
0 seconds: Both druids cast Rejuv.
.5 seconds: Both druids on the GCD
1 second: Druid A on the GCD, Druid B casts Rejuv
1.5 seconds: Druid A casts Rejuv, Druid B on the GCD
2 seconds: Druid A on the GCD, Druid B casts Rejuv
2.5 seconds: Druid A on the GCD, Druid B on the GCD
3 seconds: Druid A casts Rejuv, Druid B casts Rejuv
3.5 seconds: Both druids on the GCD
4 seconds: Druid A on the GCD, Druid B casts Rejuv
4.5 seconds: Druid A casts Rejuv, Druid B on the GCD
5 seconds: Druid A on the GCD, Druid B casts Rejuv
Now let's say that both druids are at equivalent levels of spellpower and that, raid buffed, each Rejuvenation tick does about 3K. That's about 18,000 healing per Rejuvenation cast assuming that both druids also have Nature's Splendor. Over the 5 second window we've just looked at, Druid A with 0 haste has done 4 Rejuvenations for 72,000 healing. Druid B at the haste cap has done 6 Rejuvenations for 108,000 healing, a 50% increase. The difference is only going to get worse as the encounter goes on.
This isn't entirely realistic as no druid, assuming Gift of the Earthmother, is ever going to be at zero haste, but even if Druid A has more spellpower than Druid B, or both of them stop Rejuv spam to toss some Nourishes and Regrowths around the raid, Druid B still has an overwhelming advantage. Even if he/she absolutely sucks compared to Druid A, Druid A still spends more of the encounter on the global cooldown and thus unable to cast. So that, in a nutshell, is why haste is so important. If you're concerned about HoTs, it lets you apply more HoTs to more people more quickly.
Haste is also extremely useful in that it lowers the cast time for direct healing as well -- which was actually the reasoning behind the change to Gift of the Earthmother, to make haste more attractive to resto druids. A haste-capped resto druid will have a 1 second (versus 1.5 seconds) cast time on Nourish. A glyphed-and-specced resto will have a 0.6 second cast time on Healing Touch. Regrowth becomes a 1.5 second cast. In the hair trigger world of heroic Icecrown content (or pretty much any heroic content), this is the difference between life and death for your raid.
Benjaroku May 5th 2010 12:32PM
Fantastic guide! Thanks!
Somebody may have already mentioned it, but I'd add the Soulcleave Pendant that drops from Saurfang to the neck pieces. It's a pretty solid (and fairly obtainable) PvE piece for a slot that's tough to upgrade without PvPing. And I'd argue that the sp/haste/crit on it, along with the yellow slot, make it at least competitive with the ones you listed as BiS.
Levi May 5th 2010 10:45PM
I think you should include Sanguine Silk Robes near the top of the chest items...
http://www.wowhead.com/item=50172