A Guide for Resto Druid Gearing for Arena

Classes Druid
1

Hello,
I’ve seen several posts for resto druid pvp asking about gearing, stats, legendary and talent usage so I thought I would compile a post about proper gearing and talent choice

If you would like me to add anything or have any questions then let me know and I will edit the original post or reply in the comments

Talents:
Row 1: Cenarion Ward: This will be the go to no matter what pvp content you are doing, as long as you swiftmend right away or a second after it procs then you can obtain around 93% uptime with the verdant infusion legendary

Row 2: Wild Charge is the go to talent, its versatility is amazing and the only other talent that comes close is renewal. Avoiding damage is more valuable than healing it so renewal falls short as well as wild charge helping much more with setting up CC

Row 3: It comes down to feral affinity versus guardian affinity. Balance affinity will never be chosen for arena.

  • Feral affinity is my go to for 2s and 3s versus any healer comp. The movement speed and rake stun are invaluable. The extra pressure you can create with MF/SF and rake/rip on a target is extremely helpful although this is more valuable in 2s. Guardian affinity survivability is not needed versus any dps/healer comp and the movement speed increase makes it where a warrior or rogue have a hard time staying on you
  • Guardian affinity: I utilize guardian affinity versus double dps comps in 2s, the main double dps comp to worry about is rogue/mage, guardian affinity allows me to not worry as much about the swap that could kill me and allows me to draw both the rogue/mage back to a pillar with my partner and be in the rough while maintaining a thrash bleed on the rogue.

Row 4: Mighty bash will be your main go to choice here, the only exception would be mass entanglement can be taken versus double melee in 3s if you are running rogue/another stun class but even then I probably would take mighty bash

Row: 5 Soul of the Forest is the largest hps increase, it pairs well with putting a strong rejuv on someone such as versus a hunter where you will be trapped, or a strong regrowth if the target is already fully hotted. This should be taken over any other in this row.
Tree of life: This is what I call a bait talent, some will take it versus any comp with a mage. Let’s say you are facing a rogue/mage and you take this. You will have no problem surviving the opener nor will your partner assuming you trinket the blind and don’t get sapped. But all they will do is reset and you will be severely gimped from then on out. Never take this talent over sotf

Row 6: Overgrowth allows you to recover from purges or target swaps, this will be the go to

Row 7: Germination is the only viable choice here

Legendary Choice

Verdant Infusion: This is by far the strongest choice for arena, it should be utilized in conjunction with cenarion ward, you are able to refresh the hot portion of cenarion ward up to two times if you swiftmend right or close to when ward pops. This can lead up to around 93% uptime on cenarion ward which is huge for HPS

  • Put vers/haste on this legendary. If you are able to get sire shoulders then craft gloves, otherwise it doesn’t matter

Stats
Vers>haste>mastery>Crit

  • Vers will provide the largest benefit due to the pvp trinket set bonus.
  • Haste will be your 2nd go to. At the very least you want enough haste to get a clone off * of an incap roar from guardian affinity. It lets you get off cc faster, its a good hps and good dps increase.
  • Mastery is more of a hps increase than haste for arena but is only a hps increase. It is an excellent stat but shouldn’t be chosen over haste
  • Crit isn’t a bad stat, it just isn’t as good as the others in arena

Trinkets

The only two competitors here are insignia (static haste + int proc) , or emblem (stat int + health on use)

Emblem is the better of the two, its important to note that it not only increases your maximum health, it also increases your current health by that amount making you extremely more likely to survive a hard swap. With the added benefit of primary stats being so valuable, this is a no brainer to choose

Covenant Choice

Necrolord is the top pvp convenant although if you want to go night fae because of OS boomy then that is fine as well.

  • Necrolord Pros:
  1. Adaptive swarm plays very nicely with hots and is a big boost to periodic healing and is also a nice boost to periodic damage although it can be dispelled
  2. Necrolord shines due to two soulbinds:
  3. The second conduit provides a shield that absorbs 15% of your max health anytime you go below 50% health, once every thirty seconds.
  4. The last conduit makes you cc immune while channeling and for 3 seconds after while casting fleshcraft, this lets you ignore cc while providing you a chance to get on off of your own. Especially helpful versus other resto druids and cyclones
  • Night Fae Pros:
  1. Podtender is gimmicky but effective in 2s, if your partner peels or is able to cc the enemy then this can save many a game
  2. Soulshape is extremely valuable mobility
  3. Convoke is a very strong healing catchup during deep dampening if you are able to get it off while costing no mana

Conduits

  • Endurance- Well honed instincts which is mandatory, for a second choose innate resolve

  • Finesse- Tireless pursuit is by far the best one, a decent second is born of the wilds

  • Potency- To be honest, these are all meh but the top is evolved swarm if necro, otherwise run floral recycling. Floral recycling doesn’t do as much healing as it portrays but there really isn’t a decent alternative

7 Likes
2

Interesting. What do you do for PvP talents? Obviously they’re going to change depending on what you’re up against, but what’s your thought process?

3

Very helpful read! I have only just started playing Druid over the past week or so and barely even touched Resto because healing is simply too twitchy but I’ve been dying to try it out in RBGs to get some practice and this helps.

If anyone out there wants to make a flag/base sitting Guardian guide also that would help :slight_smile:

1 Like
4

I’ll add pvp talents later today

5

Germination is nice but I wouldn’t take it over Flourish

2 Likes
6

You will never want to take flourish over germination for arena, ever

7

Maybe you’re just not using it right buddy :slight_smile:

1 Like
8

Worth switching to Necrolord over Night Fae?

9

Well one of you is providing the same guidance that most every high rated resto druid provides and follows, and the other one is you.

10

According to Drustvar, among rdruids at 2400+ in 3s, 87% of them are running Germination, 8.6% running flourish. In 2s it’s 81.3% and 12.5%, so there’s a pretty clear favorite

11

There is no advantage to flourish
The 12% Druid’s that are running it like the poster above me mentioned is most likely due to logging out in mythic + talents as evident by the other talent choices

I mean this politely but it may work with the rating you are at but you won’t have the hps you need at higher ratings of play. You won’t always just be able to sit there with regrowth spam

12

Just got mace in vault, any huge difference in performance with staff or will I be fine for a while with mains hand off hand?

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Mace is perfectly fine, you won’t notice a difference. Save your conquest for other gear first and both trinkets as the haste/int proc trinket is very good for balance

14

Only 2 likes for this? Dude answered a lot of my questions :stuck_out_tongue:

Tyvm

2 Likes
15

I’d like to add some points that may have been overlooked. They are not necessarily go-to moves but something to think about:

If you are necrolord, switch to bear form and use emblem for health increase then fleshcraft. You will get a bigger boosted shield.

You can also use swiftmend into SOTF then use nature’s swiftness to provide the next regrowth a 300% healing boost. It’s basically the equivalent of a pally’s LOH but imo.

You also may want to consider a macro to make your innervate self cast on self. Much easier in arena when you might start to oom

16

there’s major advantages to flourish, the issue of why many don’t play it lies in the playstyle adaptation from game to game. that’s personally why i never play it even though i know it’s superior in a handful of matchups

against purge teams like spriests, rshams or even in response to a klepto spellsteal, germination is one of your last globals you’d be pressing while under pressure. however, flourish in the same situation empowers cen ward which can’t be purged and is obviously your strongest and most reliable hot into said purges

u read what someone smarter than u wrote and now u think ur qualified to speak in absolutes :

lol

17

I’m not going to resort to insulting someone, but I still disagree with the use of flourish in arena. Even versus a purge comp. Purges are not a free lunch and the lifebloom “bloom” is not what it used to be. If a healer is spam purging then it will oom him over you, if a dps is spam purging then its the opportunity cost of dps, although it does increase pressure

Germination will still win out in these situations, you yourself state you even play it over flourish versus these comps. All three opponents can have a purge and germination will still win

18

purge always ooms the druid before it ooms the user. and my argument wasn’t that lifebloom is enough to sustain you while being spam purged, it’s that if you’re being purged germination is last in priority because it’s only a healing gain if you’re maintaining both rejuves, which you probably wouldn’t in a situation where you’re being spam purged.

picture this - shadowpriest resto shaman, you’re playing with a warrior as a resto druid. you have lifebloom, rejuve, germ, regrowth, swarm and maybe a cen ward and mark of the wild. you go into a stun silence combo, throughout this setup the shaman has been spam purging, until your warrior is cleaned- what do you do when you come out of CC? what are your globals? is germination a high priority? or would a flourished cen ward + swarm combo accomplish more?

now think, you can rotate this for every other stun silence combo. the damage between the goes is almost nonexistent, to the point playing without germination has little impact on your ability to sustain the raw DPS… of course if you factor in purges the pressure is higher, but remember that if one of your rejuves has been purged, germination is effectively useless until both rejuves are reapplied.

not under any circumstance, photo kept on yourself would actually provide more than the other two talents, if i qd into Ele shaman / Rsham / Spriest, i’d play photo without a doubt in my mind, and i did so in BFA where we had LESS purge protection and mastery was the stat being stacked.

the rotation/ mindset switch from game to game is why i don’t play flourish, but any matchup where damage peaks when your germination isn’t on the target means that the other two talents have higher value

19

So with your reluctance to swap around playstyles with Flourish, do you play Photo into purge heavy comps? Does this apply to double purge in 2v2 as well? Just about to get into arena with my druid :]
Also, would you recommend Flourish over Germination/Photo into any purge heavy comp if one is willing to make the playstyle adaptation?

20

Maybe find someone to explain to you just how childish it is to argue with someone about a talent that you yourself say you never use.

1 Like