6. Set bonuses and Idols

6. Set bonuses along with Relic/idols for Restoration druids. I’m keeping the older set info for new druids, though I expect most to be using Tier 9 & Tier 10 in the 3.3 patch.

Tier 7 restoration sets:
Hero’s Dreamwalker Regalia (10-man Naxx).
Valorous Dreamwalker Regalia (25-man Naxx):

  • A) The 2-piece set bonus for Tier 7 reduces the cost of lifebloom by 5%. The 2-piece tier 7 bonus is nice for saving you mana, however the 4-piece tier 8 is definitely worth trading up for.
  • B) The 4-piece set bonus for Tier 7 makes your nourish spell heal for 5% more for each HOT that is on the target. This is great for tank healing, however the Tier 8 4-piece bonus really outshines this, too. It’s about equal to the swiftmend bonus, or maybe a little worse depending on how much small-group stuff you do.

Tier 8 Restoration Sets:
Valorous Nightsong Regalia (10-man Ulduar)
Conqueror’s Nightsong Regalia (25-man Ulduar)

  • C) The 2-piece set bonus for Tier 8: 10% more healing for Swiftmend. Not a great bonus on it’s own, but if people are low on health, it’s nice to be able to top them off for a big heal.
  • D) The 4-piece set bonus for Tier 8: Your rejuvination instantly ticks for a normal tick amount instantly. This bonus is really awesome for raid healing, and is the most powerful set bonus.

Tier 9 restoration sets:

Totally Triumphant Malfurion’s or Runetotem’s Garb (Heroic/hard-mode 25-man token)

Triumphant Malfurion’s or Runtetotem’s Garb (Regular 25-man token & badges of triumph)

Conqueror’s Malfurion’s or Runetotem’s Garb (costs 30 to 50 badges of triumph each)

  • The 2-piece bonus for Tier 9: Increases your crit chance with nourish by 5%. Not great for raid healing, but pretty good for tank healing. However, it costs you the rejuv instant heal bonus, so we may be slow to upgrade to this (you may be keeping different raid & tank heal sets in your item-rack for a while). I wouldn’t trade the 25-man Tier 8 for the Conqueror’s garb, however, since the item-levels are too close to warrant loosing our best set bonus.
  • The 4-piece bonus for tier 9: Allows rejuvenation HOTs to crit.  Probably worth trading your 4-piece Tier 8 for, especially since the stats will end up pretty much forcing you to need to upgrade your gear at some point. Definitely better than the 2-piece tier 8. It should also be interesting to see how this interacts (or doesn’t interact) with our talents.

Tier 10 restoration sets:

Info on the new Tier 10 armor can be found here.

A lot of resto druids will probably only wear two T10 set pieces, since three of the other set pieces have crit on them, and it may be hard to BOTH be haste-capped and keep a 4-piece bonus.

  • The 2-piece bonus for T10: The healing granted by Wild Growth spell reduces by 30% less over time. This means that your wild growth’s later ticks are going to heal for more than they do without this bonus. It doesn’t have any effect on the healing done by the first tick.
  • The 4-piece bonus for T10: Each time your Rejuvenation spell heals a target, it has a 2% chance to jump to a new target at full duration. We haven’t tested this mechanic yet in-game (as far as I know), but the assumption here would be that rejuvenation would randomly apply a new rejuvenation on other people. My bet is that a lot of people won’t pick up the 4-piece bonus just because it will be hard for them to get enough haste from gear.

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Idol/Relics for PvE healing
There actually aren’t that many choices. Your best options are likely going to be:

  1. Idol of Awakening - Reduces the mana cost of rejuvenation. This is useful if you are having severe mana problems. Should replace with Flaring Growth (equally accessible in 3.3) if you don’t have really severe mana problems.
  2. Idol of Flaring growth – Your rejuv ticks give you a chance to gain 234 spell power for 9 seconds. This is an awesome bonus, as it should proc all the time, even if you only do tank healing. I’m working on upgrading to this idol once I have enough Triumph badges for it. You can gain triumph badges from the coliseum 10/25-man, or from doing heroic 5-man dungeons, so even non-raiders should have access to this in 3.2.
  3. Idol of the Black Willow – Rejuv ticks increase spell power, similar to flaring growth. Once it is stacked up to 8 times, it gives you more spellpower than the flaring growth idol. Costs 30 frost badges. Not a big priority to upgrade from Flaring Growth to this one, since you also have to spend frost badges on Tier 10 gear. Get your set pieces first and then pick up this idol.