PvE Restoration Druid Stat Priority & Reforging

Restoration Druids in Mists of Pandaria are primarily interested in Spirit and Intellect, with their secondary stat priority favoring Haste until they reach a breakpoint, and Mastery otherwise. You’ll need to know how to prioritize these stats so you can select the appropriate gear, gems, enchants, and consumables as well as for reforging, which is also covered in this guide.

Stat Priority

Here is your general stat priority as a Restoration Druid:

1. Spirit (until mana is not an issue)
2. Intellect
3. Spell Power
4. Haste (to reach a breakpoint)
5. Mastery
6. Critical Strike
7. Haste (beyond breakpoints)

Spirit is the primary mana regeneration stat for all healers in Mists of Pandaria, with raw MP5 having gone away in Cataclysm. Druid healers gain 50% of their Spirit-based mana regeneration while in combat thanks to their Meditation passive effect. The amount of Spirit you need comes down to how comfortable you feel with your mana pool. Once you get to the point where you are not burning through your mana on a typical fight, you can start dropping some Spirit in favor of throughput stats. Until then, it’s more valuable to you than throughput stats since you can’t heal at all if you run out of mana. All healers have a static mana pool in Mists of Pandaria, so mana regeneration is the only way to extend your mana. Your Spirit also determines how much mana your Innervate gives.

• Each point of Spirit equals about 0.56 mana regained per 5 seconds.

Intellect is your primary stat as a Restoration Druid, and you’ll want as much of it as you can get once you are comfortable with your Spirit. Intellect is the main source of your Spell Power and also increases your Critical Strike. (Note that in Mists of Pandaria, it no longer increases mana pools.) Your Leather Specialization passive effect increases your Intellect by 5%, adding further value to every point you acquire. The same is true of your Mark of the Wild buff and the Heart of the Wild talent. You can’t reforge other stats to Intellect, so you’ll want to get as much as you can from your gear, although you will still want to avoid items that have less useful stats for you such as Hit.

Hit is not a necessary stat for Restoration Druids. Your Nature’s Focus passive ability will guarantee that your main damaging spells spells are Hit capped and never miss. Hit is not worth stacking for the sake of other abilities such as crowd control.

Spell Power directly increases the healing and damage of your spells. Most of your Spell Power will come from your Intellect at a 1:1 ratio, but you will occasionally see it as a secondary stat on certain items such as weapons and trinkets. Each of your spells has its own coefficient that determines how much its effect is multiplied by your Spell Power.

Haste is similar to Spirit in that you want to prioritize it until you reach a certain level, and then largely ignore it. In this case you’ll be stacking it to reach specific breakpoints at which you will gain additional ticks from your heal-over-time spells over their duration. There are Haste breakpoints for Lifebloom, Regrowth, Rejuvenation, Tranquility, and Wild Growth. Beyond the caps, you can still benefit from Haste’s other effects: a quicker global cooldown for your instant spells (except for Rejuvenation, which is already reduced through Swift Rejuvenation) and faster cast times for all of your cast-time and channeled spells. But it’s not worth prioritizing for these purposes. Once you have your Spirit at a comfortable level, you should aim to reach an attainable Haste breakpoint without sacrificing Intellect. At times it may be worth trading out an Intellect gem or two to reach a Haste cap, but you should aim to do so by reforging first.

• Every 425 points of Haste is equal to 1% increased casting speed.
• The first Haste breakpoint you’ll aim to reach is 12.5%, which gives you an extra tick of Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, Tranquility, and Wild Growth.
• The next important breakpoint is 21.4%, which gives you a second extra tick of Regrowth and Wild Growth and a third extra tick of Lifebloom.
• If you have the Soul of the Forest talent, 24.84% and 32.1% will each give you an additional tick of Wild Growth. You’ll also gain an extra Lifebloom tick at each of these points.
• At the high end is the 37.52% breakpoint, which gives you a second extra tick of Rejuvenation along with additional ticks for Lifebloom, Tranquility, and Wild Growth.
• Click on the box below to see all of the Haste breakpoints for your HoTs.

Mastery improves your direct healing and causes your direct heals to buff your HoTs via your Harmony passive effect. It will be your main throughput stat in between Haste breakpoints. Where Haste causes you to cast faster and therefore burn mana faster, Mastery increases your healing output for free. Its buff is also more consistent and reliable than Crit. There’s really no downside to stacking it.

• Every 480 points of Mastery increases Harmony by 1%.

Critical Strike increases your chance of getting a critical hit with your spells, doubling their healing or damage. Crits can be a little iffy for healing since you can’t make them happen when you really need them, and they often amount to wasted overheal when you don’t. It’s still not a bad stat to have, it’s just not as useful as your other options.

• Every 600 points of Critical Strike is equal to 1% increased crit chance.

Reforging

Reforging can only be done for secondary stats, so you won’t be able to alter the Intellect or Stamina on your gear. Restoration Druids will want to reforge less valuable stats to Spirit until they are comfortable with their mana supply. After that, Spirit and other less valuable stats can be reforged into Haste to try to reach one of your breakpoints, or Mastery otherwise.

1. Spirit (until no mana concerns)
2. Haste (to reach a breakpoint)
3. Mastery (any other situation)