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Patch 7.2.5 Restoration Druid Changes, Updates, and Overview

Updated 5 years, 11 months ago by Preston in Patch, Warcraft. View the change log.

With Patch 7.2.5 coming on June 13, 2017, I wanted to compile a list of changes that are affecting Restoration Druids. As usual, you can tweet @PrestonDvorak or leave a comment at the bottom of the page with any questions or feedback.

There are quest and content spoilers ahead, proceed with caution if you want to avoid them!

Table of Contents

Official Patch 7.2.5 Survival Guide

Patch 7.2.5 is being released on June 13, 2017.

Spell Changes

A few Restoration Druid spells received changes or updates in patch 7.2.5.

  • Most of our healing spells received a 4% decrease in effectiveness. 
    • This sounds scary, but overall 4% isn't all that high. Blizzard is attempting to dial back Restoration Druid's power without making them too weak. While playing with the 4% nerf on the PTR, I didn't notice any difference. In fact, I didn't even realize there was a nerf until someone asked me about it on Twitter!
  • Most of our damaging spells received a 25% increase in effectiveness.
    • This change will help anyone who does world quests and other content while in Restoration spec, as well as make the damage we can contribute during raids and Mythic+'s even more effective.
  • Cultivation received a 16% decrease in effectiveness.
    • Even with the decrease, Cultivation should still end up being the default talent choice, but it opens up things a little more on fights that my see a benefit from other talents in the tier. We'll have to wait to see how logs from live servers play out, as well as what effect the new legendary items have.
  • Our mastery now increases the healing done by the Mark of Shifting artifact trait.
    • This is a nice little boost for PvP, or if you find yourself in Restoration spec running away from enemies that were too difficult!

Player Versus Player

There are also several PvP-specific changes to spells and honor talents. Keep in mind, I'm not a highly competitive PvP'er, so some of my theories on the changes may be wrong. I'm always open to feedback!

  • Abundance’s Healing Touch cast time bonus is no longer reduced in PvP situations.
    • This was done because of the change to Nourish below, and should help even out the cast time reductions again.
  • Fortified Bark has been replaced by Entangling Bark.
    • This was likely done to slightly reduce Resto Druid's ability to respond to heavy single-target focus by making Ironbark less potent and usable less often. The new effect still gives the possibility of reducing damage by peeling melee away, but it's much less consistent.
  • Nourish no longer reduces the cast time of Healing Touch.
    • Combined with the other change above, this makes the Healing Touch cast time reduction situation a lot less confusing by simply allowing the reduction from one talent.
  • Revitalize has been redesigned: Rejuvenation (and Rejuvenation (Germination)) grant the target 2 stacks of Revitalize. Revitalize will heal the target for 2x spell power and increase the duration of Rejuvenation or Rejuvenation (Germination) by 3 seconds (whichever has the lowest remaining duration).
    • This change makes Revitalize slightly less powerful but still a viable counter when facing a lot of melee or if you prefer not to use Healing Touch with the Nourish talent.

Legendary Items

Some existing legendary items are receiving small changes alongside the new legendary items being added.

New Legendary Items

The items below are being added with patch 7.2.5.

Soul of the Archdruid

This ring simply gives you the Soul of the Forest talent. Based on my testing on the PTR, I expect this ring to be of average power. It'll be something you may like if you enjoy the Soul of the Forest playstyle, or if a boss encounter can make use of the buffed heals consistently. It also synergizes pretty well with the T20 2-set bonus, assuming you're reducing the cooldown of your Swiftmend consistently. Overall, it'll be an interesting legendary to watch once more logs are available from live servers.

Chameleon Song

This helmet gives your Wild Growth a chance to grant you Tree of Life for 12-seconds, with the Tree of Life functioning exactly how the talent does (increased healing, extra targets for Wild Growth, instant Regrowth, etc). I expect this to be another average legendary item. I wasn't able to test it on the PTR during fights with consistent Wild Growth usage, but I imagine it could be a situational legendary for fights that have you using Wild Growth nearly on cooldown. The Tree of Life buff lasts long enough to get off another Wild Growth to take advantage of the additional targets, giving it an even larger benefit on fights that need Wild Growth constantly. As with the other new legendary, it'll be interesting to see how things play out when more logs are available from live servers.

Changed Legendary Items

The items below are being changed or updated in patch 7.2.5.

Aman'Thul's Wisdom

Aman'Thul's received a change to the maximum number of seconds a Rejuvenation can be extended, from 15-seconds to 9-seconds. This change isn't very noticeable other than when you're pre-HoTing in preparation for damage, making it a little harder to get Rejuvenations on everyone. Overall, I didn't make any changes to my play style and the shoulders still seemed effective. This change just dials back how insanely powerful they were. As with the other items, I'll be watching live logs closely to see how the shoulders perform with the change.

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Tier 20 Set Items and Bonuses

While not coming immediately in 7.2.5, a new tier set will be released with the Tomb of Sargeras raid on June 20, 2017. This particular set is modeled after the Tier 6 set from the Black Temple raid in Burning Crusade, with several re-colors, high-res textures, and special effects on the Mythic version.

Druid T20 Mythic Helm Thumbnail
Druid T20 Mythic Helm

Druid T20 Mythic Shoulders Thumbnail
Druid T20 Mythic Shoulders

Druid T20 Mythic Set Thumbnail
Druid T20 Mythic Set

The set bonuses are also quite good. Maybe not quite as easy to use as the T19 bonuses from Nighthold, but if you're already used to using Efflorescence and Swiftmend, you shouldn't need to adjust your play style much.

Druid T20 2-piece (Restoration)

The 2-set bonus gives us a little extra single target healing, while also synergizing really well with the 4-set bonus and new legendary ring.

Druid T20 4-piece (Restoration)

The 4-set bonus is a very large increase to group healing if enough of the group can be inside Efflorescence. With my limited experience with Tomb of Sargeras encounters, this doesn't seem like it's going to be an issue. 

New Playable Content

In addition to content specific to Restoration Druids, there is a ton of new playable content being added to the game. I won't have detailed explanations here, but I wanted to at least mention everything.

Tomb of Sargeras

The Tomb of Sargeras is a nine boss raid instance coming on June 20, 2017. You can prepare yourself with my healing boss guides.

Deaths of Chromie Scenario

A new single-player scenario quest line takes you through time to help Chromie prevent many of her own deaths.

Black Temple Timewalking

The Black Temple raid is being added to the timewalking system and will be active any time the Burning Crusade Timewalking event is available. The raid is not available through the LFR system and you'll instead need to make or join a group manually.

Even More!

There are even more, smaller features coming, including:

  • New Pet Battle Dungeon: Deadmines
  • New Micro-holidays: Auction House Dance Party, Trial of Style, Moonkin Festival, and The Great Gnomeregan Race
  • Blight Boar concert at the Darkmoon Faire

You can see all of the changes in Blizzard's official 7.2.5 patch notes.


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