Before you can start kitting out your character you’ll need to know what your stat priority is so you can select the appropriate gear, gems, enchants, and consumables. Restoration Druids have a soft cap for their Haste to consider as well, with the value of that stat dropping significantly once the cap is reached.
Stat Priority
- Intellect
- Haste to cap
- Spirit
- Mastery
- Critical Strike
- Haste beyond cap
Intellect is your primary stat and will always be the most important stat for a Restoration Druid as the main source of your Spell Power and mana pool. Intellect also increases your Critical Strike. Note that with your new Leather Specialization passive ability, you’ll always want to wear Leather armor and not Cloth in order to maximize your Intellect.
Haste is extremely valuable up to the point where you can reach one of the soft caps, but any extra Haste beyond those caps drops significantly in value and will not be worth taking above other stats. Every point of Haste will give you a tiny increase to your casting speed, but the soft caps are the points at which you will gain extra ticks from your HoTs over their duration. Here are those caps and the HoTs they affect:
- 5% – Lifebloom
- 7.1% – Wild Growth and Efflorescence
- 12.5% – Rejuvenation and Tranquility
- 15% – Lifebloom
- 16.7% – Regrowth
- 21.4% – Wild Growth and Efflorescence
When calculating your Haste, keep in mind that you can get 5% Haste from the following raid buffs:
- Moonkin Form (Balance Druid)
- Mind Quickening (Shadow Priest)
- Wrath of Air Totem (Shaman)
The 12.5% cap will be the standard for Phase 1, with the next two caps not being as worthwhile and 21.4% being more of a target for higher gear levels. You need about 128 Haste Rating for every 1% increase. It takes 917 Haste Rating to reach 12.5% with one of the raid buffs above (518 if a Warlock is giving you Dark Intent). With the same buffs, it takes 2005 Haste to reach 21.4% (1573 with Dark Intent).
Spirit is the primary mana regeneration stat for all healers in Cataclysm, with MP5 being removed. 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 may want to consider dropping some Spirit in favor of throughput stats.
Mastery is your primary secondary stat for throughput once you have reached your targeted Haste cap. Each point of Mastery increases your healing through Harmony. Note that with the way this Mastery works, you will need to weave in direct heals in order to buff your HoTs. It doesn’t just happen passively like most Mastery abilties.
Critical Strike is your least useful stat (except for Haste beyond one of the caps). You’ll generally want to replace it or Reforge it to something better. If there are no better options it’s still an increase to your healing.
Reforging
Reforging is a new feature in Cataclysm that allows you to trade out part of one secondary stat for another on any piece of gear. You won’t be able to get Intellect this way (or get rid of another stat like Agility or Stamina), but you can fine-tune your secondary stats to your heart’s content.
Restoration Druids will want to Reforge any Critical Strike or excess Haste on their gear to a more useful stat. Once you are comfortable with your mana, you can even start to Reforge some of your Spirit to Mastery or other throughput stats.
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first of all nice guide but do i need the 12,5% buffed or unbuffed
That’s the total with all of your raid buffs 🙂