PvE Restoration Druid Best in Slot (BiS) & Pre-Raid Gear

Fresh 80

As a fresh level 80, you have several choices for your necklace slot. Since there are no valuable BoE items that you can directly buy, you will be forced to go through a slow dungeon-crawl to gain items that will allow you to join raids!

The most powerful item that you can acquire and incidentally one of the best ones that you can use even when breaching the gates of Ulduar is the Veiled Amulet of Life. This is mainly due to the amazing combination of baseline stats that it offers, (Stamina, Spirit, and Intellect), combined with a good amount of Haste Rating and Spell Power as secondary stats. You will want to stack as much spirit as possible due to your Improved Tree of Life talent. However, there may be situations where you will want to change some of your items for items that provide Hit Rating or Critical Strike Chance depending on your current setup and your raid group, with Critical Strike Chance for builds that are tied to the Tier 7 set bonuses and Hit Rating for builds that use utility spells such as Cyclone and Entangling Roots.

The Chain of the Ancient Wyrm is the next best alternative that can be acquired early on with an emphasis on Hit Rating for Utility Spells. Fitting in the same category, we also have the Chain of Latent Energies available for our setup.

The Pendant of Lost Vocations can be a great alternative for mana regeneration since it grants MP5, however, it won’t grant you any benefit from your Improved Tree of Life passive. Nonetheless, a great item for the beginning.

You may also use the Torque of the Red Dragonflight, however, it is a bit of an odd choice when compared to the rest of the items. It will serve you perfectly until you manage to gain an upgrade, however, you will want to change it as fast as possible. This is due to the high amount of baseline stats granted, along with a decently good amount of Spell Power.

However, until you can get into the new Titan Rune Dungeons, you will want to gain beginner items that can be acquired either from quests or Heroic Dungeons. One such item is the Choker of Betrayal which grants you amazing stats beginning stats. The Necromancer’s Amulet is another item that can be extremely useful, however, it lacks any form of Haste Rating.

Pre-Raid

Your Pre-Raid options will often be defined by the BiS items from the previous raid tiers, and any other new dungeons or raid BoE items that arrive with the new phase.

There are two possible choices for this slot as there were two items that could fit the “BiS” term in the previous phase. Either the Wyrmrest Necklace of Power or the Veiled Amulet of Life will be your best possible choice before entering Ulduar, with each item granting you a different bonus. The Veiled Amulet of Life is better for builds and setups where you will be forced to spam your spells as it aids you with your mana regeneration while the Wyrmrest Necklace of Power is better for overall spell performance as it grants more Haste. The only downfall of the Wyrmrest Necklace of Power is that it grants you Hit Rating, a stat that will prove to be useless unless you plan on using utility spells such as Cyclone or Entangling Roots to aid your group.

The next-best alternative will be the Chains of Adoration. It grants you great stats, however, as far as mana-regeneration works, the 20 MP5 will not be as effective as Spirit. The Cosmic Lights can be a good alternative if you plan on using a build that focuses on Nourish and Regrowth. However, the community believes that this build is sub-optimal compared to the pure Haste Rating build with HoTs spams. The choice is yours.

The Chain of the Ancient Wyrm is the weakest possible choice in our lineup for the Pre-Raid phase, as it grants you Hit Rating which is only useful for utility spells such as Entangling Roots and Cyclone. The rest of the stats are close to the other items, however, the lack of Spirit or MP5 will make the item quite underwhelming.

Best-in-Slot

The best possible choice for this slot in Phase 2 will be the Sapphire Amulet of Renewal. This is mainly due to the perfect combination of Intellect, Spirit, and Stamina as baseline stats paired up with Spell Power and Haste Rating as secondary stats. This item will grant you the highest possible amount of those specific stats, making it the BiS.

The Watchful Eye of Fate is the closest possible option to the Sapphire Amulet of Renewal as it grants exactly the same type of stats, however, in a different amount.

As a valid alternative, you can use the Charm of Meticulous Timing. The item grants you similar types of stats with the main difference being the MP5 granted as a baseline stat instead of Spirit. As we want to stack as much Spirit as possible to benefit from our Improved Tree of Life talent, you may want to use this item until you can get an upgrade.

Lastly, you can use Evoker’s Charm since it grants the same types of stats as your actual BiS, however, it lacks any gem sockets. This makes it a valid choice only as a precursor item before you gain a more powerful item.