PvE Restoration Druid Best Professions

Author: Nevermore
Date: September 27, 2022
Updated: September 27, 2022
Expansion: WotLK Classic

PvE Restoration Druid

Talents, Builds & Glyphs

Stat Priority

Best Races

Gems, Enchants & Consumables

Rotation & Cooldowns

Best Professions

Best in Slot (BiS) & Pre-Raid Gear

Addons & Macros

Professions are a crucial part of your World of Warcraft character, with a potential for a large boost to your damage, healing, or survivability, while also letting you generate some gold.

Discussing best possible professions for a Restoration Druid, we have to consider what you as a Player decide to do with the said professions. When you take a look at them, you will notice that they are mainly meant to help you generate gold and provide you with useful mechanics that you can employ to your advantage. For example, you can generate high-value materials or create pieces of gear that will help you get an entry into different dungeons or raids, or just help your overall leveling experience.

This section will cover some of your best options for professions as a Restoration Druid.

Best Professions

Like with most other classes & specs in the game, Engineering will be your strongest profession. For the second profession slot, we recommend Jewelcrafting, though Blacksmithing is extremely close to it in performance.

Engineering is the king of professions for PvE content, offering a vast, vast array of different benefits.

The main benefit of Engineering lies in the Hyperspeed Accelerators gloves enchant, which gives +340 haste rating for 12 seconds, on a 1-minute cooldown. The cooldown of the enchantment itself starts when the Haste is granted, making the actual cooldown only 48 seconds. The 340 Haste Rating translates into +10% casting speed while also aiding you in reducing your overall global cooldown.

Additionally, as an Engineer you have access to the Nitro Boosts boots enchant, passively giving +24 crit rating and coming with an on-use effect which massively increases your speed for 5 seconds, allowing you to move out of dangerous AoE effects or catch up to your target quickly.

Finally, just like in previous expansions, Engineers can use powerful explosives such as Saronite Bombs and Global Thermal Sapper Charges.

As a Tailor, you gain access to the Lightweave Embroidery cloak enchant, a proc which gives you +295 spell power for 15 seconds with a 45-second internal cooldown. This translated into a possible +98 spell power bonus on average if it procs exactly every 45 seconds, or a +74 spell power bonus on average if it procs every 60 seconds, which is absolutely massive. In fact, this is the highest Spell Power proc you can gain from any enchantment in the entire game, making it quite valuable.

However, there is an opportunity cost attached to this bonus, as it prohibits you from using the standard cloak enchant, Enchant Cloak – Greater Speed, making it slightly weaker in practice. This trade-off is still very much worth it for us, however, as stacking your cooldowns along with this proc can result in a massive DPS boost, which trumps what other professions can bring — though not by a lot.

Other than the cloak enchantment, Tailoring does not get you any beneficial effects for increased stats. Instead, it comes with a fun toy — a Frostweave Net that can be used on enemies up to level 83. Those nets will prove to be a useful countermeasure against pesky adds in dungeons or raids.

Tailoring also lets you craft a variety of valuable equipment that can be sold on the Auction House or traded to other players for valuable goods or gold! Of course, the profits generated by it all depend on your realm’s economy.

Useful Professions

The following professions are considered viable, but offer a lesser benefit compared to the best professions. So, they’re not recommended. However, if you’re not focused on making your character 100% optimized, you can use any of these professions just fine.

Jewelcrafting is a very potent profession for most classes / specs, and that includes Restoration Druids. Not only do you gain access to powerful, Jewelcrafter-unique gems, but you also get to sell these gems to others, generating a modest income.

Jewelcrafter-unique gems are the main benefit of the profession: the Dragon’s Eye, which are more powerful than regular gems, but are limited to 3 equipped at a time. The main one you’ll be crafting as a Druid is Runed Dragon’s Eye, which has additional +48 spell power compared to using regular epic gems.

Blacksmiths can add 2 extra gem sockets to their gear — 1 on wrists, and 1 on hands. Socketing 2x Runed Cardinal Ruby into them translates into a +46 spell power bonus.

Moreover, Blacksmithing allows you to craft some neat gear that you can sell on the Auction House or trade to other players for valuable goods, which is especially useful early on in the expansion or when your character is a freshly-dinged level 80. However, the crafted gear is generally not as powerful as it was in previous expansions.

As a Scribe, you gain access to the Master’s Inscription of the Crag shoulder enchant, which provides a +46 spell power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Greater Inscription of the Crag. This bonus ties in with the bonus granted by Enchanting, Leatherworking, and Blacksmithing.

Scribes also get to make Glyphs and Scrolls, providing a nice source of income. But, many will argue that the real benefit of Inscription comes from not having to grind The Sons of Hodir reputation for the shoulder enchants!

As an Enchanter you gain access to the Enchant Ring – Greater Spellpower enchant, which you can apply to both of your rings for a modest +46 spell power. This bonus ties in with Inscription, Leatherworking, and Blacksmithing.

You also get to enchant your own equipment without needing to tip another enchanter, which results in a not insignificant amount of gold saved, on top of the gold you can generate by enchanting for others.

As a Leatherworker you gain access to the Fur Lining – Spell Power bracer enchant, which provides a +46 spell power increase over the standard enchant available to everyone, Enchant Bracers – Superior Spellpower. This bonus ties in with what Inscription, Enchanting, and Blacksmithing offers.

There are, sadly, no other useful benefits gained from Leatherworking, and you generally don’t get to make much of a profit from it either.

As an Alchemist, you gain access to the Mixology passive effect, which increases the effectiveness of flasks and elixirs you consume, but only if you can craft them yourself. This results in a +47 spell power increase when using the Flask of the Frost Wyrm, our preferred flask.

Alchemy is among the best gold-generation tools in the entire game, allowing you to craft Elixirs, Flasks, Potions, and even Transmute materials, quickly filling your pockets with gold when paired together with Herbalism. While you may not have the best combat stats with this profession mix, you will certainly be able to afford a lot of nifty items instead.

Herbalists gain the Lifeblood active skill, which heals you for 3600 over 5 seconds, with a 3-minute cooldown. This can occasionally come in handy, particularly while leveling, farming, or questing, but will generally be weaker than any of your other healing spells.

However, the true bonus gained by this profession is not the weak HoT, but rather the ability to generate a huge amount of gold by gathering herbs all around the world. As a Druid, you have a special advantage with this profession — you can gather herbs without leaving the Flight Form or Travel Form!

Sub-Par Professions

The following professions do not offer any DPS-increasing benefits and are thus not considered viable for Restoration Druids in PvE.

Miners gain access to the Toughness passive, which offers a +60 stamina boost. This is alright for tanks, but generally won’t cut it for a Restoration Druid.

Mining is okay for gold generation, but it pales in comparison to Herbalism.

Skinners gain access to the Master of Anatomy passive, which offers a +40 crit rating boost. This is weaker than all of the other professions mentioned in this list, but at least it’s something.

Skinning is generally not that good at gold generation either, so it’s overall not a great profession.

About the Author

Nevermore

Hey there folks, I am Nevermore and have been deeply passionate about WoW for more than a decade. Whether we talk about the hidden mysteries of Azeroth or the otherworldly Outland, my journey brought me here to share the things that I have experienced with you all.