Hey guys, Librarian Husky here. Well, how about that? It’s time for an updated PvP guide for resto druid in Shadowlands. This guide is for patch 9.2, also known as season 3, the potato season.
Depending on patience and weather conditions, we will go step by step through talents, PvP talents, legendaries, covenants, soul binds, conduits, and stat priority. With that being said, this will be an essential PvP guide, and I will try to keep it as short as possible. Now, let’s stop wasting time and dive into the first section, which is TALENTS.
Talents
In most situations, your default talent should look like this, depending on covenant, build, and arena team composition. Cenarion Ward, Wild Charge, Soul of the Forest, and Overgrowth are the best talents in their respective tier. Guardian, Feral, and Balance Affinity are all in different team compositions.
- If you’re playing with a hunter, a warlock, or a mage, you will need the extra stuns, and in some situations, you won’t even be the kill target. Enough about affinities.
- For the level 35 tier, all three talents are viable options.
Balance Affinity is good in specific matchups if, for example, you’re playing night fae, aka convoke druid. Guardian Affinity is desired when you don’t need extra stuns, mobility, damage, or the main kill target, or you won’t have that much time to stealth. Feral Affinity is needed when the opposite of everything mentioned earlier is true. I’ll give you a few examples. You will most likely need guardian affinity if you’re playing with a rogue, facing double DPS teams, or up against an assassination rogue.
Heart of the Wild
Heart of the Wild is used in aggressive builds like Night Fae or kyrian when you want extra damage and pressure. The damage is king in high-dampening games, and Heart of the Wild is excellent when paired with feral or balance Affinity. Enjoy!
- Mass Entanglement usually fits perfectly with deep roots PvP talent, and this talent shines vs. melee cleaves in 3s or general classes with pets.
Of course, this is not set in stone; it all depends on the situation. A good example is when facing Windwalker monks, as you can root his images and his potato tiger. To some extent, this talent is good vs. demonology and even beastmaster in some situations. Mighty Bash is the standard pick when the other talents are unnecessary, or you need the extra stun. Pretty straightforward. Last on the talent list is Flourish vs. Germination.
Germination
Germination was the standard pick for centuries, especially before the verdant infusion of Nerf. Why? You could maintain the soul double of the forest rejuvenation for long periods. In today’s potato meta, flourish is almost mandatory during offensive cooldowns.
- The main reason being your healing might not be enough in some situations.
- The second reason is you can extend your healing over time effects with both Swiftmend and Flourish, meaning you will have the opportunity to drink without shame.
- That’s enough talk about talents, and let’s jump into PvP talents.
PvP Talents
First, Keeper of the Grove. It is a PvP talent with a name so long it doesn’t fit in the PvP talent window. With that out of the way, this talent is mandatory, and you always need it as a deterrent to either insane incoming damage or crowd control avoidance.
- Learn to love it and abuse it. Thorns, Reactive Resin, and Deep Roots are solid PvP talents against melee specs.
- Thorns should always be picked vs. most melee compositions, and then you should pick between reactive resin and deep roots depending on how much you can abuse entangling roots or mass Entanglement or how much your team needs roots.
Frost mage & Feral druid
You won’t play deep roots if you’re playing with a frost mage or facing a feral druid. Focused Growth might be better than reactive resin in other situations if you can keep a high buff uptime. Mark of the Wild is excellent vs. destruction warlocks, balance druids, mages, and elemental shamans. Master Shapeshifter is situational.
For damage purposes, it’s solid with feral or balances Affinity in combination with Heart of the Wild. Last but not least, High Winds can be perfect if you know you can reliably spam cyclones. However, if you can’t, this can backfire as it becomes a useless talent.
Legendary Powers & Covenant
As we jump into the legendary powers and covenant section, I want to point out that there are three viable covenants right now. Night Fae, Kyrian, and Necrolord are all solid options, with night fae and kyrian being more aggressive with high-risk, high reward type of gameplay. However, I will primarily focus on the necro lord due to the niche arena compositions and punishable gameplay.
This is an essential guide, and I want to keep it short. For experienced players, I warmly recommend trying either kyrian or night fae. Still, I strongly recommend necro lord for those trying out resto druid for the first time or who want to have an easier time pushing in this insane meta. The main reason for this is an adaptive swarm, which synergizes very well with pretty much everything. It contributes to your mastery as it is an extra heal-over-time effect. As a heal-over-time effect, its healing is not negligible.
Buffs
The buff itself buffs your other heal-over-time effects, and of course, it can also be extended through either Swiftmend or Flourish.
- I know I’ve mentioned healing over time affects about 500 times, but as a resto druid, that’s your unique way of healing, and managing HOTS is essential.
- Long story short, that necro lord will drastically increase your healing output.
- Unity is legendary, or locust swarm gives your adaptive swarm a chance to split, making it even better as you can have a swarm on multiple targets at once.
Verdant Infusion
To nobody’s surprise, Verdant Infusion is the best legendary to bind all of this together. Swiftmend no longer consumes a heal-over-time effect and extends the duration of all HOTS on said target. This is hands down the best legendary, and to get the best of it, you want to time it in such a way that you always use it after adaptive swarm and, more importantly, scenario ward. Depending on the situation, a somewhat bursty healing rotation should look like an adaptive swarm into a scenario ward into either rejuvenation or regrowth.
- This will extend both adaptive swarm and scenario ward, and then you apply a soul of the forest rejuvenation.
- You can either use Ironbark or Flourish if you need even more healing. Other honorable mentions are Draught of Deep Focus and Circle of Life and Death. Of course, both options are for more aggressive gameplay and damage with high-risk, high rewards.
Soulbinds & Conduits
Keeps you in combat for no reason and is among the best soulbond traits. Next, we have soul binds and conduits. Maribeth is, without a doubt, the best soulbond:
- Ultimate Form.
- Viscous Trail.
- Mighty Kevin.
- Frictionless Coating.
Conduit options
For some extra survivability, you can swap tireless pursuit for Ursine Vigor. And that’s that. The best conduit options are:
- Evolved Swarm.
- Well-Honed Instincts.
- Floral Recycling.
- Tireless Pursuit.
- Ready for Anything.
- Innate Resolve.
Stat Priority
For stat priority, get as much versatility as possible, including gems and enchants, then get 21% haste for a 1.2-second global cooldown and extra ticks for your heal-over-time effects. Everything else should go into mastery. Yes, it would help if you got both set bonuses. That’s because set bonuses are better than min-maxing a bunch of stats. Speaking of gems, try and get 1 Straddling Jewel Doublet in one of your sockets.
You’ll thank me later. With that being said, the guide is complete. I hope I covered most of the critical issues in this short guide. If you have any questions or suggestions, please use the comment section below, and I will do my best to answer as soon as possible. If you want my druid macros or, in general, you need help building macros. I suggest joining my discord channel; the link is in the description. Thank you for checking my short but informative guide. Please don’t hesitate to visit our WoW Retail Guides page. My name is Librarian Husky; cya on the next page.