Welcome to the Weekly Innervate where I go over something healing related in one of the many MMOs out there! This week we're continuing with the Patch 5.4 guides by going over the Restoration Druids best in slot gear list from Siege of Orgrimmar. Please keep in mind that the numbers that you see below are based on flex level numbers and this list may be different based on other raid difficulties but the numbers are not that far off, as a general rule increase 100 of your stat choice per difficulty increase. Your best in slot item for that slot will always be the item on top. So let's get right into it!
Helms
Helm of the Shattered Vale (Tier 16) - Thok the Bloodthirsty*
Self-Reflecting Mask
Tier Helmet has Haste with a Red Gem socket and will be your best in slot item for your helm. We already have our tier replacement item with our chest piece so we need the helm for our 4-piece.
Necks
Rising New Moon Talisman - Ordos, Fire-God of the Yaungol*
Necklace of Fading Light
Lost Necklace of the Mogu Empress
Our best in slot neck piece comes from Ordos, he is a World Boss on the Timeless Isle that can only be accessed if you have the Legendary cloak. The Fading Light neck piece is just as good but has about 300 less Haste so you'll need to add a Haste gem to make up the difference. You have 3 yellow gems so this is not a big deal.
Shoulders
Mantle of the Shattered Vale (Tier 16) Siegecrafter Blackfuse*
Shoulders of the Roiling Inferno
Hopeglow Spaulders
Although Garrosh's Shoulders has Haste instead of Mastery, the 2 Red Gem sockets push the favor to your Tier Shoulders because the Garrosh Shoulders come with 2 Yellow Gem sockets when youre already getting extra Haste from the shoulders. You would put Mastery gems inside the Garrosh Shoulders (which is what the Tier Shoulders have) and Intellect gems in your Tier Shoulders giving you more Intellect overall from your Tier (and you don't need more Haste as explained at the end of this list).
Cloak
Jina-Kang, Kindness of Chi-Ji
Black-Blooded Drape
Obviously, the Legendary Cloak you've been working on for the entire expansion on at least one of your characters is your best in slot. Not only are the stats increased but you have three secondary stats instead of two and a Red Gem slot. If you're gearing a Druid alt that you bever bothered to do the Legendary quest line then the Black-Blooded Drape is your only other option. It's not a terrible one, at least it doesn't have Crit on it!
Chest
Amber Parasite Wraps Paragons of the Klaxxi*
Robes of the Shattered Vale (Tier 16)
Robes of the Warrior's Fall
Your chest piece, much like last tier, is your replacement item. Usually, we replace one of our pieces with a Boomkin tier piece because it is better itemized for us but this time around all of the Boomkin Tier Gear has no Spirit on it. The Paragons chest piece has a lot of Haste on it (over 1,000 to be in fact) and is the biggest increase of Haste you will get from any singular item. The Tier gear has Mastery on it and 3 Red Gem slots so it is not a bad thing to have if you happen to get it before you can get it to drop from Paragons but you'll have to do some different gemming/reforging to make up for the loss of Haste.
Bracers
Bracers of Averted Fatality Malkorok*
Bracers of Purified Spirit
Castlebreaker Bracers
Bracers of Averted Fatality will be our BiS because of the Haste, however there are Bracers of every different kind of stat to choose from so if you want to do something crazy we at least have the option. It also doesn't pidgeon hole Boomkins and Mistweavers to be all fighting over the same bracers.
Gloves
Handwraps of the Shattered Vale (Tier 16) General Nazgrim*
Klaxxi Grips of Rejuvenations
Not only do our Tier Gloves have Haste on them but they also have two Red Gem slots making them our best in slot.
Belts
Seal of Karmic Return Garrosh Hellscream*
Dragonmaw Emergency Strap
Our belt choice is pretty obvious because neither have Haste and the Dragonmaw belt has Critical Strike as it's second secondary stat (say that five times fast).
Pants
Legwraps of the Shattered Vale (Tier 16) Paragons of the Klaxxi*
Shado-Pan Reliquary Kilt
Must like our belt the only other choice apart from our tier are pants with Critical Strike on them and we need the pants for our four set bonus. The pants have two yellow slots so if you're looking for places to put your Haste/Mastery Gems here they are!
Feet
Boots of Perilous Infusion Malkorok*
Salt Water Sandals
Boots of Broken Reliance
I go with Malkork boots because we already have enough Haste to not need pure Haste boots. Malkorks boots have Haste and Mastery so you should reforge off the Haste and go Spirit. All of our items have Spirit Haste on them giving us more Haste than we need this tier. So for once, we're reforging out to get as close to the breakpoint as possible.
Rings
Seal of Eternal Sorrow Immerseus*
Signet of the Dinomancers Thok the Bloodthirsty*
Laser-Slice Signet
Seal of Sullen Fury
These rings gave me a heck of a time trying to figure out which two we wanted. I went with Thok's ring which has Haste and Mastery but no Spirit due to us having our Legendary Meta gem and all of our items having a spirit component (including one of our best in slot trinkets). So choosing one ring without Spirit but two of our most useful secondary stats seemed like a fair trade. If you'd rather not have the Mastery and go Spirit and Haste then Iron Juggernauts ring is just as useful.
Trinkets
Thok's Acid-Grooved Tooth Thok the Bloodthirsty*
Dysmorphic Samophlange of Discontinuity Siegecrafter Blackfuse*
Contemplation of Chi-Ji
Prismatic Prison of Pride
Nazgrim's Burnished Insignia
Oh, trinkets! Trinkets are always an extremely tricky thing as there is always a billion of them and each person has a different idea of what they prefer from them. Some like activated trinkets, some like straight equip only trinkets. When I look at Trinkets I personally like to go for one thoroughput equip automatic proc trinket and one activated trinket that gives me spirit. The interesting thing with the trinkets this time around is that almost all of them hold an equip effect that they share and a second ability that's different.
Thok's trinket gives us a 3% chance when we heal to heal up to 5 people with the same amount. A lot of people disagree with me but for Druids I love trinkets that give us a chance for another heal and have always gotten that trinket since they began with Alysrazor's trinket. Ontop of this it gives a 15% chance to increase our Intellect by 10,420 on a 1.5 minute internal cooldown. This effect is shared with almost every healing trinket in this tier.
Blackfuse's trinket is also an interesting one that gives us a flat 1,735 Intellect and gives us a chance to gain 20,840 Spirit for 10 seconds that slowly decreases every .5 seconds for it's duration and has a proc rating of about once a minute. That means about 6-10 times a boss fight this will proc. Making this very good for healers to ensure we never run out of mana. If you find you're not coming close to running out of mana you might want to experiment with other trinkets.
Weapons and Off-Hands
Hellscream's Warmace
Revelations of Y'Shaarj
Kardris' Scepter
Horned Mace of the Old Ones
Purehearted Cricket Cage
Juggernaut's Power Core
Hellscream's Tome of Destruction
Gaze of Arrogance
Drakebinder Greatstaff
Lever of the Megantholithic Apparatus
Hellscream's War Staff
So the weapon choices for Flexible Raiders and higher are super interesting this time around and I'm surprised I haven't heard more about. Most of the weapons that Garrosh Hellscream drops on Flexible, Normal and Heroic are BoA 90-100 weapons. This makes me assume that we will be able to keep these weapons until at least the next raid tier (or at least until Heroic Dungeons depending on itemization) in the next expansion and we won't replace it as we level up. But why is it 90-100? It seems odd that Blizzard would give us weapons we would use from 90-95, put in our bank for 2 years, and then whip back out to level with in the next expansion especially since it has no experience gain on it (yet). Is this Blizzard telling us that the next expansions level cap is going to be 100?
Either way, let's look at the present use as we could speculate in circles for days about this. We're going to be going for one hander and off-hand this Tier. The primary reason is because none of the two handed weapons have Spirit and Haste as a combination. The other reason is that the two handers have a maximum of three gem slots (if you use the Eye of Wrathion to add another gem slot) while the one hander/off hands have a total maximum of four with three on the weapon and one additional on the off hand.
Only downside is that both of our best in slot weapons in both slots come from the final boss so it will be a bit.
- - -
So now that we have a full list of what we want; we need reasoning, we already explained why we want each pieces as an individual as opposed to our other choices but how do they work together as a whole? If we have every single one of our best in slot pieces we end up with 6650 Haste (our primary stat) without any reforging, gems or enchantments. 6,652 Haste is the amount most Druids aim towards as it gives us our 9th tick of Wild Growth. The next important Haste Breakpoint is 12,458 which gives us our 10th tick of Wild Growth. It is theoretically possibly to reach this Haste Breakpoint if we get every piece of gear that has Haste on it, including upgrading every piece of our gear twice and completely gem for Haste ignoring all of our socket bonuses. However, the amount of Intellect (most of our gear has red gem sockets with Intellect bonuses) and Mastery we would lose to gain one more tick of Wild Growth which isn't even our top heal (or even top 3) with maximum uptime is not worth it. I would stick with the 6,652 breakpoint. So close to the breakpoint you only need to upgrade one item once to reach the breakpoint. Blizzard was finally kind to us and almost every single piece has a Haste option!
Total Stat Amounts w/ My Gems and Enchantments (Inc 2 Int JC Gems and 2 Int Ring Enchants)
Stamina: 17,998
Intellect: 22,646
Spirit: 9833
Haste: 6650
Mastery: 8722
Note: These calculations are made with the Legendary Healing Cloak. If you do no have the cloak the calculations will be slightly off due to the increased Haste gained from the Cloak as well as not being able to obtain the best in slot neck from Ordos.
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