Guide Navigation
- Restoration Druid First Impressions: Keeper of the Grove Hero Talents
- Node Walkthrough
- Grove Guardian Focused Nodes
- Regrowth-Wild Growth-Swiftmend Nodes
- Common Threads: The Regrowth Triarchy
- Protective Growth
- Dream Surge
- Expansiveness
- Blooming Infusion
- Treants of the Moon
- Grove's Inspiration
- Persistent Enchantments
- Power of the Dream
- Control of the Dream
- Bounteous Bloom
- Early Spring
- Cenarius' Might
- Harmony Of The Grove
- Power of Nature
- Durability of Nature
- Final Takeaways
Concerns about the Viability of Keeper of the Grove Hero Talents: A Review for Restoration Druid Players
This past week, Blizzard revealed another round of Hero Talent Trees in a Sneak Peek at the upcoming War Within system. Restoration Druid guide writer, Voulk, offers an early review of the Keeper of the Grove Druid Hero Talent that Hero Talents are an extension of the Talent system designed to explore class fantasy with a third talent tree, separate from your class and specialization. Blizzard has revealed an early preview of Hero Talents coming in the next expansion, The War Within.
Restoration Druid First Impressions: Keeper of the Grove Hero Talents
Grove Guardians were introduced in 10.1.7 and were initially met with cautious approval. A healing button (or in effect a HoT) that was off the global cooldown is unique in WoW and they complemented the ramp-heavy playstyle fairly well. Their rapid promotion from mid-tier talent to the focus of a tier set and now a full Hero tree has not been quite as warmly received.
As Grove Guardians become more and more central to our rotation, awkward issues they have around targeting become a bigger problem. When they're 7-8% of our healing it doesn't matter all that much that we have little control over their targeting because the other 92% of our spells can cover any deficit. As they creep into the 30%+ region we start to feel more like a pet class, which has never been part of the Resto Druid identity. Pushing Grove Guardians towards a Hero tree does at least compartmentalize them a little bit and for those that don't enjoy the playstyle there'll be an alternative in Wildstalker, which I have very high hopes for. Hopefully, it'll fill more of a traditional Resto Druid theme around heal-over-time effects and strong cooldowns. Both concepts are missing from this tree.
We'll look through each node soon, but I should say that only one branch of Keeper of the Grove is Grove Guardian focused. There are plenty of talents here that affect the rest of our abilities too. Keep in mind when reading through this that there are a lot of unknowns still and we're missing a lot of the picture of how the spec will play.
Node Walkthrough
Most of these nodes have a Balance and a Resto druid portion. I've focused on the Resto druid portions below and some balance-only text has been removed.
Grove Guardian Focused Nodes
| Node | Description |
| Keystone: Dream Surge | Dream Surge is a little bit of a mystery node. I assume that while Dream Petals are created near a target, they'll automatically heal upon landing. I'm not expecting a Lightwell design where they have to be clicked or even walked over. This means that if you drop all three Grove Guardians at once, your next targeted heal could heal as many as 18 allies (with likely overlap). I think this is a pretty interesting design though given how many Petals you can accumulate I'm expecting them to be tuned quite low. In Mythic+ this is a very good way to convert Grove Guardians you might cast while in Cat Form during low healing periods into party-wide burst healing when necessary. |
| Treants of the Moon | This is likely to be a minor node, but adding a little passive DPS to a spec that doesn't have much of it is a good idea. I'm assuming each Grove Guardian has its own unique Moonfire and that they stack with each other. This is how their Wild Growth works currently. |
| Choice Node: Power of Nature VS Durability of Nature | Power of Nature includes the only Rejuvenation or Lifebloom mentions in the entire tree. This is a bit ambiguous and I'm not sure if the bonus stacks for each Grove Guardian you have out. If it doesn't then you have a decision to make about whether to prioritize Grove Guardians uptime (using them one at a time) or burst healing (using them all at once for Harmony of the Grove later in the tree). If it does stack you have all the more reason to send them in packs - particularly in raid. There are no numbers on Durability of Nature yet, but the idea is very good. Potentially some awkwardness around how they stack if one tree casts Nourish on the same target more than once within 8 seconds which is quite common in Mythic+ but happens in raid too given we have little control over them. I'm assuming multiple trees each have their own copy of the HoT but we'll be able to test that out when Alpha goes live. |
| Choice Node: Bounteous Bloom VS Early Spring | Bounteous Bloom is a strong node, assuming Grove Guardian healing isn't pre-nerfed to compensate - a strategy they've used with tier sets a lot in recent history. Early Spring is seemingly weak on paper since we're likely to send all Grove Guardians with Flourish and a 3 second cooldown reduction doesn't let us fit an extra Guardian cast in. It's also competing against a powerful +20% healing node. It needs to be carried by other nodes that value increasing Grove Guardian casts like Dream Surge and Harmony of the Grove. It's possible depending on tuning. |
| Capstone: Harmony Of The Grove | We've been asking for more Grove Guardian interaction with the rest of our kit since their introduction and this is a start. Given this is a capstone, 3% is maybe too conservative. Even with Incarnation: Tree of Life we're unlikely to have more than five Grove Guardians out at once and +15% healing isn't that exciting an addition to our burst healing. Tuning wasn't the focus of these early previews though so we'll see how this one goes closer to release. Could be very interesting at 5% per Grove Guardian. |
Regrowth-Wild Growth-Swiftmend Nodes
This Regrowth, Wild Growth, Swiftmend line runs through a lot of talents in the tree. We'll discuss this a bit more further down the page but it's a slightly odd set.
Common Threads: The Regrowth Triarchy
You'll have noticed that Regrowth, Swiftmend, and Wild Growth dominate the middle and right-hand sides of the tree. Cenarius' Might even discourages us from casting other spells. While these spells all have their place in raid, Regrowth and Swiftmend tend to be secondary buttons rather than primary drivers of our healing. Swiftmend is mostly used as a trigger button for Reforestation and Soul of the Forest and Regrowth helps to mop up damage after a big Flourish ramp. Most of these talents don't play into our current playstyle and would end up low value. It's very difficult to leverage power out of these effects and I don't think it will be that fun to try. I'm not quite sure how they ended up with these spells as the focus of the tree.
It's also notable just how little Rejuvenation has been included considering it's such a key spell in raid (and dominates most of the lower section of our main talent tree). I can think of a lot of different ways I could use this tree in Mythic+, but few in raid. It continues to feel like the core that Resto Druid has enjoyed for several expansions is being chipped away at and I am not convinced this new direction is an upgrade.
Protective Growth
Your Regrowth protects you, reducing damage you take by 8% while your Regrowth is on you.
Dream Surge
Grove Guardians causes your next targeted heal to create 2 Dream Petals near the target, healing up to 3 nearby allies. Stacks up to 3 charges.
Expansiveness
Your maximum mana is increased by 5%.
Blooming Infusion
Every 5 Regrowths you cast make your next Wrath, Starfire, or Entangling Roots instant and increases the damage it deals by 100%.
Treants of the Moon
Your treants cast Moonfire on nearby targets about once every 6 seconds.
Grove's Inspiration
Wrath and Starfire damage increased by 12%. Regrowth, Wild Growth, and Swiftmend healing increased by 6%.
Persistent Enchantments
Reforestation grants Tree of Life for 2 additional seconds.
Power of the Dream
Healing spells cast with Dream Surge generate an additional Dream Petal. Cenarius’ Might increases spell damage or healing by an additional 5%.
Control of the Dream
Time elapsed while your major abilities are available to be used is subtracted from that ability’s cooldown after the next time you use it, up to 5 seconds. Affects Nature’s Swiftness, Incarnation: Tree of Life, and Convoke the Spirits.
Bounteous Bloom
Your Grove Guardians’ healing is increased by 20%.
Early Spring
Your Grove Guardians’ healing is increased by 20%.
Cenarius' Might
Casting Regrowth, Wild Growth, or Swiftmend increases the healing of your next Regrowth, Wild Growth, or Swiftmend by 10%, stacking up to 2 times. Casting another spell cancels this effect.
Harmony Of The Grove
Each of your Grove Guardians increases your healing done by 3% while active.
Power of Nature
Your Grove Guardians increase the healing of your Rejuvenation, Efflorescence and Lifebloom by 5% while active.
Durability of Nature
Your Grove Guardians Nourish and Swiftmend spells also apply a minor Cenarion Ward that heals the target over 8 seconds the next time they take damage.
Final Takeaways
Given the other trees we've seen so far, I'm happy Keeper of the Grove is at least healing-focused and avoids messy support-oriented gameplay that's proving unpopular across the board and is plaguing Oracle and Lightsmith. I think they've also made a smart move in pushing Grove Guardians nodes to one branch instead of dominating the entire tree with them. We'll need to see what kind of spec changes we're getting in the expansion to know how the Regrowth, Wild Growth, Swiftmend focus will play but I'm a little concerned about its raid viability. They've mentioned they want to avoid having a "Raid hero tree" and a "Mythic+ hero tree" but Mythic+ seems to benefit from these nodes a lot more and Grove Guardians in general play much better in that content type.
Nodes in a tree like this can take two forms: power increases to what you already do, and nodes that change how you play. Most of these nodes fit the former category, and the only one in the latter (Cenarius Might) restricts choice in exchange for a benefit - I'm not sure that'll play well. The lack of play-changing nodes might also mean this tree doesn't feel that distinct from a regular resto druid. If they insist on a Grove Guardians tree I wonder if we could see nodes that change how they behave - more than just dropping a Moonfire now and then.
As an aside, it is interesting that the tree hinges entirely on picking a specific tier 2 talent choice node (Grove Guardians). This tree does not function if you pick Nourish. If Grove Guardians are going to be central to our design moving forward then they should be included in tier one or even baseline where "mandatory" spells typically belong. In season 3 the decision between Nourish and Grove Guardians is deciding whether you'd like Nourish or 30% of your healing. It looks like it might be even more uneven in The War Within.
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