Restoration Druid Patch 9.1 Changes Analysis

On this page we will look into changes Restoration Druids have received in recent patches as well as other changes to the game that can affect our playstyle or representation in Raids and Mythic+.

• Adaptive Swarm (Necrolord ability) jump range has been increased to 50 yards (was 25 yards) and will now jump to a friendly target if it expires on a friendly target and there are no valid hostile targets within 50 yards. This change makes Necrolord much more attractive in Mythic+ as your Adaptive Swarms will no longer disappear, but continue offering healing during downtime between packs.
• Swipe is no longer capped at 5 targets. This will slightly increase Feral Affinity damage.

Restoration Druids will continue playing Night Fae in Raids and using the Celestial Spirits Legendary. For Mythic+ you will be able to choose between Kyrian, Necrolord, and Night Fae.

Kyrian with the Kindred Affinity Legendary is the preferred choice for key levels higher than 20-22, where your bonded partner will be doing more than 10-12,000 DPS overall. Necrolord with its Adaptive Swarm changes is more reliable in a dungeon setting as both a healing and damage ability. Night Fae remains the safest and easiest Covenant to execute in Mythic+, but will be significantly behind damage-wise.

Due to no changes to any healer spec in the game the meta is unlikely to change for raids or dungeons.

A full list of changes to the entire Druid class can be found on our dedicated page below. For an additional list of content coming in Patch 9.1.5, you can also check out our Patch 9.1.5Overview page.

There were no changes to any spells or talents in Patch 9.1.

• Night Fae: Celestial Spirits halves every aspect of Convoke the Spirits. With this Legendary, it is instead a 2-second channel that casts 9 spells on a 1-minute cooldown. This new Convoke also has a significantly higher chance to cast Flourish.
• Kyrian: Kindred Affinity gives you and your partner a stat bonus based on their Covenant. This bonus doubles when you activate your Covenant ability. It grants 160 Mastery for Kyrian, 8% Haste for Night Fae, 8% Critical Strike chance for Venthyr, and 8% Versatility for Necrolord.
• Necrolord: Unbridled Swarm gives Adaptive Swarm a 60% chance to split into two swarms each time it jumps to another target.
• Venthyr: Sinful Hysteria increases the duration of Ravenous Frenzy by 0.2 seconds each time it gains a stack. When Ravenous Frenzy expires, you gain stacks of Sinful Hysteria equal to the lost Ravenous Frenzy stacks for 5 seconds. Each stack of Sinful Hysteria increases damage and healing by 2% and Haste by 1%.

So far none of the Legendaries save for Celestial Spirits and Kindred Affinity look stronger than preferred choices in both Raids and Mythic+.

Celestial Spirits is a very interesting Legendary for Druids because it is not completely random. It works on a deck system where Flourish will have an ~85% chance to proc in 1 out of every 2 casts of Convoke the Spirits. This provides decent a throughput increase over Vision of Unending Growth and, more importantly, it provides a throughput increase in the form of improving our cooldown.