Restoration
Full Restoration (0/0/61 and variants)
Tree of Life remains a controversial talent and may still be tinkered with by the developers. The concept for it is a dedicated healbot, and it is extremely PvE oriented. Some of the major points of controversy have been the movement speed penalty and the lack of defenses available to the tree, it is basically a "sitting duck". In Patch 2.3.0 abolish poison was added, however, to cast remove curse, the tree form Druid must shapeshift to caster form before decursing, causing mana loss.
Tree form aura was changed just before the release of TBC from increasing the healing done by party members to increasing the healing done to party members. This makes it useful for MT-groups or other groups whose members will require extra healing.
The form is worth taking if one likes to heal with HoTs and Swiftmend. Healing Touch is not usable in this form which greatly reduces the druid's max healing per second, if you only heal one target, however the mana cost of all available healing spells is reduced by 20%, which combined with the aura greatly increases healing longevity. It is worth noting that you can always shift out and cast Healing Touch should the need arise.
Tree druids have a distinctive healing style. At the moment, the best healing technique for raiders is to stack three Lifeblooms and a rejuvenation on up to three tanks at once, often making the healing output greater than that of a paladin spamming Flash of Light on them. Note that prior to patch 2.3.2, if you popped +healing trinkets and stacked your Lifeblooms, the increased +healing was tripled and maintained for as long as you keep the HoT refreshed. In effect, ToL druids had the healing equivalent of "rolling ignites". However, since patch 2.3.2, when Lifebloom "is refreshed it will take on the strength of the incoming Lifebloom effect, rather than maintain the existing strength" (wow client patch 2.3.2), thus lowering the effectiveness of this strategy. See the comparison of druid healing spells for more detail.
Some variation remains possible, but since the focus of this build is so narrowly on raid healing it is optimal to place pretty much all of your talent points in the restoration tree, something like one of the following:
0/0/61 -
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZZxEsteqrest 0/0/61 -
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZZxEIteqMest 1/0/60 -
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0zZZxEcteqrest Restoration with Insect Swarm (13/0/48)
The standard resto build with the main difference that you don't have Healing Touch talents and instead go for Insect Swarm and Nature's Reach. May be useful on fights orientated primarily around tank damage. Of course, insect swarm requires that you don't stay in Tree of Life Form. Nevertheless, nice for farm bosses or heavy hitters.
13/0/48 -
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0t0rzbZZxVIxcq0est Restoration/Balance (19/0/42)
Due to the "healbot" nature of a dedicated full Resto druid build, any Resto druid that has this build can tell you how frustrating solo content can be. Additionally, by putting a minimal 41 points into the Resto tree to get Tree of Life, there simply aren't enough points left over to reach any decent DPS talents in the Feral tree. However, by putting 19 talent points in the Balance tree, along with a Balance druid +spell damage set, the Resto druid's frustration can be eased quite a bit.
Talents like Naturalist, Tranquil Spirit and Empowered Touch focus around the spell Healing Touch, which cannot be cast while in the Tree of Life form. Additionally, talents like Improved Tranquility and Tranquil Spirit focus around the spell Tranquility. While Tranquility is a powerful spell and can often be the difference between survival and a group wipe, it is extremely situational and isn't used very often due to the 10 minute cooldown and extreme mana cost. Finally, Omen of Clarity is all but useless in a raid situation, since a Resto druid should not be in melee range of a mob. Therefore, these talents, along with a few others, can be sacrificed without seriously hurting a resto druid's ability to heal.
The only drawback to this build is that it requires a +spell damage set. At level 70, Balance gear is hard to find compared to Feral and Resto, but druids who have leveled to 70 as Balance, or were wise enough to keep the Balance quest rewards given while leveling to 70, should have no problems. Since 2.3, this has been eased in that most healing gear have been improved to include +spell damage equal to about 1/3 of the +healing bonus, in addition to the healing bonus on the gear.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0tLrzzhZZxVcxcq0eot Arena Healing (8/11/42)
This build is the standard druid arena build. It goes deep into Restoration and grabs most of the talents that are useful for arenas. Some points are put into feral in order to obtain feral charge. Extra survivability is gained by placing these points, and feral charge provides the druid with a spell interrupt and/or snare. With this build, the Druid can heal with HoTs in between cycloning, rooting, and feral charging, all while maintaining a very high level of survivability. *note* You can have either 3/5 Subtlety and 5/5 Nature's Focus, or 5/5 Subtlety and 3/5 Nature's Focus; this is user preference. The points in Balance are to both maximize Nature's Grasp as yet another escape, and to pick up Control of Nature, which allows 100% pushback resistance when casting Entangling Roots and/or Cyclone.
http://wowhead.com/?talent=0zjZVMhoZVVIhcq0xsx