It is often referred to in game as "combat–rez", "battle–rez", or just "b–rez".
It has a 10 minute cooldown. This is usually enough per need, especially since it's now restricted.
Guardian druids can instant cast it in [Bear Form] while costing 30 Rage.
Rebirth is one of the only two general-purpose resurrection spell that can be used in combat, along with [Raise Ally]. Other classes may have similar abilities:
In addition to its function as an on-the-fly combat resurrection spell, players that die while affected by a warlock's [Soulstone] may revive themselves.
Patch 4.0.1 added a restriction on the number of resurrections that can occur during an encounter, whether by a druid's Rebirth, a warlock's Soulstone, or a death knight's Raise Ally. Players casting these spells after the limit has been reached will see the "You can no longer resurrect during combat" error message. See below for more information.
Casting Rebirth on a player flagged for PvP will also flag you.
Like all other spells with a cooldown of 10 minutes or more, it cannot be used in Arenas.
Tips and tactics[]
Rebirth is an emergency ability that should only be used during combat. Use [Revive] to resurrect allies out of combat.
Due to the long cooldown and the limited number of combat resurrections available per encounter, you should save Rebirth for critical players: tanks, healers or the group's highest-performing DPS. Coordinate with your leader, other druids, and the warlocks and shamans in the group to ensure your battle-rez is not wasted.
Like [Bloodlust]/[Heroism], groups will often wait until Rebirth is off cooldown before pulling a boss.
Since the target is revived at the caster's location with little health, the druid should move to a safe area before casting and healers must be prepared to heal quickly. [Glyph of Rebirth] makes this less of an issue.
Patch changes[]
Patch 10.1.5 (2023-07-11): Now costs 2% of base mana (was 0%). The cost is unchanged for Guardian Druids in [Bear Form].
Patch 10.0.0 (2022-10-25): Now learned at level 19 (was 29). Rank 2 now baseline.
Rank 2 added at level 46: Rebirth returns the target to life with 100% health.
Patch 8.2.0 (2019-06-25): No longer castable in Cat or Bear Form by default.
Patch 7.3.0 (2017-08-29): Rebirth is now castable in all forms.
Patch 7.1.0 (2016-10-25): Now learned at level 42 (was 56).
Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): Revived targets are now healed to 60% health, up from 20%. No longer requires [Maple Seed].
Patch 4.0.3a (2010-11-23): The cooldown on this spell has been lowered to 10 minutes back down from 30 minutes.
Patch 5.0.4 (2012-08-28): Now learned at level 56 (was 20).
Patch 4.0.1 (2010-10-12): The cooldown on this spell has been increased from 10 minutes back to 30 minutes and it no longer uses different reagents for each rank, as it now has only one rank. There is now a limit on the number of resurrections that can occur during combat.
Patch 3.3.0 (2009-12-08): The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas.
Patch 2.3.0 (2007-11-13): The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 30 minutes down to 20 minutes.
Patch 1.6.0 (2005-07-12): Resurrection spells should now check range properly when used on targets that have released their spirit.
Patch 1.3.0 (2005-03-07): Casting time and mana cost reduced; now ignores resurrection timers.