SotF versus Incarnaton query (Restoration)

[Deleted]

I find myself constantly weighing the pros and cons of both talents for specific encounters as my casual raid guild is beginning heroics in ToT and I just feel like I'm still having a hard time determining which one trumps the other. I understand how they both function, the necessary haste values, and all that good stuff. My question is just really how do you determine which talent is best suited for an encounter and if if in you guys experience one outperforms the other at a certain gear level. (I'm currently 524). Thanks in advance for the input!

[Checksmix]

SoTF provides constant throughput. It's better nearly 100% of the time as fights rarely are short enough to have a short duration mega buff than a constant buff. Most of the time you won't be popping incarnation on CD so that is wasted throughput, where as you more than likely will be using swiftmend and wildgrowth close to their CDs.

I switch to incarnation on my guilds Jinrok kills due to the fight lasting only one pool, so a short duration CD is more effective. If you mess up SoTF and don't hold your wild growths for it than you shouldn't use it. Or you should learn self control. either or

[Deleted]

Thanks for the insight checks, I was using it as a mana crutch for a while but now I think that constant throughput is what I should be leaning toward for the most part outside of special circumstances like the one you mentioned.

Edit: Grammar

[Aoroc]

I personally prefer Force of Nature to both, but I agree with Checksmix, SotF is probably the most throughput increasing talent. I personally just don't like having constrictions on when to use my SM or WG so I don't take it, and I certainly don't use Tree of Life enough to justify it. I take it for Jin Rokh and Meg on H as it's just safer for our comp to have that 3 min CD but other than that, I rock Force of Nature, which honestly aren't a bad choice in my opinion, treants can usually do 10% of my healing or more on most fights if I use them correctly.

[AvatarM]

I found the answer for this question for myself.. Force of Nature. Many druids, that includes me, don't like SoTF without the 4T14 bonus, it's feel awkward and in reality you constraint yourself, locking Swiftmend and Wild Growth together.

I use Incarnation on Jinrok only, to heal people in Storm (nowadays I don't even bother to change).
You can use SoTF on H Tortos, it's a good way to top shields after Earthquake. Let a Rejuv on yourself, barkskin, so your shield don't fall, SM yourself after the earthquake to avoid losing shield for rockfall, WG the raid to heal their shields up fast.

Incarnation was good when mana was really problem, you could spam LBs, and regrowths with CCs procs, forcing yourself in a clunky healing style just to save mana. And it's good on spiky damage phases for all raid, like Jinrok Lightning Storm, where 1 instant Regrowth save lives. Nowadays, in most fights, it's a loss of throughput.

Force of Nature is a small, free, constant throughput to you raid, you can dose it, its GCD free, so you don't need to change what you are doing. In 10 man, it's really useful when you are using HotW to dps, using treants to heal when you are not healing. In all fights, FoN is 8%-10% of my healing, with little overheal if used when heal is needed, since it's a smartcast.

[Dangerfield]

While force of nature is not terrible by any means you will find that almost all the top druids are using incarnation.

This if for a number of reasons but mainly because if it is used properly it will provide the greatest increase in hps as well as being a great tool to deal with high damage phases within a fight.

Almost all fights except HM tortos will have some form of lull peroids before a heavy aoe damage phase, FoN is nearly useless during these lull peroids and so the cd on them tends to be wasted where as if you time your incarnations properly you can use them to great effect during high damage phases atleast 3 times a fight without having too much down time.

People are under the impression that Incarnation should still be used as somewhat of a mana saving CD. With our spirit these days this is no longer the case and you should NOT BE USING LIFE BLOOMS during incarnation (unless you are actually oom). Just continue your normal rotation spamming rejuv with swiftmend/wg on CD.

You should also always plan your incarnations so that you tranq in the last 1-2 seconds of the buff. Getting a +15% increased healing on tranq is huge in itself. Sometimes its not viable to use your incarnation so early just so you can tranq in the last couple of seconds (e.i Mageara HM) so I usually will just tranq sometime during my incarnation buff.

[AvatarM]

While force of nature is not terrible by any means you will find that almost all the top druids are using incarnation.

This if for a number of reasons but mainly because if it is used properly it will provide the greatest increase in hps as well as being a great tool to deal with high damage phases within a fight.

Almost all fights except HM tortos will have some form of lull peroids before a heavy aoe damage phase, FoN is nearly useless during these lull peroids and so the cd on them tends to be wasted where as if you time your incarnations properly you can use them to great effect during high damage phases atleast 3 times a fight without having too much down time.

People are under the impression that Incarnation should still be used as somewhat of a mana saving CD. With our spirit these days this is no longer the case and you should NOT BE USING LIFE BLOOMS during incarnation (unless you are actually oom). Just continue your normal rotation spamming rejuv with swiftmend/wg on CD.

You should also always plan your incarnations so that you tranq in the last 1-2 seconds of the buff. Getting a +15% increased healing on tranq is huge in itself. Sometimes its not viable to use your incarnation so early just so you can tranq in the last couple of seconds (e.i Mageara HM) so I usually will just tranq sometime during my incarnation buff.

That's true for 25 man environment, where CDs are needed, you don't need CDs on 10 man, there is not a single fight that you need a CD. H Megaera Rampage, H Iron Qon, blizzard design this encounters in 25 man to make sure CDs are needed to survive (at least when people not overgear). In 10 man they can't do it. The only healer that has enough CDs to rotate in 10 man trough many burst phases is the Resto Shaman, but they can't design encounters that need to have a class in 10 man, so they don't. That's why shamans are not in most 10 man comps, their CDs are overkill, their sustained HPS sucks. Using Tree of Life as a throughput CD in 10 man results almost always in a overkill for most of it's duration. I can't talk about 25 man, but for 10 man, I don't see ToL being a good CD in almost any fight. Jinrokh, as I already said. Council of Elders could be too, to heal Tanks and the Frostbite target. In almost all situations, FoN will result in a better sustained healing and its is smart casting. I'm not in a favor with a actual healing scenario with too many smart casts and healing CDs, but if they are here, we should use it. 3 Treants at the same time saves people lives.

Tips for FoN uses:

Horridon -> 2nd door-> I use FoN to heal for me while DPSing the Venon priests. The Healing in the beginning of this door is really easy, and the extra DPS on Venon priests is really good.
Iron Qon --> In the 2ng phase, after the windstorm, i put 3 treants before blinking trough the storm and Tranquility. If some1 being bad is taken by the tornado, the treants will heal him.
Twins --> Treants can heal the tank with the nightmare without giving you corrupted healing =D.
Lei shen --> In 10 man, is a common strategy 2 quadrants with healers and 2 quadrants without, just tanks and if needed a dps to soak. You can put treants to heal other quadrants and resume your positioning in your quadrant.
Jikun --> Treants extra Healing on tank when Jikun combos Dawn Draft and Talon Rake.

Overall, there is many fights in 10 man, while 2 healing meanly, that you can put treants to heal someone that is out of range and resume your positioning. I use it a lot, and I really like it.

[Dangerfield]

That's true for 25 man environment, where CDs are needed, you don't need CDs on 10 man, there is not a single fight that you need a CD. H Megaera Rampage, H Iron Qon, blizzard design this encounters in 25 man to make sure CDs are needed to survive (at least when people not overgear). In 10 man they can't do it. The only healer that has enough CDs to rotate in 10 man trough many burst phases is the Resto Shaman, but they can't design encounters that need to have a class in 10 man, so they don't. That's why shamans are not in most 10 man comps, their CDs are overkill, their sustained HPS sucks. Using Tree of Life as a throughput CD in 10 man results almost always in a overkill for most of it's duration. I can't talk about 25 man, but for 10 man, I don't see ToL being a good CD in almost any fight. Jinrokh, as I already said. Council of Elders could be too, to heal Tanks and the Frostbite target. In almost all situations, FoN will result in a better sustained healing and its is smart casting. I'm not in a favor with a actual healing scenario with too many smart casts and healing CDs, but if they are here, we should use it. 3 Treants at the same time saves people lives.

Tips for FoN uses:

Horridon -> 2nd door-> I use FoN to heal for me while DPSing the Venon priests. The Healing in the beginning of this door is really easy, and the extra DPS on Venon priests is really good.
Iron Qon --> In the 2ng phase, after the windstorm, i put 3 treants before blinking trough the storm and Tranquility. If some1 being bad is taken by the tornado, the treants will heal him.
Twins --> Treants can heal the tank with the nightmare without giving you corrupted healing =D.
Lei shen --> In 10 man, is a common strategy 2 quadrants with healers and 2 quadrants without, just tanks and if needed a dps to soak. You can put treants to heal other quadrants and resume your positioning in your quadrant.
Jikun --> Treants extra Healing on tank when Jikun combos Dawn Draft and Talon Rake.

Overall, there is many fights in 10 man, while 2 healing meanly, that you can put treants to heal someone that is out of range and resume your positioning. I use it a lot, and I really like it.

This is probably right, I was speaking soley from a 25 HM perspective, should of mentioned that! Your point about how blizzard designs high damage phases in 10 man makes a lot of sense.

[Deleted]

Wow thanks for all the helpful insight guys, it is nice to know they can all be viable if used in the correct situation.

I've been told recently as well that ToL can be strong if you maintain your normal heal style (no LB spam) especially in conjunction with the t15 4 set (which I have). It is going to sound bad but FoN was just so underpowered for so long I hadn't even considered it an option. I've been playing around with SotF and I've also run into the problem of it feeling kind of odd and you have those "grey area" moments were your instincts tell you to do something that would mess up your alignment significantly. I plan to play around with FoN especially in the scenarios that Danger has outlined here.

I am actually really excited I feel like a whole new door has opened up to me all of a sudden on that front.

[Sprucelee]

They are all viable.

In 25H I tend to use Incarnation, and mess with FoN on some fights. WG is just not enough of my healing these days to justify prioritizing around SOTF (and dealing with the clunkiness post T14), and I like the flexibility of ToL.

The tier is pretty solid right now, and definitely the one you will see Druids vary the most on. I have seen top parses using all three.

[Mephas]

If you check top logs for resto druid 10man hc, you will see most of them using ToL, then with a 1/3 or 1/4 use of ToL comes SotF and with a lesser use you will see some using FoN.
Even if you dont want to consider top logs because (at least i think) healers logs should not be read like dpsers logs, ToL is a "panic" button (and not that regen spell like it was widely used before) and i think a panic button or a spell that will help me most on difficult situations should be prioritized.

[Natureseer]

SotF and Incarnation are definitely both viable - i prefer sotf though because its pretty versatile and provides more throughput throughout the entire fight. I use it for WG mostly, sometimes tranquility as well if I need more burst HPS rather than prolonged for something like Megeara rampage.. also I use it when im dpsing with hotw for a huge boost to moonfire. Also its getting buffed to 100% haste in 5.4 as of the most current ptr notes, yay!

[Aoroc]

It's important to note that for the person who said "top druids always use Inc", that's generally because they're in bleeding edge progression gear, and therefore NEED a major CD like that, or they're TRYING to parse, and therefore need the extra throughput to do so. But for the average raider, even a heroic raider who is done or almost done with the tier, you're not going to NEED NEED NEED NEED N.E.E.D. that 3 min CD just to live. All the options of the tier are viable and I feel it's a very well designed tier where all choices really do change your playstyle to a decent extent.

Also, with HoW getting a healing increase in all specs (essentially giving a longer CD/stronger ToL) you'll most likely see less druids use Inc and move towards SotF or FoN.

Really though, FoN is a really great spell. Just because the other choices do more throughput doesn't mean FoN is bad. It really is there to fill a void in the toolbelt (free, easy to use, fast-regenerating CD that's a smartheal and great at sniping) and it fills that void perfectly in my opinion. If you haven't tried it out during non-LFR raids you should, see how it fits for you.

[Checksmix]

I don't know who you think are "top resto druids" but

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...neous/advanced

From midwinter, using SoTF. Most top resto druids use it since T14. We don't need incarnation as a CD since the tranq chance. People used Incarnation because it boosted tranqs healing. But now that it heals 12 players there is so much healing coming from tranq that i have never seen it out pace the damage going out. Also SoTF can be used with tranq so it also helps it.

[Deleted]

I prefer tree of life. We use it as a major cd when we assign healing cd:s to rotate (10 man). I've tried sotf but I thought it was a bit too weak. Also I missed not being able to pop tree of life when sh*t hits the fan.

[Mephas]

I am refering to top resto druids from world of logs, players i have access to logs.
Anyway most of you seem to be upset about something i dont understand, imo what i said important at my post is that top rankers use ToL for output (thats why they make good HPS) and it is still a Panic Button (like tranquility is a panic button).
So what i understand about this is that ToL is not that inferior to FoN or SotF in terms of output in this tier's raiding enviroment and still provides all the healing at the moments you need the most. And (imo again) healing sniping for resto druids suck if u have a decent disc priest/holy pala or even a monk, mostly because of absorbs being so OP and healing realy realy should not be about sniping.
One more thing, linking someone armory that cleared content 2 months ago is not the kind of progression im talking about. I want to know what he used then, not now.

[Checksmix]

Please show me these logs. I can't find many druids using incarnation in 25H ToT

[Rucati]

I don't do 25mans, so this is based purely off 10man, but SotF seems lightyears ahead of the other two talents.

Incarnation is a CD you really don't need, I two heal everything in my guild and there isn't a single 10man fight where I think I need another CD. In a 7 minute fight I'll have Incarnation up twice, that just isn't enough for me to warrant taking it when SotF is constant.

Force of Nature just isn't all that good imo, never liked it, though it's good for Boomkin.

SotF is just really really strong, and will be stronger next patch, in fact next patch I see no way at all that SotF won't be used. It's good on literally every fight in ToT, even on fights with no raid damage, like Horridon normal for example, it's still good because you can SotF Rejuv and it provides a really strong tank heal. Then every single fight on normal/heroic has enough raid damage to warrant SotF. I can't see any reason to switch out of it, it's just far too strong and they're buffing it even more next patch.

[Kjalar]

If Blizzard change SOTF to something that only works on WG and doesn't get consumed by other spells, I'll take it and use it everywhere, because it's good and will become even stronger in 5.4. But in its current state I just don't like it, because it kinda forces me into some weird spells selection to maximize its effect.

So, right now for me the choice looks like this: use FoN for sustained throughput, unless I absolutely need an additional big cooldown to heal through AOE, in which case switch to Incarnation.

P.S. From 10ppl perspective.

[Malcor]

Pretty much Incarn or your bad

The amoutn of healing that you have in your control vs Sotf and force just....your bad if you do anything else.

Incarn, Any druid worth their salt goes incarn