Resto Druid - Legion Talents

[Keiyra]

I was also wondering why there has been not much commentary about living seed? With the change to mastery, crit is further devalued and hoping there would be buff to Regrowth so it's in line with other quick heals is out of the window, why have they not decided to make use of the iconic part of the Druids toolset than letting it sit on the side for another expansion. <snip>

The change to mastery doesn't devalue crit at all, not sure where you got that from.

As for not much commentary about living seed...what is there to say that hasn't been said? It's a weak, niche effect that we only barely notice on tank healing. It only proc's from RG, HT and Swiftmend (which are used far less than the rest of our kit), it still doesn't proc on all/any damage taken (causing it to be far more effective on tanks than on any other raid member), it still stops refreshing duration once the max cap is reached.

As for the idea to take abundance and allow rejuv overhealing to flow into a living seed, its an idea. Not sure i'm a fan of it only working on overhealing, since assuming they change the healing meta in the way they claim they want to (HAH) we should in theory be avoiding overhealing when we can. Take it further, let Abundance work by storing X% of ANY crit hot tick as a living seed for 15 secs. Every hot then becomes a small seed cushion for a while - or just rejuv if "every hot" would be too strong, but you get the idea.

But yes - it would be nice to see SOMETHING useful happen to living seed and Abundance, since both are rather poop right now.

[theburned]

ToL > SotF

While this isn't actually a real quote, I really want to hear why you, and others, prefer ToL so much over SotF, and what makes it so much better, as in the end I always tell people to go ToL, also telling them I prefer SotF, but I don't really get why ToL is so much better, please enlighten me.

[Tiberria]

While this isn't actually a real quote, I really want to hear why you, and others, prefer ToL so much over SotF, and what makes it so much better, as in the end I always tell people to go ToL, also telling them I prefer SotF, but I don't really get why ToL is so much better, please enlighten me.

I actually think that SoTF vs Incarnation was actually very close the first tier of this expansion, and I switched between those talents on a per fight basis. However, Incarnation pulled way ahead of SoTF in HFC for several reasons.

1. To use SoTF effectively, you are basically locked into using Wild Growth no more often than once every 15 seconds. This isn't much of a limitation at lower gear/regen levels, because you can't afford to use it more often anyway. However, with higher regen, there are more and more situations where you want to use it closer to every 10 seconds, and this limitation becomes a bigger throughput drain.
2. The core argument in the value of SoTF in WoD is that Druids are (or were in T17) an extremely mana constrained spec, and we couldn't afford to use WG on CD and fill free GCDs (barring Efflo, LB maintenance, etc) with Rejuv casts without going hard OOM very fast. WG is significantly more HPM than Rejuv, so with an SoTF build, you could further increase the HPM of your WG casts, and just cast Rejuv a lot less often in between 15 second windows. With higher regen scaling, the need to reduce Rejuv casts became less acute, further reducing the value.
3. A lot of the HFC gear changes ended up strongly favoring a more Rejuv spam heavy playstyle as compared to the SoTF play style. Phlyactery has a lot more value the more spammy you are and the more Rejuv casts you do (and it also greatly increases how spammy you can afford to be). The class trinket heavily incentivizes Rejuv spam. The 4 piece kind of does as well, because it adds a lot more near 0 mana Lifebloom casts to your "rotation", reducing your net mana consumption. All of these things synergize really well with Incarnation. Also, the legendary ring doesn't synergize very well at all with the SoTF style, because you can only get a single SoTF WG off during the ring duration.

In terms of Legion, the following changes are happening that affect the value
- Swiftmend is a 30 sec CD, halving the amount of SoTF buffs you can get
- SoTF goes from buffing WG by 50% to buffing it by 75%. It effectively inherently loses 25% of its pure power relative to where it is on live by not increasing in magnitude to match the longer cooldown.
- The 30 second Swiftmend window also (in my opinion) makes SoTF less of a fluid playstyle option. A 15 second window tends to line up fairly well with minor raid damage bursts. A 30 second window (even if you are still able to cast 2 extra WG between the SoTF casts) feels too long to me for the talent to have the same toolkit value.
Basically, SoTF loses a lot of value compared to where it was in T17 and will be a lot less attractive. Since it was only about on par with Incarnation in T17, it's fairly reasonable to assume that it will be significantly worse in Legion without the set bonus. It has lost over 25% of its effective value.

[theburned]

I actually think that SoTF vs Incarnation was actually very close the first tier of this expansion, and I switched between those talents on a per fight basis. However, Incarnation pulled way ahead of SoTF in HFC for several reasons.

1. To use SoTF effectively, you are basically locked into using Wild Growth no more often than once every 15 seconds. This isn't much of a limitation at lower gear/regen levels, because you can't afford to use it more often anyway. However, with higher regen, there are more and more situations where you want to use it closer to every 10 seconds, and this limitation becomes a bigger throughput drain.
2. The core argument in the value of SoTF in WoD is that Druids are (or were in T17) an extremely mana constrained spec, and we couldn't afford to use WG on CD and fill free GCDs (barring Efflo, LB maintenance, etc) with Rejuv casts without going hard OOM very fast. WG is significantly more HPM than Rejuv, so with an SoTF build, you could further increase the HPM of your WG casts, and just cast Rejuv a lot less often in between 15 second windows. With higher regen scaling, the need to reduce Rejuv casts became less acute, further reducing the value.
3. A lot of the HFC gear changes ended up strongly favoring a more Rejuv spam heavy playstyle as compared to the SoTF play style. Phlyactery has a lot more value the more spammy you are and the more Rejuv casts you do (and it also greatly increases how spammy you can afford to be). The class trinket heavily incentivizes Rejuv spam. The 4 piece kind of does as well, because it adds a lot more near 0 mana Lifebloom casts to your "rotation", reducing your net mana consumption. All of these things synergize really well with Incarnation. Also, the legendary ring doesn't synergize very well at all with the SoTF style, because you can only get a single SoTF WG off during the ring duration.

In terms of Legion, the following changes are happening that affect the value
- Swiftmend is a 30 sec CD, halving the amount of SoTF buffs you can get
- SoTF goes from buffing WG by 50% to buffing it by 75%. It effectively inherently loses 25% of its pure power relative to where it is on live by not increasing in magnitude to match the longer cooldown.
- The 30 second Swiftmend window also (in my opinion) makes SoTF less of a fluid playstyle option. A 15 second window tends to line up fairly well with minor raid damage bursts. A 30 second window (even if you are still able to cast 2 extra WG between the SoTF casts) feels too long to me for the talent to have the same toolkit value.
Basically, SoTF loses a lot of value compared to where it was in T17 and will be a lot less attractive. Since it was only about on par with Incarnation in T17, it's fairly reasonable to assume that it will be significantly worse in Legion without the set bonus. It has lost over 25% of its effective value.

Ok, that does make sense, was mostly thinking about legion though. Current tier it doesnt really matter what you pick and ToL is the standard.

Have you considered the line up with flourish + sotf wg, because I feel this one favours sotf a bit more, as every 2nd wg lines up with flourish. rather than every 3rd flourish lines up with ToL. On top of this having a really cost effective and high healing WG every 30 seconds feels very valuable to me. For me the choice between those 2 talents will always be about damage patterns though, if I feel sotf is out of sync I rather take ToL, or if I feel like a heavy cd every 1,5 min feels needed (alternating tree + tranq.) I take ToL. I have not done the math on which saves you more mana, but I would expect both of them to give high throughput, but both requires you to spend a lot of mana.

[Tiberria]

In the build that just went up Abundance has switched places with Cultivation in the talent tree.

It's now L75 - SoTF / Incarnation/ Cultivation
L90 - Abundance/ Inner Peace / Spring Blossoms

I think this probably effectively makes Cultivation dead as a talent

[stormgust]

In the build that just went up Abundance has switched places with Cultivation in the talent tree.

It's now L75 - SoTF / Incarnation/ Cultivation
L90 - Abundance/ Inner Peace / Spring Blossoms

As if adding an additional available HoT will make tuning our mastery in any way easier.

I think this probably effectively makes Cultivation dead as a talent

I don't quite see that to be honest. Cultivation triggers more or less when you use ToL, but doesn't have an uptime restriction. You'd really only ever pick ToL over it, when you need that additional efficiency, otherwise Cultivation beats it due to non restricted uptime, especially in a mastery heavy build.

Honestly, I don't see why 5 months in, they're still holding onto this garbage called Abundance (and Prosperity ...) - but at least all other classes get changes to make their talents more "competitive" whereas all we get are changes, which iron out single talents even more.

[theburned]

Abundance no longer has a cap, and will still see no use.... I sit here with the feeling that I said exactly this somewhere and now I am just "WHAT HAVE I DONE".

[Nevcairiel]

Abundance (8% -> 10%) and Cultivation (54%sp -> 75%sp) have also been slightly buffed, Spring Blossoms slightly nerfed (8->6s), it seems.

Edit:
And they replaced the PH trait right after essence of ghanir, its now Nature's Vigor, 15%+ on Rejuv.

[theburned]

Also lifebloom, talent changed from bloom every 8 seconds to increase bloom by 30%, position changed, ancient power -> nature's vigor (5% overall to 15% rejuv.)

[stormgust]

Abundance (8% -> 10%),

So, we're at a 100% buff compared to the original values, and it's still garbage.

Cultivation (54%sp -> 75%sp)

As I said, no reason to bother with any of the other to options. This one triggers when needed, provides mastery, and hasn't a mediocre uptime. Only reason to ever pick the other two are: 4T19, resp. incredible limited on mana AND low on mastery.

and Spring Blossoms (same sp over shorter duration) have also been slightly buffed.

That's actually a nerf to mastery uptime it provides. Still beats the other two option by a rather large margin ...

Also lifebloom, talent changed from bloom every 8 seconds to increase bloom by 30%,

Well, a boost on a non-controlable heal vs. a bonus which may actually have been quite nice...

ancient power -> nature's vigor (5% overall to 15% rejuv.)

Expected "initial" trait. Reju was the only spell left after all

[Nevcairiel]

That's actually a nerf to mastery uptime it provides. Still beats the other two option by a rather large margin ...

Its actually a nerf overall, I misread the dump initially (it had SP per tick, not overall). They did reduce the SP as well, so its just one less tick - same SP per tick.

[Tiberria]

The Spring Blossoms change isn't a real nerf in most cases, because the HoT would typically refresh itself before expiring anyway.

[Torty]

While this isn't actually a real quote, I really want to hear why you, and others, prefer ToL so much over SotF, and what makes it so much better, as in the end I always tell people to go ToL, also telling them I prefer SotF, but I don't really get why ToL is so much better, please enlighten me.

Because it provides burst healing and burst healing is mostly the only healing that matters for a raid healer. Even if you could do more HPS with SotF, I would still pick ToL, because it's a cooldown and cooldowns are much more valuable in normal healing circumstances than a static healing increase. Literally every fight in HFC is very bursty in one way or another and doesn't require steady healing. On Alpha right now you just want to last longer into the fight so that you can see more, that's why people spec ToL.

[stormgust]

Amusing how some people actually defend Abundance as a good spot healing/tank talent. At 20% mastery you actually need more than three reju's for this talent to actually provide a benefit over Spring Blossoms - on a single target with spring blossoms by casting HT, i.e. any additional SB targets or heal on top of HT skews heavily in favor of SB, with higher haste AND mastery skewing further toward SB, due to Abundance heavily diminishing with the former, and SB scaling absurdly well with the later.

But well - whichever moron designed this mastery completely ignored - or maybe intended given the recent talent swap (unlikely, as it doesn't fit with the recent mastery buff) - that one given talent on each tier heavily outperforms all other talents, unless they tune it to require a certain amount of mastery to begin with, i.e. underperforming relative to other talent unless you reach adequate mastery levels, i.e. essentially our talents aren't chosen by us, but rather by how much mastery we actually have.

[Torty]

From dev theorycrafting answers:
The only AoE heal that explicitly chooses the lowest-health of all damaged targets is Wild Growth.
Efflorescence favors targets without the Spring Blossoms HoT.

[Nevcairiel]

Yeah they did say before that WG is once again a full smart heal. Efflorescence being half-smart is nice to know as well.

[theburned]

Amusing how some people actually defend Abundance as a good spot healing/tank talent. At 20% mastery you actually need more than three reju's for this talent to actually provide a benefit over Spring Blossoms - on a single target with spring blossoms by casting HT, i.e. any additional SB targets or heal on top of HT skews heavily in favor of SB, with higher haste AND mastery skewing further toward SB, due to Abundance heavily diminishing with the former, and SB scaling absurdly well with the later.

But well - whichever moron designed this mastery completely ignored - or maybe intended given the recent talent swap (unlikely, as it doesn't fit with the recent mastery buff) - that one given talent on each tier heavily outperforms all other talents, unless they tune it to require a certain amount of mastery to begin with, i.e. underperforming relative to other talent unless you reach adequate mastery levels, i.e. essentially our talents aren't chosen by us, but rather by how much mastery we actually have.

There is no point in saying that this talent improves our spot healing, also there is no reason to believe that it improves our tank healing more than spring blossom (or well I guess if you cant get SB on the tank.)

There is no numerical advantages for abundance, it is purely a utility talent, which allows us to instant cast HT. It's weak, but there might be some chance to see some use of this talent especially in mythic+ dungeons, where getting that healing out asap can be more important than HPS.

[stormgust]

There is no numerical advantages for abundance, it is purely a utility talent, which allows us to instant cast HT. It's weak, but there might be some chance to see some use of this talent especially in mythic+ dungeons, where getting that healing out asap can be more important than HPS.

Because 10 GCD's spent on reju leave you with all that many GCD's for instant HT's... Honestly, unless they make attaining the bonus essentially trivial, i. e. a number of rejus you've going out anyway, it's never going to save you time (when needed). And you can for sure expect them not to make the trigger condition trivial (due to pvp blance ...)

Sorry, but this talent isn't mythic 5+ niche, it's just garbage placed next to most other talents on our tree. It may compete with CW, and probably beat a non 4T19 Prosperity/SotF, but thats about all you can hope for.

[theburned]

Because 10 GCD's spent on reju leave you with all that many GCD's for instant HT's... Honestly, unless they make attaining the bonus essentially trivial, i. e. a number of rejus you've going out anyway, it's never going to save you time (when needed). And you can for sure expect them not to make the trigger condition trivial (due to pvp blance ...)

Sorry, but this talent isn't mythic 5+ niche, it's just garbage placed next to most other talents on our tree. It may compete with CW, and probably beat a non 4T19 Prosperity/SotF, but thats about all you can hope for.

I never said it was super good, but yeah you totally "spend" time on casting rejuvs, it's not like you always have 2 up, and you should certainly have a few more up, 6-8 is certainly a thing in mythic+ dungeon, with 20 sec duration on rejuvs, + 25% with refresh, and the occasional flourish. and even at 7-8 stacks its fine, its still okay spot healing with 0.2-0.6 sec cast time, closer to 0,8-1 sec it starts to become weak.

[Nythiz]

Because 10 GCD's spent on reju leave you with all that many GCD's for instant HT's... Honestly, unless they make attaining the bonus essentially trivial, i. e. a number of rejus you've going out anyway, it's never going to save you time (when needed). And you can for sure expect them not to make the trigger condition trivial (due to pvp blance ...)

Sorry, but this talent isn't mythic 5+ niche, it's just garbage placed next to most other talents on our tree. It may compete with CW, and probably beat a non 4T19 Prosperity/SotF, but thats about all you can hope for.

True, and yet Abundance will be a go-to talent for a lot of people with this switch. Simply because there are a ton of situations where having Inner Peace or Spring Blossoms is simply not wanted. And even though Abundance is just as bad (don't mistake this for a defense for this horrible talent, because it's lame), it'll be a go to talent for people due to it's utility.

I'll once again bring in the PvP crowd; that will look at this talent for a minor, yet noticeable throughput increase compared to the alternatives (especially now that it doesn't compete with ToL / SotF anymore).

You can claim that "that's what the pvp talents are for" but that's a completely irrelevant argument, as PvPers (and certain small group PvE'ers) will have to choose talents here as well.
And in the end you'll end up with maybe 20% of the people taking Abundance and blizzard will see the talent as being fine.

I'd personally rather see this talent go. But I think this talent will see enough use in it's current incarnation, that blizzard doesn't even consider that.

PvP players get "free" +20-+40% crit on Regrowth, since they'll have 2-4 Rejuvs rolling anyway. Spring Blossoms doesn't work well with PvP being so mobile and Tranq doesn't have enough impact to make Inner Peace worthwhile.

Same may go for 5 man dungeon players. Inner Peace doesn't feel worthwhile as you generally don't need Tranq at all for that type of content. Spring Blossoms might technically be higher throughput on a more static fight, but if fights last quite short or are high in mobility it might feel inferior.
Abundance in those cases might give people a good feeling. Rolling 5 rejuvs (which might be a given in certain 5 mans and mythic dungeons) is something that's you'll do anyway. Getting a free +40% Regrowth crit and -50% HT cast time (making it basically a near-zero-mana-cost non-crit regrowth); will definitely feel really fun and good for a lot of players. And they won't really give a rat's ass whether or not Spring Blossoms is technically x% more healing throughput.

I think you'd be surprised how popular Abundance might become after they swapped it with cultivation.