Resto Druid - Legion Talents

[theburned]

they only had monk healers in those speed run videos so if you're resto druid you're fucking doing it wrong losers

What speed runs, and who cares about speed runs when it's about difficulty rather than speed?

Negating was probably too strong a word (or wrong to adequately describe what I wanted to say). Anyway, I didn't even assume that stonebark will negate anything, my entire argument was, that under proper tuning (you won't be able to pull it off, or it's significantly riskier than a standard two tank strat), it will never be used, because it doesn't really do anything.

"under proper tuning" I seem to hear this a lot, and in the end some tank class will always be better at doing such things, aslong as there is no tank mechanic that stops it, people will pull it off, yes there is a significant risk, but there is also a significant dps gain in having one tank take it all, and have a dps instead, considering how most tanks have some "get hit, proc strong ability", or some kind of damage reflect/thorns effect. I'd say its about 30-60% of a dps which is fairly significant.

[Saracens]

What speed runs, and who cares about speed runs when it's about difficulty rather than speed?



"under proper tuning" I seem to hear this a lot, and in the end some tank class will always be better at doing such things, aslong as there is no tank mechanic that stops it, people will pull it off, yes there is a significant risk, but there is also a significant dps gain in having one tank take it all, and have a dps instead, considering how most tanks have some "get hit, proc strong ability", or some kind of damage reflect/thorns effect. I'd say its about 30-60% of a dps which is fairly significant.

I think under proper tuning is the same as the video game industries take on Soon™.

[Deleted]

More exp resto druids, how's legion looking so far ? I'm thinking about ditching my priest for a Druid..

[xdmemes]

I strongly doubt Stonebark will ever be taken in a raid environment. It's basically a 5 man/CM talent.

Weren't you arguing that Flourish is better in 5 mans/CMs on the official forums?

[theburned]

Weren't you arguing that Flourish is better in 5 mans/CMs on the official forums?

At the time he said it probably was aswell, the synergy between flourish and cultivation isnt that good compared to flourish ToL/SotF. And it felt like a way better talent.
And it still has it's merits, but it just dosent feel as good.

- - - Updated - - -

More exp resto druids, how's legion looking so far ? I'm thinking about ditching my priest for a Druid..

Well legion is looking very good atm, but I assume you're talking about resto druid.
The class design overall looks very good skill cap seems higher, +- 1-2 buttons (so no pruning really.) healing meta seems to fit us a lot, our class looks fairly good, apart from perhaps abundance it's basically only tuning left.

edit: our 4p is totally shit so thats the most important thin to fix.

[Nythiz]

More exp resto druids, how's legion looking so far ? I'm thinking about ditching my priest for a Druid..

Not bad to be frank.

I'm not in beta, so it's hard to give a real good opinion on this; but from what I've seen so far, the style of resto druid healing is staying pretty much the same.
Our healing toolkit is largely the same, so our viability is largely going to depend on the changes to other healers in combination with the type of the encounters and whether or not the healing style changes (e.g. are people going to spend more time sub-100% HP).
The removal of a lot of absorb mechanics from other healers is likely to be a plus for our HoT style healing, as it's almost always effective healing done.

There are some concerns about the new mastery, which basically gives us x% more healing on a target per HoT on that target. It might be too strong in situations where you can stack mastery and focus heal one target effectively (e.g. mythic dungeons); and too weak in situations where it's less suitable to stack HoT on a single target instead of spreading your HoTs (e.g. raids).
On the other hand, the new mastery might allow us to change healing style based on gear set. A heavy mastery set might allow a druid to be more of a focused healer (e.g. tank healer should that role come back into play) by stacking HoTs; which might come in handy if your healer group is lacking something like that.

We are losing some burst healing options with Genesis and Nature's Swiftness, which might hurt us in a few situations. Especially genesis is an ability I've grown fond of lately and has been a key utility in the survival of people in PvP situations and heavy PvE damage (think CMs).
I don't think we'll get anything like that in return, but I think other healers are taking some heavy losses in the cooldown department as well.

All in all it doesn't look too bad, mostly because we don't change too much and I think our HoT healing style might actually be more effective in Legion.
The aforementioned concerns (mastery + removal of burst healing options) are mostly just concerns to me, i'll see how they play out.
If there is anything I dislike about the legion expansion it might be the talent trees, in the sense that IMO they contain too many passives and too few active abilities. This makes a lot of the options rather dull and I fear we'll end up with a very one dimensional talent tree over the course of the expansion.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I have loved just about everything to do with them so far in the alpha. Its a little different but also kinda the same. Tuning hasn't even been touched much if at all so trying to deliever on strength and such is kinda out the window.

[KrinKer]

so quick question, but what is the number for both base mana and total mana in legion ?

[Koor]

so quick question, but what is the number for both base mana and total mana in legion ?

At level 110, total mana is 1100000, base mana is 20% of this, 220000.
Mana regen is 46640 MP5 (44000 base + 6% from 3/3 in the artifact trait Knowledge of the Ancients).

[KrinKer]

That's not a lot ....

How much are mana pot regening ?

[Nevcairiel]

240000 instant or 360000 sleeping for 10s

With no spirit to boost regen substantially, mana mangement is supposed to stay relevant for the entire expansion. I would like if this is actually the case, and we don't degenerate to mindless spamming one or two tiers in once again, but we'll have to wait and see.

[Saracens]

240000 instant or 360000 sleeping for 10s

With no spirit to boost regen substantially, mana mangement is supposed to stay relevant for the entire expansion. I would like if this is actually the case, and we don't degenerate to mindless spamming one or two tiers in once again, but we'll have to wait and see.

That would be fantastic.

[Deleted]

Not bad to be frank.

I'm not in beta, so it's hard to give a real good opinion on this; but from what I've seen so far, the style of resto druid healing is staying pretty much the same.
Our healing toolkit is largely the same, so our viability is largely going to depend on the changes to other healers in combination with the type of the encounters and whether or not the healing style changes (e.g. are people going to spend more time sub-100% HP).
The removal of a lot of absorb mechanics from other healers is likely to be a plus for our HoT style healing, as it's almost always effective healing done.

There are some concerns about the new mastery, which basically gives us x% more healing on a target per HoT on that target. It might be too strong in situations where you can stack mastery and focus heal one target effectively (e.g. mythic dungeons); and too weak in situations where it's less suitable to stack HoT on a single target instead of spreading your HoTs (e.g. raids).
On the other hand, the new mastery might allow us to change healing style based on gear set. A heavy mastery set might allow a druid to be more of a focused healer (e.g. tank healer should that role come back into play) by stacking HoTs; which might come in handy if your healer group is lacking something like that.

We are losing some burst healing options with Genesis and Nature's Swiftness, which might hurt us in a few situations. Especially genesis is an ability I've grown fond of lately and has been a key utility in the survival of people in PvP situations and heavy PvE damage (think CMs).
I don't think we'll get anything like that in return, but I think other healers are taking some heavy losses in the cooldown department as well.

All in all it doesn't look too bad, mostly because we don't change too much and I think our HoT healing style might actually be more effective in Legion.
The aforementioned concerns (mastery + removal of burst healing options) are mostly just concerns to me, i'll see how they play out.
If there is anything I dislike about the legion expansion it might be the talent trees, in the sense that IMO they contain too many passives and too few active abilities. This makes a lot of the options rather dull and I fear we'll end up with a very one dimensional talent tree over the course of the expansion.

Thanks for the feedback, what talents have you been running? what is the general consensus on best to pick in different situations.

[theburned]

Anyone got any clue why essence of ghanir got buffed to 100% instead of 50%?

[Keiyra]

Anyone got any clue why essence of ghanir got buffed to 100% instead of 50%?

That's where the dart landed at the last development meeting. Still not that impressed with it, but I suppose its a minor burst cd now.

[theburned]

That's where the dart landed at the last development meeting. Still not that impressive with it, but I suppose its a minor burst cd now.

I mean the cd is really good in 5 man content, its okay, but nothing major in raid content, and unless they are planning to absolutely shaft our mastery I dont see the point of buffing abilities that impact 5 mans a lot more than mythic raids. The ability was never underwhelming to begin with, and while its going to make it better in raids aswell its nothing out of the world amazing either.

[Nythiz]

Thanks for the feedback, what talents have you been running? what is the general consensus on best to pick in different situations.

Well like I said. I'm not in the alpha/beta so I'm not really running anything.

But there are only a few tiers where you have choice. And compared to a lot of other classes (or even our other druid specs) I feel that a lot of talents are rather dull, rows contain too many passives or there isn't enough synergy.

I mean let's take a look at the rows. Starting with those which offer very little choice:

Tier 30
We're all going to take Displacer beast here 99% of the time. The blink is simply too good.
The other 1% might be Renewal if there is a fight where extra mobility doesn't gain you anything. (Renewal is actually a pretty great heal, as it's off the GCD and can be used while casting).
Wild Charge is too clunky and will only ever really be useful to Feral and Guardians from my experience so far.

Tier 45
Affinities at first look like it'll have many nice ways to set yourself apart, but it's rather dull to be frank.
For resto druids the feral affinity is pretty much a no-no outside of solo content. You really don't want to be in melee range (especially since we don't get melee immunity to certain boss abilities). The passive is rather weak as well.
Balance affinity is likely the go to choice for most non-raid stuff. 5 yards extra range is nice, and the ability to do some decent damage on top. The new balance astral power mechanic is really solid so it'll be easy to shift in the flow.
Guardian affinity might be a must have on some fights for it's 10% damage reduction. In raids there are a lot of situations where you don't need the 5y range and you don't need to be able to do damage, so might as well take 10% less damage taken.

Some choice, but not as much as it might appear on first sight. Also I'm not really sure that these affinities really achieve what they're trying to do.

Tier 60
CC tier. Not much to add.
Most likely bash for PvP stuff and Typhoon for PvE stuff.

Tier 90
So this is one of the dull tiers due to having all passives. On top of that I'm not even sure the choice will be very good.

If you don't need Tranq more than once per 2 minutes to counter raid mechanics, you're likely to always go for Spring Blossoms in PvE. Extra mastery stack, easy passive healing. Unless they'll tune it to be really awful healing this'll mostly be a no brainer.
Inner Peace is a must if a fight would benefit from more Tranqs than once per 3 minutes. This could be really good for certain progression fights. It's still a dull ass talent though.
Abundance is pretty garbage. The only benefit I see with this talent are very niche situations. And maybe PvP depending on how well Tranq is now that it gives +100% healing outside of raid groups. If that's strong, than Inner Peace might also be a go-to for arena's as an extra cooldown; otherwise Abundance will give you an easy +x% crit on regrowth which might be better than the alternatives.
Maybe niche situations where abundance shines though.

This line does offer some variety based on encounter and situation. But the fact that they're all passive and none really has any major impact on rotation or abilities or whatnot is a bit dull.

Tier 100
Another tier that seemingly offers much, but probably doesn't as much in practice.

Flourish is superb here and will be taken most of the time. THe ability to extend your power HoTs (WG/CW) and regular hots is pretty amazing.
Moment of Clarity is pretty niche. Maybe at the start of the expansion when your mana is more strained, your HoTs don't have enough strength yet and you need more Regrowths in general. Stonebark is also pretty niche. Restricted mostly to PvP and 5 man content and the latter only if your tank is often taking a massive beating.

In this tier Flourish is mostly interesting because it's one of the few talents that actually INTERACTS with our toolset. Using this right and wrong can have a big impact on your performance.
We lack talents like these to spice up our healing situation. Most other healers get way more of these kind of skills.

---------

That leaves us with:

Tier 15:

This tier is going to depend a bit on how things play out.

Prosperity is not super strong to be frank. Mostly because Swiftmend is not the NS replacement blizzard initially advertised it to be.
In the end prosperity has 2 benefits:
1) You get 1 extra charge of swiftmend at the start of the fight.
2) Your swiftmend cooldown will continue rolling as long as you're not sitting on 2 charges, giving flexibility on swiftmend. E.g. If you use swiftmend after 40 seconds of your last use, the next charge will not come after 30 seconds, but after 20 seconds.
I really like flexibility, but I'm not sure it'll be enough to warrant this talent.
Note that this talent does have some synergy with SotF and that the flexibility there might play a role in that.

Cenarion Ward: Pretty much the same as it is currently. But it's slightly more viable due to it's circumstances. First of all, it's no longer up against Ysera's Gift, which has such strong passive healing that it was hard to warrant the use of CW. Second of all it's less likely it's healing will be wasted with less shielding and stuff going around.
It's a solid pick I think. It'll have good synergy with Flourish.
I'd have to see it in practice though. It might end up being the strongest talent in this line, but I might still not take it. I don't feel like I REALLY need this, and I'm a sucker for flexibility which the others provide a bit better.

Germination: Germination is lacking the +3 sec Rejuv duration from the live talent, which makes it a lot weaker and no longer the obvious choice. This talent is likely to be a strong pick in small scale content (5 mans / PvP) since it's more worthwhile to stack hots, to provide a solid damage buffer. Plus the talent has goed synergy with the new mastery.
In raid content germination doesn't add too much effective healing in a general raid situation. This talent does provide flexibility though; it at least gives you the choice of stacking a second HoT. Which is that flexibility I was talking about.

This line is largely going to depend on some other factors, like: How strong does mastery turn out, how strong does swiftmend turn out, etc.

Tier 75:
The only talent tier with some solid choices that also alter the rotation a bit.

Soul of the Forest took a bit hit though with the change to make Swiftmend a 30 second cooldown. And the buff to it did too little to make up for that. I feel like it's going to be less available on demand and the synergy with WG is a bit worse than live as well.
Combined with Prosperity it gains a little bit more flexibility back, as you can more easily hold your swiftmend for the best moment and still get max benefit out of SotF, but I doubt it's enough.
SotF + WG and Flourish is a great combo that could provide a really solid amount of healing though. Add in the double charge from Prosperity and you're looking at some great synergy healing on potentially 12 targets at once.

Incarnation is incarnation. We all know it's a solid talent.
I don't think it changed much from how it is currently.

Cultivation is interesting. It currently seems a bit strong for a passive; but at the same time you're giving up 2 other strong talents. I'll have to see how this works out.

---------

In general I think a lot of people will be running something like:

(15) Germination/CW -> (30) Displacer -> (45) Balance/Guardian affinity -> (60) Typhoon -> (75) Incarnation/Cultivation -> (90) Spring Blossom -> (100) Flourish.

And the downside is that:
- (30) / (60) / (90) / (100) are all practically set in stone for a lot of encounters. (perhaps tier 15 will turn out that way as well)
- (45) / (60) / (90) don't really impact us a lot. You won't notice them very much or you won't use them.
- SotF / Incarnation / Flourish are the only real talent that have a direct interaction with our toolkit and rotation.

I just miss some options. Some synergy between talents other than Flourish.
We don't really have much of that currently on Live, but I had some hope they would change that a bit.

- - - Updated - - -

Anyone got any clue why essence of ghanir got buffed to 100% instead of 50%?

I'm not exactly sure why.
Nontheless I'm liking this change.

Losing Genesis, HotW/NV and Nature Swiftness all at once, is a big massive hit for resto druids in a lot of situations (an issue I expected quite a bit more outcry over on these forums).
This new Essence of Ghanir at least gives us back something resembling a potent cooldown. Guess it does mean that Flourish becomes even MORE powerful now though.

[Anastacy]

240000 instant or 360000 sleeping for 10s

With no spirit to boost regen substantially, mana mangement is supposed to stay relevant for the entire expansion. I would like if this is actually the case, and we don't degenerate to mindless spamming one or two tiers in once again, but we'll have to wait and see.

Just to note: the first mana regeneration trinket widely available (first boss in Black Rook Hold) has very weird interactions with Efflorescence, but is insanely good regen if everything "ticks" right.

[Deleted]

Nythiz, thank you for your feedback appreciate the detail in the reply

[Torty]

Spring Blossoms is a bit better than it's showing on the meters. It automatically makes your Efflo heal with plus one Mastery stack at all times if there's no SB hot on the target, plus Efflo will start prefering targets without SB as opposed to randomly picking injured players (maybe it will still prefer injured players with SB over full hp ones without it, didn't actually test it). So most of the time all your melees will have a hot rolling on them, which makes WG much more stronger and spot healing them actually better. One Mastery stack is also a no joke in 5m content.

Another thing I just thought about. If you have >33,33% Haste, it can theoretically keep a hot on 12 people. At Haste below that it can do it for 9 people. I don't know how significant that will be, probably can get a use out of this on at least 1 fight.