Probably a Silly Question: Resto Levelling in Legion?

[Ooshraxa]

They've talked about world quests at level 110 rewarding a lot of AP - interesting if that is direct, or in item form.

[Hypasonic]

I just honestly detest, in every sense of the word, being forced to play a HEALING spec to level with. It boggles my mind.

[Pennoyer]

Just play Balance and save your AP (artifact power) items for when you unlock G'hanir.

Since you won't be using your AP items on the Scythe of Elune you won't be leveling as fast as you theoretically could be, but ultimately it's just better to play Balance for leveling. You'll need to occasionally swap to Resto (when you get it at 102) to consume your AP quest rewards/drops. Or you could just consume some of that AP for your Scythe since you'll probably be leveling it a bit anyway.

One advantage for Resto is that you are basically unkillable, so it may be better to slowly whittle down a rare while healing yourself than risk getting killed while in Balance (hybrid healing is trash right now).

- - - Updated - - -

Well I heard that you only get 80% Artifact power for your secondary spec so it kinda forces you into your main spec. Assuming you want to be competitive at max level.

From my experience, the "80%" figure is in the sense that AP requirements as you progress through your weapon's tree goes up massively. So at some point you have to decide whether you want to drop 3000 AP to get 1 more point in G'hanir or start leveling your Scythe a bit when the talents only cost 350 AP each, which gives you more spec diversity and doesn't make you as much of a deadweight should you need to go Balance for a dungeon or raid fight. At some point, your Scythe's AP costs will increase enough that you may as well go back to focusing on your resto weapon again.

Ultimately, though, it's up to you to decide how you want to spend your AP. After X number of weeks of playing, do you want a 90% unlocked G'hanir or an 80% unlocked G'hanir and 60% unlocked Scythe? I'm just using these numbers as an example, I can't recall exactly how this AP-spending would shake out but I'm sure you get the concept.

[Nevcairiel]

They've talked about world quests at level 110 rewarding a lot of AP - interesting if that is direct, or in item form.

Its all items. Nearly all AP is in items form, from quests, from world quests, from drops, from random dungeon rewards, all items.

I just honestly detest, in every sense of the word, being forced to play a HEALING spec to level with. It boggles my mind.

Haven't we shown in this thread that you are by no means forced, as practically all of the power you collect you can assign to a weapon of your choosing?

[Azazu]

I have a 110 druid on beta (also played alpha) - i started leveling as boomkin, but found it slow, respecced guardian and never looked back - knew i wanted to play resto at 110 so saved up all my artifact power for when i hit 110 and used it on my resto artifact.
You get your 2nd and 3rd artifact quest rather early on, or you do in beta i should say.

[Staryu]

I leveled to 110 as feral and used all my AP in resto wep. I took resto wep first though... so didnt get my feral one until 102. Or was it 104? Either way, I used a regular weapon as feral until I got the Artifact for the spec. It was still faster using a reg wep over trying to dps as resto, lol.

I leveled with a Mage friend and I had Skada up out of curiousity. I was doing as much if not more dmg while we quested and all his AP going into his real DPS wep, and none going into my feral wep. id run off/ahead and kill mobs very, very fast. Lvling with an artifact wep with no % bonuses is nothing to even worry or think about. I did try to lvl some as resto when I was around 108-109, and it felt underwhelming and I immediately went back to feral.

All in all, lvl as dps, and use AP to go into your Resto wep. I think there was only 3 quests that I recall that gave AP on turn in, and you just gotta swap your spec rq to do it. If youre lvling solo, doing it as bear will be best bet imo.

[Yakibob]

Hello Druids!
I play mostly resto and guardian currently and have 730 ilvl and gear for any spec.
I plan to focus on resto as main spec again for legion, but I was wondering if any of you that have beta access have had a chance to level with your mythic raid gear since character copy is now available on beta.

If so, what spec are you recommending is the fastest or most efficient with higher gear levels.
Thank you.


I should also add that I did a character copy to the ptr and found feral to be my personal highest dps. I went out to tanaan and had no trouble bursting down the rares with full hp at the end. Not sure how this translates to leveling in Legion, but I would say I am leaning toward leveling as feral and saving AP for resto wep, after my experience on the ptr. Any light you can shed about beta would be appreciated.

[Nevcairiel]

If so, what spec are you recommending is the fastest or most efficient with higher gear levels

The fastest and most efficient is generally one of the two dps specs, which one is hard to compare. Pick whichever you are the most comfortable with.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

Hello Druids!
I play mostly resto and guardian currently and have 730 ilvl and gear for any spec.
I plan to focus on resto as main spec again for legion, but I was wondering if any of you that have beta access have had a chance to level with your mythic raid gear since character copy is now available on beta.

If so, what spec are you recommending is the fastest or most efficient with higher gear levels.
Thank you.


I should also add that I did a character copy to the ptr and found feral to be my personal highest dps. I went out to tanaan and had no trouble bursting down the rares with full hp at the end. Not sure how this translates to leveling in Legion, but I would say I am leaning toward leveling as feral and saving AP for resto wep, after my experience on the ptr. Any light you can shed about beta would be appreciated.

I'm a guardian main. Probably going guardian. Respeccing Feral for rares.
Guardian AOE just too good.

[Nevcairiel]

I'm a guardian main. Probably going guardian. Respeccing Feral for rares.
Guardian AOE just too good.

I really haven't had any issues downing rares as Guardian. Granted it may take a few seconds longer, but respeccing twice is probably not giving you a time advantage then.

[CallMeGrey]

Can they make it any more convoluted/confusing for tanks and healers? Why create a system that basically penalizes you while leveling or at max level - your choice.

This is why all my characters will be just dps for Legion. Although I used to enjoy tanking and healing, I don't like feeling gimped at any level.

[Nevcairiel]

Can they make it any more convoluted/confusing for tanks and healers? Why create a system that basically penalizes you while leveling or at max level - your choice.

Tanks are fine, you just gotta get into the mindset of AoE pulling and getting the right talents and its great for leveling and soloing.

Healers are much better then they ever were, just pick balance affinity and you can actually kill things quite easily. As they have said in the stream last thursday, if healers would be able to kill things as fast as any DPSers, why would anyone ever actually pick a DPSer? There has to be a bit of a downside to being able to heal yourself through everything otherwise.

Other then that, nothing changed whatsoever. You can still play a DPS spec when solo and switch to heal or tank in dungeons/raids if you so wish without any downsides.

[Niomar]

** Note, that someone on beta already tested this out using Ele and Resto shaman. He found that kill speed between Ele (with no artifact points) and resto with full artifact points, killed at about the same speed (due to the passive % damage increase on the resto arti) - The only big advantage leveling as a dps spec (without points in dps artifact) has is better aoe skills - at the trade off of being squishier.

Both of those methods are a fair chunk slower than dps spec with points in dps artifact of course.

For those interested, here's the article regarding that: healiocentric.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/legion-beta-leveling-as-a-healer-the-surprising-result-i-cant-explain-and-you-wont-believe/

It was a great article with a lot of real world examples/tests, but the only issue I have with it is that it compares a fully invested Restoration artifact weapon vs a 0 point Elemental off-spec weapon. I don't think that's actually optimal due to the scaling costs of Artifact Power and the ability to easily keep your off-spec weapon up to around "80%" of your main spec's weapon. Specifically, after you train 13 traits in your primary artifact, the cost for the 14th trait is so high that you can literally opt to gain the first 13 traits in your off-spec weapon instead for the same cost. icy-veins.com/forums/topic/21362-artifact-power-mathed-out/ At least to me, it seems that's a significantly better return on investment in terms of leveling and questing solo as a healer and that is going to make a difference in how fast you can kill with your off-spec.

[Yakibob]

I'm a guardian main. Probably going guardian. Respeccing Feral for rares.
Guardian AOE just too good.

This is the sort of thing I was wondering. I don't have access to beta and didn't know if there are enough situations where aoe pulling and thrash/swiping down was possible to make guardian worth it. I have seen a very limited amount of youtube videos of people questing(there aren't a lot to watch on actual questing) and I didn't see a whole lot of aoe pulling possibilities. Also since I will be leveling on launch night I know there will be stiff competition for quest mobs/objects, to the point where you are literally sitting and waiting for things to respawn

[Hypasonic]

For those interested, here's the article regarding that: healiocentric.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/legion-beta-leveling-as-a-healer-the-surprising-result-i-cant-explain-and-you-wont-believe/

It was a great article with a lot of real world examples/tests, but the only issue I have with it is that it compares a fully invested Restoration artifact weapon vs a 0 point Elemental off-spec weapon. I don't think that's actually optimal due to the scaling costs of Artifact Power and the ability to easily keep your off-spec weapon up to around "80%" of your main spec's weapon. Specifically, after you train 13 traits in your primary artifact, the cost for the 14th trait is so high that you can literally opt to gain the first 13 traits in your off-spec weapon instead for the same cost. icy-veins.com/forums/topic/21362-artifact-power-mathed-out/ At least to me, it seems that's a significantly better return on investment in terms of leveling and questing solo as a healer and that is going to make a difference in how fast you can kill with your off-spec.

That's where it gets complicated for me. Sure, if you're in a top 1000 guild whatever, but if you're going for ranks you will not "waste" AP in your offspec weapon.

[CenariusTheForestLord]

That's where it gets complicated for me. Sure, if you're in a top 1000 guild whatever, but if you're going for ranks you will not "waste" AP in your offspec weapon.

If you're a warlock/mage/hunter you probably will. If you have to choose between a 1% dps increase (if even that) in the spec you'll use on 80% of the bosses or a 5-10% increase on other fights things start getting interesting.

[Hypasonic]

Yeah, If only I were a warlock/mage/hunter...

[CenariusTheForestLord]

Yeah, If only I were a warlock/mage/hunter...

Well it's not really complicated for us.
Are you using your offspec for anything useful? No? Don't spend AP on it. Yes? Spend AP on it.

Now when to spend AP on it. The first Golden Dragon is easy to get within a few thousand points.
If your next 1 lvl in a trait costs more than a golden dragon? Sure you could spend it then.