Resto Druid - Legion Talents

[kooz]

a quick question for those who tested beta etc

how's mana regen when just new 110 in 5mans etc, does it make sense to prioritize traits like Knowledge of the Ancients and hence make Power of the Archdruid as the first meta trait of choice?

[Lavathing]

a quick question for those who tested beta etc

how's mana regen when just new 110 in 5mans etc, does it make sense to prioritize traits like Knowledge of the Ancients and hence make Power of the Archdruid as the first meta trait of choice?

Tib mentioned this on the previous page:

The issue with taking the PoTA path is I still don't think it's a good return on investment.
- Instead of getting your second major trait at 16 points, you aren't getting it until 19 points.
- PoTA is by far the weakest of the major traits. Let's say you average a WG cast every 20 seconds. That means one PoTA proc and essentially 2 free Rejuvs every 80 seconds. That's weak in terms of the numerical effect, and weaker because of the RNG. PoTA is also random targets, so there's no guarantee those Rejuvs cleave to who you want them to.
- Tranquil Mind isn't just about the mobile Tranq - but that is a huge advantage in terms of flexibility. 20% more Tranq healing is extremely strong, and probably works out to a 4-6% pure HPS boost - more if you're taking Inner Peace. Raid cooldowns aren't massively overhealing in Legion like they were in WoD, and that 20% is probably more throughput than either of the other 2 majors. It's also guaranteed, reliable throughput, while both PoTA and Dreamwalker are RNG procs.
- Most artifact calculator projections that I've seen say that it's likely we will be at 22-23 traits by week 1 of Mythic. That means that even if you go to Dreamwalker, then Tranquil Mind, it's likely that you are still 2-3 points into Persistence by the start of Mythic, so there's still a pretty strong chance we will have 3/3 in our strongest 3 point trait.
- While 3 pts in Blessing of the World Tree is weak, you're putting 3 points in Infusion of Nature right away to go the PoTA route. Infusion of Nature is only a 6% WG cost decrease, and is probably one of our weakest traits outside of the near useless ones, so I don't think there's that much of a difference in "wasted points". You're also building towards a much weaker major trait.

I still think we'd be far better served going the conventional wisdom Dreamwalker then Tranquil Mind route. The 6% mana regen will be a loss, but so is a 20% weaker Tranq. You can play around 6% less regen by more conservative casting.

I agree with most everything he says there. I'll be going for PotA last. You can see my recommended artifact pathing here: https://www.wowhead.com/guides/class...storation/gear

[fallenangel-succ]

At the end of the day, SotF boosts your overall WG healing by like 15%, which will add a few % of total throughput, but it costs you using a rather poor talent in the form of Prosperity, as well as tying together 2 healing CDs (SM and WG).
ToL will easily offer a comparable boost while affording you more flexibility in T15, and has the nice benefit of being a CD which tends to be stronger than the numbers will tell you. For instance, being able to alternate ToL and Tranq for 90s abilities is a common occurrence.

[Keiyra]

For instance, being able to alternate ToL and Tranq for 90s abilities is a common occurrence.

While true, its not often that way in practice. In a raid usually you just go the next healers 3 min raid CD every 90 sec, by the time you've hit the 4th healer, the first healers will have their 3 min CD ready again in time for the next ability. That leaves ToL to cover unexpected "crap" moments, or to boost healing during phases that are more intense in heal requirement, but not a scripted "raid CD". That's where the question of is ToL really worth it for those moments, when Cultivation could handle it reasonably as well, without the hard limit of a 3 min cd (trade off being losing the cost reduction)

[PeopleReady]

How are you guys leveling? I'd love to play resto, but frankly in terrified of a 30+ hour slog to 110 that consists of spamming our two insta dots and one damaging cast. Although I love healing end game, that's the kind of experience that might bore me out of my mind before the game even really begins.

[Tiberria]

At the end of the day, SotF boosts your overall WG healing by like 15%, which will add a few % of total throughput, but it costs you using a rather poor talent in the form of Prosperity, as well as tying together 2 healing CDs (SM and WG).
ToL will easily offer a comparable boost while affording you more flexibility in T15, and has the nice benefit of being a CD which tends to be stronger than the numbers will tell you. For instance, being able to alternate ToL and Tranq for 90s abilities is a common occurrence.

Where are you even getting the ridiculous 15% number? Even if you take the most literal definition of math, and even if you don't take Prosperity at all, SoTF boosts WG's healing by at least 25%, because you're boosting it by 75% every third theoretical cast, and that 75% scales with Flourish, Essence, etc. In any actual reality, it's a lot more, because you absolutely will not and can not cast WG every 10 seconds exactly on CD. Our mana does not support that. Even on live now, go and try casting WG every 10 seconds and then casting nothing else but maintaining LB and Efflo on a 6+ minute fight. You WILL go OOM doing that. Guess what? That is with Demonic Phylactery, which is an incredibly overpowered end tier regen trinket. The regen constraints will get worse at 110 without trinkets that OP.

SoTF is so strong because you probably can't afford to cast WG much more than every 20-25 seconds realistically anyway. Therefore, you're probably boosting your actual WG healing (not to mention the gains from Flourish and Essence of G'Hanir) by 50-75%. Also, even if casting WG on CD is more theoretical HPM than using Rejuv ever, you can't do it in any real raid situation. You would need to at least maintain HoTs on tanks and priority healing targets, and you can't just sit around for 10 secs while WG is on CD when triage type healing is needed. You will not be able to just cut all Rejuvs out of your cast cycle. Plus, even if you were able to do that, SoTF would STILL be the top talent, because there's no point taking Cultivation or ToL if you are barely touching Rejuv.

- - - Updated - - -

While true, its not often that way in practice. In a raid usually you just go the next healers 3 min raid CD every 90 sec, by the time you've hit the 4th healer, the first healers will have their 3 min CD ready again in time for the next ability. That leaves ToL to cover unexpected "crap" moments, or to boost healing during phases that are more intense in heal requirement, but not a scripted "raid CD". That's where the question of is ToL really worth it for those moments, when Cultivation could handle it reasonably as well, without the hard limit of a 3 min cd (trade off being losing the cost reduction)

Not to mention, if you really wanted to do that, you could just as easily take Inner Peace and roll Tranq every 2 minutes without gutting the rest of your overall healing toolkit by taking such a weak talent in ToL.

[Andyo]

How are you guys leveling? I'd love to play resto, but frankly in terrified of a 30+ hour slog to 110 that consists of spamming our two insta dots and one damaging cast. Although I love healing end game, that's the kind of experience that might bore me out of my mind before the game even really begins.

I'm levelling as Feral, doing the Resto quest at 102 and then putting AP into it from then on.

[fallenangel-succ]

SotF boosts just the initial heal of WG by 75%. However, that base heal is less than half of the total value a single WG /cast/ will earn you. Your own numbers show it:
WG without SotF - (55,813 (main HOT) + 21,398 HoT) x 6 targets + 56,140 + 160,485 = 679,891
WG with SotF - (97,672 (main HOT) + 21,398 HoT) x 6 targets + 56,140 + 160,485 = 931,049
or a 37% increase.

WG with ToL - ((55813 + 21398) * 8 + 56140 + 160485) * 1.15 = 959,459

So WG under ToL is slightly stronger, but of course ToL boosts less of your WG than SotF. It does confer other bonuses, mostly to RJ. It is also less clunky to use.

I'm sorry, but if you think you can't maintain WG every 10 seconds and RJ/LB/(RG) on the tank, then either you are totally wrong, or the class is totally broken. A WG/LB/Eff rotation is mana neutral at 110. Claiming mana problems prevent you from casting an efficient heal is senseless. I agree you probably won't cast WG every 10 seconds, on the spot, but it won't be every 25 seconds, either.

I think cultivation is hard to judge without seeing the way encounters are played in practice, so I don't want to comment on that. I think druids (and shamans with their mastery) have a way to break the accounting game Blizzard may be trying to pilot us to play, so certainly cultivation is the strongest talent in some situations (possibly most of them).

[Serath]

How are you guys leveling? I'd love to play resto, but frankly in terrified of a 30+ hour slog to 110 that consists of spamming our two insta dots and one damaging cast. Although I love healing end game, that's the kind of experience that might bore me out of my mind before the game even really begins.

I leveled on beta as resto with balance affinity. It made the rotation much better. That being said, I also did some leveling as balance and it was definitely better. I think on live I'm going to level balance and just do Resto at 102 for more AP. The reason I'm going balance instead of Feral is so that all the gear I get leveling up is relevant for healing.

[Deleted]

I leveled on beta as resto with balance affinity. It made the rotation much better. That being said, I also did some leveling as balance and it was definitely better. I think on live I'm going to level balance and just do Resto at 102 for more AP. The reason I'm going balance instead of Feral is so that all the gear I get leveling up is relevant for healing.

"all the gear".. only some trinkets and you can choose loot specialization

[Dozar]

SotF boosts just the initial heal of WG by 75%. However, that base heal is less than half of the total value a single WG /cast/ will earn you. Your own numbers show it:
WG without SotF - (55,813 (main HOT) + 21,398 HoT) x 6 targets + 56,140 + 160,485 = 679,891
WG with SotF - (97,672 (main HOT) + 21,398 HoT) x 6 targets + 56,140 + 160,485 = 931,049
or a 37% increase.

WG with ToL - ((55813 + 21398) * 8 + 56140 + 160485) * 1.15 = 959,459

So WG under ToL is slightly stronger, but of course ToL boosts less of your WG than SotF. It does confer other bonuses, mostly to RJ. It is also less clunky to use.

I'm sorry, but if you think you can't maintain WG every 10 seconds and RJ/LB/(RG) on the tank, then either you are totally wrong, or the class is totally broken. A WG/LB/Eff rotation is mana neutral at 110. Claiming mana problems prevent you from casting an efficient heal is senseless. I agree you probably won't cast WG every 10 seconds, on the spot, but it won't be every 25 seconds, either.

I think cultivation is hard to judge without seeing the way encounters are played in practice, so I don't want to comment on that. I think druids (and shamans with their mastery) have a way to break the accounting game Blizzard may be trying to pilot us to play, so certainly cultivation is the strongest talent in some situations (possibly most of them).

I just did a quick test, one WG without SotF and one with. It clearly buffs every subsequent tick, it's not just the first.

[fallenangel-succ]

All the bonuses listed here are for artifact traits which are not buffed by SotF. 55813 is for the 7 ticks of WG without any bonuses or modifiers.
21398 is nature's essence
56140 is PotA
160485 is dreamwalker

[Tiberria]

All the bonuses listed here are for artifact traits which are not buffed by SotF. 55813 is for the 7 ticks of WG without any bonuses or modifiers.
21398 is nature's essence
56140 is PotA
160485 is dreamwalker

And all of those things are completely irrelevant in determining the % that SoTF buffs WG by. You're going to get those bonus healing procs regardless of what talent you take, so I don't know why you want to throw them into the mix to claim that SoTF is a weaker talent than it really is.

[fallenangel-succ]

This is really simple math.
I typed it above.
Let me break it down even further.
Lets say I cast WG with full artifact traits and no SotF. This is the expected healing, based on your numbers:
main HOT - 55813 times 6 targets = 334878
Nature's Essence - 21398 times 6 targets = 128388
PotA expected healing - 56140
Dreamwalker expected healing - 160485

Total expected healing for WG without SotF is therefore 679891.

Lets say I cast WG with full artifact traits and SotF proc. This is the expected healing, based on your numbers:
main HOT - 55813 x 1.75 times 6 targets = 586036
Nature's Essence - 21398 times 6 targets = 128388
PotA expected healing - 56140
Dreamwalker expected healing - 160485

Total expected healing for WG with SotF proc is therefore 931049.

Therefore, the gain per buffed cast from is 251158, or 37%.

A gain of 20% to the total healing you get from WG (and associated heals/procs) is probably closer to reality than the 15% I used earlier. Yes there are Flourish and Ghanir interactions, but you miss out on those from not picking CW.

[Tiberria]

This is really simple math.
I typed it above.
Let me break it down even further.
Lets say I cast WG with full artifact traits and no SotF. This is the expected healing, based on your numbers:
main HOT - 55813 times 6 targets = 334878
Nature's Essence - 21398 times 6 targets = 128388
PotA expected healing - 56140
Dreamwalker expected healing - 160485

Total expected healing for WG without SotF is therefore 679891.

Lets say I cast WG with full artifact traits and SotF proc. This is the expected healing, based on your numbers:
main HOT - 55813 x 1.75 times 6 targets = 586036
Nature's Essence - 21398 times 6 targets = 128388
PotA expected healing - 56140
Dreamwalker expected healing - 160485

Total expected healing for WG with SotF proc is therefore 931049.

Therefore, the gain per buffed cast from is 251158, or 37%.

A gain of 20% to the total healing you get from WG (and associated heals/procs) is probably closer to reality than the 15% I used earlier. Yes there are Flourish and Ghanir interactions, but you miss out on those from not picking CW.

You're also not factoring in the gains from the fact that about every second SoTF-WG will have Flourish used - a ~85% increase in healing, and about every third SoTF will have Essence of G'Hanir active - healing of the HoT effects are doubled. SoTF scales with those increases, and factoring that synergy in gives you a hell of a lot more than 20%.

You're also not taking account for the fact that the burst you gain from SoTF-WG (especially with Flourish/Essence) lets you cover and react to a burst in AoE damage taken in a way that spamming out a bunch of Rejuvs would likely be too slow for.

[theburned]

At the end of the day, SotF boosts your overall WG healing by like 15%, which will add a few % of total throughput, but it costs you using a rather poor talent in the form of Prosperity, as well as tying together 2 healing CDs (SM and WG).
ToL will easily offer a comparable boost while affording you more flexibility in T15, and has the nice benefit of being a CD which tends to be stronger than the numbers will tell you. For instance, being able to alternate ToL and Tranq for 90s abilities is a common occurrence.

15% is pure bullshit, and you even explain that in your post below, at most I've seen 1-3 extra non-sotf wg (usually 1 or 2), when specced thats far less than what you are implying here, also there is a very bad assumption that prosperity is a bad talent, it adds slightly less throughput than CW, but in the 10-15% region.
ToL offers a comparable boost in a 30 sec window, but is not even close outside of that 30 sec window, and offers no flexibility in the t15 row, CW is the only option throughputwise, with SotF you can pick CW aswell as it provides slightly more throughput, but it also requires you to need SotF ever 30 seconds. ToL isnt that much more burst than SotF in the same 30 sec window you can get off 3 sotf buffed WGs, so you are only stronger with the rejuvs.
But SotF can do its rotation 50 seconds after being done, ToL needs 2.5 minutes. The wgs are way more restrictive aswell, you have just about 10 seconds space, but 1 is spent on casting ToL, 3 are spent on WG, so you are left with 4-5 seconds you can wait with not casting WG, and the last one's strength is heavily diminished by half of it being outside ToL.


Your ToL WG math is just flat out wrong, PotA is far more effective and dreamwalker is far less effictive.

[Sprucelee]

To continue to play devils advocate, I will again remind everyone that even though SotF has almost always been better on paper, it always falls out of favor. All these paper calculations fall flat when it comes to actually healing, withstanding completely open ended sustained damage with no overheating. It is clunky and flows poorly. Just hearing people talk about forced Flourish/G'hanir every x WG, set 25 second rotations, forced Swiftmends... is giving me a treeache.

Prosperity/T19 is supposedly the saving grace for increasing flexibility, yet so was Rampant Growth in WoD, that worked out well... *chuckle* .... All we needed was the mana to support it they said... Yeah, no, the clunky forced play-style has always been its ultimate downfall and CDs just felt better when actually trying to get the progression kill.

Again, it might win out, and I am leaning towards SotF as being mandatory for now, but I think these absolute statements will be fun to revisit in three months

[Tiberria]

To continue to play devils advocate, I will again remind everyone that even though SotF has almost always been better on paper, it always falls out of favor. All these paper calulatoons fall flat when it comes to actually healing, withstanding completely open ended sustained damage with no overheating. It is clunky and flows poorly. Just hearing people talk about forced Flourish/G'hanir every x WG, set 25 second rotations, forced Swiftmends... is giving me a treeache.

Prosperity/T19 is supposedly the saving grace for increasing flexibility, yet so was Rampant Growth in WoD, that worked out well... *chuckle* .... All we needed was the mana to support it they said... Yeah, no, the clunky forced play-style has always been its ultimate downfall and CDs just felt better when actually trying to get the progression kill.

Again, it might win out, and I am leaning towards SotF as being mandatory for now, but I think these absolute statements will be fun to revisit in three months

SoTF actually hasn't "always been better on paper". It was pretty clear that ToL was "better on paper" going into HFC if you properly factored in the trinket/set bonus synergy, and I don't think there was much dispute otherwise. Even during Highmaul/BRF, it was only better on paper if you could not afford to spam Rejuv to the level that became possible with the OP BRF Spirit trinkets and if you could only afford about 1 WG/15 seconds anyway.

It's also not the case that "SoTF always falls out of favor". SoTF was favored over ToL for almost the entirety of MoP - especially the last 2 tiers. During MoP, SoTF vs ToL was probably a 90%/10% split.

And, Rampant Growth isn't at all a good comparison with Prosperity.
1. If you took Rampant Growth, you were losing 3 seconds duration off Rejuv by not taking Germination - and that was in general an unacceptable HPM loss.
2. Rampant Growth took an extra GCD of setup, on top of consuming an existing HoT effect, making it much less flexible than you are trying to claim.
3. The talent was mana prohibitive. At the start of the expansion, you couldn't afford to cast a Rejuv, consume it (losing healing in the process) all for the purpose of casting additional WG, on top of being able to afford the HPM loss to Rejuv of taking the talent to begin with. By the time that kind of mana consumption became viable, trinket and set bonus design became such that Rejuv spam/ToL became the clear better path any way.
4. There's also a big difference between SM being on a 15 second CD like it was in 6.0 vs a 30 second CD in 7.0. The flexibility from having the extra charge and being able to time SoTF WG uses is a lot more powerful/desirable when you are looking at 30 sec gaps vs 15 sec gaps.

[fallenangel-succ]

Cleary this all hinges on how many WG you're casting. The less you are, you more you're going to see relative benefits from SotF (but not absolute, of course, as those are still capped).
The math for PotA and Dreamwalker was taken from Tiberria's post a few pages back. At least for PotA it's pretty straightfoward - you gain half a RJ every WG you cast. Dreamwalker also seemed reasonable from a numbers PoV but it's more hypothetical since it depends on the number of active RJs.
Of course, the best way to actually utilize SotF is use it for WG when it lines up with Flourish / G'Hanir and use the other procs for RG. But I saw how much hate this spell gets here, so I don't see the point of developing this further.

[Sprucelee]

SoTF actually hasn't "always been better on paper". It was pretty clear that ToL was "better on paper" going into HFC if you properly factored in the trinket/set bonus synergy, and I don't think there was much dispute otherwise. Even during Highmaul/BRF, it was only better on paper if you could not afford to spam Rejuv to the level that became possible with the OP BRF Spirit trinkets and if you could only afford about 1 WG/15 seconds anyway.

It's also not the case that "SoTF always falls out of favor". SoTF was favored over ToL for almost the entirety of MoP - especially the last 2 tiers. During MoP, SoTF vs ToL was probably a 90%/10% split.

And, Rampant Growth isn't at all a good comparison with Prosperity.
1. If you took Rampant Growth, you were losing 3 seconds duration off Rejuv by not taking Germination - and that was in general an unacceptable HPM loss.
2. Rampant Growth took an extra GCD of setup, on top of consuming an existing HoT effect, making it much less flexible than you are trying to claim.
3. The talent was mana prohibitive. At the start of the expansion, you couldn't afford to cast a Rejuv, consume it (losing healing in the process) all for the purpose of casting additional WG, on top of being able to afford the HPM loss to Rejuv of taking the talent to begin with. By the time that kind of mana consumption became viable, trinket and set bonus design became such that Rejuv spam/ToL became the clear better path any way.
4. There's also a big difference between SM being on a 15 second CD like it was in 6.0 vs a 30 second CD in 7.0. The flexibility from having the extra charge and being able to time SoTF WG uses is a lot more powerful/desirable when you are looking at 30 sec gaps vs 15 sec gaps.

Your memory is poor (you did not play Druid then?). SotF was certainly not the best choice in MoP, just a marginal choice. Very few top druids used it in progression kills. I dare you to find a guide that recommends it as the base, one simple search got me (written by Method's Owld, who always used ToL):

http://manaflask.com/guides/mists-of...on-druid-5-0-5

"Soul of the Forest is quite honestly a pretty bad talent in most situations.............."

And while you can try and explain it not being used heavily in the past, despite being the best on paper, looking forward the reality is that the TC you present for Legion is based on some pretty bold assumptions, particularly on damage patterns matching your optimum CD rotation for WG/SM/Floursih/G'hanir. That has always been an issue with healer TC (and especially SotF), and seemingly dismissed/ignored in this thread. While simulations often help guide the highest theoretical output, and are a nice reference, I think SotF in particular is a difficult talent to TC around. Owld in that first guide said it pretty well, even it its first iteration:

"But the problem is that it requires way too much commitment to this specific healing strategy you are completely stuck with a blindfolded rotation that does not allow you any digression or versatility. Therefore it’s good on bosses in which you do the same thing over and over but quite frankly, I haven't seen any so far.":

I have yet to see more than 1-2 fights in any given tier that fits SotF well, and even then the advantage was marginal.

And there is some disjointed logic presented in this thread. When it was noted that ToL might be nice when staggered with Tranquility, the response was "well there will probably be coordinated raid CDs then anyway!". But then supposedly you are going to have this unlimited bucket of healing to do on perfect 10/25/50/60/90 second intervals. How nice, Not only will damage patterns line up perfectly, but other healers all of a sudden do not exist when you select SotF (they should probably add that to the tool-tip).

I hope you have written the Devs to let then know your healing schedule before they finish T19! And make sure to tell your healing team to hold off on any CDs they have when WG/SM/Flourish/G'hanir comes up, because that is your time to shine!

Sarcasm aside, I maintain that many of the assumptions and TC presented in this thread will fall apart when Mythic raiding come around and we start applying these talents to actual progression. At a minimum these absolutes will not hold up, and I am certain there will be fights that ToL best fits, or that Cultivation fits, when it all said and done.