Resto in 7.2.5

[Deleted]

Still have the best tank external aswell.

Not arguing your more general statement, but this sentence stuck out to me. I would say that both of the priest externals are more useful than Ironbark. But I see your point with Ironbark being such a short CD, while the priest ones are somewhere between 3 and 4 minutes.

[theburned]

Not arguing your more general statement, but this sentence stuck out to me. I would say that both of the priest externals are more useful than Ironbark. But I see your point with Ironbark being such a short CD, while the priest ones are somewhere between 3 and 4 minutes.

You could argue that longer cd, and slightly stronger is better, as a tank cd I think IB is more than strong enough in most cases, at which point its availability and duration becomes more important than the actual DR.
Holy priest one has the benefit of working on yourself aswell, while disc priest one.

In the end its not too big of a point, externals arent gamebreaking, they are helpful and often its most if you can get externals to cover up the holes in the tank mitigation (so can provide something very useful for prot palas who bring a lot to the table, but have rather big holes in their mitigation.)

[Purpleisbetter]

aluriel and guldan? not on that list, druids were insanely strong on both those fights because of our focused healing, last phase botanist? Only fight we struggled on was augur and that was mostly due to how you just needed the DR cds in last phase. We werent anything amazing on krosus, but still perfectly fine (we ran 2 rdruids first week, no real issues there.)

You should also read up on what niche means, cause resto druids clearly does not fit as a niche healer, when we are only lacking spot healing and a raid wide DR cd.
We are mostly at the top of the pack or 2nd at most other healing styles.
Active tank healing probably the strongest healer, passive tank healing 2nd to paladins (which is their niche)
Focused healing into (2-6) predictable targets we still remain the strongest healer (which is considered to be a niche where we are unrivaled.), sustained aoe healing, highly competitive due to the nature of our hots (shaman and hpriest can arguably be better here.)
medium duration bursts 20-30 sec we are still very strong, probably only fight against discs.
Still have the best tank external aswell.
Our mobility is better or on par with mw, otherwise just crushing every other healer. This goes for getting from point a-b, when it comes to being able to heal on the move we can move during 9 out of 10 gcds. MW and new disc are the ones who come closest with 4-5/8-9 gcds.
Our survivability is really strong with bear form, guardian affinity, 1 min cd 20% DR, we dont have an ankh/immunity, but those have heavy cds, cutting edge mythic fights tend to test you a bit more than being able to immune something every 5-20 min.

While a bit irrelevant to healer discussion we are ahead or competing with paladins on healer dps, (some outliers with paladins where they just get so much from double wings, or that they have slightly easier access to dps legendaries.)

To me it looks like we are competitive at everything, if we were to also have the best throughput, we are pretty much unbeatable in every single aspect apart from spot healing, and that we lack that raid wide Damage reduction cd.

If you're happy, good for you!

"focused healing", "20s bursts" , "sustained aoe" its all due to the FORMER tuning. Now its
Stop pretending other healere have no tools.

Again, if you're fine with the spec, way to go pal!

[LMuhlen]

Even in those situations, HoTs over direct heals don't really fundamentally have an advantage. If you have a HoT that does 100k healing and a direct heal that does 100k healing, and the HoT is able to do full effective healing, what is the advantage of waiting 19 seconds for the HoT to fully tick vs just instantly healing the target up with a direct heal when the health deficit reaches the point that the direct heal will be effective. The situations that you gave as examples are just situations where the damage patterns of the fight allowed HoTs to reach the same effective healing rate as direct heals, as opposed to being strictly inferior.

One advantage would be that a HoT countering a DoT would keep people nearly topped off. A direct heal would have to be used when people are at half health to get the same efficiency in this scenario, so you would need to keep your raid susceptible to dying from a direct damage mechanic.

[Sinitar]

aluriel and guldan? not on that list, druids were insanely strong on both those fights because of our focused healing, last phase botanist? Only fight we struggled on was augur and that was mostly due to how you just needed the DR cds in last phase. We werent anything amazing on krosus, but still perfectly fine (we ran 2 rdruids first week, no real issues there.)

You should also read up on what niche means, cause resto druids clearly does not fit as a niche healer, when we are only lacking spot healing and a raid wide DR cd.
We are mostly at the top of the pack or 2nd at most other healing styles.
Active tank healing probably the strongest healer, passive tank healing 2nd to paladins (which is their niche)
Focused healing into (2-6) predictable targets we still remain the strongest healer (which is considered to be a niche where we are unrivaled.), sustained aoe healing, highly competitive due to the nature of our hots (shaman and hpriest can arguably be better here.)
medium duration bursts 20-30 sec we are still very strong, probably only fight against discs.
Still have the best tank external aswell.
Our mobility is better or on par with mw, otherwise just crushing every other healer. This goes for getting from point a-b, when it comes to being able to heal on the move we can move during 9 out of 10 gcds. MW and new disc are the ones who come closest with 4-5/8-9 gcds.
Our survivability is really strong with bear form, guardian affinity, 1 min cd 20% DR, we dont have an ankh/immunity, but those have heavy cds, cutting edge mythic fights tend to test you a bit more than being able to immune something every 5-20 min.

While a bit irrelevant to healer discussion we are ahead or competing with paladins on healer dps, (some outliers with paladins where they just get so much from double wings, or that they have slightly easier access to dps legendaries.)

To me it looks like we are competitive at everything, if we were to also have the best throughput, we are pretty much unbeatable in every single aspect apart from spot healing, and that we lack that raid wide Damage reduction cd.

In what world do you live in? Probably one where your other healers don't really carry their weight so it falls to the druid to do that. As a resto druid, you are only top of the pack when the other healers don't perform, which leaves you with more stuff to heal. This is always how HoT classes have been; they only shine when the damage on the raid is so great your spot healers can't keep up. However, when as your raid team gets more gear and your spot healers become more effective, your HPS will start to decrease because, at the end of the day, overhealing doesn't count for jack.

Also, focused healing on predictable targets? Excuse me? The other healers will focus on those exact same targets, so enjoy your overhealing pal.

Sustained AoE healing only works when there is constant damage being dished out. On a fight like Mythic Elrethe/Ursoc, where there are bursts of AoE damage, you are by far the worst healer in the group. You can either spend a ton of mana to place your Hots on the raid and have them heal for 3-4 seconds before you get into overhealing territory, or be more conservative with your mana and do very little healing.

So, yeah, a lot of what you said can apply if your other healers don't pull their weight, but if they do, I assure you that you'll only be competitive at niche fights with constant raid damage.

[Tiberria]

One advantage would be that a HoT countering a DoT would keep people nearly topped off. A direct heal would have to be used when people are at half health to get the same efficiency in this scenario, so you would need to keep your raid susceptible to dying from a direct damage mechanic.

99% of the time if the outgoing damage from the DoT/general raid damage is so low that HoT effects are ticking fast enough to keep people nearly topped, there isn't likely going to be any more risk in topping them with a direct heal vs having a HoT keep average health higher. On fights with heavy DoTs to heal like Aluriel and Tich, there wasn't also really instagib mechanics. Unless both of those situations exist, there's no real advantage to a HoT over a direct heal, and the situation where both of them exist is really an edge case. The only cases I can really think of were on Cenarius where someone could get gibbed from the DoT/raid damage if they stood in brambles, or Star Augur, where they could get blown up with a frost DoT by getting hit with the frost beacon stun things. Both of those cases are player error anyway and not really great examples.

[sshane122]

One thing I have not seen mentioned here is about our cast time spells. With just 1 HoT (assuming 20% mastery), that puts healing touch on par with most other basic heals (including masteries). On top of that don't forget about living seed.
Lately I have also been testing Abundance. With just a couple rejuvs thrown out that can mean either a (pretty much) guaranteed crit from regrowth or regrowth cast times with healing touch. Although with T20 I can't see us taking anything other then Prosperity. Just my 2 cents. Carry on.

[theburned]

In what world do you live in? Probably one where your other healers don't really carry their weight so it falls to the druid to do that. As a resto druid, you are only top of the pack when the other healers don't perform, which leaves you with more stuff to heal. This is always how HoT classes have been; they only shine when the damage on the raid is so great your spot healers can't keep up. However, when as your raid team gets more gear and your spot healers become more effective, your HPS will start to decrease because, at the end of the day, overhealing doesn't count for jack.

Also, focused healing on predictable targets? Excuse me? The other healers will focus on those exact same targets, so enjoy your overhealing pal.

Sustained AoE healing only works when there is constant damage being dished out. On a fight like Mythic Elrethe/Ursoc, where there are bursts of AoE damage, you are by far the worst healer in the group. You can either spend a ton of mana to place your Hots on the raid and have them heal for 3-4 seconds before you get into overhealing territory, or be more conservative with your mana and do very little healing.

So, yeah, a lot of what you said can apply if your other healers don't pull their weight, but if they do, I assure you that you'll only be competitive at niche fights with constant raid damage.

I believe you are stuck in WoD or something, cause this clearly isnt the case, and hasnt been since wod.
I play in a top 10 guild, and my cohealers are far better than any Ive played with in the past, so that is out of the question aswell.

If you dont top healing on priority targets as a resto druid I just got one thing to tell you, you are god awful at the specc and just reroll, spot healers just cant keep up with the healing you put into them through several mastery stacks 3-4 hots and the occasional regrowth procs.

elerethe/ursoc what? these bosses were absolute jokes and all the raid damage was handled by cds, and to top it off resto druids werent even bad on either of the fights.

Nice bringing EN into this, a tier that didnt even last for a day, were druids were perfectly fine and this was also before a 20% buff to cult, which was just reverted. Why would you discuss any damage patterns that arent a part of ToS anyway? Im not just making up some imaginary patterns like you do, im pulling these straight out of ToS, which last time I checked is the only relevant content for patch 7.2.5. So let me give you a little runthrough on why druids are going to be good at handling them.

not going over goroth, if you are wiping on the first boss for hours its not because you brought the wrong healer class for it.

For harjatan we are good because of the 30 sec burst phases that come roughly every 1.5 min, with ToL and tranq we just handle those phases so well, again 2nd/3rd boss shouldnt really pose much of a threat.

Same for DI shouldnt pose any issues, its not like you will wipe lots on this because you brought the wrong healers, but I had no issues outhealing others on this fight.

Sisters of the moon, very common ticks of heavy aoe damage, dots on a few targets and 3m absorb shields, biggest reason to not bring druids on this fight is because they cant solo soak mechanics.

Misstress sasszine, while druids are weak in p1 just the on the move healing and survivability from being a druid comes handy during later phases, and also being one of the strongest healer dps speccs.

For desolate host, the fight just seems like its way more focused mechanics, so atm its hard to put any judgement on how well druids will do, but what I can say is that druids are naturally very strong at mechanics that force the raid to split, similar to how druids are very strong in dungeons and how we are just good at pretty much everything.

Just see maiden massive ticking aoe damage constantly, including a phase which is basically dedicated to moving, sounds absolutely horrible for anything that isnt a resto druid/mw/disc.

Fallen avatar lots of mobility required, lots of soaking, very spread out, which btw is another thing resto druids are very good at, and massive constant ticking aoe damage, where mobility and blinks are heavily favored.

And then ofc we have KJ a 30 sec duration dot on like 6-7 targets, often spread out, and forcing people to move all the time if this doesnt seem like a perfect resto druid scenario then I dont know what is.

[Kluian05]

So it seems like Stonebark / Leg gloves might be a good option for KJ? I've only done normal so far but it seems like a heavy tank healing centric fight, especially if they are soaking the big meteor instead of people with immunities. With that talent / leg combo you may be able to stonebark the tank on each meteor target? On normal they don't need an external if they don't have debuff stacks, but seems on heroic the dmg is much higher.

[Deleted]

Why exactly would I bring a holy priest over a resto druid to maiden, avatar and kj? Even if holy priest did 10% more healing than resto druid I wouldn't. I would without hesitation bring 2 resto druids.

You're all so delusional with this one-dimensional argumentation about hots vs direct heals while ignoring EVERY SINGLE other aspect. Also you know what kind of healer you will always have two of no matter what? Direct healers (paladin and shaman).

But hey dot on whole raid on maiden, avatar p2 and kj last phase ... resto druid so bad, "my hots are inferior".

How bad of a player do you need to be to not have an absolute safe spot as resto druid this mythic content...

[Tiberria]

You're all so delusional with this one-dimensional argumentation about hots vs direct heals while ignoring EVERY SINGLE other aspect. Also you know what kind of healer you will always have two of no matter what? Direct healers (paladin and shaman).

And, guess what? Did you even think for a second that a big part of the reason why you always have those 2 direct healers in a raid comp is that the type of throughput/damage patterns that they deliver is inherently superior to delivering all of your throughput in HoTs - regardless of the effective HPS numbers? You just pretty much proved our point.

Holy Priests are much closer to Shaman than they are to Druids in terms of the type of healing/damage patterns that they deliver. Why would you bring a Priest over a Druid? In situations where you need that clutch/spot/direct healing over slow HoTs.

[Deleted]

And, guess what? Did you even think for a second that a big part of the reason why you always have those 2 direct healers in a raid comp is that the type of throughput/damage patterns that they deliver is inherently superior to delivering all of your throughput in HoTs.

Yeah that's the reason, not beacons, not cooldown city.

The relevant balance debate is NOT paladin/shaman vs the rest. At least not DURING an addon. It's druid vs priest vs monk.
The reason paladin and shaman are basically mandatory lies in spec mechanics, not in tuning - this is not going to change DURING an addon (they are VERY reluctant to change core spec mechanics DURING an addon; and considering that they didn't change a thing in regards to this going from WoD to Legion shows that they are not only ok with two healing specs being a staple but that they actually think this is healthy for the game).

So it's an irrelevant discussion to have at this point in time. If you want to go around in endless circles have fun.

[Deleted]

Holy Priests are much closer to Shaman than they are to Druids in terms of the type of healing/damage patterns that they deliver. Why would you bring a Priest over a Druid? In situations where you need that clutch/spot/direct healing over slow HoTs.

so basically only when you're running shaman paladin disc druid to begin with and the druid can't manage to be more useful than the disc or if you're running multiple druids

the healing of shaman/paladin isn't even irreplaceable anymore either, at this point their main benefit is having hundreds of cooldowns and massive versatility, as well as survivability in the case of paladins

poor druids though

[Leafcast]

so far on our first raid night killing the first 6 bosses on heroic, I have pretty handily dominated every fight as a resto druid except for Desolate Host bottom side where the constant stacking heavily favored our rsham. This thread with all its doom and gloom had me ready to feel highly disappointed in ToS, but in reality I still felt very strong. I feel that Rdruid will be doing even better in Mythic where people are less commonly topped off.

[ryklin]

you know,on host the easiest way to do it is to just pull out everyone but 1 or 2 healers to bomb heal spear targets as they fall down (although I do admit it is totally healable through)
no adds spawn during the wailing souls anyways
hopefully it's a more interesting mechanic on mythic

[Deleted]

so far on our first raid night killing the first 6 bosses on heroic, I have pretty handily dominated every fight as a resto druid except for Desolate Host bottom side where the constant stacking heavily favored our rsham. This thread with all its doom and gloom had me ready to feel highly disappointed in ToS, but in reality I still felt very strong. I feel that Rdruid will be doing even better in Mythic where people are less commonly topped off.

Ur not counting with Tier20 set for other classes, atm its all the same cus we are using our T19 4set, it will change alot with Tier 20

[Leafcast]

Ur not counting with Tier20 set for other classes, atm its all the same cus we are using our T19 4set, it will change alot with Tier 20

If after the 4% overall nerf, the shoulders nerf (which i'm still using) and the cultivation nerf, i'm still easily #1 against competitive healers of other classes, then I don't think that the relatively small net negative from T194 piece to T19 2 piece + T20 4 piece will drastically change things up enough to match the horrible scenario this entire thread tends to paint of our future in ToS.

[Sinitar]

With the shoulder nerf, which legendaries are looking out to be the best in ToS? I'd assume the trinket and...shoulders? :P

[Leafcast]

With the shoulder nerf, which legendaries are looking out to be the best in ToS? I'd assume the trinket and...shoulders? :P

Shoulders + Trinket is still very strong while using T19 4set. Once you break the T19 4 set for T19 2 set + T20 4 set, Trinket + Belt or either Rings are ok options.

[Deleted]

Shoulders + Trinket is still very strong while using T19 4set. Once you break the T19 4 set for T19 2 set + T20 4 set, Trinket + Belt or either Rings are ok options.

I would rank Trinket and Prydaz as possibly the best option for progression when you no longer can use the tier 19 4-set (especially for mythic).