[Resto] - Help Me. Please.

[willyhog]

Hey guys,

I'm a druid who has been playing resto mainspec for the past 3 or 4 or thereabouts years, and I like to consider myself as having a decent breadth of knowledge about the class, and the game in general as well. On healing charts, I always dominated the opposition - my raw HPS was just lightyears ahead of everyone else. I noticed this from the very beginning of WotLK all the way up until the release of DS. And now I suck compared to other healers. I'm not saying the class itself has changed to an enormous degree -- WG was nerfed along with its glyph, as you guys all know and I'm sure have TC'ed a bunch, but I'm curious as to why I'm not steamrolling other healers like I used to. WG did (and still does) form a major component of my overall heals, but the nerf is not enough to explain why I'm not on top like usual. The only answer I can really come up with to try and explain this deficit is twofold: either other healing classes in the game were buffed to the point where that combined with the WG nerf would push them over druids, or that I'm playing the class wrong.

I am far from perfect, far from adequate in a lot of areas actually, but I am no scrub. Here's a basic rundown of the rotation I use during an average fight: Lifebloom 3-stack maintained on tank, WG on CD (in a high damage portion of the fight, I like to trigger NG and then pop Lifeblood before WG/SM'ing so they have a bunch of ticks), pepper RJ's throughout the raid, RG/SM combo people who are low, HT/RG tanks if they're low and the paladin is being lazy, for massive aoe damage: ToL/LB spam, and of course, Tranq. This is a very rough approximation of my rotation, but it's basically right, as far as I can tell. (I don't generally do the 3RJ/Nourish spam thing that people like to talk about a lot, because, well, I don't know how to put this, it seems to be awful when doing a fight that isn't Baleroc (LOL))

Here's a link to my armory: us(dot)battle(DOT)net/wow/en/character/black-dragonflight/Shaasar/simple

Justification for my spec/gearing:
My spec is a standard raid build, slightly more oriented toward an endgame level, as I don't pick up Moonglow (I don't even consider picking up Furor, as there is concrete math to the effect that 3/3 Moonglow > 3/3 Furor) except for 1 point, and I dip heavily into Genesis. I know that BotG is a mediocre talent, but I'm not tank healing a lot, and the reactive heal from LS only triggers on an attack and not on generic "damage taken," so therefore I chose BotG as it would seem to add more throughput.
There's a lot of debate as to whether the 2005 haste cap is worth reaching as a druid now, what with the WG nerf, but I currently DO have that cap. I've switched many times from having it to not having it, and I've noticed a relatively small difference in overall throughput. With my stats the way they are I generally prioritize (int>spi first, obviously), haste to 2005>mastery>crit>haste over 2005. This is where I suspect I am doing something wrong. Is there some new "holy grail" of resto specs that I'm not aware of? Should I completely disregard haste breakpoints and pour my stats into mastery/crit -- Is there a solid theorycrafting source pro or con 2005 hbpoint? Should I do something different in my rotation?
And, I suppose the question that a lot of us are asking: Should I reroll?

[tangedyn]

Well for one thing, looking through your guild's logs, it looks like there are 2 other regular Resto Druids in the raid, and either you've been absent for the past 3 weeks or you've been sat by your raid leader. Having a 3rd Resto Druid would probably not be beneficial to the guild, so.... sad to say, but a reroll may be in order.

Otherwise I think you there's a few mistaken perceptions you have that I'll clear up.

1. Moonglow isn't automatically better than Furor. It depends on the duration of the fight and your intellect:spirit balance, but for most people Moonglow should be better.
2. Even if the only time you trigger Living Seed is from keeping Lifebloom up every 10s, SM every 15 seconds and RG/HT every OOC, you will still get more per talent point out of Living Seed than Blessing of the Grove. You don't have to take my words for granted, test it out yourself here with your own stats and logs: http://theincbear.com/living-seed-replacement/ Just about everyone who has used the calculator with their own logs have reported that Living Seed gives more than Blessing of the Grove.
3. There's really no debate about the 2005 haste breakpoint - it is always worth it. In fact it's worth about 400-450 Intellect. If you are looking for the theorycraft, you can check out my spreadsheet (link in sig). The thing to remember is that the 2005 breakpoint affects both Wild Growth and Efflorescence.
4. An endgame oriented build would actually favor Moonglow and Furor over Genesis (which is generally overrated because most people are unaware of the additive stacking). It's been mathematically proven that you get the best effect getting your sustenance from talents and throughput from mastery.
5. Therefore stat priority should be int > mastery > spirit > crit > haste, after obtaining the 2005 haste breakpoint.

Looking at your profile, you got it the wrong way round - you've favored spirit over mastery and took Genesis over Moonglow/Furor.
Get 3 in Moonglow, 2 in Furor, and move your 1 BotG talent to Living Seed or Perseverance, then reforge like this:

Note that the tool is missing 192 haste rating and 192 mastery rating on your random-stat shoulder (which should be unforged), which will give you a total of 2006 haste rating and 1836 mastery rating

[willyhog]

Thanks so much for the input. I have, indeed, been sat by my RL for other, more effective healers, which is part of the reason I'm asking for help-- I want to raid again! I found your point interesting: rather than making Spirit the focal point of mana regen, that regen could instead be found through Moonglow/Furor and throughput increased by prioritizing Mastery on gear over Spirit. This is something that I have not tried yet, and I definitely will give it a go. I will also change BotG to LS, thanks for that information as well. I have another question: in your opinion, is Glyph of WG worth it in all raid situations, or is it different between 10's and 25's? Or is it just a throughput loss altogether? I would appreciate your input on this matter.

I knew that BotG was additive, but I thought Genesis was multiplicative, that's a very valuable point and I'll adjust to compensate, the talent would certainly not be as critical given that fact.

[tangedyn]

Glyph of WG is always a nett win as long as you can hit 6 targets with it. The difference between 10s and 25s is... you have a much higher chance of hitting 6 targets in 25s.

Glyphing WG is actually a very small throughput loss in terms of total HPS from WG assuming you use it every CD, but you more than make up for it with the GCD and mana saved allowing you to put in more Rejuvs.