[resto] spiking mechanics / NG

[zakaluka]

I've started alting a resto druid now, and I have a question about spiking mechanics.

Obviously Regrowth is something we don't want to use much, in fact I'd try to save NG as a spiking mechanic if possible. Looking at Tangedyn's spreadsheet, the NG adds ticks to several spells (from 1.05+2005 threshold): Rejuv (1 tick - 20%) LB (2 ticks - 16%) WG (1 tick - 11%) effo (1 tick - 11%). Basically if I'm about to be spiking heavily, timing a RG with the initial damage can actually be a significant efficiency gain. As well as probably a 15% gain or so to burst.

What are the ins and outs? If I'm about to go into ToL, should I proc NG beforehand or wait until I've got a healthy spread of LBx2 (and moving on up to LBx3)? I know that since I'm healing, I often won't get to save it. That is, if I'm forced to triage heal before I want NG up.

Not ready to link armory yet, as I'm not fully set up. The only reason my guild even let me heal DS in my kit, they knew I'm smart enough to pull it off .

---------- Post added 2012-02-01 at 07:02 AM ----------

I already figured out why this is a really horrible idea. My bad :b

[zyonkerz]

I'll be honest about how I play...and my best advice is to know the fight and plan ahead. To my detriment I guess, I don't track my nature's grace haste buff and when it will be available. It's a bit too much for me to concern myself with. What I do do however, is use timers and learn the fight so I can plan for incoming spike damage.

On a heroic morchock stomp/stomp/crystal combo for example, I'll be sure to save up a swiftmend to have it available, ideally same for my wild growth, pre-hot the group with one rejuv each then be able to swiftmend and wild-growth and spam a few hasted nourishes since I have 3 rejuvs rolling. So...know what's coming and when, save a small cooldown or two (swiftmend/wildgrowth) to use immediately before or after damage hits, and pre-hot w/ rejuv.

I hope this helps. I've also am getting much better (due to effecient power aura or weakaura configs) at timing my innervates to be used only on power torrent procs as soon as possible after dipping below 80% mana. I have the +880 spirit trinket too so I've reforged out of a bunch of spirit into mastery, and gone with the 8/2/31 (moonglow/furor) build. Check my armory and feel free to toss questions. I'm lurking the MMO formus more since they've blocked battle.net recently at work. =) Zyonkerz - Aggramar Horde.

[Druover]

I agree with what you said, and I try my best to not use RG so I can save the NG for heavy damage phases. The only time I'd use RG to not proc NG if if someone appears in imminent danger to where a healing touch might take too long, but RG might save their life. Otherwise, you are correct, and RG (in my opinion) is better saved for NG procs. I will use it a little more liberally if NG has recently proc'd and i know it is on CD.

Not exactly sure what you are meaning by LBx2 and moving to LBx3. When I ToL for mana conservation (spreading LBs instead of rejuv), I keep LBx3 on tank, will sometimes try to get LBx3 on other tank depending on damage mechanics at the time, then try to roll LBx1 on everyone else, while still WG'ing and SM'ing on CD. Also useing RG for OOC procs (if not saving NG proc). But long story short, I have trouble keep LBx1 on everyone with this approach, and never really have the opportunity to stack LBs on most raid members. Curious how you are able to acheive a healthy spread of LBx2 and LBx3 stacks. Sounds great in theory, I can just never do it. So i usually just let them bloom, and try to keep 1 stack on as many people as I can.

[zakaluka]

I think my own post was a bad idea, because, well, I started looking at logs. Regrowthing every clarity proc can account for 10% hps on a long fight like madness or spine. Saving NG as a spiking mechanic might be good in a very short-sighted sense, say for instance if I needed to waste 1 or 2 CC's to line it up with damage. However, I don't think I'd plan it out to the point where I was holding CC procs for 40 seconds just so I could get NG to line up with big raid damage. Unless the healing requirement is super low at the time, that is. 10% free throughput wasted during that whole time period.

[Deleted]

You don't have to regrowth every clarity proc. Healing Touch is good too.

[Themessiah]

I'll be perfectly honest with you, and perhaps what I do is wrong, but I basically ignore it. If someone needs a quick fast heal else they'll die, then they get regrowth - irrespective of whether or not I gain NG.

[emni]

I use ForteXorcist and can see the internal cooldown of Nature's Grace so I know exactly when it's going to be up again.

That said, I ignore it unless I know we're approaching a moment when I'd have to use Tranquility. In that case, I will coordinate the cooldown and Regrowth casts so that I can procc NG right before Tranquility and have it channel faster. You also get a 6th Tranquility tick out of this.

[Balmazer]

I think my own post was a bad idea, because, well, I started looking at logs. Regrowthing every clarity proc can account for 10% hps on a long fight like madness or spine. Saving NG as a spiking mechanic might be good in a very short-sighted sense, say for instance if I needed to waste 1 or 2 CC's to line it up with damage. However, I don't think I'd plan it out to the point where I was holding CC procs for 40 seconds just so I could get NG to line up with big raid damage. Unless the healing requirement is super low at the time, that is. 10% free throughput wasted during that whole time period.

Not at all you definitely do want to save NG for time of need, so you just substitute Healing Touch(which is worse but if you don't need NG at that moment it probably doesn't matter much) instead of Regrowth if you're going to need it in less than a minute. The key to using it is knowing the fight really. A good example of this would be Heroic Zon'ozz where you would defnitely want to line up NG with the black phases. However, on the flip side Zon'ozz is also a great example of why you can't do that (although better raid play can mitigate some of this) like if the tank just got beamed and auto attacked and is sitting at 5% it probably isn't the best time to try and get a healing touch on him (unless of course Zon'ozz swing timer is long enough to cast it thanks to his buff). In the end it's rather situational and something you have to think on your toes to use.