[Resto] Harder to play and weaker than other healers?

[Ceyx]

I would honestly say from experience that healing on my druid is easier than any other class, but that is just my personal opinion.
I have more fun when I am on my Disc Priest.

[Maxvla]

Have you seen monks by any chance? Have you seen holy priests by any chance?

And you say DRUIDS are the easiest?

I have a 90 druid, monk and priest, and 87 paladin, 85 shaman, so yes, yes I have. Druid is the most straightforward healer, you don't have to check some extra resource to see if you can use the heal you want, you just cast it. You don't have complicated mana regen like mana tea or divine plea or rapture, you simply press the I need mana button.

Druid is literally just keep lifebloom on tank and hot people who take damage. Use innervate at 80% and on cd after that. That's it. Ultra basic.

[Deleted]

I have a 90 druid, monk and priest, and 87 paladin, 85 shaman, so yes, yes I have. Druid is the most straightforward healer, you don't have to check some extra resource to see if you can use the heal you want, you just cast it. You don't have complicated mana regen like mana tea or divine plea or rapture, you simply press the I need mana button.

Druid is literally just keep lifebloom on tank and hot people who take damage. Use innervate at 80% and on cd after that. That's it. Ultra basic.

That's exactly why they're weak.

[ebah]

Being one of the top20 25man guilds, i can say that resto druids arent at perfect spot at the moment because, they lack burst heal whats required most of the fights.
But druids aint bad either at the moment in my opinion, you just have to know what buttons to press and u will do decent even in hps against other healers.

Hadris, with your gear and not having 5% haste buff in your raid setup go for 3039haste. (excel table about haste breakpoints below
http://theincbear.com/math/resto-haste-breakpoints

Because your a 10man raider, go arond 7-9k spirit (amount where you find yourself 10%~ mana after fight is over).
Reforge 3039haste>8k~ spirit>mastery and rest is shit.

Also change some gems&enchants:
-Head: 80 Int 160mastery + Burning Primal Diamond
-Cloak: Enchant 180 intellect
-Chest: Pure spirit gems or intellect depending how you reforge
-Wrists: Enchant 180 intellect
-Offhand: Enchant 165 intellect
-Belt: 80 Int 160 mastery + pure spirit + spirit/int
-Legs: 80 Int 160 spirit
-Boots: 80 Int 160 mastery + 140 mastery & run speed enchant

PS. replace your alchemist trinket with the Relic of Chi Ji / Vial of Ichorous Blood or VP trinket.

[Maxvla]

That's exactly why they're weak.

I didn't say they weren't. I said they were the easiest to play.

[ganush]

I feel like our biggest shortcoming is that we lack any sort of burst AoE heal as well. This tier of raiding has a lot of burst AoE damage as opposed to slow ticking AoE damage that druids excel at healing, so our toolkit seems sub-optimal. When there is an ability that takes the whole raid into the 'danger zone' throwing hots out doesn't do much to alleviate the situation and by the time our hots tick out, another healer has burst the raid back to full health, leaving our hots ticking as overheals. I have noticed in my LFR runs that if I end up in a comp with a lot of resto druids (I've had groups with as many as 5), my healing can be double what it is if I'm in a group with a bunch of Paladins, Monks and Disc Priests. When I pull a group of strong burst or damage prevention healers, my numbers plummet and I feel like I might as well be spamming wrath.

I do however think we are better 10m healers than 25m, and I haven't found a fight yet where I feel over my head.

[Maxvla]

The problem is that on the fights where there is aura type slow ticking damage, we aren't any better than direct healing classes like paladins/holy priest/shaman or even absorb healers (disc). Monks are better, and if you can stack, shamans are better. We don't have the raw hps to excel in what used to be our niche.

[Skullcrusher]

Hello druids. Two weeks ago, I started raiding MSV normal as a resto druid. My guild wanted to do all the bosses using a two healer setup: Me and a resto shamy...

On top of what everyone else has already said, you mentioned your healing partner was a resto shaman. With how OP Healing Tide totem is at the moment plus resto shaman's mastery bonus, I don't really think it's an equal comparison. My main is a resto druid and my healing partner is a disc priest and we don't really (nor have we ever) had much of a problem 2 man healing current or previous content. WoW Insider had a great article about this very same topic about a month ago (sorry I can't find the link at the moment) but it really put into perspective each healing class, how and how currently, though not horrible, resto druids need a boost. I might suggest reading up on some blogs or seeking out some useful addons to help track your HoTs, CDs, etc. if you don't already use those.

Best of luck in your raid progress!

[Soullord]

I didn't say they weren't. I said they were the easiest to play.

mmm may I remind you of the times of paladin flash of light spam and of shaman chain heal spam?

as for not worring for othe resources how about worrying and playing so your hots don't get sniped by all the other classes?

[Alcapown]

mmm may I remind you of the times of paladin flash of light spam and of shaman chain heal spam?

as for not worring for othe resources how about worrying and playing so your hots don't get sniped by all the other classes?

If your HoTs are getting sniped and you're clearing content, no issue - you just need to start on harder content. If your HoTs are getting sniped and your healers (including you) are OOMing and you wipe, then it's not druid healing that's your problem, it's your raid communication.

[Maxvla]

mmm may I remind you of the times of paladin flash of light spam and of shaman chain heal spam?

How is the past relevant now?

[Tranquilitas]

Last week I (Balance Druid) was healing 10-man normals and I easily topped our main healers (disc and monk) on some fight with like +10%. I didn´t reforge nor did I change any gems just switched two items food and flask for more spirit (was around 9k then). What buttons to press was already mentioned so I´d just like to add that we in deed lack some on-demand-heal when it comes to burst on tanks but this can be reduced through communication with your assigned tank and proper cooldown usage. Maybe for 10-man hardmodes it would become an issue though.
And I agree with Maxvla. Druids are a very straightforward healing class although we need to check for harmony buff and prevent LB from falling off our primary target (I like LB Glyph a lot!).

[Scouse]

Druid is literally just keep lifebloom on tank and hot people who take damage. Use innervate at 80% and on cd after that. That's it. Ultra basic.

These are the absolute basics. If these are the only rules you heal by, then your overall performance will surely be sub-par. Playing a spec can be as hard as you want it to be.

That would be like me telling a priest to just PoM/shield people who take damage and pop spirit shell/PoH for incoming raid damage. Oh, and use shadowfiend when you want mana.

[Maxvla]

These are the absolute basics. If these are the only rules you heal by, then your overall performance will surely be sub-par. Playing a spec can be as hard as you want it to be.

That would be like me telling a priest to just PoM/shield people who take damage and pop spirit shell/PoH for incoming raid damage. Oh, and use shadowfiend when you want mana.

Except your example is far more complicated than mine. That shows how simple resto druids are to play.

[Scouse]

Except your example is far more complicated than mine. That shows how simple resto druids are to play.

Not sure if trolling or just stupid.

Also, aren't you the druid that was in the Amber Shaper skip-phase-two video? I'm just going to be frank and say there are multiple deficiencies in your playstyle.

Please do not flame someone, regardless of whether you think they're trolling. Infracted.

[Maxvla]

Not sure if trolling or just stupid.

Keeping a single hot on 1 target and casting hots on anyone who takes damage is much simpler than predicting damage to absorb with shield or spirit shell. Casting PoM on the ideal target also takes more thought than 'that person is damaged, Rejuv!'. Even the mana mechanics are easier since it's a self targeted ability instead relying on a pet to do damage. You can't just shadowfiend/mindbender any time and get mana (phase change, boss immunity, quickly dying adds, etc).

Not trolling at all. Just saying someone with the absolute basic knowledge of how to play a druid will be able to play to a level of competence more comparable with a pro player than any other healer. Taking it down to the basics is how you can tell which class is easier to play than another. The fact that druid played at a high level is essentially exactly the same, just with more finesse shows it is the easiest healer to play.

Try explaining a monk to a new player. 'You press this button to channel a heal, and you can also press this one during it, but if it's not during the channeled spell, it has a cast time. You're building these things called chi, you use these to cast spells, but these don't cost mana like your other spells. In addition to chi and mana you have to watch for this proc called mana tea. While you are healing you need to use them, but you can't heal and use them at the same time. Oh and you have a statue that sometimes heals people, and if you melee attack you heal by doing that too.

Druid: Keep lifebloom on tank. Press rejuv if someone takes damage. Wild Growth if multiple people take damage. All your spells use the same resource. Use innervate to get mana back whenever you want.

Which one sounds easier to you?

[ProfessorTjc]

We all know Resto Shamans are the worse. There are more ranked Resto Druids than shamans.

[Scouse]

Keeping a single hot on 1 target and casting hots on anyone who takes damage is much simpler than predicting damage to absorb with shield or spirit shell. Casting PoM on the ideal target also takes more thought than 'that person is damaged, Rejuv!'. Even the mana mechanics are easier since it's a self targeted ability instead relying on a pet to do damage. You can't just shadowfiend/mindbender any time and get mana (phase change, boss immunity, quickly dying adds, etc).

Not trolling at all. Just saying someone with the absolute basic knowledge of how to play a druid will be able to play to a level of competence more comparable with a pro player than any other healer. Taking it down to the basics is how you can tell which class is easier to play than another. The fact that druid played at a high level is essentially exactly the same, just with more finesse shows it is the easiest healer to play.

Try explaining a monk to a new player. 'You press this button to channel a heal, and you can also press this one during it, but if it's not during the channeled spell, it has a cast time. You're building these things called chi, you use these to cast spells, but these don't cost mana like your other spells. In addition to chi and mana you have to watch for this proc called mana tea. While you are healing you need to use them, but you can't heal and use them at the same time. Oh and you have a statue that sometimes heals people, and if you melee attack you heal by doing that too.

Druid: Keep lifebloom on tank. Press rejuv if someone takes damage. Wild Growth if multiple people take damage. All your spells use the same resource. Use innervate to get mana back whenever you want.

Which one sounds easier to you?

All you are doing is drawing out more specific details. If I were to sit here and pick apart the resto druid spellbook tooltips it would sound complicated to a new player as well. Chi/holy power are just a way blizz balances mana costs without making all classes feel the same - you cast something in order to cast a different spell free of mana cost - you're making it out to be more difficult to understand than it really is.

None of the healing classes blatantly vary in difficulty, because it simply isn't something you can measure. They're just different. Additionally, someone could be playing their class correct, but not to it's full potential - which often requires a great deal of skill.

[Juano]

How is the past relevant now?

Paladins in LK expa used to spam Holy light without being OOM, if you had enought haste you could just use that relic i forgot its name (the one who decreased holy light manacost) that combined with the AOE heal that holy light gave was too strongth. This combined with the judgment of wisdom if i remember well made holy paladins sooooo easy to play.

Thats why they were needing all the cloth and mail items >.< but that is another story lol

[mikoslav]

I am an offspec healer, normally boomkin, in casual raiding guild.
Last week I had to heal bladlord tayak normal, with one of our main healers - holy priest, because our other main healer - pally was absent.
Most of my gear is balance (in resto spec my I lvl was around 485), apart for trinkets and couple pieces with spirit/mastery.
I had 6.7 k spirit only. I managed to do more healing done than our priest, as well as more hps (mine was about 39 k hps).
It was also our first kill of this boss.

Perhaps this happened because our priest knew exactly that he needs to allow my hots to do their job, or I am that great :P.
Ok maybe I am not that great but what makes it all more interesting is the fact that
I am not using any healing addons, nor mouseover macros
which I think would be hard to do on any other healing class.
I used to use healbot to heal in cata, then I changed comps and have not installed any of the addons.

I am using standard blizz interface and I am targeting players to heal them by clicking names in raid frame :P.
In case anyone asks why in hell one would want to do that!? my answer is - because I CAN!.

Again this would be hard to do on other classes, which in my opinion proves that healing on druid is much easier than on anything else.