Is the resto druid whine really justifiable?

[Deleted]

I have played a resto druid since vanilla, and granted we've been the best healing class sometimes and the worst other times. But never have I experienced this much whine on druids beeing underpowered.

I see all these threads (Here on mmo-champion and other places) where people are crying that they can't keep up with the other classes, and that they are rerolling disc priest or what ever. And it kind of bothers me because I do not preform bad at all, and is yet to be outhealed by any other healer (i've played with disc priest, holy paladin and resto shaman) in a 10-man environment.

So why all the whine? I look at these threads and see the problem mostly as a "L2P" issue.

And yes, I know that we could use some imporvement in 25man, but it's not as bad as people make it sound.

[insanedruid]

I have played a resto druid since vanilla, and granted we've been the best healing class sometimes and the worst other times. But never have I experienced this much whine on druids beeing underpowered.

I see all these threads (Here on mmo-champion and other places) where people are crying that they can't keep up with the other classes, and that they are rerolling disc priest or what ever. And it kind of bothers me because I do not preform bad at all, and is yet to be outhealed by any other healer (i've played with disc priest, holy paladin and resto shaman) in a 10-man environment.

So why all the whine? I look at these threads and see the problem mostly as a "L2P" issue.

And yes, I know that we could use some imporvement in 25man, but it's not as bad as people make it sound.

I usually out heal my holy pally friend by 30% as resto driud and he never outhealed me. So every resto druid is 30% better than any holy pally. Am I right?

Maybe you can take a look at worldoflogs.com or raidbots.com to see how to "top"(top in HPS..) players perform.
And thats just about pure healing output. Another fact is that resto druid lacks raid cooldown.

[Lostep]

10-man environment.

yeahhhhhhhhh

The ten character limit exists for a reason. In the future please give more than a one word response. Infracted.

[NightZero88]

I have played a resto druid since vanilla, and granted we've been the best healing class sometimes and the worst other times. But never have I experienced this much whine on druids beeing underpowered.

I see all these threads (Here on mmo-champion and other places) where people are crying that they can't keep up with the other classes, and that they are rerolling disc priest or what ever. And it kind of bothers me because I do not preform bad at all, and is yet to be outhealed by any other healer (i've played with disc priest, holy paladin and resto shaman) in a 10-man environment.

So why all the whine? I look at these threads and see the problem mostly as a "L2P" issue.

And yes, I know that we could use some imporvement in 25man, but it's not as bad as people make it sound.

Then your other healers are bad or have significantly worse gear than you. If you look at the top guilds and logging sites you will clearly see druids are the worst healer on the majority of fights simply because we can not much a bubble, ever. Yes, the "whine" as you call it is justified. Druids are not terrible by any stretch of the imagination but we are severely hindered by crappy mechanics (mushrooms) and destroyed by bubbles which 50% of the classes use.

[Deleted]

Maybe your druid isn't as amazing as you think, maybe your disc and holy pala are just utterly clueless?

Goes both ways really, depending on what PoV you take.

Looking at WoL parses I'd say my reasoning might be a bit closer to the truth in your case. Not saying you're bad, just purely saying your fellow healers aren't performing as well as they should. As a player who plays both disc and a resto druid I'm happy to say disc is way more "powerful" and certainly has more utility over a resto druid.

The difference is smaller in 10 mans, but in 25's resto druids get pretty raped more than often, both hps-wise and cooldown-wise.

[Spectral]

The utility is wildly unimpressive. As has been stated a great number of times, if Druids are even, they're behind.

[AvatarM]

If you not outgear them by a large margin, they are not good enough. A Holy Paly played properly should outheal you on most fights, if not all fights. Monks palyed properly too, they are improved versions of us with uplift and infinite mana with meta gem procs + jabs, they reforge all their spirit into crit/haste. Disc priests are simple better then Resto druids, cause of their utility, they are OP in double dip fights like Horridon, Jinrok and Jikun, cause of damage modifiers; and they can simple snipe all your heals in situtations like thunderstruck, dire call, and etc..

Even with 5.3 nerf and duid buffs, even if we had the same troughput, we don´t have the same utility. With a tank paladin and a healer in 10 man, you can simple 1 tank fights like Megaera and Iron Qon. All other classes bring utility to the raid. Mistweavers don´t, but they have uplift/thunder focus tea, that are very strong for thunderstruck and dire call situations. Our "version" of this is Shrooms, but they dont work when the raid is spread. Our better CD is Tranquility, but moonkins have it too, so why bring resto druids over this classes? In 10 man, take a balance druid, put a disc priest and a paly healing. Monk in 3 healing fights or fights like Horridon, Lei shen, Tortos. I think the only fight that resto druid is the better "doubles" on heal are Tortos, Mistweaver + Resto Druid.

[Kjeldorian]

Playing in a competitive 25 man, I can tell you that absorbs are outshining the need to bring a rdruid. When the dpriest / hpally top 1-3 heals are shields (Illuminated Healing / Spirit Shell / Divine Aegis) or a dps smartheal (Atonement) each having an overheal of 10% vs the 60% of your RJ you will feel neutered.

If you feel unconvinced from my PoV, simply look at the top 100 parses of H Bosses 1 - 9 on raidbots. Either every single resto druid doing competitive 25H is doing it wrong or there is an inherent flaw in the system to have such a substantial gap between healing classes. Why bring another rdruid when a decent dpriest or hpally can putout the same in shields without requiring a strategy built around it (specific positioning for raid stacking for efflo, shrooms, wild growth)

Here's another way to view it, shields are lasting longer than rejuv (15 seconds vs 12 seconds) and can be refreshed to a full duration without loss of potency (HoT clipping for us). You can be amazing in your group, but it takes far less skill for a class to outshield you than for you to out hps them given the predictability of damage spikes in PvE.

- Sephinia of Raiding Rainbows at US-Illidan

[Daez]

I miss the good old days when healing was about your ability to actually keep people alive instead of your ability to top the heal meters. It does not matter, at all, what your HPS is if you could have saved the main tank and failed to do so... just saying!

[insanedruid]

I miss the good old days when healing was about your ability to actually keep people alive instead of your ability to top the heal meters. It does not matter, at all, what your HPS is if you could have saved the main tank and failed to do so... just saying!

As boomkin you can also have save the main tank. But that doesn't make boomkin a good healing spec....

[Larynx]

As boomkin you can also have save the main tank. But that doesn't make boomkin a good healing spec....

No, it makes the boomkin a good player.

HPS is an arbitrary measurement. While imbalances always exist, HPS is not the single indicator of it. It's through many different sets of data that you can with confidence say "X is OP/Y is UP". Oh, well my resto druid is top HPS 100% of the time in my raiding guild. That's nice. What does that mean? Nothing meaningful to this thread's topic.

[Trubo]

I miss the good old days when healing was about your ability to actually keep people alive instead of your ability to top the heal meters. It does not matter, at all, what your HPS is if you could have saved the main tank and failed to do so... just saying!

The better the HPS (I'm not talking effective HPS, I mean raw HPS) of all your healers, the more likely the chance is you can bring fewer healers to boost raid dps. Druid's raw HPS is weaker than all the other healing specs on most fights in ToT, which in turn means you're putting your raid in danger bringing a Resto Druid over any other healer. Yes there are some fights where Resto isn't complete garbage versus other healing specs (Tortos for example) yet on those fights Mistweavers destroy us and since they use leather INT gear as well, why bring a Resto Druid?

Don't believe me? Go here, select only healers, then compare each healer's usefulness on fights 1-10 (not enough data yet for Twins, Lei Shen and Ra-den)

On top of Resto's relatively low throughput we bring nothing in terms of Raid survival cds , things like PW: Barrier, Devotion Aura and Spirit Link Totem. Tranquility is more of a raid-wide bandage; better than nothing but if people are going to die even if you're fully topped off then it's practically worthless.

[Kjeldorian]

Healing Done to Tanks and the ability to following Healing Assignments are important factors but when the raid is taking constant damage HPS can be just as an important standard of evaluation of performance / class. It doesn't feel so great when HPallies can out AoE Heal a Rdruid, pigeon holing us into tank healing (if the tank isn't getting enough heals through beacon(s)).

And given raidbots data, it is pretty clear that there is a significant difference between effective outputs of classes.

What does this boil down to? Your class is limiting your full potential as a healer and other classes are saving players from death better than you. Why bring another resto druid when you can bring another shielding class or in the more common case, why bring the resto druid when you can bring another dps to reach the DPS benchmark you need to kill the new boss?

[Raugnaut]

Another fact is that resto druid lacks raid cooldown.

Tranq to Revival, Healing Tide Totem, Devo Aura, PW:B, and Divine Hymn. Tranq also has the most healing done out of all of these cooldowns.

Ironbark to Life Cocoon, Pain Suppression, Hand of Sacrifice, Holy Guardian. Is being buffed tomorrow to have double the current uptime, or an external "20% damage reduction" cooldown for tanks.

Tree of Life (if taken) to Spirit Link Totem, Divine Guardian from paladins, possibly Power Infusion from priests, and possibly Xuen from Monks.

I fail to see how Druids lack raid CDs, especially since one of our cooldowns is the top CD in terms of healing done.

In 25s, don't most raids bring a resto druid?

The main problem of Resto Druids is that their power is the ability to quickly spread heals that are both VERY mana AND time efficient around the raid. Rejuvenation will heal for quite a bit more then the Greater Heal equivalent that most healers have. The problem is that there are very, very few fights that allow Rejuve to heal at full power, since this tier tends to prefer large bursts of high damage every 15 seconds rather then many small bursts of damage every 2-3 seconds. For ANY fight that causes healers to have close to 0% overhealing, you will find that Resto druids will be tieing for top on healing done, along with MW monks.

[nightfalls]

Bubbles are seen as a culprit, but keep in mind shamans also are mostly reactive healers and are able to do fine on some fights (and there's some which discs just plain out win). Point being, druids really are just that bad now.

The buffs are nice, but the problem is I don't see throughput buffs actually fixing issues - lack of burst group healing either reactive or proactive. Not sure about mushrooms (I haven't touched my druid since 5.0) but Rejuvenation still takes a global per player, not as bad in 10m but 25m...

---------- Post added 2013-05-20 at 04:26 PM ----------

For ANY fight that causes healers to have close to 0% overhealing, you will find that Resto druids will be tieing for top on healing done, along with MW monks.

It doesn't look so much like a tie as to MW monks just blowing druids out of the ocean, and druids marginally ahead of others.

To be fair I think monks will need the nerfbat and hard at it, with so much attention focused on absorbs (despite that not actually being the main culprit), they seem to be sneaking into OP territory.

[Lostep]

I miss the good old days when healing was about your ability to actually keep people alive instead of your ability to top the heal meters. It does not matter, at all, what your HPS is if you could have saved the main tank and failed to do so... just saying!

your sig makes me laugh not because im that guy also, but because you are such a tool that you want other people to think youre "cool" when statements like that just make you look like a ... well you get the point

Flaming is not allowed. Infracted.

[Deleted]

Tranq to Revival, Healing Tide Totem, Devo Aura, PW:B, and Divine Hymn. Tranq also has the most healing done out of all of these cooldowns.

Only Divine Hymn is a comparable spell. The others have factors that make them superior. Such as being instant, being a talent (!) or being damage reductions (proactive instead of reactive). When abilities or combos of abilities hit for more than a player's hp in a matter of seconds, damage reduction will save a player, Tranquility will not. Tranquility is only superior in a situation where the Druid is already powerful: Constant ticking raid damage on a lightly spread raid of players. But there aren't enough fights like those in ToT to justify a raidspot for a Druid, unlike for example Firelands.

Oh and don't forget that Tranquility is a 7 (8 minus haste) second channel, during which a Druid cannot cast anything else. The other cooldowns (except DH) can simply be popped and the healer can continue healing, easily making up the hps difference.

[NightZero88]

Tranq to Revival, Healing Tide Totem, Devo Aura, PW:B, and Divine Hymn. Tranq also has the most healing done out of all of these cooldowns.

Tranq simply provides raw healing and requires channeling and you cannot move unless you sym a shaman. Revival is not only an instant cast but also removes ALL magic, poison and disease effects (Much better than Tranq in most situations and niche spell for certain bosses like Horridon). Healing tide provides raw healing like Tranq but is a set it and forget it spell and doesn't require channeling so you can continue to cast after you place it (Better than tranq in all situations). Devo aura reduces incoming damage which makes it superior to raw healing in virtually all situations because preventing damage is better than healing it. PW:B is the same as devo aura, preventing damage is better than healing it. Divine hymm is a channeled spell like tranq but not only does it heal the target it also increases healing the receive by 10% (Better than tranq due to the increased heal). So while tranq may provide the most raw healing every other healer CD is better in virtually every situation.

Ironbark to Life Cocoon, Pain Suppression, Hand of Sacrifice, Holy Guardian. Is being buffed tomorrow to have double the current uptime, or an external "20% damage reduction" cooldown for tanks.

Ironbark after the buff does compare to these various other skills. Life cocoon is an amazing skill however and I feel the best out of all but they are fairly comparable now.

Tree of Life (if taken) to Spirit Link Totem, Divine Guardian from paladins, possibly Power Infusion from priests, and possibly Xuen from Monks.

Tree of life simply provides again, raw healing and a mana CD. Spirit link totem equalizes everyone's health constantly so virtually no chance of deaths, is a fire and forget it ability and reduces damage taken by 10% and as I said before, reducing damage is greater than raw healing (Better than ToL). Divine guardian reduces damage for all party members by 20% and again reducing damage is better than raw healing (better than ToL), Power infusion is fairly comparable to ToL maybe slightly better due to 20% increase in haste and 20% decrease in spell cost so it functions similar to ToL in that it can be a mana CD or a healing increase.

I fail to see how Druids lack raid CDs, especially since one of our cooldowns is the top CD in terms of healing done.

It is not that druids lack CDs, it is more that the CDs we have are less effective in every way to the CDs that others have as I have just shown you above.

In 25s, don't most raids bring a resto druid?

Typically yes, because they have a res, innervate and are decent for constant AoE fights.

The main problem of Resto Druids is that their power is the ability to quickly spread heals that are both VERY mana AND time efficient around the raid. Rejuvenation will heal for quite a bit more then the Greater Heal equivalent that most healers have. The problem is that there are very, very few fights that allow Rejuve to heal at full power, since this tier tends to prefer large bursts of high damage every 15 seconds rather then many small bursts of damage every 2-3 seconds. For ANY fight that causes healers to have close to 0% overhealing, you will find that Resto druids will be tieing for top on healing done, along with MW monks.

Yes, I agree. Our niche before was we had way more throughput than all other healers and the best CDs. This is no longer the case. Shields are greater than our heals. Other healers bring just as much throughput and their CDs are better. So there is no point in bringing a druid of equal gear and skill if you can bring something else.

[Trubo]

Tranq to Revival, Healing Tide Totem, Devo Aura, PW:B, and Divine Hymn. Tranq also has the most healing done out of all of these cooldowns.

Ironbark to Life Cocoon, Pain Suppression, Hand of Sacrifice, Holy Guardian. Is being buffed tomorrow to have double the current uptime, or an external "20% damage reduction" cooldown for tanks.

Tree of Life (if taken) to Spirit Link Totem, Divine Guardian from paladins, possibly Power Infusion from priests, and possibly Xuen from Monks.

I fail to see how Druids lack raid CDs, especially since one of our cooldowns is the top CD in terms of healing done.

Tranq and Divine Hymn require the caster to be stationary and incapable of performing anything else during the channel time (well, Spiritwalker's Grace says hi but yeah). PW: B, Devo Aua and Healing Tide/SLT do not interfere with your normal healing rotation and effectively increases the health of all members in raid to survive that burst attack.

In 25s, don't most raids bring a resto druid?

I'm a resto druid in a 25 guild and if I wasn't so against leveling another character I would go monk just for the throughput increases. On a fight that MW doesn't get a chance to be boss, they're still not worse than a Resto Druid.

The main problem of Resto Druids is that their power is the ability to quickly spread heals that are both VERY mana AND time efficient around the raid. Rejuvenation will heal for quite a bit more then the Greater Heal equivalent that most healers have. The problem is that there are very, very few fights that allow Rejuve to heal at full power, since this tier tends to prefer large bursts of high damage every 15 seconds rather then many small bursts of damage every 2-3 seconds. For ANY fight that causes healers to have close to 0% overhealing, you will find that Resto druids will be tieing for top on healing done, along with MW monks.

Agreed, though again why bring a Resto Druid when the fights that Resto shines are also the fights that MW utterly destroy Resto.

[nightfalls]

One thing I was thinking of having Wild Mushroom: Bloom be a cast time (~2 seconds) that does not consume the mushrooms. Then this would give druids a stronger "burst" heal, with rejuvenation remaining their main spread heal mechanic.