What state is Resto druid in?

[Snixs]

Hey guys!


I recently came back and was wondering what role i should play.

I really nejoy being a healer and seeing as i got a 90 druid the choice seems obvious.. or does it?


I would like to know what you resto druid think of your class and specc, is it fun, are you picked to raids or ae you(class/specc) utterly s*** and never get picked?


I also got a shaman, priest and paladin 85 which i might level and heal on, but i havent choosen yet

[Keiyra]

Resto is quite strong in pve at least, can't speak for pvp, so its definitely a sound choice. Very high throughput, best at mobility, decent utility.

Healing gameplay in general is not as good as it used to be: it's highly dominated by smart healing and absorbs, especially in 25 mans - so that will affect you regardless of which healer class/spec you choose to play on. Hopefully WoD will change things up.

[GKLeatherCraft]

PvP it's doing fine in too, Very strong all round at the moment, I play Guardian/Resto on my two 90 druids, love both, both perform greatly, Just go with what you feel!

[Ablutos]

Resto is my offspec and in my opinion a resto druid is one of the most desired classes (i have a MW alt) in PVE, we are probably the second best healer behind a disc priest.

[Exoblade]

As always the best through put healer imo, there will always be a place for resto druids.

[Aboubacar]

Healing gameplay in general is not as good as it used to be: it's highly dominated by smart healing and absorbs, especially in 25 mans - so that will affect you regardless of which healer class/spec you choose to play on. Hopefully WoD will change things up.

Resto is more of a triage healer, whereas disc more designed to prevent a certain amount of incoming damage (probably way to much atm). Every raid wants one, maybe 2? if both are very skilled. Toolkit got a lot better in MoP. I think you could say druid and priest are best healers atm, but diversity is needed regardless of class strength for cooldowns.

[Deleted]

Talking about PvE: I did ToT with Shaman/Druid and SoO with Monk/Druid/Disc, so the only healer I miss are Paladins. And in my humble opinion, the Resto-Druid with Sagemender is currently the strongest healer. This is why:

Monk: The most broken part about this class is the randomness of renewing mists, therefore you have a HoT on people which do not get damage. If you talk about fights like heroic IJ, where you get a lot of (high) spike-dmg hits to random players, as a Monk you are barely able to top them quickly (you have to rely on your fellow healer). This is easier in 10-man, true. The strenghts of this class are fights like Tortos/Malkorok/Thok. It's a VERY fun class tho and my favourite after Druids.

Disc: Obv a strong class, but the reliability on atonement isn't very nice and once people loose your shields you will have problems to top them again. You can't spam PW:S and if people drop and you have penance on cooldown, you have no choice but casting a flash heal to get them up again. This is where you have to rely on your fellow healer. Atonement is a nice mechanic tho and it's a nice class especially for stuff like CMs.

Shaman: The Shaman lacks the ability to instantly topping people, the only big instant is every 1.5 minutes. Tho in general it is a very versatile healer with a lot of utility, and with the recent changes to healing rain it is a very strong class. The strongest in terms of "allrounder" so far. It's a very nice class due to stuff like Stormlash, Grounding, Capacitor, interrupts, etc, so you have a lot of things you can bring to the raid and mastering a Shaman is very nice indeed.

Druid: As a druid I don't feel like I miss anything. Druids are strong in 10/25, they are strong on fights like Malkorok/Tortos but you can also sneak in very high instant heals (NS/HT or Sagemender). You have external cooldowns like Ironbark or Tranquility, Symbiosis is kinda strong with stuff like Deterrence and you're still a very mobile healer. Also the talents are strong, talking about SotF <=> ToL or HotW. The only thing you really miss are absorbs/shields, but I've healed 11/13 hc ToT and 11/14 hc SoO so far (during current progress) and there was no fight where I'd say "I better get another class".

All four classes feel very special so far, and I'm happy with the design of all of them. The Disc seems to lack some throughput, while Monk/Shaman have a lot of different spells you can use to master that class. The Druid still is my favourite one tho, as I don't see any weaknesses here. Talking about mana-regen btw, the Monk is by far the op-shit-class, as you can play with <7k spirit and barely get out of mana. As a Shaman/Disc I feel I have to stack spirit as much as I can (even if going for crit@Shaman). The Druid is fine with 12k for everything.

[Puupi]

Texas! (jk)

I think resto druids have always been good. Their output is very good, not the highest, but mobility and raid cooldowns make them a very solid healer. Fun to play and skill cap isn't that high either.

[craigp100]

If we take resto druids on their own then they're in a great spot with various utility and good output both in terms of tank healing or raid healing; resto druids are a very solid choice for a healing class. However, if we take a raid environment into consideration with other healers specifically paladins and priests then you may feel that the resto druid is not up to par due to the potency of absorbs which have, in my opinion, got out of control and so these healers overshadow the resto druid.

[Deleted]

Which is bullshit tbh. I'm healing with a very strong Disc-Priest, and ofc the absorbs make him shine in the logs and it's hard to "just beat him". But thats just HPS-wise.

#1 at the end of a fight, we are at least on par
#2 during that fight, if a player drops, the Disc can do shit about it

HPS or Recount is a wrong tool if looking at "how good" a healing-class can execute his job. It's about saving peoples life and keeping them alive. And you can do that at least as good as a absorb-healer can. Absorbs are helping you, so that it feels like the raid takes overall less damage. But in fact the disc is nothing without you, and therefore the Druid is stronger. For example 2 Druids will work better than 2 Discs, purely because you can top people quicker.

[Thalur]

HPS or Recount is a wrong tool if looking at "how good" a healing-class can execute his job. It's about saving peoples life and keeping them alive. And you can do that at least as good as a absorb-healer can. Absorbs are helping you, so that it feels like the raid takes overall less damage. But in fact the disc is nothing without you, and therefore the Druid is stronger. For example 2 Druids will work better than 2 Discs, purely because you can top people quicker.

HPS is not a good tool to measure performance, but there is no other one. Your anecdotal evidence doesn't mean anything (except maybe your disc isn't so great). I healed with a paladin for some time, healed twice as much as he did on some fights (with same gear), however that doesn't mean paladins are shit, it means the player was. For your #2, actually discs are very stong in topping off random damage spikes on players because all their smart heals flying around are going to that player. 2 discs don't work simply because of weakened soul.

Currently, all healers are in a good spot (except shaman that are king on stacked fights and bad on some others). For everyone who has not killed Garrosh hc yet (that includes me), class differences are much much smaller than player skill differences.
Only disc priests generally have a slight edge (although they have the lowest throughput) because of the combination of shields, smart heals and contributing to dps while healing.

[Deleted]

However, if we take a raid environment into consideration with other healers specifically paladins and priests then you may feel that the resto druid is not up to par due to the potency of absorbs which have, in my opinion, got out of control and so these healers overshadow the resto druid.

Not really. Who cares about little damage, which is being covered by absorbs? Yes, meter won't be too nice for druids in that moment but true healing starts when whole raid is getting huge damage and must be kept alive. This is a moment where druids are stepping up with great burst and good raid leaders know about that. Even huge HPS is useless, if people are dying around ....

[ryklin]

pvp: we're ok, as it is now, you can get a high rating as any healing spec by being really good, as the land of faking and interrupts makes healing very skill based rather than class based

pve: we're up at the top, with the order being (very small differences between each actually, but don't play roll your pally if you plan to do 25s, mistweaver also isn't stellar in 25s due to the nature of renewing mists)

everyone else means that the remaining are bout equal

to be honest though, the differences aren't big enough that anything is really impossible as any class, just harder, especially monk healing, they feel like work even when you're just clearing trash

stacked healing 25s
disc>shaman>holy priest>everyone else

stacked healing 10s
shaman>everyone else

spread healing 10s
drood=priest>monk>everyone else

spread healing 25s
everyone else>paladins

other than that, just this patch, druid and shaman got significant buffs just this patch, and priest's level 90 talents put them in a really strong place at current high gear levels

and overall, yes druids are in a very good place this patch and in ToT, some would say we're a bit on the overpowered end and better performing end of healing right now (I'm ok with it, since we've been on the lower end or middle since 4.0) and paladins are getting what they deserve for being too good for too long

I usually top meters in my 10 man group, but there's only 1 guy to compete against and occasionally a ret pally in his holy off-set, and we only use that on like 3 bosses this tier
if you want a change-up from druid, holy priest 10-man plays similar, but with a few colorful twists in the toolkit that you may like, but you may find yourself going disc if you try to plan to do this as disc has a LOT of good extra help tools that other classes don't provide
also disc priest has some crazy tools in spirit shell his xpac which you'll be familiar with soon enough that makes some entire fights turn from interesting "I need to top people off before the burst comes out situations into jokes

as far as talents for druid, I default to displacer beast, ysera's gift, typhoon, and vortex for a lot of fights
I swap 60 talents for almost every fight and I swap between nature's vigil and heart of the wild occasionally

get used to carrying a stack of tomes and swapping talents between fights

also I recommend leaving symbiosis on a dps shaman if you don't know who to put it on, they get solar beam, which helps a ton and you get spiritwalker's grace (you can now tranq while moving)

[Snixs]

Hello guys!

After Reading your very helpful answers, I've started gearing some resto gear and really like it.

A few questions If you don't mind tho:

1. I'm having a hard time doing quick heals, do you guys use regrowth + swiftmend for this?
2. When people drop a bit=rejuvenate? It seems weak to 'only' heal 1/3 of the dmg(maybe it's supposed to be this way, only healed 10s on a paladin In cata
3. When healing 10mans I did my best to heal everyone up, but mana goes fast in 25 when u do this. Should I just hope for other healers to help?(only did lfr - often don't trust anyone here lol)
4. You use nourish over HT right? I haven't yet thought of a good way to use HT.


I hope you guys will help me further! have a nice weekend

[Deleted]

@ Snixs

1. Swiftmend, Regrowth, NS, 2pt16 HT are all used. Not RG + SM because I use the glyph of Regrowth.

2. Depends on situation. If more damage might be incoming, yes I rejuv. If not I'll just let smartheals do it, or top them off with a free spell like Omen proc RG or 2pt16.

3. It's mostly about knowing the fight and if more damage is incoming. If it's a big damage phase (like say on Juggernaut siege mode), it's fine to spend a good amount of mana. If not, just heal it up slowly with the other healers.

4. Before t16 and the 2 set bonus, most Druids didn't even use Nourish or HT. Those spells are too slow and you're usually better off using Regrowth or Rejuv, or just reapplying Lifebloom if it's about to drop off and the tank is full anyway. Once you get 2pt16, you'll start using HT again.

[ryklin]

1. regrowth w/ glyph works well for this, there's a period of about 0.3-1.5s after a hot comes up for to be swiftmend-able, but yah, either swiftmend or regrowth, most people are running glyphed regrowth though, so very often, just rejuv+swiftmend works well, dropping a treant on them works too if you're using them, you can consider saving clearcasting procs from lifebloom and using regrowth as well

2. rejuv is our most efficient non-cooldown heal by a long shot so it's pretty much our go-to heal outside of spells with minor cooldowns, I mean you can throw them something else, but most of our direct heals have much worse healing per mana, let alone the shorter cast time and gcd on rejuv, also try not to forget about bloom, it's a very strong and powerful heal

3. that's pretty much how healing is designed in 25mans for a long time, even priests, who have 90 talents with no aoe caps and prayer of healing which hits the most targets for the cast time w/o a cd have to rely on co-healers, and most healers have to do that in 10s even, it's really pointless to rejuv all 10 players quite often, but make sure you have at least a few rejuvs out to get people up and are using wild growth, mushroom bloom, etc. as well as you can

4. right now nourish is only really used by geared players to keep mastery up+refresh lifebloom on the tank when there's no real damage coming out
tbh, nourish's healing per mana is actually pretty awful, usually if you're healing the tank it's pretty much
glyphed regrowth>healing touch>=regrowth>nourish in most situations
at lower gear levels, nourish is a decent go to heal, but as you get gear, its scaling will make it fall behind and you'll be using regrowth or healing touch
but yeah, I didn't use healing touch often either until I got the T16 2p


Nature's swiftness will cover a lot of your live saving heals too
make a macro that casts nature's swiftness+healing touch to get low people up

getting the 2p T16 bonus, even the lfr version, might help a bit with several of your problems as it provides us with a lot of fast and cheap direct heals

[Snixs]

Thanks you 2 very much! I can't wait to get back to my guildies and raid with them again, killing them bosses!

Hopefully I will have an easier time dealing with some of the troubles I ran into so far


Merry Christmas and nice holidays to you lot <3

[Alltat]

From a PvE point of view, we're pretty awesome at everything right now and are probably the best healing spec. Raw throughput? Check. Burst healing? Check. Quick spot heals? Check. The only thing we don't have is absorbs.

[pmdawnie]

From a pvp point of view, you will get focused a lot, but they are very strong, impossible to kill during CD's and if you're good at kiting outside of them. Very Very mobile and strong!