Nourish in WoD

[Slav]

Hey Everyone, as a resto druid that participates in heroic raiding I just want to put my two cents in and create a motion to keep Nourish in the game but also to slightly alter how it interacts with some spells.

First and foremost, it's true that Nourish is not the most popular heal, as it rarely gets used, especially with the mana and cast time reduction for Healing Touch that the T-16 2-set bonus grants. That being said, I believe that Nourish is still a viable spell and should be implemented in WoD.

1) Nourish is the most effective way up maintaining 100% Harmony uptime, especially during times of low throughput healing.
a) Mushroom: Bloom does not work for two reasons:
- 10 second CD that is needed for certain situations
- bonus healing from accumulated Rejuv overheals takes time and mana to achieve, and using this to retain Harmony uptime during low throughput situations is not ideal.
b) Swiftmend does not work:
- perhaps things will be different with the introduction of the level 100 talents, but even still we need Rejuv overheals for our mushrooms so as of now I am doubtful. Regardless, the cost-benefit analysis is still lackluster compared to Nourish.
- as of now, using a 15 second CD just to maintain Harmony is not viable, especially if we are specced into SotF.
c)Healing Touch does not work as well due to a lower mana efficiency.

2) The relationship Nourish shares with other abilities could be altered to make it more attractive.
a) Nature's Swiftness
- the cord needs to be cut here. Every other resto druid I know macros either Regrowth or Healing Touch to NG, and wasting a NG with a Nourish is silly and sad.
b) Rejuv, Wild Growth, Regrowth, and Libebloom
- currently, if a target has any resto druid HoT on them, Nourish heals for 20% more than it otherwise would
- I propose that this be altered to 30% for each HoT on the target, or 50% overall. This may seem crazy and OP, but I assure you it isn't so.
-Exhibit A: at 579 ilvl, my spell book clocks my completely unbuffed Nourish at 58k. Slap on any kind or number of HoTs and that would boost to 69.6k, which I admit is pretty unattractive compared to a 175k heal from Healing Touch (I am omitting Regrowth due to the dissimilarity with Nourish in cast time, mana cost, and function). That being said, if someone were to have all kinds 4 resto druid HoTs on them or manage to recruit 4 druids and have them all cast Rejuv on them, for 30% extra healing per HoT 58k would become 127.6k, which is still obviously below Healing Touch, so it wouldn't be over powered. Even still, having all 4 druid HoTs on someone, then casting Nourish is not an easy feat, nor do I recommend anyone intentionally try to achieve this.

3) Healing addons make button bloat trivial and almost non-existent
a) I don't even have Nourish on my bars, it's only integrated into my Vuhdo addon

4) Possible cast time reduction?
a) I understand that haste will be changing in WoD, but just as an idea it could be possible to reduce the cast time of Nourish in relation to Regrowth and Healing Touch. As if now, at 31.28% haste (13,294) Regrowth clocks in at 1.1 seconds and Healing Touch and Nourish are equal at 1.9 seconds. A reduction to 1.5 seconds or even 1.7 seconds for Nourish would make the spell more attractive and more viable.

I will take this time to admit that I love the resto druid spells the most out of any class, and along with Lifebloom, Nourish is my favorite spell. I strongly feel that it has a lot of potential to be used and doesn't need to be taken out for WoD. Though I am partial to this lol

I apologize for the repost, but I understand that not everyone checks the Blizzard forums, so I wanted to make it available here as well.

[Thalur]

That being said, I believe that Nourish is still a viable spell and should be implemented in WoD.

1) Nourish is the most effective way up maintaining 100% Harmony uptime, especially during times of low throughput healing.

c)Healing Touch does not work as well due to a lower mana efficiency.

I disagree. First, Healing Touch has a higher mana efficiency than Nourish, even currently on live (more HPM). For WoD, HT will explicitly be our efficient heal, so it's the perfect candidate for the job. No reason to keep a whole spell in the game just for the purpose to refresh Harmory once per fight or so. I currently use it once every few boss fights, but I could easily use HT instead.

Nourish is only more mana efficient than HT when you don't need to heal anyone at all. But in a fight where you don't need to heal anyone for 20 seconds, the difference in mana cost won't matter because you don't need the mana anyway.

So I don't really see any reason to keep the spell. I'm sure I won't miss it

[Slav]

Nourish is only more mana efficient than HT when you don't need to heal anyone at all. But in a fight where you don't need to heal anyone for 20 seconds, the difference in mana cost won't matter because you don't need the mana anyway.

You have a good point here, and I appreciate your feedback. I would like to bring attention to the other topics of the post regarding possible changes to Nourish to give it more of a foothold in our toolkit. Perhaps it is a waste of time to put so much work into one spell, and it will be much easier to remove and tell everyone to use HT instead, but I will personally be sad to see it go.

[stormgust]

1) Nourish is the most effective way up maintaining 100% Harmony uptime, especially during times of low throughput healing.
a) Mushroom: Bloom does not work for two reasons:

I don't see why you even considered Mushroom: Bloom here.

b) Swiftmend does not work:
- as of now, using a 15 second CD just to maintain Harmony is not viable, especially if we are specced into SotF.

During high troughput phases, you'll use swiftmend on CD anyway. During low troughput phases, it doesn't really matter. 15 seconds is short enough of a cd to have it back up when you actually need it, so you can savely use it to refresh harmony [and if specced for SotF, boost your LB/Tank-Reju in the process]

c)Healing Touch does not work as well due to a lower mana efficiency.

Regrowth does when paired with OoC. Procchance is high enough to cover any downtime you may actually have when not using swiftmend on CD.

2) The relationship Nourish shares with other abilities could be altered to make it more attractive.
a) Nature's Swiftness
- the cord needs to be cut here. Every other resto druid I know macros either Regrowth or Healing Touch to NG, and wasting a NG with a Nourish is silly and sad.

What do you want to change here? Cut Nature's swiftness so nourish becomes useful? Apply additional effects for nourish?

b) Rejuv, Wild Growth, Regrowth, and Libebloom
- currently, if a target has any resto druid HoT on them, Nourish heals for 20% more than it otherwise would
- I propose that this be altered to 30% for each HoT on the target, or 50% overall. This may seem crazy and OP, but I assure you it isn't so.

If a target with X HoTs needs additional healing, it's likely that even HoT-buffed nourish won't cut it. You'll need big/fast heals for that. If it doesn't need additional healing, you likely won't be using nourish anyway.

4) Possible cast time reduction?
a) I understand that haste will be changing in WoD, but just as an idea it could be possible to reduce the cast time of Nourish in relation to Regrowth and Healing Touch. As if now, at 31.28% haste (13,294) Regrowth clocks in at 1.1 seconds and Healing Touch and Nourish are equal at 1.9 seconds. A reduction to 1.5 seconds or even 1.7 seconds for Nourish would make the spell more attractive and more viable.

And rename Nourish to Healing Touch Rank 4? Though on a more serious note, when paired with the HoT change above, it would just be the same implementation they had at some point during WotLK . It didn't work out back then, I don't see why it should be any different this time round, even less so when we're supposed ot have "enough time" to heal people pack up and aren't in need of a medium speed heal. Actually while we're talking WotLK: They buffed nourish almost every patch, and nerfed regrowth in the process. In the end, either of those spells lost to WG/Reju spell, while at least during 3.0 the unnerfed regrowth saw at least occasional use.

[Skagasm]

The only way Nourish can get a foothold back in the toolkit is if Regrowth is turned back into, primarily, a long duration HoT and Nourish becomes the "flash heal".

I doubt Blizzard wants to re-carve out that niche because they explicitly want to reduce the number of buttons you have to push. You can say it's not a problem, but some people think it is and Blizzard is clearly one of them.

[Purpleisbetter]

nourish as a "lifebloom: detonate" ?

[Slav]

I don't see why you even considered Mushroom: Bloom here.

Mushroom: Bloom procs Harmony and should be included in a comparative analysis.

Regrowth does when paired with OoC. Procchance is high enough to cover any downtime you may actually have when not using swiftmend on CD.

I appreciate OoC procs when they do happen, and from data that I've collected from my personal logs, OoC procs range from 3-4 PPM with SotF (excluding SotF LBs) and 5-6 PPM with Incarnation. Never the less, we can't compare the reliability of an RNG proc with an on demand cast.

What do you want to change here? Cut Nature's swiftness so nourish becomes useful? Apply additional effects for nourish?

I apologize if I wasn't clear, but what I meant is to make Nourish an exception from NS. Currently with the NS buff, Nourish becomes instant cast. The intention is to remove this linkage. At no point did I intend to convey anything about removing NS for the sake of Nourish.

If a target with X HoTs needs additional healing, it's likely that even HoT-buffed nourish won't cut it. You'll need big/fast heals for that. If it doesn't need additional healing, you likely won't be using nourish anyway.

You have a good point, and if you have the mana you should definitely be using more expensive heals to keep people alive. Nourish does play a role for situations where you are healing on fumes and only have enough mana for Rejuv, LB, and Swiftmend. A clutch Nourish would prove to be efficient here. I agree that this is extremely situational, but if then again, so is Genesis.

...when paired with the HoT change above, it would just be the same implementation they had at some point during WotLK . It didn't work out back then, I don't see why it should be any different this time round, even less so when we're supposed ot have "enough time" to heal people pack up and aren't in need of a medium speed heal. Actually while we're talking WotLK: They buffed nourish almost every patch, and nerfed regrowth in the process. In the end, either of those spells lost to WG/Reju spell, while at least during 3.0 the unnerfed regrowth saw at least occasional use.

I admit, this is where my lack of resto druid experience limits the effectiveness of my argument, as I have only been tracking the development of resto druid abilities through various patches since the beginning of MoP. I appreciate your knowledge and insight, but at the same time, if Blizzard spent all of that time "buff[ing] nourish almost every patch," why are they taking it out now?

[Deleted]

You could make an arguement and say all the spells being taken out could be reworked into something useful but then that defeats the idea of getting rid of button bloat.

3) Healing addons make button bloat trivial and almost non-existent

I totally agree but not everyone uses healing addons and such as vuhdo / grid.

[theburned]

You could make an arguement and say all the spells being taken out could be reworked into something useful but then that defeats the idea of getting rid of button bloat.


I totally agree but not everyone uses healing addons and such as vuhdo / grid.

grid still uses buttons though, and personally I prefer to have my spells on the bar, with mouseover macros.
Find it really annoying that you don't have the person you healed last targeted.

[Dreyen]

Nourish simply doesnt have it's place anymore, other healers lost their similar spell as well.

To proc our mastery, we'll be using other spells, from what i hear we'll be using a lot of healing touch/regrowth/swfitmend, so i dont think theres any worries there.

From my understanding, we'll be using rejuv as the cheap spell, healing touch when damage kicks up a notch, and regrowth for emergencies. Expect to be using healing touch a lot. HT is supposed to be efficient as well.

In the end, theres no point in keeping nourish when other spells can do the same, if youre worried about harmony uptime, i dont think youll have to be unless the damage in the raid is really low, otherwise, the mastery ought to have a little weakness no?

[Alltat]

H1) Nourish is the most effective way up maintaining 100% Harmony uptime, especially during times of low throughput healing.

This may be true on paper, but not really in practice. If you need any significant amount of healing, you'll be casting Swiftmend at least once per 20 seconds. If you don't need to do much healing, you have nothing better to save Swiftmend for anyway. Between Swiftmend, Bloom, clearcasting procs and Nature's Swiftness, I never feel the need to cast Nourish. It might happen once every few fights that the stars align against you and you have no Clearcasting procs and Harmony is about to expire in the <15 second window just before a period of predictable burst... but that's not really worth keeping a spell for.

2) The relationship Nourish shares with other abilities could be altered to make it more attractive.

Or just give those synergies to Healing Touch and let people cast that instead. There's a WoD perk that makes Healing Touch heal for more (in the form of extra crit chance) on targets with Lifebloom - similar synergies could be added with other spells. Right now you never or very rarely cast Nourish. Making Nourish better would mean you cast it more, but at the expense of you casting Regrowth and/or Healing Touch less. Is that really a meaningful change?

3) Healing addons make button bloat trivial and almost non-existent

Not everyone uses addons, and it still usually takes up a keybinding. I don't have any visible action bars, but I don't have an unlimited number of buttons on my mouse.

[Deleted]

I using Nourish ever, like a filler and to refresh lifebloom stacks and harmony for 0 mana cost. i really angry for it

[Alltat]

...the only way I can imagine nourish remaining in the game is as some sort of cooldown detonate on all hots on target

So basically the old Swiftmend? Consume a HoT and heal depending on which HoT was consumed. It got redone because it wasn't actually very fun to use, so I don't see much reason to add a new spell like that. It's one of those mechanics that sound kind of neat in theory but which don't work very well in practice. It's also quite close to what Genesis already does.

[Grubjuice]

there was something kinda smooth and comforting about the always-be-casting-ness afforded by essentially free nourishes....
but i found it really annoying to see how little healing they actually did for all that time spend casting....

I'll be ok without it.

[Dreyen]

You'll be chain casting continuously in WoD, if theres nothing to do youll be spamming innervate.

[Keiyra]

You'll be chain casting continuously in WoD, if theres nothing to do youll be spamming innervate.

Aye, innervate + wrath will take the deadspace a mana neutral nourish could've been used for.

(though I honestly haven't seen a need for noursish since mid cata - so I'm not sorry to see it go)