[Resto] Druid Guide & Discussion (6.0.3)

[Sprucelee]

I don't use swift-mend like ever. How stupid am I?

Sounds like you know the answer.

[Teramelle]

I don't use swift-mend like ever. How stupid am I?

Very. Use it on CD.

[Dyfar]

ok will do

[Brilynn]

Going to try to update this thread tomorrow.

Will be without internet, electricity, water and a functionable toilet for the next 3 weeks. Hurr. Vacation in the mountains <3

Have fun in the mountains pretending to be Amish!!

[Alzu]

Your Swiftmend should depend on the situation. You should only cast Swiftmend if a) Harmony is about to drop and you don't have a CC proc, b) you don't care about mana and it'll not overheal or c) someone needs urgent healing. Otherwise generally you want to stick with Rejuvenation.

The reasoning for these conditions being a) naturally that you want to keep mastery up, b) HPM of Swiftmend is terrible, close to Regrowth's level so when mana is limited, it's not helping the situation and c) it's instant (given that the target has Rejuv) and a strong heal.

Still, to be fair, usually at least one of these conditions are met every 15 seconds.

[Deleted]

Yeah I was wondering about people being so adamant on Swiftmend having to be used on CD. It costs over 3k mana and the healing really isn't all that much. Obviously you use it where necessary but just mindlessly using it on CD seems like terrible usage. This isn't Mists anymore where it was super cheap.

[Teramelle]

It costs over 3k mana and the healing really isn't all that much.

Mine heals for 102k+ when it crits, iirc. I should've clarified: use it when it's off CD, but only when it's actually needed. However, in most fights I find that - as Alzu said - it does tend to be needed every 15 seconds. I have strong regen, so unless I'm really pushed for mana, a Swiftmend every 15 seconds or so for 3k isn't going to cause any issues.

[wakii]

Hey Guy's just a question to the Mythic raiding druids .... I get mostly destroyed by our Paladin healer in Heroic, will this continue in Mythic or is it going to be balanced out? How do you perform against your palas?

[kooz]

for farm fights you could be "destroyed" by palas and discs as you can't go through their shields.
for mythics and progression fights not so much, here you might be competing with resto shammies. timing your cds and keeping harmony up is key.

[Teramelle]

Hey Guy's just a question to the Mythic raiding druids .... I get mostly destroyed by our Paladin healer in Heroic, will this continue in Mythic or is it going to be balanced out? How do you perform against your palas?

Holy Paladins, if played correctly, will always either top meters or come close to it. That's just the nature of the class and healing style. Even if there's no raid damage going on, they can still use absorbs which gives them a boost on meters too - plus, mana issues are basically nonexistant for them. Don't be surprised if you can't beat your guild's Holy Pala; if they're good, you should struggle to do so. They've been insanely powerful this tier and the previous. Plus, every hpala I've met seems to have a penchant for snipe-healing, even when I have HoTs up on the person and they're not taking any damage to warrant the direct heal. *shakes fist*

I find that I beat my guild's paladin on fights with constant raid damage - particularly if there's an opportunity for me to use Tranquility more than once - just because those situations are always where any Resto Druid is really going to shine.

But, look at it this way: healing isn't about topping meters, or outperforming others, necessarily. It's about working together to drag people up off the floor as they lie there dying, smack them around a bit and get them back into the fight. Theoretically, there should be no healer miles ahead of the others on meters - you all ought to be about equal, if you're all equally geared and skilled and all pulling your weight. (Unless there's a Holy Priest. I wouldn't be surprised if a skilled and geared HPriest wasn't doing so hot on meters compared to others...)

The amount of healing there is to be done depends largely on a number of different factors, and the amount of healing each healer can do depends on how much damage is being taken, and what "type" it is. RDruids aren't so strong with sporadic burst damage, because there's not enough time for our HoTs to tick and actually do their jobs - but, on the other hand, we shine when there's regular raid-wide damage going on, because there's less chance of Rejuvenation going into overheal. HPalas are great with that sporadic burst damage, and whilst they're still good at the constant raid-wide stuff, they can easily be beaten by a RDruid who knows what they're doing.

But, yeah, you're gonna see a difference in each fight as to who performs better - sometimes you'll come out on top, sometimes they will. Ideally, you ought to be equal - or close to it. Excluding certain independent factors that might make someone pull ahead at the last minute, I would expect most fights to have a fairly even distribution of healing done. If you progress into Mythic (because Heroic is not necessarily a good indicator of this, due to gear more obviously trivialising a lot of the previously difficult healing things) and find that this isn't the case, or you're underperforming to the point wherein you're miles behind your guild's HPala, there perhaps might be things for you to improve on yourself. There's a lot of good fights in Mythic where RDruids can really shine, but if you find that you're lagging behind, you probably need to sit down and analyse logs and work out what you could do to heal better.

To sort of sum that up: Healing isn't a competition, and unless you're looking to get ranks (tip: you won't get super good ranks, usually, unless you cheese it by dropping healers and/or making the raid take a bunch more unnecessary damage) you probably won't go beyond reaching equilibrium on meters. If you get a kill, without anyone stressing because they feel there's a lack of healing, then rest assured you're doing your job right. That said, if you're severely behind on meters/logs, you should look into trying to improve your own playstyle - the classes, whilst each have their benefits and drawbacks are fairly equal right now in terms of throughput, so you can't necessarily blame that. (Unless you were a HPriest, which... uh, obviously you're not.)

SORRY, I kinda rambled on there. I hope that makes sense, at least.

[Brilynn]

Quick question, friends. Do we think that Tyrants boots are BiS over the trash boots even though they've got crit? Is the MS worth dropping for crit if we get more int and haste?

Jungle Assassins Footpads
304 int
150 haste
254 MS

vs

Oppressors Merciless Treads
318 int
157 crit
266 haste

14 int + 116 haste worth the loss of 254 MS for 157 crit? I imagine yes, but I'd like to hear what y'all think.

[Deleted]

Tyrant boots are BiS since MS is only marginally better than crit. Also, stamina matters.

[Alzu]

They're also BiS as haste is so much more better than other stats and Tyrant's boots have a lot of haste.

[otterfluff]

Quick question for those who are more versed than I in mythic Gorefiend progression. Last night I coined mythic warforged+socketed Desecrated Shadowmoon Insignia, and was ecstatic. That said, I've now got three trinkets: heroic Demonic Phylactery and heroic Unstable Felshadow Emulsion, and the Insignia. As we are 5 healing the fight and I am not the person being sac'd in the beginning, might it be beneficial to drop the leech trinket and go for Insignia? I don't particularly hurt for mana at the moment unless i get stupid with SM+WG, but I'm not sure how much 400 spirit will hurt me overall. I have trouble healing the adds downstairs as it is, and don't think the leech really helps in the belly on the healer adds.

Any advice from those who've gone this path before would be awful helpful! <3

[theburned]

Quick question for those who are more versed than I in mythic Gorefiend progression. Last night I coined mythic warforged+socketed Desecrated Shadowmoon Insignia, and was ecstatic. That said, I've now got three trinkets: heroic Demonic Phylactery and heroic Unstable Felshadow Emulsion, and the Insignia. As we are 5 healing the fight and I am not the person being sac'd in the beginning, might it be beneficial to drop the leech trinket and go for Insignia? I don't particularly hurt for mana at the moment unless i get stupid with SM+WG, but I'm not sure how much 400 spirit will hurt me overall. I have trouble healing the adds downstairs as it is, and don't think the leech really helps in the belly on the healer adds.

Any advice from those who've gone this path before would be awful helpful! <3

Do not drop the leech trinket in any circumstance during gorefiend progression, for me and our shaman healer it did 12-13m for me and 12m ish for the shaman.
Not sure why you would be using the DSI as it's a dps trinket.
Personally I was using the kilrog trinket with RG + SM talents and unglyphed regrowth, also saving the kilrogg trinket + NV for stomach, it made me the far superior healer at the cost of some healing during feast phase. But we would much rather sucide our disc priest who did 1m healing inside compared to me doing between 1.7-2.3m each time I was inside, while it provided me with some very needed spot healing. As we were also 5 healing the feast phase wasnt that much of an issue, especially not with 2 leech trinkets.

Other than that I've read that genesis is quite good if you are planning on hotting up the ghosts inside.

[otterfluff]

Okay! Thanks for getting back to me! Might I request some logs from you to see how you implement those changes? That sounds rather drastic and far different from the approach I take.

[theburned]

Okay! Thanks for getting back to me! Might I request some logs from you to see how you implement those changes? That sounds rather drastic and far different from the approach I take.

was also running with 2p t17 and 2p t18 and was using very minimal amount of lifeblooms on the essences.

-
Above everyone else on tortured souls.
-
here I was inside one time less than the others which made me do less overall but did 2m on first and 1.77m on second, with a 3rd one I would've been quite above.

and also the leech trinket won't really show, but weak aura said it was around 12-13m. Which is very significant.

logs arent particularly high, both due to saving cds for tormented essences, RG/sotf build being generally weaker when it comes to raid healing, aswell as most guilds running with 4 healers instead of 5, aswell as only having it killed twice, but as for healers I found the most important part to handle the inside, good spot healing on the outside, while feast was just faceroll with cds, which RG + SOTF handled perfectly.

[Kaniinchen]

Little bit torn about the stat weights for this:
+14 Int/20sta/94 Haste
or
+151 Mastery.

[theburned]

Little bit torn about the stat weights for this:
+14 Int/20sta/94 Haste
or
+151 Mastery.

I would say mastery, a bit surprised how you get those stat differences (would assume socket same stats with less mastery more haste though.)

Though if you have quite a lot of mastery and not a lot of haste I would still consider it an insignificant difference.

[Alzu]

The answer depends on your gear but with my values (very high haste and mastery) the first one is better and my gear starts to devalue haste quite a bit. Still, haste is just too valuable compared to everything else.