[Resto] Druid Guide & Discussion (6.0.3)

[Keiyra]

Why so much bickering! We are droods! We live in harmony with the forest and eachother

Harmony does not mean absolute peace. The forest is full of violence as one life ends another in the struggle to survive.

[Lazyo]

We live in harmony with the forest and eachother

I'm confused, how can we live in a buff ? Is this real life ?

[Teramelle]

Which combination of these trinkets is best? I'm not sure what would be ideal...

Auto-Repairing Autoclave (700ilvl + Socketed)
Ironspike Chew Toy (700ilvl)
Unstable Felshadow Emulsion (715ivl)

[Tiberria]

The value of the Leech trinket varies significantly based on the damage patterns of each individual fight (i.e. how much effective healing Leech is doing). It requires digging into in through logs. On a fight where the Leech isn't providing a significant amount of output for the raid, Autoclave/Chew Toy will be better.

[Teramelle]

The value of the Leech trinket varies significantly based on the damage patterns of each individual fight (i.e. how much effective healing Leech is doing). It requires digging into in through logs. On a fight where the Leech isn't providing a significant amount of output for the raid, Autoclave/Chew Toy will be better.

Hmm. Yeah, I'll need to look into things a bit more in that case and work out which fights will be best for it, I suppose.

[ryklin]

basically, try to note that other healers are able to make more use of it on more fights, although the trinket will still be just as good for us on its best fights like tyrant

use emulsion on any fight where bosses apply dots, or where people are likely the not really stay topped off for more than 10s

the best choice though is to just swap them around on prog and see what gives the best results, on some of the earlier bosses which will go down without much healing trouble and high dps, just drop autoclave, but on harder fights, probably emulsion+autoclave as the starting set and adjust trinkets if you think it might improve

yeah, it is very significant based on damage of the fight, but it is also worth noting that some other classes just apply it faster and more cleanly than druids for gear distribution (specifically, holy priest cascade, monk chi burst going into dmg with 2-3 uplifts and shaman's mastery and most their kit's burst cds) that apply buff much faster than just hots (I'm just leaving this here so you ignore your shaman or monk when they say its really good for fight X)

[Kroky]

Hello I'm still learning the ropes as a druid healer, and earlier ir BRF i went OOM rather fast, so I've stacked spirit pretty hard. So, I'm kinda wondering how much spirit are you guys running around with? My mana-management is pretty okey now, but I feel im lacking some int due to my spirit stacking.

[Zorick]

I bonus rolled the heroic leech trinket last week.

I'm trying to quantify the amount of healing it's adding to the raid. Frustrating that it doesn't actually add to my personal healing, but rather to whomever gains the buff, but added healing is added healing.

Link to logs: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/xpwRAPQncKhgtBWy

What I did in WCL was filter Shadowfel Infusion and looked at the total Leech healing done during that time. Obviously a player's natural leech will offset these values slightly, but it shouldn't be by much.

By the logic above, looking at 8 boss kills from the logs above leech during a period of Shadowfel Infusion healed for around 2m per fight.

--

Anyone see or have a better way to actual figure out how much healing the trinket is attributing to the raid?

[Sprucelee]

Do you not realize that a HUGE part of the reason why there isn't "cyclical balance" and why certain classes (cough Paladins/Disc cough) always seem to end up on top every tier/expansion is the way that the community of those classes responds to being in a weak place. When Disc Priests were slightly weak at the start of T14, the community outcry was deafening, and Blizzard immediately caved and overbuffed them for the rest of the expansion. Whenever Holy Pallies have any possibility of being on the low end/mandatory, their community goes apeshit - from Method raiders right on down to casuals. Just have a look at the Paladin thread this PTR cycle for an example of that. They managed to browbeat Celestalon into unjustifiably reverting the Holy Shock mana cost nerf so they could continue to be completely overpowered. Meanwhile, the Druid community for the most part doesn't act that way at all and/or has people like you spending your entire time trying to shout down any semblance of a complaint (and any semblance of criticism of the class design idiocy of your former guildmate) instead of aggressively advocating for the betterment of the spec. Did you ever think that people that take that stance and the overall passiveness of the Druid community compared to the militancy of Priests and Pallies is a big reason why the Resto Druid spec never seems to get the same time to shine as other specs?

As far as what I'm doing this tier, it's not my decision. I am going to miss like 2 full weeks of early Mythic because I will be on vacation in Seattle - a trip that has been booked since long before when it was clear when the tier would be released. After going through an entire tier of raiding and working full time while undergoing chemo/cancer treatment, I need the vacation and it is what it is.

One week of heroic down and mythic is rolling, and it is quite obvious our representation will be good, and possibly better than BRF. Top guilds are rolling with Druids (i.e. great to see Sonie back in action).

Sure glad the sky did not fall on all of us!

[Tiberria]

One week of heroic down and mythic is rolling, and it is quite obvious our representation will be good, and possibly better than BRF. Top guilds are rolling with Druids (i.e. great to see Sonie back in action).

Sure glad the sky did not fall on all of us!

And, again, your head is so far in the sand that you are delusional beyond belief. Mythic numbers are way too early to be analyzed, but we do know so far that Midwinter and Limit (top 2 US guilds) are both not using a Resto Druid at all. Ascencion had one of their Holy Pallies play a Resto Druid alt for M Kilrogg (there may be something going on there), but otherwise are not using one. Multiple top guilds seem to be going back to running 2xHPally, which is very troubling for healer balance overall.

At any rate, there are enough Heroic numbers to dig in a little further and debunk you completely.

- On the surface, Druid HPS numbers (middle of the pack) and representation numbers (2nd behind HPallies) look fine, but that masks severe problems if you dig a little deeper.
- Both representation and HPS numbers are strongly inflated by strong performance and representation on the first two bosses, and to a lesser extent the first five. Dig down further though.
- Our representation on Archimonde, Mannoroth, Xhul'orac, Fel Lord and Shadow Lord falls from 2nd to 4th overall. The later the boss, the closer we get to Monks in overall representation while Druids nearly double Mistweaver representation on the first few bosses. This again points to the fact that Druid representation numbers are inflated by the class/spec being very heavily played in the overall player population. However, as you move up to the higher levels of play and difficulty, the numbers fall right off. BRF had exactly the same trend, and you can't dismiss it as "all Resto Druids played Boomkin on Blackhand" this time around.
-We are behind our closest competition (MW) on 5 of the last 6 bosses, and that gap will get larger as MW get their overpowered set bonuses. Even if you have 2 throughput healing spots on a fight (it's a given 3 spots are taken up by HPally/Disc/RShaman), Mistweavers will be clearly the better option. I remember you idiotically defending the nerf to our set bonuses despite the MW one being left untouched because "surely they will nerf that too". What do you have to say for yourself about that now?
- Losing mobile Tranq is noticably problematic on several of these fights. On Mannoroth if you need a throughput raid cooldown for the raid wide push back (the most dangerous part of the fight), our cooldown is useless. On Archimonde, if you are trying to Tranq P2, and one of those add silencing circles spawns on you - you are also fucked - while Shaman and Monks laugh at it. This is again something that you unjustifiably defended and screamed down all criticism of, and something that will ultimately hurt the spec.

[Sprucelee]

And, again, your head is so far in the sand that you are delusional beyond belief. Mythic numbers are way too early to be analyzed, but we do know so far that Midwinter and Limit (top 2 US guilds) are both not using a Resto Druid at all. Ascencion had one of their Holy Pallies play a Resto Druid alt for M Kilrogg (there may be something going on there), but otherwise are not using one. Multiple top guilds seem to be going back to running 2xHPally, which is very troubling for healer balance overall.

At any rate, there are enough Heroic numbers to dig in a little further and debunk you completely.

- On the surface, Druid HPS numbers (middle of the pack) and representation numbers (2nd behind HPallies) look fine, but that masks severe problems if you dig a little deeper.
- Both representation and HPS numbers are strongly inflated by strong performance and representation on the first two bosses, and to a lesser extent the first five. Dig down further though.
- Our representation on Archimonde, Mannoroth, Xhul'orac, Fel Lord and Shadow Lord falls from 2nd to 4th overall. The later the boss, the closer we get to Monks in overall representation while Druids nearly double Mistweaver representation on the first few bosses. This again points to the fact that Druid representation numbers are inflated by the class/spec being very heavily played in the overall player population. However, as you move up to the higher levels of play and difficulty, the numbers fall right off. BRF had exactly the same trend, and you can't dismiss it as "all Resto Druids played Boomkin on Blackhand" this time around.
-We are behind our closest competition (MW) on 5 of the last 6 bosses, and that gap will get larger as MW get their overpowered set bonuses. Even if you have 2 throughput healing spots on a fight (it's a given 3 spots are taken up by HPally/Disc/RShaman), Mistweavers will be clearly the better option. I remember you idiotically defending the nerf to our set bonuses despite the MW one being left untouched because "surely they will nerf that too". What do you have to say for yourself about that now?
- Losing mobile Tranq is noticably problematic on several of these fights. On Mannoroth if you need a throughput raid cooldown for the raid wide push back (the most dangerous part of the fight), our cooldown is useless. On Archimonde, if you are trying to Tranq P2, and one of those add silencing circles spawns on you - you are also fucked - while Shaman and Monks laugh at it. This is again something that you unjustifiably defended and screamed down all criticism of, and something that will ultimately hurt the spec.

So the sky is still falling? Oh no! Run chicken little run!

[Tiberria]

So the sky is still falling? Oh no! Run chicken little run!

And you have nothing constructive to add? Quel surprise.

[stormgust]

So got my 2t18 today - seems like it only heals for 2/3 of what lifebloom actually blooms for

[Tiberria]

So got my 2t18 today - seems like it only heals for 2/3 of what lifebloom actually blooms for

Yes - they made that nerf on PTR at the same time as they reduced the proc chance from 60% to 30%. Given how overpowered the Disc and MW set bonuses are, there was really no reason for that change.

[Sprucelee]

And you have nothing constructive to add? Quel surprise.

Nah, I am bored of your unending and poorly thought out TC. I will let the statistics roll in, and enjoy.

Oh look, there comes the only logged kill of Kromok.. with a Druid. AND WTF! He even had the gall the be top HPS... didn't he get the memo??????? Oh look, the WF kill of Kilrogg.. a Druid! Wooo.. go Druids, leading edge! And look at that... silly Method... wasting gear on a Druid on all their first kills.... obviously not going for WF this tier.

What do they know.. they should have listened to Tiberria, the class balancinator!

[stormgust]

While I wouldn't say we're as bad as Tiberria makes us out to be, the fact that we do not have access to ridicously broken trinkets (hpally) or setbonuses (disc and foremost mistweaver) definitely has us lagging behind other specs later down the road.

[Sprucelee]

Can't win them all! I have always clearly said we would be middle of the pack, and have solid representation. Of course there will be comp changes based on each fight (hey there Tyrant and Monk T18)... that's raiding!

It appears that many guilds (who have very solid understandings of tier gear/trinkets), are going ahead and rolling with/gearing Druids. Very few top guilds will alter their gearing strategy mid progression.

You even have Paragon continuing their tradition of using a Holy Priest.. but Tiberria the balancinator has proclaimed they are the worst..! what's up with that? Dem Fins don't know how to raid...

[Deleted]

Can't win them all! I have always clearly said we would be middle of the pack, and have solid representation. Of course there will be comp changes based on each fight (hey there Tyrant and Monk T18)... that's raiding!

It appears that many guilds (who have very solid understandings of tier gear/trinkets), are going ahead and rolling with/gearing Druids. Very few top guilds will alter their gearing strategy mid progression.

You even have Paragon continuing their tradition of using a Holy Priest.. but Tiberria the balancinator has proclaimed they are the worst..! what's up with that? Dem Fins don't know how to raid...

As if paragon is gonna replace jhazrun who's been raiding with them for years with another healer just because of class balance...same goes for all guilds
Just because a class is worse doesn't mean a good player can't hold his own in a mythic environment.

[Sprucelee]

As if paragon is gonna replace jhazrun who's been raiding with them for years with another healer just because of class balance...same goes for all guilds
Just because a class is worse doesn't mean a good player can't hold his own in a mythic environment.

Exactly! Preach on!

The variance between classes is minimal, no one is so weak as to necessitate being sat (not even a Holy Priest on the bleeding edge of progression). Life will go on, and guilds will bring the same people as always.

Spam your Rejuvs and have fun in HFC

[womd]

I think the real point that many "sky falling" proclaimers are missing is the vast majority of players are not the top 10 or even top 50 guilds. The real meat of the player base, the real representative of what class is what, the statistics that blizzard really pulls from and deems X or Y balanced or acceptable are the guilds that have not completed half of heroic. The guilds that will go a month or more without stepping foot into mythic. There is so much publicity and hype around these tops guilds and what they do that many completely discredit the big picture. Top guilds are not what blizzard balances/tunes around.

Another big issue is the direction this thread (and many "class" threads on mmo-c) is trending towards. I come to a thread labeled "Resto Druid Guide and Discussion" and I expect to find discussion about the class mechanics, and when to use what skill/item/talent. Or how different people are handling different bosses or healing comps. You know? a REAL guide, not the quibbling of a few who can only argue which class is better. Where is the item lists, or the trinket discussion or the part about actually playing the class, not who you are being "sat" for. The OP still says "Currently updated for 6.0.3", what does this say about this thread? That isn't an attack on the author who may or may not be able to update it, it speaks to the actual content that this thread may or may not contain.

I'm in a structured guild with a set 3 day 3.5 hours a night guild that is only 6 kills into heroic, nothing amazing, but not lfr fodder either. I consider myself a competent healer, but do not have the time or skills required to theory craft different aspects of my play. That is why I and many others probably around the same skill/progression as myself come to a forum like this. To get information and insight on how others are PLAYING. And its quite sad that this thread is severely lacking

/2cents