What do Druid Hots actually bring to a raid healing roster ?

[Krazyito]

..... Then they nerfed rejuv 5%.

You realize that this nerf was only to counteract the haste buff they gave everyone. Otherwise rejuv would have gotten WAY out of hand. It pretty much cancels each other out and is not that much different.

[Silvaren7]

Its less using an LFR log and more...poor log usage. You simply can't add up total raw healing from a spell and divide by casts as it doesn't take the buffs/debuffs into account, let alone for this comparison you can simply use base numbers. The reality is simple though, WG is ALWAYS more mana efficient then Rejuv just by looking at the unbuffed numbers of a glyphed WG vs germination Rejuv.

There are essentially 5 problems with WG though: 1) High mana cost 2) Hits random people 3) the healing is actually low enough that in most cases the healed parties need further healing or (less often) the damage was low enough WG was a waste 4) often the ability can be sniped (for instance a pally heals one of your WG targets thus negating 1/6 of your WGs potential) 5) When using with SoTF the swiftmend mana/heal can often be wasted to get the SotF proc (rejuv only on full health tanks for instance)

Thats not to say WG isn't worth using, it just requires better timing then simply using it as your go to AoE heal spell. Now a much much much more mana efficient spell is Lifebloom, you should have higher uptime on that.

[Xami]

The thread seems to have derailed a bit, but on topic:

OP, if you feel that your HoTs aren't as effective, you may be running with too many healers, or you're outgearing the content. When the healing gets easier with gear, it's the absorbs then the direct heals that will make up for most of the raid healing. Meaning, Disc and Holy Paladin will come out ahead on farm content, and Druids and Mistweavers will be last. But what matters is when things aren't so easy and people aren't topped off immediatley; in these situations, your HoTs will start to shine. HoTs tend to overheal, but when they don't, they are very strong.

[Hildrande]

It pretty much cancels each other out and is not that much different.

No, it made Rejuvenation weaker relative to Wild Growth.

[Silvaren7]

Regarding OPs main question, well its a rather simple one. Druid HoTs are very similar to both disc/pally absorbs, but instead of giving additional max HP they heal and unlike the bubbles provided by either the HoTs can be cast post damage as well (stackable in the druids case). A common instance is a tank with Lifebloom, rejuv, and wild mushroom on them....this heals the tank (completely buffed looking at my #'s) for a bit over 10k/s non-crit, which is a TON considering that over an entire fight a tank averages 20-40k DTPS). This really helps smooth out a tanks health and allows healers to not worry about the tank taking minor AoE damage. The HoTs also heal for even more when Ironbark is on the tank.

Lets also consider that druids have great burst healing, probably the best of all 5 healers (SM + NS) combined with regrowth + living seed, and the best single raid CD of all 5 healers. Their HoTS are also ABSURDLY mana efficient with minimal overhealing so in some situations like Ko'ragh's Mark of Shadow they really shine.

It sounds like your Raid Leader is simply terrible at his job and needs to quit while hes "ahead".

[Hildrande]

You simply can't add up total raw healing from a spell and divide by casts

Sure you can. There's wowhead SP%, spreadsheets and tooltip values, but what actually matters, when we talk about being able to generate HPS in a mana constrained healing landscape, is how much healing you actually get for the mana you actually spend in an actual fight. Raw numbers are relevant because they are less situational than net values, but when evaluating performance at an actual fight, net values is off course what's interesting.

Being a good healer is not about maximising HPS - but knowing how it can be done is important.

[Aqua]

Your raid leader is full of it, health pillows are great. The holy paladin compliments the restoration druid perfectly (when they work together and not against one another)

The monk might be the one throwing that off balance though, since they're nice little 'health pillows' as well. Arguably you need a solid Priest full time.

But healers are meant to work together, if one is getting too much over the others, it does need to be looked at why, and if a wipe is caused, where resources can be shifted. During progress HPS is not important, prevention of death is.

And I happen to think resto druids help prevent death just dandy, that health buffer can mean the difference of a few % that might have otherwise finished a raider off. Leave the spikier healers to heal up a mistake, but you probably just saved that person from being one shot.

I wouldn't just bring 4 H paladins to raid, that'd be silly, the variety of cooldowns and utility is why the healers are all necessary. And tranq, rebirth, barkskin are all snazzy in my book.

[Silvaren7]

Sure you can. There's wowhead SP%, spreadsheets and tooltip values, but what actually matters, when we talk about being able to generate HPS in a mana constrained healing landscape, is how much healing you actually get for the mana you actually spend in an actual fight. Raw numbers are relevant because they are less situational than net values, but when evaluating performance at an actual fight, net values is off course what's interesting.

Being a good healer is not about maximising HPS - but it's part of the picture.

Glad you quoted a specific line, cutting off the relevant part to make the quoted part make sense, to make yourself "win" an argument you are simply wrong on. You CAN NOT take the literal raw #'s log on a boss fight and divide them by # of casts in comparing 2 different abilities and then make a blanket statement using "#"s from this. There are so many other things to consider and they simply do not give an accurate representation.

For instance: Entire raid gets a mortal strike debuff and takes AoE and you cast wild growth during this time to help heal. You then compare Rejuv and WG....Rejuv is now way more mana efficient.

Looking at fight specific performance (even timing specific) is something to consider when looking at logs, something you are not doing. The reality is simple...unless you are overwriting your own HoTs, have a buff sometimes, or target has a healing buff/debuff sometimes...your log HPM for WG and Rejuv should be the exact same as the tooltip numbers raid buffed with harmony. You are literally just misusing the logs and stating random things about WG that have no relation to anything, let alone the OP.

[Deleted]

You forgot Tranquility. It's the most powerful (?) raid-wide healing CD of the game. Also like Monk or Holy Priest, Druid are good when the whole raid take sustained damage and burst damage, because HOT won't overheal much and the healing power we have on those case really matter.

On fight where the damage are more sporadic and/or centered on the tanks, we do not shine in term of pure HPS but the hots rolling on both tanks is quite the help for your Hpal / Disc, along with the 1-min CD Barkskin (+20% heal on target and 20% damage mitigation for 12sec IS strong). Still, we have some emergency tools too like Nature's Swiftness, Swiftmend, glyphed Regrowth and dare I say Genesis.

We are indeed very different from let's say a Holy Pal, but we're a team in the end and work well with each other. Better than 2 holy pal or 2 Rdrood =)

Tranq is not accually the strongest healing CD tho, Both revival and Hymn are better in most situations, even healing tide comes close because you can accually still heal when the totem is down. Tranq is not "exeptional" compared to the other CD's. Just because it can heal for more doesnt mean its more valuable then the other raid CD's.

Holy priests do everything a druid does but better, their hymn might heal for way less but giving 20% increase healing for 18 seconds to all other healers is really strong.

Besides that Circle of healing is better than Wild Growth and Renew is almost just as good as Rejuv and they have better single target healing. Also its insanly strong that you can target heal 5 players with Prayer of Healing.

[Cannibalus]

The meters don't lie. We have a lot of smartheals, like Wild Growth which only applies to the lowest targets, Nature's Vigil splash healing for 30% of your single target (imagine that for every 3 rejuvs you have a 4th "rejuv" that just goes where it's needed) or even Dream of Cenarius (which is the best thing to go atm if you can come up with a proper rotation, if not stick to NV or HotW). Also Rdruid is very easy to play at low-skill levels and also very demanding at high levels, because you have the be like a ninja on anticipating raid damage. I actually think that by playing a Rdruid, you just become as better player overall, because you don't have failsafes like other classes do.

I have Resto as my 2nd OS, but i play it quite ok, still have a lot to learn, but i manage to heal in raid when needed, got over wave 30 in PG in WoD and MoP and currently healing Gold CMs.

Also i think you wanted an example: let's say that 6 of your raid members are at or below half hp with 2 of them critically wounded and the tank is struggling aswell. Also you have no hots on anyone, this is just an example of pure burst. On tank: Rejuv + Swiftmend -> target the lowest hp guy and do an empowered Wild Growth (with SotF), then do 2 Rejuvs on the critically wounded and go genesis. In about 7-8 seconds you have all these people at around 80% or more.

[Deleted]

The meters don't lie. We have a lot of smartheals, like Wild Growth which only applies to the lowest targets, Nature's Vigil splash healing for 30% of your single target (imagine that for every 3 rejuvs you have a 4th "rejuv" that just goes where it's needed) or even Dream of Cenarius (which is the best thing to go atm if you can come up with a proper rotation, if not stick to NV or HotW). Also Rdruid is very easy to play at low-skill levels and also very demanding at high levels, because you have the be like a ninja on anticipating raid damage. I actually think that by playing a Rdruid, you just become as better player overall, because you don't have failsafes like other classes do.
.

Thats not accually how smart heal works in WoD, they changed that any player that does not have 100% health has a chance on recieving Wild Growth, its not the lowest players anymore, so often if you use it wrong you're gonna waste a lot of healing.

NV works the same way (and imo is never worth taking anyway because having 35% extra healing when you need it is always stronger than that "1 rejuv" and if you accually need to heal extensively for 40 seconds it even profides more overall healing.

Same goes for DoC, it can overheal just by picking the target thats on 99% health.

[Deleted]

Tranq is not accually the strongest healing CD tho, Both revival and Hymn are better in most situations, even healing tide comes close because you can accually still heal when the totem is down. Tranq is not "exeptional" compared to the other CD's. Just because it can heal for more doesnt mean its more valuable then the other raid CD's.

Holy priests do everything a druid does but better, their hymn might heal for way less but giving 20% increase healing for 18 seconds to all other healers is really strong.

Besides that Circle of healing is better than Wild Growth and Renew is almost just as good as Rejuv and they have better single target healing. Also its insanly strong that you can target heal 5 players with Prayer of Healing.

It's arguable. I think they differ on many points, making them stronger on certain scenarios and weaker on others. Hymn is very good but is not self-sufficient, that's the drawback. You forgot to mention how strong mushroom is for raid stacking situations where Sanctuary is near useless. Wild Growth (especially with SotF) is way more bursty than CoH etc etc.

[Deleted]

Since im EU i wasn't able to respond so far

It is great to have numerous good replies from you guys, thank you for that !

I wouldn't just bring 4 H paladins to raid, that'd be silly

Funnily enough, that was his follow up wish. But this is not about my raid leader and I would like to note that he has been a super guy
so far, it was simply an objective exchange of viewpoints and he really tried to not be offending.

FYI we are progressing hc imperator atm and im ilevel 655 usually pulling 28k hps or so.

I would actually like to follow up with an important question on my part, as I see some replies referring to uses of regrowth and healing touch :


The most difficult part of playing Rest druid for me, has been deciding when to apply hots and move on and when to make use of healing touch or regrowth.

Keeping harmony up and lifebloom, applying shrooms etc come well by now but the above is still irking me.

Currently I resort to regrowth only in emergencies, for example someone at 20%.

I literally never use healing touch, I just do not know when it would be useful as it is actually barely more mana efficient than glyphed regrowth + seed.


When everyone is taking sutain dmg, I whip out rejuv and maybe a sotf + WB.

When single targets go dangerously low I regrowth.

When single targets are medium i double rejuv.


Where exactly is the space for healing touch ?

- - - Updated - - -

Lets also consider that druids have great burst healing, probably the best of all 5 healers (SM + NS) combined with regrowth + living seed,

This is particularly interesting to me as I have not come across that premises before.

My understanding so far has been that Druid direct heals are simply to inefficient to with other, direct heal specialized healers in that regard, mana is just such an issue on the druid, I do not feel that way on my shaman or disc priest.

- - - Updated - - -

because you have the be like a ninja on anticipating raid damage.

I might have room for improvement there as I play my HOTS quite re actively, pre hotting is not something I do at all, since I am worried about wasting ticks on currently health targets.

[Thalur]

Guys, your arguments about mana efficiency of WG ws. Rejuv are kind of missing the point. (Glyphed) WG has always had a higher HPM than Rejuv when not considering overheal. But the important aspect is its burst: distributing Rejuvs cannot be the answer to AoE damage, because even if Rejuv has slightly higher HPM than WG because of overheal, its throughput (HPET) is so much lower that this is not an option in challenging content. Healing in mythic is not mostly about mana management, that part is actually pretty easy except for Imperator. It is about getting the healing where it is needed, and without WG we would be pretty bad at that.

So when to use WG? Whenever there is a significant amount of damage going out to 6+ players. Except for raid CDs, there is nothing that comes close to the throughput of WG. For one GCD cast time, WG heals 6 players for 65k each (or 100k with SotF) over 7 seconds (in ~685 gear). This is by far the most powerful healing spell ingame (long CD spells like Tranq excluded).

So in fights (or phases) where AoE throughput is important, use it. It having better HPM than Rejuv doesn't even matter, because they are doing completely different things. HPM is only interesting for low-damage phases, where you have the option because you have enough time to heal people up with Rejuv. However, Rejuv also heals for 65k over its duration, so it's not likely to overheal less. The situation in which you want to use Rejuv is when someone needs some healing now and more healing a few seconds later. (Or you have less than 5 targets who need healing, or WG is on CD.)

Currently I resort to regrowth only in emergencies, for example someone at 20%.
I literally never use healing touch, I just do not know when it would be useful as it is actually barely more mana efficient than glyphed regrowth + seed.
When everyone is taking sutain dmg, I whip out rejuv and maybe a sotf + WG.
When single targets go dangerously low I regrowth.
When single targets are medium i double rejuv.
Where exactly is the space for healing touch ?

That sounds about right. Healing Touch is currently in a very bad state and shouldn't be used in raids except for refreshing Lifebloom and Harmory when nothing else is going on, and (optionally) with Nature's Swiftness. (In AoE Situations, you don't usually want to double Rejuv someone, but rather spread the rejuvs around.)

My understanding so far has been that Druid direct heals are simply to inefficient to with other, direct heal specialized healers in that regard, mana is just such an issue on the druid, I do not feel that way on my shaman or disc priest.

Actually, it's quite the contrary. Druids have the most throughput of all classes, and in a (theoretical) scenario when the raid takes so much damage that there is no overheal, druids blow all other classes out of the water.
And it really needs to be that way. If hots were not more powerful than direct heals, hot classes would be pretty weak. Hots are balanced around doing some amount of overhealing. Of course it requires a lot of experience (both druid and encounter) to correctly judge when to put a hot on which player. But you'll get to that.
What hots can do and direct healing cannot, is pre-hot some players before AoE damage comes in. The advantage of this is called "keeping the raid stable": With single target heals, you can heal one player up while the other stay low. With hots, you can heal up everyone at the same time, reducing the danger of someone dying. (AoE heals do the same, but they all have a CD or other limitations.)

[Deleted]

Ofc, if you bring too many healers to an encounter Druids are terrible (e.g. LFR). If you don't bring enough, Druids look amazing (2 heal something that should have been 3 heal).

That made me think of a good example: The first class to solo-heal shit is usually druid iirc.

Plus agree with most of your post. Overhealing an encounter makes the druid healer look extra bad.

- - - Updated - - -

Actually, it's quite the contrary. Druids have the most throughput of all classes, and in a (theoretical) scenario when the raid takes so much damage that there is no overheal, druids blow all other classes out of the water.
And it really needs to be that way. If hots were not more powerful than direct heals, hot classes would be pretty weak. Hots are balanced around doing some amount of overhealing. Of course it requires a lot of experience (both druid and encounter) to correctly judge when to put a hot on which player. But you'll get to that.

Agreed with the second part. Hots have to be tuned slightly better than direct heals. If they weren't, your raid leader would be right in questioning a druids place.
Another good example for druid throughput: What is the best CM healer at the moment? Right (okay there is heart, but even for throughput and mechanics druid is boss)

- - - Updated - - -

The way I see the healing classes:
Disc: Absorbs, absorb and absorbs. And damage reduction cooldowns.
Paladin: back to their tank healing role, thanks to beacon. Absorbs to keep tanks/players from spiking.
Druid and Monk: raw HPS, bring player HP back up
Holy Priest: no idea to be honest; inclined to just put them with monks and druids.
Shaman: keeping people from dying, thanks to their mastery and CDs. Kinda clunky with their stacked healing, and imo hit harder than other healers by the smart-healing nerf.

So apart from the HPS spam classes, they fill very distinct roles again. The lower they are on they list, the worse they look on an overhealed encounter. Still, in a group where players are not trying to outwhore each other on the meters, a balanced setup > all. And that's what your raid leader doesn't understand.

my2cents

[Hildrande]

Looking at fight specific performance (even timing specific) is something to consider when looking at logs, something you are not doing....your log HPM for WG and Rejuv should be the exact same as the tooltip numbers raid buffed with harmony.

Off course there's more to healing than HPS and HPM, but those to statistics are still important and interesting to discuss.

Tooltips aren't allways accurate, at the moment the WG tooltip in particular seems to be far from accurate, and looking at actual combat performance is alot more illuminating than going all theory.

[Silvaren7]

This is particularly interesting to me as I have not come across that premises before.

My understanding so far has been that Druid direct heals are simply to inefficient to with other, direct heal specialized healers in that regard, mana is just such an issue on the druid, I do not feel that way on my shaman or disc priest.

There is a difference between "burst" and sustained direct heal, you are talking about sustained single target healing, something druids are average to good in, but are not the best due to a paladins beacons efficiency or priests situational CoW. Druid HoT are extremely mana efficient sustained direct heal, while our cast (namely regrowth) direct heals are simply not very good for sustained direct heal, but are amazing for "burst" when coupled with 2 of our low CD abilities of NS and swiftmend added to our pre-existing HoTs ticking along. Let alone taking ToL or SotF into account for burst druids are simply ludicrous. The scary point for any class, tank especially is when they take burst damage, not sustained, thus burst healing is quite valuable. Now highmaul itself has low burst damage, but its still a relevant point and something no other healing class can compare too without using much longer CDs (the only comparable burst healing is LoH and cocoon). A paladin may be the king of sustained single target healing, but a druid is, without question, the king of burst single target.