Restoration healing tips!

[iLive]

Hi people...

I thought about a post, where Restoration Druids can share their experience with healing by giving some short tips. Tell a tip like addon, macro, stats prio, good things to know at some boss encounters etc. etc. Imagine a post with 20+ tips that can improve a Restoration Druid's healing? AWESOME!!! Just give a tip like the example.

If you place yourself between a group of players and cast Wild Growth on yourself, you will hit as many targets as posible, and when

Now it is your turn!

[kaylon]

I have thousands of tips in mind

* don't click!
* get a nice unitframe, grid + clique + gridstatushots or healbot. Also lifebloomer may come in handy for tanks or arena
* use some macros, NG + HT is the most important one
* in raids don't forget barkskin, saved my life way more than once
* get multiple gearsets
- balanced HoT set with around 220 haste (softcap in raids with GotEM) After hastecap go for spellpower
- manareg set, Get one or two spirit/mp5 trinkets + manaprocc meta, that should be it.
- througput set for flash heal bosses (razorscale for example) I use some moonkin leather without spirit in some fights. Go for haste>crit>spellpower>mp5/spirit
After experiencing a boss a couple of times mix your set to match the needs.
* Get a solid healing specc. You can find them multiple times on the forums, they are mostly the same with some minor differences. After a while you will probably pick your own specc according to personal favor.
* Learn to use your whole healing arsenal. Every spell has it's uses. There are often multiple ways o do your job, picking one is a matter of experience.

Thats it for starters

[elapadrinar]

*let lifebloom bloom if you can spare the GCDs to get it stacked back up. its more mana efficient and it has a very nice heal at the end now

[Wrinklefinger]

Most importantly, get yourself a 5 button mouse and set your heals to cast upon click. I can't stress that enough.

[Gzilia]

Most importantly, get yourself a 5 button mouse and set your heals to cast upon click. I can't stress that enough.

THIS

but this is a must for wow in general imho

[Thnika]

THIS

but this is a must for wow in general imho

no its not. learn to use modifiers with your macros or get an addon to make things easier on you, like healbot.

[Kaylesta]

Me, personally I use Grid+Mouseover Macros. Its pretty easy to heal too. Just mouseover your target and press your keybinding for a spell. Here's an example :

#showtooltip Regrowth
/cast [target=mouseover,exists,help,nodead] Regrowth; Regrowth

My stats I look for are

Spell power, the more you have the more you heal for.
Crit, I use as much crit as I can get if Im OT healing for Razorscale or Iron Council
Haste, I get about 350ish haste and Im G2G
Int, A decent amount so im not Oom 10 secs in
And Spirit, a good amount around 800-900 lets me have enuf regen to last the whole fight

[Gzilia]

no its not. learn to use modifiers with your macros or get an addon to make things easier on you, like healbot.

Ye thats just not the same, plus when you have a 5 buttons ( or more ) mouse you can make even more modifiers

anyway, For pvp a 5 mouse buttons mouse helps out ALLOT.

imo

[Madhoof]

Most importantly, get yourself a 5 button mouse and set your heals to cast upon click. I can't stress that enough.

Sry but that's bull****. Ok better say, that's a point where every gamer has its own opinion and taste. To say the way you handle your skills, is also the best way 4 everyone else automatically, is just wrong. E.g. I for myself couldn't even imagine using a mouse with more than 2 (3 incl. wheel) buttons, since I think it's not very pratical to handle the whole mouse when you've got extra buttons on it.

So it is absolutely NO matter wether you use a 2 button mouse or a 5 button mouse....

[Nanite]

I play on a mac using a touch pad, i have been to 2.2k+ in arena using this. On my druid i have remained competitive generally using scrollover macros for healing. My freinds are baffled by this but every gamer has his preferences, personally i like how using the touch pad offers me access to a few extra bindings (m,n,(,))

[iLive]

I play on a mac using a touch pad, i have been to 2.2k+ in arena using this. On my druid i have remained competitive generally using scrollover macros for healing. My freinds are baffled by this but every gamer has his preferences, personally i like how using the touch pad offers me access to a few extra bindings (m,n,(,))

When used my MacBook to play on, I also used the trackpad. Playing with that is very easy xD

[Spiritus]

Apples to Apples; To all his own ... oh, I thought this was a Philosophy class ...

I'm pretty sure all the dude was trying to say was what he feels is best. I think my MX Revolution 5-button mouse is 10x better then my previous 2-button mouse. Opinion, yes; should it be called BS for its praise? No.

I think the generalized points you can take from this thread is that you will probably run into HPS barriers if you click over key-binds. Mouse-over macros and mods that aid this are widely accepted as a positive change to your overall healing but is optional to a degree.

I haven't played a Resto druid since BC, but I used Grid (making use of its mouse-over feature) and key-binded my healing spells. I used 2 of my 5 buttons on my mouse as key-binds for my "Oh Shit" macros like (again, think BC) NS + HT or Rejuv + SM (had a cast string, hit twice and it swiftmends).

Apples to Apples; To all his own ...

[Nithian]

I would suggest getting Grid with the new Hottimers addition to it.

Get your "Ohshit!" macros made.... Nature's Swiftness+Healing Touch and Barkskin+Tranquility are my most helpful two.

Always let Lifebloom bloom now.

Remember to use Swiftmend as much as possible...it's wonderfully cheap and is an often-forgotten addition to our direct healing asrsenal.

Glyphed Nourish > Healing Touch in every way, shape and form now...period.

[iLive]

Glyphed Nourish > Healing Touch in every way, shape and form now...period.

IMO Glyph of Nourish aren't a good glyph for a Restoration Druid if the player is healing other people than the main tank. When you heal a someone with Nourish there aren't any chance the target has a healing over time spell on them (except for tanks), so this glyph is only good when there are healing over time spells on your target. I like having glyph of lifebloom, wild growth and swiftmend. I see many disagree in having Glyph of Lifebloom, but after patch 3.1 and the changes to Lifebloom, you make Lifebloom bloom more than you did before, and therefor increasing its duration with 10% means 10% more healing from Lifebloom. Wild Growth is one of the Druids most powerful spells. It heals with a good amount and are typically number 1 healing spell on healing meters. Your mana can afford keeping Wild Growth on cooldown, and by increasing the number of targets it heals, is really going to increase your healing! And then we have Swiftmend, which is nice because we are too greedy to lose one of our healing over time effects on our targets. ;P

[Degrador]

I see many disagree in having Glyph of Lifebloom, but after patch 3.1 and the changes to Lifebloom, you make Lifebloom bloom more than you did before, and therefor increasing its duration with 10% means 10% more healing from Lifebloom.

Wtf? That makes no sense at all. Since 3.1, yes, we do let lifebloom bloom more often. However, this means that 10% increased duration definitely does NOT mean 10% more healing. Previously where you were definitely rolling lifebloom on multiple tanks, having the increased duration made the spell more efficient and gave you more GCDs to play with. Now that you're not doing that, the extra tick is worth relatively little once you factor in the bloom.

I do agree that Glyph of Nourish is primarily a tank healing glyph, but your justifications for Glyph of Lifebloom really don't make any sense. Personally, I'd stick with Glyph of Nourish - with this and 4T7 IMO it makes druids almost the best tank healers in the game atm (close call with pallies), whilst still being able to do a bit of raid healing at the same time (WG + glyph).

[Dendrek]

I have to disagree with us being the best tank healers. We can't beat Palys on single target healing, especially against fast, hard-hitting attacks. We are incapable of putting out the kind of single-target hps that a Paly can.

However, we have not lost our place as one of the best tank-support and/or raid healers. HoTs are great at keeping the hp of one or more targets stable and at mitigating the severity of incoming damage, but they aren't so great at recovering hp quickly, nor is our Nourish.

[Degrador]

I have to disagree with us being the best tank healers. We can't beat Palys on single target healing, especially against fast, hard-hitting attacks. We are incapable of putting out the kind of single-target hps that a Paly can.

If you actually do the numbers you'll find we can actually put out a crapload of HPS on single targets. With the proper spec, between Regrowth HoT, Rejuv HoT, 3xLB, and Nourish spamming with glyph + 4T7, I reckon we'd be doing just as much as a pally.

Also, druids do better against fast hitting attacks as it means more of our HoTs will actually tick rather than slow hits where the tank is on 100% most of the time.

HoTs are great at keeping the hp of one or more targets stable and at mitigating the severity of incoming damage, but they aren't so great at recovering hp quickly, nor is our Nourish.

With full HoTs Nourish lands for 8k with a ~50% chance for a 12k crit plus a 4k shield, and with Nature's Grace Nourish spamming will give you a 1s cast almost 100% of the time. That plus HoTs easily puts us above 10k HPS potential for single target healing. I don't know a lot about pally healing numbers, but I'd be extremely surprised if it's a lot more than that. Also, I'm fairly certain they can't get anywhere near that with FoL, and HL has a lot slower cast time leading to much greater overhealing.

[axio]

Always let Lifebloom bloom now.

To elaberate on this, the best way from my experience and what I have read is to apply 2 stacks, if the bloom is overheal then apply the 3rd, otherwise let it bloom. Always let the 3rd stack wear off. (There is certain situations where you wouldn't want to, but most of the time its a good idea)

[iLive]

Wtf? That makes no sense at all. Since 3.1, yes, we do let lifebloom bloom more often. However, this means that 10% increased duration definitely does NOT mean 10% more healing. Previously where you were definitely rolling lifebloom on multiple tanks, having the increased duration made the spell more efficient and gave you more GCDs to play with. Now that you're not doing that, the extra tick is worth relatively little once you factor in the bloom.

It makes perfectly sence. The 10% increased durations means 10% more healing from the hot. Tell me what you don't understand?

I do agree that Glyph of Nourish is primarily a tank healing glyph, but your justifications for Glyph of Lifebloom really don't make any sense. Personally, I'd stick with Glyph of Nourish - with this and 4T7 IMO it makes druids almost the best tank healers in the game atm (close call with pallies), whilst still being able to do a bit of raid healing at the same time (WG + glyph).

You should know that you can't say which healing class is the best one for healing a tank. It all depends on the encounter. Druids aren't that good to heal heavy and slow damage but they are better at light and fast damage. We are also depended of having healing over time spells on our tank. If something happens and there aren't any, we need to use alot of time to recast them and then we can begin talking about Nourish. This can get tricky at some boss encounters. Discipline Priest are probably the best tank healers overall. Their Power Word: Shield + Divine Aegis are good no matter if its fast or slow attacks. They have spells like Penance that heals really fast with a really good amount. Druids are more IMO good at multiple roles. When I play as a Restoration Druid I go with hots on MT ad Wild Growth + Nourish/Regrowth on raid. So when we play, we do all the roles, and I think that is the role for a Restoration Druid. We might be good MT healers, but DPriest are still better. We can also be decent raid healers, but Shamans are also better at this toegther with their chain heal. I am not saying that the Restoration Druid aren't good at anything, but that we are awesome by doing multiple roles all at once during an encounter.

[Degrador]

It makes perfectly sence. The 10% increased durations means 10% more healing from the hot. Tell me what you don't understand?

In the same sentance he was saying that we let LB bloom more, and therefore it means that a 10% increased duration is 10% more healing from Lifebloom. However, if we're letting it bloom more, it means that there's even less of a benefit from the 10% increased duration. In mathetmatical terms, given Bloom > 0, (1.1*HoT + Bloom) / (HoT + Bloom) < 1.1.

You should know that you can't say which healing class is the best one for healing a tank. It all depends on the encounter.

True, but there are always going to be some classes that are better in more cases than others. Due to the 3.1 changes, I believe druids would make better tank healers (in terms of both healing output and delay time between damage taken and heal received) in more situations than others, including holy pallies and disc priests.

Druids are more IMO good at multiple roles.

I'd agree with that - I never said druids weren't good at other roles too, and in fact this may be the best argument for them not to be pure tank healers. Eg, if you've got a holy pally, disc priest, and resto druid in a 10 man raid, then there's no question you'd put the druid on raid heals and the others on tank heals.