Resto Druids - Healing Guide

[Trexxuss]

that was Iron council hard mode 25 man fight, me and resto shaman was healing raid, mostly used rejuve, wg, swiftments, and btw i have full T8.5 3100 spell power buffed in raid

[Cerelli]

so you had hots ticking on 25 people at once? wow, real impressive... wait. no not really.

[Lifeblumspam]

Try to beat my hps 10.3k hps new world record as resto druid?
there is screenshoot proving

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/822...1009222829.jpg

What's your "1 key" Macro?

[Trexxuss]

so you had hots ticking on 25 people at once? wow, real impressive... wait. no not really.

gogo show me ur highest hps screen shoot mr. smart

[lonewuhf]

Actually that's a bug with recount... I had a DK in a Vault raid yesterday that had the EXACT same dps (unless you think 10k dps is possible). Don't brag about bugs, it makes you look dumb.

[Cerelli]

gogo show me ur highest hps screen shoot mr. smart

if i cared enough to check that statistic, or if i thought it had any true relevancy i would. but i don't make a regular habit of stroking my e-peen with screen shots of my healing statistics.

Since your raid wiped on the previous fight, clearly your 10k healing is a true measure of your ability as a healer. Now if you can reproduce that statistic on an actual hard mode boss kill, i could consider giving you credit. But not until then.

[ozmethod]

A few things to make the guide 100% better. It's decent now, but with a little time input, could be much, much better.

1) Look up the names to the gems. Or here, I'll do it for ya. Blue gem is Purified Twilight Opal, Red gem is Runed Scarlet Ruby, yellow is Luminous Monarch Topaz, and the Meta is Insightful Earthsiege Diamond.

2) Get rid of any "fuzzy guesstimates," and spend the few minutes necessary to get the numbers. One quick one to get ya started: assuming 30 Casts per minute, or one every 2 seconds, IED gives 75 mp5. At 40 cpm, or every 1.5 seconds, it gives 100 mp5. At 60 CPM, which would be a haste-GCD capped druid spamming nonstop, 150 mp5.

3) Personal opinions should be kept to a bare minimum. The best example of this is the Leather VS Cloth section. "For emphasis, I do not believe that you should roll against a priest/clothie who can use cloth" is completely your opinion on a debate between clothies and druids. Regardless of your personal opinion, several cloth pieces are Best In Slot for resto druids. This is a matter completely up to the individual and his guild.

4) Glyph choices are explained fairly well, although I can't say I recommend the Wild Growth glyph for 90% of the fights in Ulduar. I went through our last two ulduar parses, and the average amount of targets hit with each WG was 2-3. In these cases, that glyph is an absolute waste. I do however keep a stack of them on me for the few exceptions, where the raid is tightly packed and a 6th target will actually be hit.

5) The paragraph on how healing used to be 20 levels ago really has no relevance to how healing is now, and serves only as a possible source of confusion.

6) Mods - I'm gonna agree with the person who posted that once someone has tried healing with a mod, they seldom go back to mod-less. I personally prefer Healbot, as it keeps near perfect track of exactly who has your hots, which they have, and how many stacks. Grid can do the same thing just as well, I just happen to like the graphically representation better than the small dots of grid.

7) You are 50% there on keybindings. You are doing well to have all your heals bound, but click-targeting is still slower than a mouseover macro/clique.

All in all this is a great guide for someone new to Resto.

[Grimmhorn]

Working on updating suggestions as they're posted to improve the guide. I know some of the things take "only a few minutes" to look up, but I assure you one is only alotted so many in a day, and the wife, kid, and job all demand their daily allotment (Not to mention the Game!).

Debating on the opinion portions. I tried to make it abundantly clear when I was stating my opinion and provide other options. I'm not sure a druid guide *can* be written without opinions, given the inherent flexibility in druid healing. I might sterilize it a bit later, but I also like to think a new druid (whom this is aimed towards) might appreciate insight into an experienced druid's mind (Experienced, not best in the world).

Debating trying out Clique mself, but you can do an awful lot of targetting between macros and the 1 secondish GCD. I haven't felt restrained by it.

[SirLancelittle]

I agree with almost everything Degrador said. I mostly want to respond for emphasis on his points

There is only one reason IMO to focus on getting leather - the fact that mages/locks/priests can't wear it. By taking cloth, you're likely depriving someone else of an upgrade where they don't have access to the same gear that you do. Now if it's a PuG, then personally I wouldn't care, but for guild runs I would recommend being nice to your clothies and only rolling on leather.

Every guild I've ever been in had more clothies that needed gear than leatherwearers who needed it. IMO, healing is less about gear than skill so I'm certain willing to give up a few points here and there to help my guildies.

Nourish is certainly a better direct heal, but IMO Regrowth should always (ALWAYS) be your first go-to spell for raid healing. There are extremely few fights which just have slow steady raid damage where Rejuv is superior (such as Sapphiron). Most of them are cases where there'll be spike raid damage, where someone is randomly targeted with a direct damage spell, or sometimes a very potent DoT is placed on them. In both of these cases there will usually be up to a second of reaction time for you to start healing, after which it's quite possible either they might be hit again (often 2-shotting them) or the DoT has done quite a bit of damage. As such casting Regrowth on them will take care of most of the current damage via the DH (direct heal), has a 50% chance to crit including putting the Living Seed shield on them, and it gives them a very long lasting HoT to take care of any subsequent damage also allowing you to swiftmend if they do get hit a second time and are in danger of dying.

Regrowth is an extremely useful heal for both tank & raid healing and certainly should not be avoided.

I absolutely love regrowth and agree with above. The direct heal might not be quite as good as nourish, but the HOT is amazing. On a fight like Saph, 75% of my regrowth's healing is the HoT. That means that regrowth is much better for raid healing than nourish in most situations. And I prefer it over rejuvenation because it it ticks for longer, ticks for more, and that initial direct heal is great too.

I'm fairly certain you'll find all of the resto druids who actually give mods a fair go will never go back to without them. Yes, you can heal with Blizzard's UI, but there is just so much you're giving up by doing so that you really are quite silly not to take advantage of them.

I was stubborn for a long time and refused to try healing addons. Then when I finally gave in there was a learning curve, and for a little while I was worse with the addon. But now I absolutely love it. All of my heals/dispels are bound to my mouse (requiring alt, ctr, shift). Not only is it faster, since it requires a single click to choose a target and a spell, but I'm also less prone to mistakes (such as missing the target). I would never go back.

[Alburn]

Well u had the time and patience to write this LOL .

[awsumbear]

Well u had the time and patience to write this LOL .

and you just wasted 15 sec of your life answering it. you wont get those seconds back, ever (;

---

I love this guide, in ev ery aspect. Especially the debate going on in the responds. I haven't been a druid for long (approximately 6 months), but I've been a healer since the first day my paladin dinged 68. Learning from other druids experience is something I really enjoy, and the variety of druid healing makes the class a more enjoyable healing class than I've ever imagined.

Great post, love it, and will definately recommend it to others.

[Nuwalla]

I've really enjoyed this post and I have found it very informative! I wanted to pop in and give a little input on how I have MY mods set up and how it has helped me improve my healing.

First off the mods I use to healing are:
Clique
Grid
Pitbull (unit frames)
Bartender3
Elkano's buff bars

The Break-Down

*Clique- This mod binds almost any spell to your mouse. I have a 5 button mouse which I use for all my abilitys. Once programed, Clique opperates a lot like a mouse over macro but with less button mashing. My Clique is set as follows: Rejuv (left), Nourish (right), Regrowth (shift-left), LB (shift-right), Cleanses (buttons 4 & 5) and WG (shift 4).
-This mod also eliminates my need for decursive and uncluttered my screen.
-I do still use several mouse over macros for Swiftmend (F), NS+HT (G), Rebirth (Shift-F) and Innervate(Shift-G).
I do not bind my Q and E keys because I use them for smoother movement!

*Grid- This consolidate all my raid bars to a 1" box (Bigger if ya want)! this cuts down mouse movement time and enables you to click quckly and efficently!
-My Grid is set up to show my Regrowth, Rejuv, WG, LB stacks, Aggro, Curses, Poisons, Low Mana, My Target, Range, Health and Incoming Heals! My Grid HoT's are configured to only show the ones I cast to avoid confusion (if there are other druids in the raid).
-The healers in our raid have this mod, active or not, so that everyone is in Sync and able to see eachothers healing activity, this helps us to avoid overhealing and helps us see who needs heals the worst. Xpearl shows inc heals automaticly even for people without the mod (dont quote me on that part).
NOTE: It has taken me quite a while to get grid down to a science but now that I have it set up I could never go back! Its all about trial and error and deciding how you see things best. Your dots can be shown as a Picture, a colored dot in the corner or as a border. There are endless possibilitys.

*Pitbull- This mod for me is purely to get my party pictures out of the way! I have myself and my target + target of target just above my action bars. When I join a party it populates people into my grid therefore I do not need the clutter of the blizzard UI.
-This also attached my Cast bar to my picture instead of in the middle of my screen.

*Bartender3- I <3 Bartender! This is a great mod for setting up your action bars. It enables you to adjust them in any rows or columns you choose. Key binding is really quick and easy through bartender as well. The command to open the menu on this on is /bt

*Elkano's Buff Bars- This is a very very customizable mod to track your buffs and debuffs, I'm still learning my way around this specific mod but I actually use this to track when I get clear casting or my haste buff! The command to start playing with this mod is /ebb config.

My whole purpose for these mods I use is to simplify my screen. The more clear space - the better I can see what is going on - the less likely I am to die from something stupid!

I hope this information is helpful to you guys, I just really wanted to get into more specifics. Sorry for the personal opionion just trying to explain why these mods help me personally.

I'd be happy to maintain this post and add additional information

With my HoT's on Grid


Showing my raid frames


Hope this helps =D

[awsumbear]

*Lets Nuwalla know*

[Degrador]

Ugh, been so busy lately... Anyway, finally got around to covering the talent options:

IMO the base line Resto PvE spec looks like this: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...0&version=9868 (this is an impossible spec as it requires more points in resto tree for WG, but where you spend them is debatable)

From here you have 12 points to spend, with your options as follows:

Balance:
3xNature's Grace: Nature's Grace is primarily a boomkin talent, however it can also be quite useful for tank healing resto druids. The best healing output for tank healing as a resto druid is to have 3xLB plus all other HoTs rolling on the tank whilst spamming Nourish in between. With Nature's Bounty, Nourish has a ~50% chance to crit when raid buffed, and Nature's Grace puts the cast time down to ~1s, so you should have Nature's Grace up almost 100% of the time. That's a huge increase for 3 measily talent points. If you're not tank healing though, the benefit is nowhere near as good. It still can be useful if you're spamming Regrowths on the raid, but otherwise it's pretty useless for HoTs.

1xBrambles + 3xCelestial Focus: This used to be a popular choice pre-3.1 due to the lack of better options in the resto tree, but since then this option just isn't as attractive. The 3% haste from Celestial Focus can help you reach the GCD cap for HoTs a lot easier (cap is 253 with 3xCelestial Focus, and 359 without it), but you basically have to give up either Tranquil Spirit or Revitalise to do it, and IMO both of those are much more useful.

Resto:
5xNaturalist: Naturalist is only worth considering if you are going for the HT spec, but with the 3.1 changes to Nourish that spec just isn't as viable anymore. As such there really isn't much point in spending points here.

4xTranquil Spirit: As before, the HT spec isn't viable anymore, so the only benefit here is to Nourish. Having said that, it's quite a large benefit to your mana efficiency, and given that it's a reduction in cost rather than actual regen it means it's useful in fights where regen is gimped (General Vezax). Whether or not you need to take this strongly depends on your gear and your healing style. If you're well geared or you don't use Nourish much, then there really isn't much point getting this talent. Otherwise, it can certainly be worth it. The only way to know for sure is to try with & without it to see how you cope mana wise.

2xImproved Tranquility: Tranquility is a very powerful healing spell. It provides ~2k HPS to every person in your party for a channeled time of 10s. Unfortunately the long CD basically only makes it useful for 1 cast per boss fight, however this talent reduces it to a 4 min CD easily giving you two, possibly three casts in a fight. I can see this being quite useful in a 10 man raid as that party wide heal is for half the raid, however in 25 mans you're much less likely to get the full benefit of this - it's unlikely everyone in your party will need the healing, especially given there are a lot of other healers who will likely heal your party, so IMO it's not really worth 2 talent points for what is still ultimately a panic button.

3xNatural Perfection: Primarily a PvP talent, Natural Perferction is still useful in PvE for the 3% crit chance. Again, the usefulness of this talent depends on your healing style (tank vs raid healing), but personally I think that even for tank healing there are more useful talents to go for than the 3% crit. Note that it does have some synergy with Living Seed and Nature's Grace, but even still crit is not the most useful stat to resto druids.

3xLiving Seed: Pre 3.1 this talent was a marginal one and often debated amongst resto druids as to the effectiveness of it. Since then, however, it's mostly accepted as being a core resto druid talent. Pre 3.1 it only used to apply to the effective healing done (overheals were ignored), however it now applies to the total healing, and with the buffs to Nourish (particularly Nature's Bounty) you'll likely find Living Seed contributing to 5+% of your healing done, which is quite a lot for 3 talent points. One key thing to remember about the seed is that it still acts as a heal after the damage, rather than a shield to prevent it. That means that if you've got a seed for 3k on someone with 2k health, and they take 3k damage, they will still die before the seed procs to heal them.

3xRevitalise: The usefulness of this talent is still debatable. Basically there is a 15% chance per Rejuv tick, or 3% chance per WG tick (per person, regardless of glyph or not), to provide the benefit as listed (16 Runic Power, 8 Energy, 4 Rage, or 1% Mana). If you do the math on this assuming you cast WG on the caster group every single CD, it provides ~150 MP5 to the raid (assuming 5 caster targets every CD), and even more if you're casting Rejuv on the raid as well. Personally I think it's quite a lot to get from 3 talent points, especially given it stacks with all other regen. Of course, it again depends on healing style and assignment, and YMMV.

2xGift of the Earthmother: I only included 3 points in GOTEM in the 'core' spec as not everyone chooses to max out this talent. It could be due to having Celestial Focus and not needing as much from this, or it could be a choice to get other talents instead of saving that 0.1s (or whatever) for the HoTs. Again, you'll have to decide this one for yourself, but personally I think every resto druid (regardless of gear & assignment) should have 5/5 points in this.


From the above options, there are a few typical specs you'll see around:

The tank healer: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...4&version=9889
Focuses primarily on Nourish spamming with HoTs on the MT, along with WG being cast on him + melee.

The raid healer: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...4&version=9889
Focuses on improving HoTs & random raid heals, along with a bit of utility (Glyph of Innervate).

CF tank healer: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...4&version=9889
Swaps points in Tranquil Spirit for Brambles + CF, but you'd really need a lot of mana regen on your gear for this to be viable.

The HT spec: http://talent.mmo-champion.com/?drui...4&version=9889
Don't do this. You have to sacrifice so much in order to get HT up to Nourish spam sort of output, and the benefits really aren't worth it.

[Takae]

Try to beat my hps 10.3k hps new world record as resto druid?
there is screenshoot proving

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/822...1009222829.jpg

I had similar numbers on Council hard mode as well. The steady raid damage from Steelbreaker's aura makes the 4-piece t8.5 set bonus Rejuvenation unbeatable for massive healing on this and most every other boss fight in Ulduar. We had another resto druid in raid and he didn't have the 4 piece bonus yet. I more than doubled his numbers on those attempts and he was in 2nd place for overall healing.

Seek out 4 pieces of T8/8.5 as a gear priority. We become the best raid healers over any other class.

[Zreo]

I saw yellow gem = SP+Int and I stopped reading....

regent is the stuff for resto druid.. aka the mana pool dont matter much.. aka u need to socket SP + haste/crit .. haste if u arnt haste capped for GCD on hots.. crit if u are.

[Degrador]

I saw yellow gem = SP+Int and I stopped reading....

regent is the stuff for resto druid.. aka the mana pool dont matter much..

... If you don't realise that Int = regen then I wouldn't be giving advice...

[Zreo]

... If you don't realise that Int = regen then I wouldn't be giving advice...

int is so little regent.. so ye.. i would go for haste or crit anyday

[axxey]

int is so little regent.. so ye.. i would go for haste or crit anyday

You don't have replenishment in your raids?
regen also scales int against spirit.

That being said yellow gems and socket bonuses suck, screw them all.

[Degrador]

int is so little regent..

Int is actually rather similar in regen to Spr once you've got decent gear. I could do the math here to show you, but it's been done in so many threads already that you may as well look it up for yourself.