An Easy Fix for Resto Druids' problems.

[Kelmart]

I've given the new healing as resto every effort possible. I've read every strat I could find after struggling to keep dps alive without going oom, i've even enchanted my dungeon gear, i'm done. Bliz will have to fix this or there will be a shortage of healers down the road. I've played this druid since vanilla. I didn't raid much but I did raid as resto in MC, ZG, AQ20, and BWL. Even then it wasn't this ridiculous. Its completely unfair to make healers the only one pay. I've been doing all my heroics as boomkin now and we get a pally healer, b/c they seem to be the only ones without big issues somehow, and dps is more single target and CC than AoE, i'll give them that, but i've ran with so many retards that just stand in shit on the ground and don't care. This isn't effecting DPS at all, its barely effecting tanks at all. Healers are getting the short end of the staff this xpac and they could easily fix the problems with Resto (I have a priest but havn't played it yet and heard they are even worse off than druids atm) by either increasing the regen gained through spirit or lowering the cost of a couple spells. Regrowth for the amount it heals should cost 1.5k mana, 5.5k for an 13k cric? Its ridiculous. Healing touch is fine, lifebloom is ok, swiftmend, and nourish are ok. RJ and WG are the other two issues. RJ costs close to 6k, come on. 3-4k would make a huge difference trying to heal b/c it heals for a fine amount just costs so much its not worth using. WG cost is fine to me, its like CoH for priests, it should be expensive and an 'oh crap the party needs heals'. However, it heals for between 600-800 a tick. Come fricken on. I might as well stand there and let them use Linen Bandages. 4k for WG is fine, but nerf it up, 1.2k-1.5k or more.. the party has over 100k hp now... ur telling me 4% of their health is worth 1/16th of my mana? Not a chance. Please Bliz, I have loved healing in your game since I first started playing, this was my first 60, 70, and so on.. fix whats making this un-fun so I will play resto again. Because currently. I'm boomchicken and won't touch resto again (as will several others I know) until something is fixed.

[Tehcheat]

Thats because its more than just the healers job to keep everyone alive. If people want to be stupid and stand in crap, not move when the boss turns to charge or cleave them or whatever, then any healer is going to have issues thats how the game is now.

[sobie]

You have to prioritize your spells, you cant just spam rejuv on all 5 party members, or regrowth for that matter.. Your dps needs to not take extra dmg and you have to choose who you want to heal and who needs heals at that exact time. Im a resto druid and healed every heroic just fine with an 80k mana pool. I think healing is amazing right now and challenging that you cant spam your hots over everyone and make it a cake walk. Stop QQing or go back and play WOTLK some more.

[stillnotking]

Resto druids can heal heroics just fine. I've been doing it for 4 days and have healed almost all of them successfully now. You are doing something wrong, or just getting really unlucky with bad groups; probably the former. There are some good guides out there for healing, including one video guide that got posted on the Blizzard druid forum a couple of days ago (battle.net is down for maintenance so I can't link it, but it should still be on the first couple of pages).

Some quick pointers: Regrowth is not supposed to be used much, it's really only for OOC procs or as an "oh sh*t" last-ditch heal. Roll 3xLB on the tank at all times, mastery boosted (i.e. have another HOT on the tank any time you refresh it). WG + Rejuvs as needed when the DPS are taking damage. Use ToL to roll LB stacks on every member of the group and use the resulting OOC procs for free instant Regrowths. Tranquility is a fantastic wipe saver, it's practically OP right now in fact despite the long cooldown. Innervate early and you can get 2 of them on the longer fights. Stack intellect, intellect and more intellect -- use level 80 trinkets if you have to; Purified Lunar Dust and Solace of the Fallen are still better than any level 85 non-Int trink.

Believe me, it can be done. It's a learning curve but it's not as bad as you are making it out to be. I finish most heroic boss fights with at least 20-30k mana now.

Edit: battle.net is back up, here is the link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1406255074

[Deleted]

Gotta admit though, the healers are not balanced, and regrowth is useless.

[AetherMcLoud]

Gotta admit though, the healers are not balanced, and regrowth is useless.

I'd say druids and priests are pretty much suffering the same problems. Shamans I think too, don't know too much about them. Paladins are pretty much the best healer right now because they have lots of manafree heals, and also Light of Dawn is IMMENSELY overpowered.

[Kelmart]

Some quick pointers: Regrowth is not supposed to be used much, it's really only for OOC procs or as an "oh sh*t" last-ditch heal. Roll 3xLB on the tank at all times, mastery boosted (i.e. have another HOT on the tank any time you refresh it). WG + Rejuvs as needed when the DPS are taking damage. Use ToL to roll LB stacks on every member of the group and use the resulting OOC procs for free instant Regrowths. Tranquility is a fantastic wipe saver, it's practically OP right now in fact despite the long cooldown. Innervate early and you can get 2 of them on the longer fights. Stack intellect, intellect and more intellect

I literally do all of this, have my gear enchanted for Int and Int gems. I'm not in complete heroic gear, please don't misunderstand. I've got like 3 or 4 346 pieces, everything else is 325-333. I just run out of mana with the boss around 20% each and every time. I pot, use innervate early, and I dont spam anything. I cast Nourish alot to keep LB rolling and that does nothing to mana as you know. Its just no matter what if the party is taking damage that puts them low on HP, i'm going to run oom. I can't keep them alive and keep mana. AoE is my entire problem. and ToL can only do one time, and then Tranq. I just have nothing else I can do. I have read several strats online since Cata. I will try to find the one you mentioned on the bliz forums but still, i dont think I can read anything different.

"You have to prioritize your spells, you cant just spam rejuv on all 5 party members, or regrowth for that matter.. Your dps needs to not take extra dmg and you have to choose who you want to heal and who needs heals at that exact time. Im a resto druid and healed every heroic just fine with an 80k mana pool. I think healing is amazing right now and challenging that you cant spam your hots over everyone and make it a cake walk. Stop QQing or go back and play WOTLK some more. "
I dont spam hots on everyone, AS I SAID, i only heal the party when they are taking massive damage or are below 40%. And even in Van, and BC I didnt have mana issues like this in Heroics.

[stillnotking]

Everyone knows Paladins are OP, including Blizzard. They will be nerfed soon so I wouldn't worry about it.

The other 3 healing specs are pretty much in line.

[Deleted]

At least you no longer have to waste 3 talent points in the Nature's Bounty talent. The Swiftmend cooldown reduction is really minor anyway.

[Awesra]

This was posted in another thread, and I feel bad I can't remember who wrote it to credit them, but:

"If the DPS and tank are taking damage they could avoid, you're supposed to wipe because your group is failing. In Wrath, the healer existed to basically make up for everyone's mistakes. Now, they exist to actually manage health levels to allow for a boss kill.

What you're seeing in Cataclysm is actual healing, rather than mistake suppression. This is an absolutely excellent change."

The tools given to healers at the moment are more than good enough to accomplish every dungeon. You can even make up for SOME mistakes if you're better than average. But you are a healer. Your job is not to erase mechanics from the fight. The rest of the group is affected by standing in fire, when they die and the group wipes.

[Deleted]

Everyone knows Paladins are OP, including Blizzard. They will be nerfed soon so I wouldn't worry about it.

The other 3 healing specs are pretty much in line.

I totally agree. I can't put in words how much I hate paladins the way they have been since pre-LK. Yes, I know it sounds like QQing.

I've been tanking random dungeons with my bear, and I found it to be funny again, like it was never before. Aoe tank is hard job (kudos blizzard, I'm loving it, seriously)

The game is AMAZING the way it is now, but (there's always a "but") somehow paladins are still overpowered. Yes they can pull'em all and aoe tank with no aggro issues. Yes, they can heal everyone without run oom. If theres something that can be done to keep the game funny, thats it: nerf paladins to the ground, or we gonna have 2 years of easymode game again.

[Glatiz]

people complain because blizzard was just feeding us an easy game, then BAM!. No more easy. Well, i think its still easy but some people don't. As a druid i rarely use regrowth even if its free. I'd rather use my healing touch as it heals alot more than regrowth and it also refreshes the duration of LB. if the tank has full health but the dps needs healing. i'll use my free cast for swiftmend or the rarely used spell some of you call regrowth. rejuv + wg + nourish + healing touch + LB are the only spells i have on my healing cast bar. If you have enough spirit, you can keep LB maxed out on your tank without having to use any mana. Like someone said above, use innervate early and you should beable to do another one by the end of the boss fight if needed. Its also useful to keep a few mana pots on you. I have found that i needed one or 2 of them. make sure you have the right glyphs. I had a few wrong glyphs and switched them out and found a huge difference in my healing. Read very carefully on your talents and glyphs and you should beable to pick out the best stuff for you. Im just the kinda person that stacks spirit so i can cast nourish without ever having a mana problem. and yes, if you can't keep up and your doing all of this, tell the dps to stop playing wotlk and play cata. helps alot

[brutnus]

the more i play the game the more i like it. No more are the days of easy riding.

[Rogabr]

there is no reason to take a druid healer with you in a group when you have access to ANY other healer

Prove me wrong.

[Myrrar]

there is no reason to take a druid healer with you in a group when you have access to ANY other healer

Prove me wrong.

Go look at the top 10 guilds in the world for progress right now. They take druids. Almost 100% of the time a pally is on top followed by druids either right above the other pally(s) or right below depending on the encounter trailed by priests and shaman.

Also, pallys just got nurfed hard so they should be more equal now.

op:
If you have honestly read all the different guides and play correctly like you say you have and you still can't keep people up, that's not your problem, it's theirs. We can't carry idiots anymore like we used to. Healing is now just another aspect of a fight, just like it always should have been.

[hobbez]

there is no reason to take a druid healer with you in a group when you have access to ANY other healer

Prove me wrong.

Lol - so not true. Look at what Paragon is raiding with: 2 druids. Our druid topped our 10 man meters last night. Druids are just fine. I think priests are actually slightly worse off than druids, shammies are pretty close.

Also: Everyone knew pallies were OP relative to the rest of the healers. And now they got the nerf bat that should bring them more in line. Ask and ye shall receive.

Also X2: is it bad that all of these people quitting makes me a little bit happy on the inside because it means I can queue even faster?

There's 3 things that are making this hard right now that people need to realize:

1) Bad gear - relatively speaking, many people are still very undergeared for heroics. This is causing much of the QQ. Do regulars, LEARN the encounters (like when to pop ToL), and get rep gear.

2) Healing is entirely different now and requires some adjusting. There's a million threads about what spells to use, but it is night and day different from before.

3) Tanks and DPS aren't used to the new heroics and what they require. Sure, the healer often gets blamed when they go oom on a wipe. In wrath, it certainly would have been the healer's fault. People need to (and will) start realizing that this can be the DPS and tank's faults too. Don't stand in bad stuff, CC, interrupt, etc are foreign words. Last night, we asked a mage to CC the moon in our H Grim Batol run and he replied "never done that before but I'll try" Quite representative of facerolling heroics in Wrath, imo.

I couldn't be happier with the changes. It's so much more challenging.

[Deleted]

i feel your pain dude, i played the beta and wasn't sure if i was going to get cata because it seemed like blizzard just wanted to troll healers, but it is for the best and unfortunately we have to deal with the qq and whines from people for the start at least, but if it doesn't improve over time then i will be joining those that cancel subs :P i thought i'd give the wow community the benefit of the doubt first (lol)

[Makatafinger]

i found a solution to my healing problem: if dps is taking a damage, screw them keep spaming nourish on tank. we have 35k healing bandage in game, tell them to use it

[Kelmart]

i found a solution to my healing problem: if dps is taking a damage, screw them keep spaming nourish on tank. we have 35k healing bandage in game, tell them to use it

hahaha, i love the idea.

In all honesty though, I just don't enjoy resto anymore. I'm gonna try it again cause we are in desperate need of healers right now but i've already started to pick up feral gear to learn tank to go along w/ boomkin. It might get easier in time, it might be easier when people understand all the fights better and 'attempt' to help.. i was with a warrior AND rogue the other day that refused to interrupt on Heroic SFK b/c it hurt their dps. I really just don't have faith in humanity anymore.

[Sedative]

- Regrowth is not worthless. Combined with an OoC proc, 60%+ chance to crit, and Living Seed, it's decent.

- I stopped healing DPS unless they get sub 50% HP. Then maybe they'll get a nourish if I can spare the cast time, or a Rejuv if I'm good on mana. The exception to this is when the damage is an unavoidable group wide aoe which demands aoe heals.