4.0 Resto Healing

[Deleted]

Our tank healing is going to feel very sluggish if we have a 3sec cast time on Nourish. Ok with haste that will drop down, but intially at 85 we will have limited haste I am guessing. Assuming ofc we still have MT healers focusing primarily on the tanks and that tank deaths is a real problem with progression as it should be.

Ok so our healing will be the following

3x LB on tank at pull
Quick drink to get mana back
3sec cast on Nourish to keep up LB

LB lasts for between 7 and 9 seconds, so you need to cast Nourish every 4secs to keep up the stacks with a 3sec cast time. So approx 50% of the time we are going to be casting Nourish, assuming we want to maintain the stacks.

We are going to be staring at a 3sec castbar a lot when tank healing

Ok movement fights till mean that we have to manually refresh LB and make things a bit more dynamatic, but if you look at ICC, the vast majority of each fight, the tank healers are pretty much stationary.

You don't really have to drink to get mana back up after stacking up 3 LBs, if you just keep a stack rolling on the tank you easily regen to full during the 10s of lifebloom, with revitalize procs and replenishment going.

Another thing (might be bug) is that currently you have to hit with nourish 1-2sec early, otherwise the lifebloom stack will fall off. In other words, the "refresh-lifebloom" part of nourish "ticks" 1-2 seconds after nourish hits. So in practice you'll want to start casting your nourish when there's 4-5 sec left on lifebloom (assuming 10sec duration).

Lifebloom will never go below 9 sec total duration btw, since ticks will get added given enough haste and it ticks every second.

[Ravenblade]

I doubt it - more likely we'll just be casting HT in that situation, since it costs barely anything. Stop casting made sense in an environment where the biggest heal was an appreciable fraction of tank health - and was also the most mana efficient. Now the biggest heal is neither.

I guess you meant Nourish barely costs anything, hehe. I didn't mean that it will see a total reincarnation for the same purpose but more like that in a situation when you started casting that HT to save someone and someone else was faster than over-healing will be alot more punitive than now by mana costs. At least in the beginning. I agree that for usual casts we will stick to Nourish although I just saw that they increased the costs for it which is okay.

[Azyoulike]

I guess you meant Nourish barely costs anything, hehe. I didn't mean that it will see a total reincarnation for the same purpose but more like that in a situation when you started casting that HT to save someone and someone else was faster than over-healing will be alot more punitive than now by mana costs. At least in the beginning. I agree that for usual casts we will stick to Nourish although I just saw that they increased the costs for it which is okay.

Yes sorry - nourish! And my point is that you wouldn't be casting HT to save somebody - that would be Regrowth which wouldn't & couldn't be sniped. Given the size of health-pools it's quite likely that we'll be casting HT when the deficit is big enough that 2 HT sized heals can fully land - tanks will have 50K+ deficits and still not be at risk of being one-shot.

[Deleted]

Kind of depends on the mechnic of the fight. If you can predict with reasonable timing that someone is going to take a shed load of dmg in 3seconds time, you could precast HT, other than that 3sec cast time just seems excessive.

The other situation is where there is heavy tank but slow dmg, and you don't have the mana to cast to regrowths, because of the lenght of the fight. Using HT to heal through the dmg and hope for crits to catch up could be viable, although as a healer I have never liked relying on crits because they never seem to hit when you need them. With faster hitting bosses that tactic would seem dangerous.

[Cerelli]

so far damage incoming hasn't been severe enough on the tanks so that you had to swear off healing touch. if you feel like the tank is getting low then you have time to drop a HT on him. no more use the correct spell and all of your GCDs or somebody is going to die. the health pools and incoming damage are a lot more manageable, you just have to be smart about casting the spell that is more favorable to your mana pool so that you can last the fight.

[tilgare]

I was just screwing around on the PTR and found a change I had COMPLETELY missed - Tranquility, in addition to healing 5 party or raid members (as opposed to 5 party members only) also stacks up a HoT on the players getting healed up to 3 times. This is a VERY nice change, it makes a lot of sense to give it a HoT effect. Also this brings the spell in line with Divine Hymn, giving the HoT rather than the 10% healing received buff.

Say one tick heals druid, paladin, hunter, mage, mage. Second tick heals druid, paladin, hunter, warrior, rogue. Mage and mage still have one stack, warrior rogue have one stack, druid, pala, hunter have two. Just an interesting change and something to think about with all the other discussion going on.

It is still an 8 minute cooldown (as does Hymn) and unfortunately not a single talent in our tree directly buffs its healing or reduces the cd at the moment... but the spell finally has promise.

[Azyoulike]

I was just screwing around on the PTR and found a change I had COMPLETELY missed - Tranquility, in addition to healing 5 party or raid members (as opposed to 5 party members only) also stacks up a HoT on the players getting healed up to 3 times.

I'm curious - is haste adding extra ticks to tranq on the PTR?

[Koumaru]

Am I missing something, or is balance talents a bit broken? I have all the points in resto that I want, now I go over to balance tree, pick 2/2 'Nature's Majesty' and I'm stuck. I don't particularly want to pick either 'Starlight Wrath' or 'Nature's Torment' to get to 'Genesis' and 'Moonglow'. Is this intentional for reasons beyond me, or is this going to be fixed?

You can drop 3 talent points into Furor in the Feral tree. That's +15% mana for you.

[Deleted]

You can drop 3 talent points into Furor in the Feral tree. That's +15% mana for you.

Indeed, but I still have 5 points left, and I want those abilities from the balanced tree either way, even if partly. I refuse to think this is intentional.

[Deleted]

tanks will have 50K+ deficits and still not be at risk of being one-shot.

Completely off-topic, but that is going to make tanking rather dull. CD management is about the only thing that keeps tanking interesting on live, i can't imagine how that will work if the tanks don't constantly be in danger of death.

[Deleted]

Completely off-topic, but that is going to make tanking rather dull. CD management is about the only thing that keeps tanking interesting on live, i can't imagine how that will work if the tanks don't constantly be in danger of death.

Frenzied 1st boss in grimbatol says hi!

[iLive]

Indeed, but I still have 5 points left, and I want those abilities from the balanced tree either way, even if partly. I refuse to think this is intentional.

It seems to be it is. There was many Restoration Druids who didn't think that they had enough points to all the talents they wanted, so I am pretty sure this is intentional, since we now do have access to more mandatory talents. I'm pretty sure Restoration Druids then would have too good mana regeneration compared to other healing classes. 15% Furor, 9% reduced mana cost, 6% increased intellect, 3% mana restore with Reju or LB. Notice they also removed the Priests' mana reduction talent in the same build.

[Mahon]

Completely off-topic, but that is going to make tanking rather dull. CD management is about the only thing that keeps tanking interesting on live, i can't imagine how that will work if the tanks don't constantly be in danger of death.

Threat is going to be much more of a factor for tanks. Now in WotLK a tank gets agro at the start of the fight, and then most fights doesn't think much about it. In the Cata model tanks will have to constantly be keeping up with threat. Hard to see the extent this will go, but that is what the developers said the design was going to be.

The more I read this thread the more excited I get about Cata. I really loved being a HoT tank healer during BC and early Naxx. I hope that sort of play style is not only viable but we excel at it!

[Raugnaut]

I dont know if this has been said, but Lifebloom costs the same amount as nourish, and still refreshes that stack. So, if you need to refresh your LB stack, but dont have the time to cast nourish for w/e reason, cast lifebloom to refresh. Only difference is that the LB application doesnt heal for anything, and nourish does.

[Ryazix]

ok i know i will regret wasting my time on this but lets sort this one out...







So those were the quotes in question. Assuming that the first column of the recap meant the casting time was a very valid assumption because actually then the post would have made sense with the little correction mentioned by several others. Assuming it also meant dmg makes the first quote complete nonsense. It would basically say if you have high dps on your tank use regrowth, if you have moderate dps use nourish, rejuve or healing touch. So everyone correcting him here assuming he meant casting time did him a big favour compared to those assuming it meant speed of incoming dmg.

So first quote either (assuming castingtime was meant) short but with one small mistake otherwise correct recap or (assuming that speed of dmg was meant) complete crappy nonsense.

Second quote now recaps the recap, explaining it further and correcting it. Very valid post, all correct information. So really nothing to bitch about here.

Third quote now makes the lack of reading comprehension visible that caused several facepalms and that you guys try to slap on those who corrected him now. Second quote never said you should use nourish exclusive, it just mentioned that you can spam it forever because of low cost and thus is your heal you take out when you have the time and want save mana. The part about seeing incoming damage was already included in the second quote with much more detail. So basically he said quote 2 is incorrect because of something it never said was wrong and then repeating something it actually said just in less detail to correct it.

So bottom line, HIS lack of reading comprehension is well justified by language difficulties. I wonder what excuse those of you have who called out lack of reading comprehension on those who actually only rightfully corrected him.

Funny actually how easy a 4.0 Resto Healing thread degrades into a pissing contest about reading comprehension.

So just to get back on topic a bit more again, here my own recap:

Regrowth is our flashheal, you want to use it for spike healing, especially on non tanks who dont have the hp pool to wait on your slow heals

Healing touch is your Tank heal. Puts out good hps with not to steep costs, so it is a good tool to keep the tanks up where the hp pools are large enough that you can spare the castingtime and not end up in overhealing when the heal hits.

Nourish is your cheap heal. Use this for tank healing if the tank gets low enough damage that it is enough to keep up with the damage and use it to top out raid members in low overall dmg situations where you have idle time because it is so cheap.

How exactly is the first post nonsense if speed of damage is what was intended? It's all relative. He's saying if the damage is faster and higher relative to say slower and lower, then use regrowth and nourish + rejuv respectively. Or if the damage is slower and higher (again, relative), then use healing touch. You say so yourself that Regrowth is for spiky damage, which, correct me if I'm wrong, is lots of damage in a short amount of time (i.e. faster/higher), and Nourish should be used if the damage is slower and lower, you say raid members in low overall damage situations (slower/lower), so you have time to react to the damage with Nourish, and finally you say if there is time to spare for the casting time, and the deficit of health is great enough (slower/higher), then you use Healing touch.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but are these not one in the same?

[Azyoulike]

How exactly is the first post nonsense if speed of damage is what was intended?

Because speed of damage is irrelevant, if it's decoupled from size of damage. Who cares if the tank is taking 1 damage every microsecond or 1k damage every second? The two are identical for healing purposes.

Big slow hits only become something particularly special when they're so big and slow that they near one-hit the tank, and that's not going to be a common occcurence in Cata.

The reason to use regrowth isn't because damage is coming in fast, the reason to use it is because the tank might be dead before HT lands. That's a function of the existing health deficit of the tank, not speed of damage.

[Ravenblade]

Yes sorry - nourish! And my point is that you wouldn't be casting HT to save somebody - that would be Regrowth which wouldn't & couldn't be sniped. Given the size of health-pools it's quite likely that we'll be casting HT when the deficit is big enough that 2 HT sized heals can fully land - tanks will have 50K+ deficits and still not be at risk of being one-shot.

I think the matter of sniping becomes less of an issue especially with cancel-casting heals. It may actually encourage players to work together closely again. Granted I only got solo-heal experience in Beta so far and even though tanks already had alot of health when I healed I found HT having a good place in cases when Nourish didn't really suffice and Regrowth was more needed on someone else. It's not about fear of one-shotting but more about efficient recovery. In the beginning I used Regrowth alot to save players and regretted it equally fast, at the end it become more manageable with house-holding mana by using Regrowth carefully. Even though it may not become a commonly applied technique I believe cancel-casting will have to be learned regardless. 6k mana saved can make alot of difference.

[Mudkiper]

Another thing (might be bug) is that currently you have to hit with nourish 1-2sec early, otherwise the lifebloom stack will fall off. In other words, the "refresh-lifebloom" part of nourish "ticks" 1-2 seconds after nourish hits. So in practice you'll want to start casting your nourish when there's 4-5 sec left on lifebloom (assuming 10sec duration).

Maybe it refresh's after next tick ?

[Azyoulike]

I think the matter of sniping becomes less of an issue especially with cancel-casting heals.

My point is that if sniping is a serious risk you don't cast a heal worth cancelling.

Say the target has a 20k deficit off a 100k HP pool- you are going to cast either a rejuv or a nourish because while HT might not overheal, you can afford to conserve mana.

You'll start firing off HT when the deficit is more like 40k, at which point even if you get sniped by one other healer your heal will still hit with high efficiency.

You'll continue to use HT as his deficit approaches 80k, and sniping will be less and less of an issue, until we reach the point around 80k (say) where it's safer to cast regrowth and sniping is a non-problem.

For as long as the cata model of 'you have time to pick a heal' applies, sniping of spells other than nourish isn't going to be a major problem, and nourish isn't expensive enough to be worth cancel-casting.

[Ravenblade]

I agree on that Nourish is not going to get cancelled alot if at all and on that people may actually snipe alot less solely due to the nature of the changes. In fact I do count on similar procedures as you outlined and I do expect alot less FFA healing.

I still count the technique - regardless of whether the scenario is pro-active pre-cast or reactive cast one - as being worth to learn because that's the thing about the changes: You can't get around learning as much tricks as possible. In solo-healing I used it when I assumed a somewhat big hit just to resort to the staple heal again.

In the end it depends on how they design encounters. I am a bit less optimistic here, I frankly don't believe into the prospect that Blizzard is going to give us a break here. Usually at one point they will challenge mana and HPS management altogether. I'd rather be prepared for Brutallus-style healing than counting on that tanks will loads of health and healers having alot of leeway. The goal may not be to get tanks topped off but you can make triage-healing equally challenging in which a tank may never get two-shot but die fast enough without steady HPS supply because they were either too slow or ran OOM