Resto Druid Guide - 4.0.1 edition

[iLive]

@Drendrek
Mana Tide Totem is changed to 400% increased spirit for the duration and it's not Divine Hymn but Hymn of Hope.

[Dendrek]

Wanna bump my own question - Are you sure that 1016 is the spell haste cap? Because I'm not seeing an extra tick on Rejuv at 1023 spell haste.

Or am I just not understanding you correctly?

1016 is the haste cap with a 5% raid haste buff. Without that buff, the cap is 1230. You'll see a 6th tick when in a raid.

---------- Post added 2010-10-23 at 06:54 PM ----------

@Drendrek
Mana Tide Totem is changed to 400% increased spirit for the duration and it's not Divine Hymn but Hymn of Hope.

Thank you for the corrections. I'll add them.

[edit] In fact, I'll just remove the comments about those two abilities! :P

[Deleted]

1016 is the haste cap with a 5% raid haste buff. Without that buff, the cap is 1230. You'll see a 6th tick when in a raid.

Yeah, did a quick Google search and realized as much. Thank you though

[Dendrek]

Updated "4. Healing Strategies" and part of "4.1 Healing Spells." I look forward to feedback and suggestions regarding the healing strategies.

[Deleted]

Tank Healing
Otherwise, your normal healing rotation should be:

• Keep Lifebloom rolling if you have enough mana regen to support this, otherwise, slow-stack Lifebloom.
• Keep Rejuv up on the tank. It's ok to clip Rejuv if you must, but generally only recast it after it's expired.
• If the tank damage is consistently heavy, spam Healing Touch between LB and RJ casts.
• If the tank damage is consistently light, spam Regrowth between LB and RJ casts.

Keeping Lifebloom rolling is never a mana problem. At a mere 244 mana cost, your mana regenerates about as fast as you can cast the spell - you'll be in constant limbo, never really going up or down.

I still have issues with Healing Touch being a tank healer. Agreed, with enough Haste and raid buffs, you can push down the cast time to a reasonable amount but you'd still be a bit limited to casting it and only it.

I'd rather be rolling a 3xLB, Rejuv and spamming Regrowth. Sure, you'd spend more mana, but these Spike damage moments usually don't last too long anyway.

I bet this is going to change for Cataclysm, when HP numbers are going through the roof, but right now, I don't see Nourish and HT being prioritized for anything.

[Dendrek]

I've edited the part about keeping LB rolling.

I'll keep the recommendation for removing HT from the rotation in mind. I don't doubt your observation. I just want to have some numbers or more input to back it up before making that change.

[Deleted]

...
I bet this is going to change for Cataclysm, when HP numbers are going through the roof, but right now, I don't see Nourish and HT being prioritized for anything.

Also, not only did they remove Glyph of Nourish which was very nice with full hots on a target and about the only sane situation to use Nourish in PvE, but the new ToL active CD does not create enhanced versions of either Nourish or HT.

[Myrrar]

Your specs are pretty much exactly what most druids are doing. I'm so glad you wrote a new one!

Now about the other posts: oh wall of text


The full resto tree is terrible.

If you aren't having mana problems, you don't need to extra resto talents. If you do, switch out some healing for mana. 0/0/36 is bad on both ends.

NS is 1 point. There are a few places it can go but there is still not point not having it. Even after 4.0.1, NS used with HT or RB is still a raid saver. SM wont be used for spike, oh shit anymore. NS isn't game breaking or anything, but no point not having it.

As for Ixuzcc and furor: You are taking 3/3 natures bounty which is also just as useless if you aren't using Nourish or HT. If you aren't having mana problems, you can easily take one out of NB and put it into NS and even putting it into Pers, would be more useful. If you aren't just RJ/WG/Sm spamming, you are skipping a lot of good talents.

10s and 25s are very very different. If you are 2 healing, I assume you are talking about 10s. If so, you shouldn't be passing over any nourish/rg/ht talents since you will be using them a lot, probably more than RJ.

In 10s, mastery is a lot better then 25s. 25s, it's pretty much useless.

It's been a common acceptance, even when Spi was useful, movement speed is far better than spi. It may not seem like a lot, but that small addition is far better then the tiny spi you get.

Den, I'm so glad you're sticking around the forums still <3

[Dendrek]

Den, I'm so glad you're sticking around the forums still <3

Thank you

[Deleted]

snip

I am going to give a Nourish based spec an honest try, having got plenty of feedback on it. It might be more efficient but if it does turn out to be about as boring as I expect (basically spamming Nourish and/or HT), I'm going to shy away from it.

I'm still not completely sold on Nourish and HT, especially with the points Squeeze made. As I've said, it'll probably get more useful in Cataclysm and now would serve as a good time to practice using it, which is why I'll give it a shot.

[Dendrek]

Keep in mind I never suggested casting Nourish. In fact, I think it's a pretty useless spell at level 80. My suggestions for tank healing involved using HT, which is a much stronger spell, whose higher mana cost should be trivial with your mana regen.

[Deleted]

Also, not only did they remove Glyph of Nourish which was very nice with full hots on a target and about the only sane situation to use Nourish in PvE, but the new ToL active CD does not create enhanced versions of either Nourish or HT.

I don't really understand why you would say that since the old Glyph of Nourish effect is now included directly into the spell.

And thanks for the updated guide Dendrek, always nice to see people dedicated to share their knowledge ^^.

[Deleted]

I don't really understand why you would say that since the old Glyph of Nourish effect is now included directly into the spell.

Nourish today is what it has always been - a weak heal with a 20% increase in effectiveness if there is an active HoT from the druid on the target.

The old glyph, however, made it so much better;

Glyph of Nourish
Major Glyph
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 80
Item Level 45
Use: Your Nourish heals an additional 6% for each of your heal over time effects present on the target.

That was a possible 24% extra effectiveness, on top of the spell itself (the mathmatical mumbo-jumbo is for the mathmaticians). It was not uncommon to see some pretty bad ass Nourish crits if you rolled plenty of HoTs on a tank.

Keep in mind I never suggested casting Nourish. In fact, I think it's a pretty useless spell at level 80. My suggestions for tank healing involved using HT, which is a much stronger spell, whose higher mana cost should be trivial with your mana regen.

I appologize for being unclear - I meant to say that if one uses HT, one probably uses Nourish to some degree aswell, since they share a lot of things (cast time, talents).

I feel I should add that Im rarely put in the position of dedicated tank healing so I'm no authority on it.

[Deleted]

Oh yeah, my bad (that's what you get when you read the tooltips too quickly ^^)

But maybe keeping glyph of nourish would have made the spell too powerful as a low cost spam heal (at level 85), especially since it would've been added to our mastery.

[Deleted]

Oh yeah, my bad (that's what you get when you read the tooltips too quickly ^^)

But maybe keeping glyph of nourish would have made the spell too powerful as a low cost spam heal (at level 85), especially since it would've been added to our mastery.

It's just the changes to the healing model that made the deletion of the glyph neccessary - every healing class has to have that slow but efficient heal that isn't too strong. Shammies got Healing Wave, Priests got Heal and Paladins got Holy Light.

further comparisons are;

Regrowth = Healing Surge = Flash Heal = Flash of Light
Healing Touch = Greater Healing Wave = Greater Heal = Divine Light

*in mana cost and effectiveness, with minor details (Regrowth is the only one with a HoT added to it, for example)

[emni]

The full resto tree is terrible.

If you aren't having mana problems, you don't need to extra resto talents. If you do, switch out some healing for mana. 0/0/36 is bad on both ends.

NS is 1 point. There are a few places it can go but there is still not point not having it. Even after 4.0.1, NS used with HT or RB is still a raid saver. SM wont be used for spike, oh shit anymore. NS isn't game breaking or anything, but no point not having it.

With all due respect, Myrrar, I think top raiders sometimes forget that not everyone looking for advice on this forum is a 6k GS resto druid looking to kill heroic LK25.

There is no such thing as a "terrible" specc these days. You might have a talent tree more suited for one situation or another, but I dare say it's impossible to make a terrible talent build

I sincerely believe that 0/0/36 has its place. It's a specc for those in not-so-good gear who want a specc well-rounded enough to be able to last with a decent healing throughput. And you know why it's so popular? Because most of WoW's playerbase falls into this category.

I don't use this specc myself, but I do not think it should be easily dismissed and called terrible.

[knumskul]

Can anybody provide the best healing strategy for healing Dreamwalker as a 2/3/31 specced druid? Assuming haste capped with 5% haste in raids what healing rotations would be best?

Would HT spamming or the standard tank healing strategy be better? Or any other method?

[Myrrar]

With all due respect, Myrrar, I think top raiders sometimes forget that not everyone looking for advice on this forum is a 6k GS resto druid looking to kill heroic LK25.

There is no such thing as a "terrible" specc these days. You might have a talent tree more suited for one situation or another, but I dare say it's impossible to make a terrible talent build

I sincerely believe that 0/0/36 has its place. It's a specc for those in not-so-good gear who want a specc well-rounded enough to be able to last with a decent healing throughput. And you know why it's so popular? Because most of WoW's playerbase falls into this category.

I don't use this specc myself, but I do not think it should be easily dismissed and called terrible.

It has nothing to do with progression. Anyone at that progression point really shouldn't need to look at a guide like this in the first place.

The point stands for ANYONE healing raids.

If you have mana problems, you will want to drop some of the direct healing talents in resto to furor. If you aren't having any mana problems there aren't enough useful talents in resto alone to fill 36 points in. You will either want to take haste(eh) or crit. Neither a raider with mana problems, or no mana problems, should be 0/0/36.

Saying you can do that spec just because it works, well, any spec with talents going towards healing and not dps work. Not what a guide like this is for.

The reason it's most popular because it's alts who specd quickly, or players that don't really play their druid and only run heroics. No raiding druid should ever use a 0/0/36 spec. The same for most classes/specs.


As for nourish, it's very underwhelming right now. In 10s RJ, 3 stacks of LB, RGs for spike, and SMs are enough to keep our tanks up 2 healing HMs. For lower level gear, you will probably use HT more since RG may not do enough. I really hardly use nourish, but a 10 man healer shouldn't totally dismiss it since most of the nourish talents effect other spells you will be using as well, esp low ilvl. With the change to all the healers, even in 10 you probably wont be having to spam the tank, no matter what gear you have. It's a lot more tuned toward Cata mana and dmg.

[fews]

i think you underestimate our mastery - take advantage of your infinite mana.

Here's how I see it.

Since mana is in no way an issue healing goes like this:

1. lifebloom the tanks
2. faceroll rejuvs on everyone (take your focus off haste now)
4. refresh lifebloom
3. faceroll regrowths as much as possible
5. keep swiftmend on CD and use it on melee (or any group of players)
6. wild growth as necessary

Repeat.

Reforge all of your spirit and maybe some of your crit (depending on gear) into haste/mastery until you get about 800 haste. I dont see the extra rejuv tick (or even to an extent the GCD) as worth it anymore since the brunt of our heals no longer comes from Rejuv.

I had around 1300 spirit after the patch. The mastery bonus makes your regrowths hit almost as hard as nourish used to - so you end up with the potency of nourish on the front end, plus an eight second hot.

Using this healing "rotation" I dominate HPS charts, usually 8-12k depending on the fight. On one of the plague quarter doggies I spiked to 17k. 34k on valithrea. These numbers are all from 10ms I should add; I have an average ilvl of 266.

This strategy relies on the fact that we have unlimited mana and won't work in Cata, but right now its OP as fuck. I imagine this is what it felt like to be a paladin. You overheal all to hell, but when mana is not anything resembling an issue who gives a crap? Don't ask me for any hard EJ quality numbers here, its a game not my homework, but our mastery is really good if you have the budget for it.

edit: also tranquility is cool now and WG should be used a little more carefully now but not much if you're bored just go ahead and hit it. infinite mana

[daydayhyphy]

haste it not as desirable as it was before. with the reduced gcd of rejuv it makes haste that much more worthless. int>crit>spirit is what most druids go for now since they changed how much more valuable crit is.