[Resto] Druid Guide - 5.0+

[axxey]

Those were some of my thoughts as well fresh, I will probably get 3/3 genesis and take 2/3 furor (its my playstyle on that decision over moonglow) I enjoy having the larger mana pool, especially when im trading innervates with another rdruid/moonkin.

Having the more powerful tranquility on a 3 min timer will allow you to use it at LEAST 2x per fight, 3x in some of the longer fights. I think it was a change thats been long overdue with that spell.

Don't "trade" innervates with a moonkin. Make him give you his innervate and use your own innervate on yourself or someone useful.
If a geared boomkin is running oom he's fucking everything up to high heaven and doesn't deserve your innervate anyways.

[Lysah]

Don't "trade" innervates with a moonkin. Make him give you his innervate and use your own innervate on yourself or someone useful.
If a geared boomkin is running oom he's fucking everything up to high heaven and doesn't deserve your innervate anyways.

Seconded, now that I'm in full epics I can't remember the last time I needed to innervate myself, really close to dropping dreamstate at this point.

When balance is forced into using hurricane (maloriak and potentially Cho'gall depending on how your guild handles the oozes) it can end up needing it's own innervate, however, this is obviously insanely situational. At the end of normals/into heroics, you should be pretty much requiring your balance druids to feed their innervates to healers. I typically drop mine on someone as soon as they're ~80% or lower and my DMC procs.

[axxey]

I typically drop mine on someone as soon as they're ~80% or lower and my DMC procs.

Now that's being too generous, screw giving up a dps global during DMC proc :P

[Lysah]

Now that's being too generous, screw giving up a dps global during DMC proc :P

One GCD won't change my place at the top of the meter on every fight.


...sadly

[Alianthos]

Hey there !

Great guide, I used it a lot recently, because I had to take my resto drood out of the closet for my guild (heavy healers need).

Anyway, I got 3 questions :

- Do you ever use Nourrish in raid situations ? After 2 nights of raiding (already have a decent gear) i find myself using it only when having heavy mana issues (as in : OOM). I also plan to use it the day it will heal for 10k+ for Chimaeron, but that's pretty much it.
- Should i try to keep LB rolling on tanks for ever ? Tracking is not an issue, yet sometimes you just cant use that GCD to refresh LB (for instance, heavy AOE situation where SM/WG/RJ spam is necessary and the tank isnt particulary low, so casting on him to refresh LB would be wasted). Should I "clip" LB before that (mid timer) to make sure it doesnt fade ? And if LB goes away, is lb "fast stacking" (3 GCD is a row) on the tank okay ?
- Tree of life : so basically, LB spam + instant RG + WG on CD ? is casting HT a waste during ToL ?

Thank you so much

[Cerelli]

Yeah keep LB up at all times. Your mana regen greatly depends on it through replenishment and revitalize. Only time you should let it expire is if the tank it is on could use the bloom heal right then. Otherwise refresh it an use another spell to make up the health difference. Much better refreshing and saving yourself 3 globals. If you are having trouble tracking your LB then look into a mod or unit frame that will help you with this. The default blizz UI can also do it, just not as well as vuhdo, grid, healbot, ect...

As far a nourish goes, depends on the fight and your role. I use it a lot but I'm usually tank healing + off healing the raid. I use it a lot when I have nature's bounty going but it gets expensive to keep that rolling for much time.

[Yazus]

Hi guys.

When 4.1 hits, is this build Build Here gonna be an improvement?
3/3 Living Seed + 2/3 Nature Bounty vs 2/2 Blessing of the Groove + 3/3 Nature Bounty

[Myrrar]

I hardly direct heal in 25s. I direct heal a lot more in 10s. If you feel there is no reason to direct heal you're probably right. With everyones instants, hots, and aoes going around most of the time direct heals are only needed on the tanks if you feel there is an emergency.

Always keep LB up. It procs replen, revit, and CC. If it falls off it's not a huge deal, just get it back up as soon as you can.

ToL, keep wg on CD, spam LB, RG when you get CC. The reason you don't use HT is because in ToL RG is instant. It's going to do much more healing overall using a free instant RG and going on with other spells than a free cast time HT.


Yazus: There will probably be two sets of specs:
1: takes LS, pretty much stays are they are now taking one point from Nat, NB, or Emp touch to make it 3/3
2. Doesn't take LS. Fills that extra point out along with BotG

It's going to have to be something you test and based off your progression since really, both a pretty equal depending on how you play.
Now, if they fix BotG to not stack additively, the BotG spec will probably be push above LS. We'll just have to see if they address that this patch.

[Arctagon]

ToL, keep wg off CD

Don't you mean on CD?

[Myrrar]

Don't you mean on CD?

lol yeah, I'll fix it since I apparently can't type

[Deleted]

Been trying out my resto druid and i'm realy enjoying it much more after reading this guide. Some stuff i figured it out by myself but without a dougt this kind of guides are superb to perfect our game (i dare say essencial).

One of the things i don't like about my druid is that it "feels" i'm missing some utility-based cooldowns for 5 mens.

With my holy priest i have the awesome leap of faith, Guardian, Chakra. On my paladin i have Sacrifice, Favor, Wrath, BOP, BOF,etc.

On my druid though, i find myself just healing and outside of that not realy much i can do to spice up my fun (except TOL thank god for this awesome CD).

I know that in 4.1 we have a beefed up tranquility and Nature Shiftness, but still... i think something of a 1-2minute fun+utility cooldown is still needed.

Other than that slight feel of "something is missing", quite enjoyable!

[Deleted]

Personally I use mushrooms and moonfire/IS a lot in 5 man dungeons. Because that way I actually push more than 1 button every 5-10 seconds.

Also, when in a dps light pug, easily adding 3k dps on trash to the group isn't negligible.

[Madkadz]

Good guide, been pretty helpful for my alt.

[Mammoth]

A quick question about haste and Lifebloom.

Why do we only want haste in chunks to push extra ticks with Lifebloom? (I'm talking specifically about the tick at 1200 haste). Being something that we keep always active, doesn't it scale continuously?

[Dendrek]

The only argument for going for a LB haste cap is that when in ToL form you'll likely spam LBs (and so that extra tick actually matters). It's not a very strong argument imo because it's not a significant enough increase to justify the loss of other useful stats (like Mastery or, if mana starved, Spirit). I think most druids that have a strong understanding of current game mechanics will say to go for the RJ and WG breakpoints only.

[Deleted]

A quick question about haste and Lifebloom.

Why do we only want haste in chunks to push extra ticks with Lifebloom? (I'm talking specifically about the tick at 1200 haste). Being something that we keep always active, doesn't it scale continuously?

The 1200 haste cap really isn't worth going for, either go 916 or 2009 (1567 with DI) the only thing going for 1200 is if you like letting your LB tick out and making ToL better, it still can't compete with the extra mastery/spirit though.

ToL, keep wg on CD, spam LB, RG when you get CC. The reason you don't use HT is because in ToL RG is instant. It's going to do much more healing overall using a free instant RG and going on with other spells than a free cast time HT.

Would you say it's reasonable to spam Rj while ToL is up instead of LB for for the higher healing/cast and lower gcd on Rj?

[Myrrar]

LB is cheaper and procs CC. In 10s getting everyone to 3 stacks of LB is a lot better than 10 RJs. And in 25s since LB is way cheaper getting more Lbs out is better in general.


I actually had to update the haste section since we haven't even considered getting the LB tick since beta and I just never changed it. Before when we had no idea the exact healing model Cata was going to have and thought Triage would be the only option, LB was the peak we were looking at. It's updated now though.

[Dendrek]

Would you say it's reasonable to spam Rj while ToL is up instead of LB for for the higher healing/cast and lower gcd on Rj?

This is certainly worth considering, but don't forget three facts:

1) The OOC procs you're pretty much guaranteed to get with LBs rolling can be used to cast free and instant Regrowths (jumping your burst hps up by a lot).

2) LB has a third of the mana cost of RJ, so not only does spamming LB potentially provide a lot of hps, using it with ToL is an excellent way to conserve mana (I can't emphasize that enough).

3) RJ is worth more hps than a single stack of LB, but at 2 stacks, the two spells provide about the same amount of hps (if I'm not mistaken).

[Myrrar]

It's also not considering LBs bloom which right now hits for a ton.

[Dendrek]

I actually took that into account, and even with the bloom I think RJ still heals for more than a single stack of LB for its cast time.