Resto - BFA Changes

[Deleted]

They should just turn all healers into shamans so they can all be OP. They get the most ridiculous cooldowns, ank which seems to be unconsidered with all of the brez complaining/nerfing nonsense, a better efflo, better mana efficiency, etc, etc. And don't even talk to me about them in pvp.

At least if they are going to continue nerfing druids and buffing shamans give people the option for a free character swap to change your nerfed healer into an rsham.

Every other healer has a more frequently used spell that scales regardless of group size like light of dawn, CH, POM, where wild growth is always limited to 6, efflo only hits 3.

Light of Dawn hits 5 targets, healing rain 6, Chain Heal 5, PoM jumps every few seconds with 5 charges. None of the abilities scales regardless of groups size. In addition Efflo is instant whereas Healing Rain has ~2 sec cast time and lasts 10 instead of 30 seconds.
Yes, Shamans are strong, especially due to their utility but druids are very far from being bad.

[ttylol]

Healing Tide should be removed, Shaman just has too much. That would indirectly make Tranq feel better. (Or at least put Tide in the same talent row as Ascendance).

our only ST hardcast heal being regrowth seems a little weird when basically every other healer has the slow/efficient vs fast/inefficient tradeoff

Both Shaman and Paladin have procs to lower the cast time of their slow heal, Holy Priest rarely uses it (Flash Heal beacon-like talent overshadows it), Monk instead has a 6 sec HoT, and Disc has... Smite? Frankly, the efficient vs fast design hasn't worked (especially when HoTs blur those lines).

[kooz]

I main rdruid and also play rshaman about same level (can switch and readjust quickly). If it's an early progression/I don't quite know the fight, rsham is normally better than rdruid due to reactive mechanics. Normally with mana enhancements such as wisdom and coordinated innervates, rdruid can become best to drive hps and stability when needed. If you are a good player so you are granted such resources available, rdruid becomes quite strong. Remembering to shapeshift and FR when makes sense could be easily best surv. tool often accounting for 3% of the heal, similar to a trinket.

[Purpleisbetter]

You should dig up all the doomsaying from before Legion launched, and somehow Resto Druids still raided.

Because we were dominant on the meters.

Ofc of you heal so much you can insta drop a healer even in prog...who cares about utility.

[gobio]

When raid does not stack, there is no way a druid will lose HPS to a gear-wise equally competitive shaman. It simply just does not happen when raid not standing in healing rain. So there is no point bringing in Shaman.

Shaman overall is better than druid in Antorus because T21 is healing rain focus, and Antorus itself has a lot of fights people stacking together.

Does druid really want to "win" shaman on their circle ground game that you want T20 back as talent? I thought most druid hated that shit.

[Tiberria]

When raid does not stack, there is no way a druid will lose HPS to a gear-wise equally competitive shaman. It simply just does not happen when raid not standing in healing rain. So there is no point bringing in Shaman.

Shaman overall is better than druid in Antorus because T21 is healing rain focus, and Antorus itself has a lot of fights people stacking together.

Does druid really want to "win" shaman on their circle ground game that you want T20 back as talent? I thought most druid hated that shit.

Sure, there's a point. The main reason you bring a Shaman as a near mandatory part of every raid comp isn't pure HPS (logs have had them at near the bottom all expansion for that), but the outrageous amount of utility the bring. They have 2 raid CDs, and SLT can be game breaking on a lot of fights. On top of that, they have the option to talent into Stampeding Roar, and the option to talent into a totem that gives you a free b-rezz essentially off the b-rezz timer, and that also acts as essentially as a 3rd raid CD. It doesn't matter that they have slightly lower HPS, when they have all of this extra stuff that no other spec can bring, on top of the fact that their mastery makes their HPS highest when it actually matters the most.

You don't often need pure max HPS out of every healer, and unless a spec is bringing absolutely overwhelming HPS (Druids in Nighthold as an example), a better toolkit and utility is more important every day of the week.

[Deleted]

Personally I have always used abundance with lots of healing touches (I have low mastery and lots of crit and haste) in a raid environment, in heroic raids I always get top or near top healing vs other similar geared healers (except holy priests). Personally I think it will be a shame to remove it. Also it will be bad in pvp to lose those fast healing touches with nourish, it is super cool if tricky to manage the stacks.

It's like blizzard just look at the most played spec then force everyone to play that rather than make the other options more viable.

What about tiger dash (pvp mainly)? Guess it will be used in many the same situations as blink but I suppose you can be cced during the sprint. And no more blinking through obstacles in raids

- - - Updated - - -

Personally I have always used abundance with lots of healing touches (I have low mastery and lots of crit and haste) in a raid environment, in heroic raids I always get top or near top healing vs other similar geared healers (except holy priests). Personally I think it will be a shame to remove it. Also it will be bad in pvp to lose those fast healing touches with nourish, it is super cool if tricky to manage the stacks.

It's like blizzard just look at the most played spec then force everyone to play that rather than make the other options more viable.

What about tiger dash (pvp mainly)? Guess it will be used in many the same situations as blink but I suppose you can be cced during the sprint. And no more blinking through obstacles in raids

That said thinking about it with high haste and the lower mana cost abundance/regrowth spam might be a fun way to play.

[theburned]

Here is what we know so far from today's build, and the previous build.

- Healing Touch - removed
- Living Seed - removed
- 40 +Crit effect on Regrowth - removed
- Tranquility changed to have HoT scaling, where every subsequent tick heals for more than the initial tick.
- Tranquility loses casting while moving (they have said there are no plans to enable that).
- Displacer Beast - removed and replaced with Tiger's Dash (discussed at length in other thread).
- Stonebark and Germination are swapping places in the talent tree
- Flourish is reworked to essentially combine the current effects of Essence of G'Hanir and Flourish into a single ability with a 90 second CD and 8 second duration
- Abundance is reworked with the removal of Healing Touch. It now gives 6% Crit and 6% mana reduction to Regrowth per active Rejuv.


What are people's thoughts on these changes. Here are mine.
- I think they are removing too many spells overall from a spec that already has a reputation of being simpler than other specs. Healing Touch is gone. If you want to keep Germination and want to use Tiger's Dash, you lose 3 more things that are currently buttons (EoG, Flourish, and Displacer Beast). I think cutting us down to just 1 single target direct heal (especially when every other healer is keeping two) just makes our toolkit too bare, and it feels like another rotational spell needs to be put in there.
- The talent changes effectively limit your options/pigeon hole you into a raiding spec or a Mythic+ spec. Assuming Cultivation remains the go to talent like it is in Legion, if you want to keep Germination (which you will 100% have to in 5 mans at least), you basically are stuck with no cooldowns other than Tranq. If you want to have access to a major personal throughput CD in raids, you lose the spot healing/debuff healing flexibility of having Germination. It feels like it just limits your toolkit/options and makes the spec too straightforward.
- The benefit is that you at least will be able to have either Spring Blossoms or Inner Peace in raids with no sacrifice. However, those are both passive talents that lack any real play style to them, so it doesn't really fill the gap.
- The new Abundance probably becomes a go to 5 man and PvP talent, but is going to remain close to a dead talent in raiding. The number of Rejuvs that you will have to have out to make it worthwhile, with the other GCDs that need to be spent on LB, WG, SM, Efflo, etc., is going to leave very little time to take advantage of using buffed Regrowth heavily.
- I strongly suspect that the raid build will be CW/Cult/Spring Blossoms/Flourish, and the M+ build will be Abundance/Cult/Stonebark/Germination

Again you show little to no understanding about how the specc works.
Healing touch has barely ever been used and is not really anything but an illusion of choice, having trap spells that are rarely if ever worth to cast is just pointless. Germ vs flourish isnt much of an option in a raid, flourish just flat out beats it unless you really need that focused healing. Losing flexibility is fine as it makes it a decision, unlike just going same talents for literally everything because it doesnt matter.
LB has yet to prove that its worth casting over rejuv (especially with the new abundance, when you barely even get the mana value from regrowth from it.) if you get cult value etc. and will be something to be used as a germination, not much more. SM also has been a spell that you can cast, not should cast. Efflo is one cast every 30 sec, and wg is highly variable, but fair enough its one gcd every 12 sec ish.

The raid build could easily involve abundance with little to no options towards putting more healing than rejuv on a target, having the option to have a very efficient and strong spot heal (with reliable value) with an additional HoT on a target just has a lot more value than something like CW. While also empowering the value of your flourish compared to what options we currently have. If you already have rejuv on everyone and dont use germ, you currently dont have much to do. With abundance this allows you to spam free regrowths aswell. Unless its very efficient again or abundance turns out to be a pushover it will most likely be the go to talent.

Your M+ build is just as naive as blizzard's there is close to no way you would use stonebark over SB, just like you dont use stonebark over flourish right now.... They would have to at very least add the legendary glove effect to make the talent somewhat competitive in any situation, and even then it would most likely have to be specifically tailored situations towards it.
ToL has still proven to be plenty valuable in several situations (sotf has yet again proven to fall short.) While also having good synergy with WG, rejuv and regrowth, which will now be even more important as SM and LB loses even more value.

[Deleted]

Healing Tide should be removed, Shaman just has too much. That would indirectly make Tranq feel better. (Or at least put Tide in the same talent row as Ascendance).

Hey there, that's pretty envious. I play both healing classes, but the resto shaman is my main and for most of the past expansions, we've been at the bottom of Hps, only brought for cooldowns like back then Manatide (to push other healers even more) and later Spiritlink and now you want to take that away too?
Resto shamans are already losing the option to spec into their mini cd (Ancestral Guidance), plus it looks like CH is going to get a cd, Cloudburst is getting nerfed, too. And The spell from the Artifact weapon plus improved Healing Tide are gone. So you definitely won't have to be afraid, that shamans will get too close in your precious hps. Also shamans have no tank cd as a trade off for the two raid cds, which is a really big deal in M+, while druids can have theirs on a 1min cd if they want. I feel like that tank cd often gets under valued, just because it isn't measured on any meters.
If anything, holy priests are going to be the new powerhouses, with two raid cds, mana cd, spammable group heal and a tank cd all in one package.


Druids are the most mobile healing class in game, which is a huge advantage in many raid fights and M+, so I can't understand the complaints about having to stand still to channel a powerful raid cd all couple minutes either.
What I noticed when looking at all the new talent trees, is that druids will be able to spec into reduced Tranq cd, ToL and double rejuv all at the same time. Won't that give more than enough raw healing power and cd coverage?

I realize that I'm gonna get roasted as a shaman here in druid territory, but I just had to comment on the un-sportsmanlike comments against shamans.

[Tiberria]

Germ vs flourish isnt much of an option in a raid, flourish just flat out beats it unless you really need that focused healing. Losing flexibility is fine as it makes it a decision, unlike just going same talents for literally everything because it doesnt matter.
LB has yet to prove that its worth casting over rejuv (especially with the new abundance, when you barely even get the mana value from regrowth from it.) if you get cult value etc. and will be something to be used as a germination, not much more. SM also has been a spell that you can cast, not should cast. Efflo is one cast every 30 sec, and wg is highly variable, but fair enough its one gcd every 12 sec ish.

On paper, on live, Spring Blossoms should always be a better option than Germination, because it adds pure, free throughput, while Germination doesn't add any extra throughput over and above the extra mastery stacking. However, we all know that Germination has ended up being better in terms of effective healing/healing patterns on many if not most fights this expansion. It's entirely possible the exact same thing happens in BFA with Germination vs Flourish. I don't think it's a good change, because while, sure, it adds an option in terms of talent selection, but I don't think extra options at the talent selection screen at the expense of extra depth of playstyle options in actual combat is a good thing. Regardless of what option you choose, you have less playstyle flexibility, and it makes the spec feel more barren/simpler.

They significantly buffed Lifebloom a couple builds ago. It's now something like 3-4x the total throughput of Rejuv, plus another 3-4x for the bloom portion. It's going to be an automatic cast, and if it's not, it's because they screwed up tuning, because if it's not worth keeping the 1 LB up, there's no point of the spell existing. Abundance could definitely be an option, but my guess is - if you want more single target options, you'd go Germination before you'd go Abundance. I also disagree with you on using Spring Blossoms in a 5 man. I really can't see it unless you're running 2+ melee. You move around too frequently, and too often you can only have 1-2 people in an Efflo (with a normal 2 ranged, 1 melee comp) for you to get a whole lot out of SB. I think you'd just take Stonebark by default, because there's so little practical use for either SB or IP.

- - - Updated - - -

Hey there, that's pretty envious. I play both healing classes, but the resto shaman is my main and for most of the past expansions, we've been at the bottom of Hps, only brought for cooldowns like back then Manatide (to push other healers even more) and later Spiritlink and now you want to take that away too?
Resto shamans are already losing the option to spec into their mini cd (Ancestral Guidance), plus it looks like CH is going to get a cd, Cloudburst is getting nerfed, too. And The spell from the Artifact weapon plus improved Healing Tide are gone. So you definitely won't have to be afraid, that shamans will get too close in your precious hps. Also shamans have no tank cd as a trade off for the two raid cds, which is a really big deal in M+, while druids can have theirs on a 1min cd if they want. I feel like that tank cd often gets under valued, just because it isn't measured on any meters.
If anything, holy priests are going to be the new powerhouses, with two raid cds, mana cd, spammable group heal and a tank cd all in one package.


Druids are the most mobile healing class in game, which is a huge advantage in many raid fights and M+, so I can't understand the complaints about having to stand still to channel a powerful raid cd all couple minutes either.
What I noticed when looking at all the new talent trees, is that druids will be able to spec into reduced Tranq cd, ToL and double rejuv all at the same time. Won't that give more than enough raw healing power and cd coverage?

I realize that I'm gonna get roasted as a shaman here in druid territory, but I just had to comment on the un-sportsmanlike comments against shamans.

It's an unmitigated fallacy that Druids are the most mobile healing spec in the game, and is certainly utter bullshit post BFA changes.

Sure, you can spam Rejuv (and refresh LB) while moving. However, guess what? If you're only doing that, you're doing a fraction of your actual throughput. If you can't afford to hard cast Wild Growth on CD, you're giving up close to 50% of your healing. If your raid isn't standing still to make Efflo worth the cast, you lose a big chunk too. Yes, you can do 40-60% of your healing while moving. However, most specs can come close to that, because it isn't like they don't have instants like Holy Shock, Riptide, etc. For Shaman, as long as the movement isn't more frequent than the CD of SWG (particularly talented SWG), they can actually do more of their healing during pure movement, because you can do everything except HR essentially.

Then, you look at our mobility abilities. On live, our 3 primary mobility options are use Displacer Beast, use Dash, or use Cat Form for the 30% speed boost (or Travel Form if "outside"). With all 3 of those options, you're doing 0 healing until you exit the shapeshift form. In comparison, Priests can still cast their instants during Angelic Feather, same as Shaman during Gust of Wind, same as Paladins during Cavalier, Roll is a single GCD, etc., etc. You have more options, but they all eat GCDs, and they all silence you until you pull out of the shapeshift forms, so it has a downside. In BFA, it becomes even worse. Assuming we take Tiger's Dash, we lose both Displacer Beast and Dash, and only have this one Dash every 45 seconds, and nothing else outside of Cat Form. Roll, Feather, and Gust of Wind are all 15-20 second CDs, 2 of the 3 have charges. Divine Steed is 45 seconds but has 2 charges. Druids unquestionably will have the worst movement ability toolkit outside of Disc.

Then, you layer on the Tranq change, and we now not only have garbage movement speed talents, our raid cooldown also can get fucked/not be usable in certain situations. The only advantage that we are left with is Rejuv being spammable, but that's offset by the weakness of the rest of the movement kit. BFA Druids are unquestionably behind Resto Shaman and Mistweavers in terms of mobility, and you could argue they aren't much better off than HPriest/HPally either. The tank CD is largely irrelevant in a raid situation, because you run 4-5 healers anyway, and one of them not having it doesn't matter, because I don't think I've seen a BFA fight where you need everyone's tank CDs anywhere near off CD all the time. It's not a reasonable trade off in a raid setting - the 2nd major raid CD is better every day of the week.

[Deleted]

Well I wouldn't get too hung up on the mobilty, since it depends largely on the design of the fights and we just don't know them yet. If there are fights with constant short movement periods, like every 30 seconds, a shaman's Spiritwalker's Grace on a base 2min Cd and one Riptide every 6 seconds won't do much, yet the druid can always continue spamming Rejuv, which is his main heal after all. Spiritwalker's Grace only wins, if there are 1-2 long movement periods per fight. Also you're listing talented SWG (the short cd) and Gust of wind as shaman mobilty at the same time, but since they are in the same tier, the shaman can only have one. It's either the jump, or SWG every 1min. In the end, one could always find scenarios, that favour one over the other, so we'll just have to wait with what type of fights Blizz will come up.
And I mostly mentioned the tank cd in a M+ context, but there are also raid fights now and then where they matter.

Also, I would easily take a bet (and I'm serious on it), that resto druids are going to come out on top of raw healing with the current beta talent tree, maybe tied with holy priests. And since Hps seem to be the matter of concern here, who cares if one loses 2 gcds per minute for a shift to cat form, if it gets you out of the void zone and the overall healing output doesn't suffer? What movement talent or ability would you suggest, that wouldn't make druids absolutely superior for healing on the move?

[theburned]

On paper, on live, Spring Blossoms should always be a better option than Germination, because it adds pure, free throughput, while Germination doesn't add any extra throughput over and above the extra mastery stacking. However, we all know that Germination has ended up being better in terms of effective healing/healing patterns on many if not most fights this expansion. It's entirely possible the exact same thing happens in BFA with Germination vs Flourish. I don't think it's a good change, because while, sure, it adds an option in terms of talent selection, but I don't think extra options at the talent selection screen at the expense of extra depth of playstyle options in actual combat is a good thing. Regardless of what option you choose, you have less playstyle flexibility, and it makes the spec feel more barren/simpler.

They significantly buffed Lifebloom a couple builds ago. It's now something like 3-4x the total throughput of Rejuv, plus another 3-4x for the bloom portion. It's going to be an automatic cast, and if it's not, it's because they screwed up tuning, because if it's not worth keeping the 1 LB up, there's no point of the spell existing. Abundance could definitely be an option, but my guess is - if you want more single target options, you'd go Germination before you'd go Abundance. I also disagree with you on using Spring Blossoms in a 5 man. I really can't see it unless you're running 2+ melee. You move around too frequently, and too often you can only have 1-2 people in an Efflo (with a normal 2 ranged, 1 melee comp) for you to get a whole lot out of SB. I think you'd just take Stonebark by default, because there's so little practical use for either SB or IP.

Germ is the better talent because once you have one rejuv on a person there is no way to put healing into that person apart from LB/SM/RG/CW procs, all very restricted.
The mastery definitely helps aswell, but its a throughput gain by itself because its rejuvs (also great synergy with ToL) which are also being refreshed by deep rooted.

The talent tree shakes this up massively by providing us with abundance which makes regrowth do the same job, extra mastery stack, quick reactionary healing and fairly efficient.
Flourish and ghanir is far stronger than what SB ever was as they provide on-demand healing, now also in one gcd. While germination provides you with something you shouldnt actually need apart from in small groups where abundance practically requires it.

Fair enough LB was buffed a bit, last time I checked it was barely more hpm/hpc than rejuv at least.
As for stonebark, I dont think you realize how weak this talent is if you think it will be used in m+ when practically mastery stack is enough to make it worth it. And you can easily get 3 people in it, and mastery stacks on 5 people whenever youre stacked and also heals for half of a rejuv pr person.

"No point in the spell even existing" well it was here during Legion and its been really bad, mostly for a 3rd rejuv on tanks.

[Purpleisbetter]

They will never EVER let another KJ or Avatar to happen.
Hence, mobility was is and will be a wanna be utility.

[Mazzeric]

They will never EVER let another KJ or Avatar to happen.
Hence, mobility was is and will be a wanna be utility.

I guess they just won't make any more fights that require fast positioning, too bad. Dead niche honestly.

Let's be frank though, outside of Resto Shamans and Holy Paladins ("mechanics-cheesing cooldown bot" and "tank healer"), healer niches don't really exist, or are irrelevant. The rest of the healer specs kinda just pump HPS, and PW:Barrier and DRs make Disc the best of those.

I can't think of a way for them to make a "HoT healing/blanketing" niche truly something your raid *needs* unless they go back to designing bosses with threatening AoE damage that can't just be muscled through with the million raid cds we have access to now. I think that hurts Druid the most tbh. Just thinking back to fights in ICC like Sindragosa and Blood Queen Lana'thel where HoT blankets helped immensely because there was sustained throughput needed all the time.

[Leafcast]

I guess they just won't make any more fights that require fast positioning, too bad. Dead niche honestly.

Let's be frank though, outside of Resto Shamans and Holy Paladins ("mechanics-cheesing cooldown bot" and "tank healer"), healer niches don't really exist, or are irrelevant. The rest of the healer specs kinda just pump HPS, and PW:Barrier and DRs make Disc the best of those.

I can't think of a way for them to make a "HoT healing/blanketing" niche truly something your raid *needs* unless they go back to designing bosses with threatening AoE damage that can't just be muscled through with the million raid cds we have access to now. I think that hurts Druid the most tbh. Just thinking back to fights in ICC like Sindragosa and Blood Queen Lana'thel where HoT blankets helped immensely because there was sustained throughput needed all the time.

Just be wary of the echo chamber effect that tends to happen in class specifics threads. The sky is not falling, although some distasteful changes appear to be in the works for our beloved resto druid.

In your post you make it sound as if strong throughput isn't required anymore. I disagree wholeheartedly. There are many fights this expansion where resto druids absolutely crushed because of the damage patterns.

[Kaibel]

It's a bold move Cotton, let's see how it plays or for them

[Deleted]

Personally I have always used abundance with lots of healing touches (I have low mastery and lots of crit and haste) in a raid environment, in heroic raids I always get top or near top healing vs other similar geared healers (except holy priests). Personally I think it will be a shame to remove it. Also it will be bad in pvp to lose those fast healing touches with nourish, it is super cool if tricky to manage the stacks.

It's like blizzard just look at the most played spec then force everyone to play that rather than make the other options more viable.

What about tiger dash (pvp mainly)? Guess it will be used in many the same situations as blink but I suppose you can be cced during the sprint. And no more blinking through obstacles in raids

Yea, people here are correct, losing instant HT spam does not affect PvE (perhaps not at all) but more or less kills resto druid in BGs, its pretty much the only way to save your ally who is being nuked which forces enemy players to focus you. I am interested in how are they going to tune numbers around to balance this because there is nothing else in resto´s toolkit to save someone from getting hammered by 2-3 enemies. Regrowth heals for less and costs more in general, now the loss of living seed (which will be highly noticeable in PvP), loss of extra crit chance.

When blizz stated that they are happy with class design and will change only few specs (like demo lock or surv hunter) people thought we will just transition into BfA. WRONG! These changes seem minor but will wreck balancing for 1st year of BfA atleast until they balance it out again...and we know how terrible they are at balancing things. PvE will probably be fine, its PvP that always gets screwed over as usual.

[ryklin]

Nah, losing instant/near-instant HT is pretty big honestly for pve, just it's a rather neglected part of the kit between other classes having stronger direct heals and the fact that people just don't apply themselves to M+.
yeah though, rbg's and 3s that don't involve either a warlock or melee are gonna be interesting without nourish, handling high cleave damage as a druid could get really difficult

[Tiberria]

The real challenge for the BfA design exists when you look at the state of the healing meta.

- Holy Paladins and Resto Shaman were all but mandatory again all of Legion (as they were all of WoD). Nothing significant has happened to either of those specs to make them any less mandatory.
- Holy Priests are getting a talent that gets them a second raid CD effectively, as well as a raid wide Mana Tide type ability. They are effectively now at the Resto Shaman level or close to it in terms of utility, and that probably locks them into a mandatory spot in the healing meta.
- Disc Priests were already considered the #3 spot in a healing comp if you had one and had one that could play it well. That's probably going to continue, because it's still free damage with presumably competitive HPS, and the highest % single target and raid damage reduction CDs in the game.

Meanwhile, Druids are only getting pruned down from live, with a mechanically weaker raid CD, significantly reduced utility, and reduced overall healing pattern flexibility in combat (i.e. either Germination or Flourish). If it goes live like this, without significant additional changes, it's entirely possible that Druids and Mistweavers are locked out of 4 healer raid comps entirely, or are at least at best competing for that 4th spot.

What even makes it worse is class buffs. Druids currently have no class buff in Alpha, and even if we do get one, it won't help the raid comp situation much, because you probably will have a Druid of at least one spec in your raid anyway. So, that further reduces the viability of a spec with inferior utility and mechanics and that brings no unique buff.

[Nevcairiel]

yeah though, rbg's and 3s that don't involve either a warlock or melee are gonna be interesting without nourish, handling high cleave damage as a druid could get really difficult

Nourish isn't gone, it just works with Regrowth now.