State of Resto 5.4.

[Skallfraktur]

I can't speak for PvE, but in all honestly these changes are very nice from a PvP standpoint.

[Grubjuice]

I can't speak for PvE, but in all honestly these changes are very nice from a PvP standpoint.

which if i remember correctly had been a weak point for resto druids up until now.

[Myrrar]

i can see we have certain irreconcilable philosophical differences.

I think defending poor design because it punishes non-elite players is backwards.


Also just because Blizzard devs are not perfect and can never accomplish the ideal goal of perfect balance between all classes in all patches is no reason to whine when ever your class gets changed. No healer class should ever be overpowered, or carry a raid. being of average (rather than OP) utility is in fact what we should all aspire too.

It's not poor design, it's just not overly simplified one button healing. It's something that can't just be done by spamming grid/vuhdo. It takes knowing what's going to happen before it happens, understanding placement, understanding spell rotation in different situations, and being able to keep track of the healing it will put out at different stages. I hated shrooms when they 1st became useful, but the fact that they can end up not only a nice chuck of effective healing but extremely useful in different situations if you know how to use them makes it one of the only actual intelligent spells we have.

You also clearly missed my point. You said they will buff healing other places if this ends up being a large nerf. There is no reason to believe that at all. They have a huge history, every single patch, in screwing over classes and not fixing them. They don't really care if class balance is off. If you don't think people should complain when they change their class for the worse when it's not needed...I'm not really sure what you are expecting. Being nerfed when you are OP is fine. Being nerfed when you have a spell that's clearly OP, even if you aren't, is fine. Nerfing a spell that favors people who have mastered their class and it's STILL not OP, that's a problem. It's an unneeded and useless change.

Druid healing is so mindnumbingly boring compared to other classes atm, we don't need more oversimplifying at the cost of healing/utility.


[Let's also move this discussion to the other thread.]

It's gone wildly OT and fits in this thread better: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...-things-in-5-4
=]

[insanedruid]

Spells don't get nerfed arbitrarily; and rather than complaining about a nerf I think it's more useful to try to deduce why the nerf is being implemented, using the mechanical changes as evidence of the implied intent. Only after the mechanics of our entire spell kit are analyzed and adjusted can we even begin to discuss the issue of throughput which is always the last question to be answered (and even then we must discuss total throughput, not each individual spell's throughput).


_______________

I would make the following three observations and deduce the respective conclusions from them:


1) WM's spread potential has been removed

• (from this I would deduce that the devs felt WM's spread potential was too strong, and/or it was being abused, and/or we already were capable of spread healing without WM so it was redundent.)

2) WM's burst healing has been reduced, and in particular its burst+spread potential has been removed; but a new mechanic has been added [Genesis], which can be used as a burst+spread mechanic by synergizing with one of our traditional spread mechanics [Rejuvenation].

• (from this I would deduce that the devs still want us to be able to burst+spread, but they don't want us to use WM to do it, and they want us to be able to do it within the limitations of our mana and in keeping the traditional design of our class).

• @Insanedruid, you say Rejuvenation+Genesis is not better than the current version of WM, but i would counter by saying there is no need for it to be BETTER per se, it merely needs to be sufficient to purpose for which it meant to be used. Genesis is like Uplift on a Mistweaver, only we can control which targets are affected by rejuvenation (unlike Renewing Mist) at the cost of more GCDs per minute and the resource cost equations are of course different.

3) WM's mechanical placement has been significantly altered, and in particular it has been simplified

• (from this I would deduce that the devs felt that the current placement mechanic is too challenging or awkward, and so have decided to simplify its use, leading to more reliable placement and use.)

• @Insanedruid, you say that in mobile fights where the the raid is spread out, being able to move the mushroom doesn't help much; and in stacking fights you know where the raid will be, so being able to move the mushroom, again, doesn't help much. But I would counter by saying the intention appears to be that Rejuvenation+Gensis is the mechanic you use on spread and/or mobile fights, not mushrooms at all; and what the ability to re-place mushroom without loosing the bonus healing really does is reduce the punishment for imperfect play. Basically, i recognize that in a perfect stacking scenario you know where the raid will stand, but in real life how often does a raid group play perfectly?

_______________

With regard to points 1) and 2), I personally feel that druids have been known for many expansions to be superior spread healers based on the strength of rejuvenation, wild growth and tranquility. When Wild Mushrooms was added it gave us another tool to solve a problem we were already fairly capable of solving. What the devs have done is removed the redundent tool and shifted its healing potential back onto our traditional tool by way of Genesis. This seems like a reasonable change, from a mechanical point of view.

With regard to point 3). I personally despise the current mechanics of wild mushroom because I hate ground targeting reticules. They just get in the way of a healer's ability to use mouseover macros and/or healing addons when we are trying to maintain 'Always Be Casting'. (I also hate Healing Sphere on my Mistweaver). I grant that WM heals really well, but the mechanics of the spell are clunky as shit. It's a total pain in the ass to ground target and cast heals at the same time; plus if i have to relocate the mushrooms, or if my team members move, all the bonus healing is lost. The current spell is, in my humble opinion, horrible, from a mechanical point of view. Having played on the PTR, the new mechanic is so much easier to use that I have no problem fitting it into my rotation and I know that I can pre-load the mushroom and place it where i need to place it and never have to use a goddamn ground targeting reticule again. People who say the PTR version is clunky but that the current version is not clunky are speaking gibberish.

I don't really care if WM has been nerfed based on its healing throughput, the fact is it has been buffed in terms of its ease of use and if our ultimate whole-package throughput is insufficient, then our healing (perhaps in another spell) will most likely be increased to compensate.

1) And you don't really know the problem of resto druid before having shroom.
Burst. Especially burst healing when raid spread out.
Do you remember the encounters in HOF?
Windlord's rain of blade?
Empress? Ji-Kun on main platform?
You can't heal the burst without shroom. No druid didn't have the tool. The only tool we have now is shroom.
So you point 1's assumption is not quite correct.
WM's spread potential is removed not because we already have other tools, it's because they want to give use genesis(for some reason).

2) yes you may say that we don't need great spells. We just need spells that are good enough.
But I never said that rejuv+genesis is not good enough.
If they gave us genesis in 5.1(or 5.2?) that would have fixed our problem I stated above.
All I said is that the shroom is a nerf and shroom is better than genesis.
I don't know if I am "complaining", I just say that it's a nerf.

3) If the spell heals very little and it's very easy to use, it's useless.
On the other hand, a spell that is very powerful but it nearly never hit the right target, it's still useless.
My point is that you should always consider BOTH ease of use and healing output.
And do you know the change to DoC for kitty?
DoC is kind of hard to apply but quite powerful. They changed it to a brainless talent(i.e. very easy to use) but a lot less powerful. The kitty community just don't like the change and blizzard has reverted it now.
Ease of use is not everything.


After they buffed shroom two times druid is now doing quite good.

My concern is that:
1) nerfed shroom
2) poor tier bonus
3) not giving us Glyph of Efflorescence
Druid lacks raid utils, HPS is all we've got.
Genesis alone is not enough and we may fall behind again in 5.4 again.

[stormgust]

My concern is that:
1) nerfed shroom
2) poor tier bonus
3) not giving us Glyph of Efflorescence
Druid lacks raid utils, HPS is all we've got.
Genesis alone is not enough and we may fall behind again in 5.4 again.

The lack of raid utility shows nicely on the CD reduction trinket. We end up with "useless" spells like Might of Ursoc/Savaging Roar/Barkskin, when other classes get at most 1 self-defense CD - and the rest is directly enhancing their troughput/utility. Why choose a druid for at best "equal" (yah shroom nerfs) HPS/Burst, if you can have another class, which has equal HPS - but in addition has more troughput/utility CD's, which now also happen to be quite a bit more often available.

Then there's also the beyond broken interaction of the CD trinket with shaman/disc 4t16 - which our "90% more overheal" [now more often] really cannot compare to.

With the recently announced buffs to shaman, my prediction right now would be that we'll be last in terms of troughput, while in addition bringing the least raid utility once again.

[Checksmix]

We are still going to do very good throughput regaurdless. A lot of the fights work with rej easily.

Don't use the CD trinket, you the 20k spirit and spirit on use, than reforge out of ALL your spirit. Wait till your COMPLETELY out of mana and for the 20k to proc, use the trinket and watch as you regen over 70% of your mana

[Myrrar]

The lack of raid utility shows nicely on the CD reduction trinket. We end up with "useless" spells like Might of Ursoc/Savaging Roar/Barkskin, when other classes get at most 1 self-defense CD - and the rest is directly enhancing their troughput/utility. Why choose a druid for at best "equal" (yah shroom nerfs) HPS/Burst, if you can have another class, which has equal HPS - but in addition has more troughput/utility CD's, which now also happen to be quite a bit more often available.

Then there's also the beyond broken interaction of the CD trinket with shaman/disc 4t16 - which our "90% more overheal" [now more often] really cannot compare to.

With the recently announced buffs to shaman, my prediction right now would be that we'll be last in terms of troughput, while in addition bringing the least raid utility once again.

This has been our problem for 3 expansions now. Even tiers where we almost double other classes effective throughput we've been sat for not having raid CDs. They gave us ironbark which did....well nothing. Some tiers that's the break for us even if we're balanced quite well, some tiers tranq + our throughout + hot favoring was enough to bring us to most fights.

That trink is going to be pretty OP for some specs. They have let OP trink procs/weapon procs go for whole tiers before changing them before, but that may end up being a little too OP, even for them. I won't be surprised if the bonus is changed.