Resto Druid Guide - Updated for 3.3

[rboa]

Congratz on a very nice guide!

Awesome work!!!

I was happy with my build... you have given me stuff to think about

How do we get this sticky'ed?

[Cerelli]

So I have been playing WoW for about 2 1/2 years now, and only have one Level 80. I have many alts, but I tend to get disenchanted with the leveling process and just focus on my mage. Well finally I have a Druid that I am getting close to end-game content, and for the first time I would like to try something different than my typical glass cannon dps. Having no idea how to heal, I came across your post and I must say it has been incredibly informative. I feel like the first time I get into a group I have a much better chance of not being the Epic-Fail Healer (that I enjoy complaining about so much when I am playing my mage...)

My big question is, What types of Add-ons do you consider somewhat necessary? I have the typical ones you would expect, DBM, Quartz, Bartender4, etc... I am concerned about being effective as a healer, figuring out how to know when to jump to other targets aside from the tank (mostly in raid situations, when I cant necessarily see the other 5 or 20 people in the raid)

Thanks again, your guide has been extremely helpful!!

I'd suggest picking up a healing mod (grid-clique, vuhdo, healbot). healbot is easiest to use, but is limited in customization. I love vuhdo, personally. And grid is the popular addon that everybody uses because everybody else uses it. Don't get me wrong, it is a great addon but it has its major drawbacks too. I'd use all 3 to decide which you like best.

Get power auras or MikScrollingCombatText. They will really help tracking your resto cooldowns once you get them set up to your liking.

that is about it for healer specific addons, I think. Oh yeah, if you go with grid/clique make sure to pick up the supplementary addons that go with it.

[Dendrek]

Can anyone comment on how the GOTEM changes affect the soft cap ? It seems your clip from elitest jerks is a small part of many different possible combinations of buffs and talents the chart i found there(see below) seems different from what you posted , is this due to the change in GotEM? . So for simplicity sake i guess my question is without buffs and 3/3 in CF and 5/5 in GotEM what is the haste rating need to be at to hit soft cap ?

All the numbers in that quote are with 5/5 GotEM. I didn't post numbers with less than 5/5 GotEM because I don't really consider taking points from that talent to be an option.

Yes, the change to GotEM is the reason for the numbers being higher (and realistically, if you take points from GotEM you'd almost certainly never reach the haste soft cap anyways so there's really no point in considering that option).

I hope this answers your question.

My big question is, What types of Add-ons do you consider somewhat necessary? I have the typical ones you would expect, DBM, Quartz, Bartender4, etc... I am concerned about being effective as a healer, figuring out how to know when to jump to other targets aside from the tank (mostly in raid situations, when I cant necessarily see the other 5 or 20 people in the raid)

Cerelli provided a good answer to this question, but I wanted to mention that some time in the future (hopefully the near future, when I'm not feeling so lazy) I'll include a "Mod, Macro, and Keybinding" section in the guide. Thank you for reminding me!

[Dendrek]

Btw, I wanted to mention that I appreciate the positive and constructive feedback.

Thank you guys! I'm glad you found this guide helpful.

[Instant]

Im used to heal with grid, because on my shaman there arent that many things to track. In Wotlk we got Riptide, and that's pretty much it (dont mind Eearthliving its not worth tracking)... but for my druid i need some hot addon. Any suggestions? I know i can customize grid to show hots on raid members, i already did it. But tbh those small dots in corners, which im using as indicator, arent very comfortable, at least for now. Even though i have bigger frames on grid (im playing on 32" TV ;p).

So, any hot tracking addon of your choice?

As for your base build, i have to agree that a point in subtlety is useless. There is literally no place where healer has to worry bout threat, and even though mana is not a problem its always better to save some. But then again, anyone that will find this guide usefull, should have enough brain to figure out that he can change it

[Dendrek]

I'll point out that I never disagreed that 3 points aren't needed in Subtlety. It was an oversight on my part when I first wrote the guide to put those points there. I also didn't feel it was such a major flaw that the spec was "fail" (which is why I made two posts saying that the point doesn't really matter but that I do agree that's probably not the best place for it).

I've edited the Base Spec and the Dedicated Raid Healer spec accordingly.

I am also grateful that people caught that because I probably wouldn't have noticed it. (You may notice that the guide is rather large... I'd be surprised if that's the only error in it.)

Im used to heal with grid, because on my shaman there arent that many things to track. In Wotlk we got Riptide, and that's pretty much it (dont mind Eearthliving its not worth tracking)... but for my druid i need some hot addon. Any suggestions? I know i can customize grid to show hots on raid members, i already did it. But tbh those small dots in corners, which im using as indicator, arent very comfortable, at least for now. Even though i have bigger frames on grid (im playing on 32" TV ;p).

So, any hot tracking addon of your choice?

I'll admit I'm a die-hard Grid fan. But I'm also pretty big on customization and some of the other alternative addons aren't as customizable. I used Healbot + Lifebloomer early on as a healer. I used X-perl for a short time. And I even tried using Pitbull and VuhDo. All of these are good addons in their own ways (some better than others).

(By the way, when I do include an addon section in this guide, I'll do some research and find out what each addon can do and also what other people say about these addons so that I'm not providing my own biased perspective).

For Hot tracking, I believe that some options you have that may work for you are:

FortXorcist
DoTimer
Lifebloomer
HotCandy

Also, some of the Unit Frame addons have built-in Hot tracking or modules for that:

Grid - GridStatusHoTs, GridStatusDruidHoTs, GridStatusLifebloom (GridIndicatorCornerText or GridIndicatorSideText will also allow you to see timers for your hots)

X-Perl - is apparently able to track your hots. Last time I tried using it this function didn't seem to work very well, but it may have improved.

VuhDo - also has hot tracking functionality. But I have almost no experience with it.

[Cerelli]

vuhdo tracks hots in much the same way grid does. Squares at various locations inside the unitframe. It will also give you count down timers, if you want. Vuhdo will allow you to select where you want the icons to be placed, however (eg stacked up int he bottom left, outside, top right, ect...). it can also show bar timers inside of the unit frame for 3 hots.

[chicimono]

just curious to waht the best options for glyphs as raid healer

currently got

major:
innervate-dont really go oom though
Wildgrowth
Rapid rejuv

minor:
unburdend rebirth

[Cerelli]

just curious to waht the best options for glyphs as raid healer

currently got

major:
innervate-dont really go oom though
Wildgrowth
Rapid rejuv

minor:
unburdend rebirth

for a raid healer, I would say that the rapid rejuv glyph isn't going to be on the list. Reason being is that you wont be able to heal as many people before having to refresh your hots. That glyph is more suitable to 10-man/tank healing applications IMO.

for 25 man raid healing i'd go with regular rejuv, wild growth, and swiftmend

[chicimono]

for a raid healer, I would say that the rapid rejuv glyph isn't going to be on the list. Reason being is that you wont be able to heal as many people before having to refresh your hots. That glyph is more suitable to 10-man/tank healing applications IMO.

for 25 man raid healing i'd go with regular rejuv, wild growth, and swiftmend

ty xD

i am in 10 man guild though so should i stick with rapid rejuv or get normal rejuv one been raiding the first few weeks of icecrown with rapid rejuv seem alright just sorting out my spec and glyphs so i stay on top heals hehe gonna try the 18/0/53 spec listed in the guide here.

[Amandil]

I'd suggest picking up a healing mod (grid-clique, vuhdo, healbot). healbot is easiest to use, but is limited in customization. I love vuhdo, personally. And grid is the popular addon that everybody uses because everybody else uses it. Don't get me wrong, it is a great addon but it has its major drawbacks too. I'd use all 3 to decide which you like best.

Get power auras or MikScrollingCombatText. They will really help tracking your resto cooldowns once you get them set up to your liking.

that is about it for healer specific addons, I think. Oh yeah, if you go with grid/clique make sure to pick up the supplementary addons that go with it.

Another plug for vuhdu. They others are fine though, I just strongly suggest getting click healing(thats the clique part of the grid) which is built into vuhdu. Not sure about healbot, only tried it out for an hour or so before I found vuhdu.

If you don't already have it, I suggest decursive. While you can build this into the raid frames like grid, I keep it out as I don't like doing alt-click or shift-click. So this gives me the 2 cures within the small decursive boxes and 5 within the vuhdu boxes. Only things I'm really missing is swiftmend and NS/HT which I bind to 2 keys.

[Cerelli]

ty xD

i am in 10 man guild though so should i stick with rapid rejuv or get normal rejuv one been raiding the first few weeks of icecrown with rapid rejuv seem alright just sorting out my spec and glyphs so i stay on top heals hehe gonna try the 18/0/53 spec listed in the guide here.

if you are doing just 10man raiding then i'd say rapid rejuv/nourish/swiftmend would be the 3 to go with. The WG glyph loses it's potency in a 10 man group since you will rarely have 6 people grouped up together. Even with all of the new hate rating we are having to pick up, you should still easily be able to roll 10 rejuves on the raid with the rapid rejuv glyph and have time to spare.

[Velentar]

Just got on my druid again today for the first time in a while and took a look at your guide, fantastic btw, and was wondering what the best meta gem for resto was, didn't see it mentioned.

Also,

Rings:
@ Enchant Ring - Greater Spellpower* - 23SP, Requires Tailoring (400 skill)

A small error in a great guide makes me sad

[Cerelli]

Just got on my druid again today for the first time in a while and took a look at your guide, fantastic btw, and was wondering what the best meta gem for resto was, didn't see it mentioned.

Also,A small error in a great guide makes me sad

either ember skyflare or insightful earthsiege depending on your mana consumption.

[Dendrek]

Just got on my druid again today for the first time in a while and took a look at your guide, fantastic btw, and was wondering what the best meta gem for resto was, didn't see it mentioned.

Also,A small error in a great guide makes me sad

I appreciate you catching those errors. I've fixed the typo for the ring enchant and added the Meta Gem suggestion to "5. Gems".

[Dendrek]

I want to make a point clear about Haste as I've prioritized it in this guide for druids at the highest levels of gear:

On fights where you are spamming heals on GCD or on fights where you need to hot up a number of targets as quickly as possible, Haste is better than SP for throughput (until you're at the Haste soft cap). However, Haste looses a lot of its value if you aren't spamming heals on GCD. That is why I made the point of saying that being haste capped is really only important for difficult/progression fights. If you aren't spamming heals, Spell Power is superior. Please keep this in mind. Haste is not better in every situation.

[baro]

First of all, thank you Dendrek for this exhausting guide - one of the best I ever found on this forum

A practical question - I've just collected 60 Emblems of Frost so I can purchase my first T10 item. I also got Vanquisher's Mark of Sanctification, so I can upgrade it immediately. Thinking of getting gloves, but I'll lose T9 set bonus (Rejuvenation critting). Summarizing:

- I gain 72 haste rating and 25 sp (haste growth 449 -> 521, SP growth 2889 -> 2914 unbuffed)
- I lose T9 set bonus - rejuvenation can crit (20%)

Would you go for this additional haste rating, or rather keep rejuv crit? (Can't do both on my current gear ^^)

[Cerelli]

Personally, i'm going to be holding onto my 4 piece bonus as long as possible. What gear slot are you not using any T9 in? and what item are you using there?

[baro]

It's head. And yes, this is the alternative if I won't go for gloves. But T10 head increases my SP by 12 with no influence on haste... so not a huge improvement at all

BTW, I'm happy user of rapid rejuv glyph (found it great in most of situations), that's why I do care about better haste...

[Dendrek]

I'm also going to stay with my 4 piece t9 for a while. If I'm not mistaken, the 4P bonus increases Rejuv's healing done by roughly 10%. That's more of a benefit than 2% haste will give you.

If you're considering dropping the 4 piece bonus, I would wait until you can replace the entire 4 piece set (either with t10 or non-tier loot that has superior stat upgrades).

[Edit] An alternative would be to keep the T9 Haste pieces and replace the non-haste pieces. In that case, wait until you can replace 2 pieces of the set.

[Edit again...] In regard to the above edit: That option still might not beat the benefit the the 4 piece gives. Last edit, I swear!