[Resto] Druid Guide - 5.0+

[land]

I've seen a few high progression resto druids with ilvl around 500 gemming pure spirit in blues, mastery+spirit in yellow, int+mastery in red...
Is this required for all hard modes or just certain encounters?

I was wondering the same when comparing my self to the other 2 top resto druids in my realm. I tried my self going for a high spirit build for some fights and I really liked it. I could toss a lot more rejuv + WG on heavy aoe fights like elite protectors, tsulong (night) and garalon. I'm assuming the heroic versions of these fights demand even more mana, I wouldn't want to do them with anything less than 10k spir.

[Dendrek]

The actual breakpoint for WG14 with a 70% SotF would be 3421. You're conceptually right but there's some rounding in-game that's not obvious--the tick interval is rounded to the nearest millisecond before the number of ticks is computed.

At any rate, SotF is currently 75% on PTR. That will give the 14th tick at 2109 and the 15th at 5437.

Ty for the correction and the heads up.

[Juvenate]

FoN is not that strong if it only gets 5-6 casts off. I know it's smart, but as a healer it's hard to overstate the value of a very powerful timer. At any rate, I don't see at all how FoN is competitive with Tree based on "math"--it does much less healing on paper, the only argument for it is an intangible one based on smartness.

I find most people who are underwhelmed by Tree are somewhat ignoring the mana effect of 30s of mostly-free healing as a perfectly fine use for it when you don't need the power healing.

It's not that I'm "underwhelmed" by Incarn so much as I'm trying to see a bit more value in Force of Nature. Incarn is far and away the most fun talent on that tier and I think it has quite a bit more variance regarding HpS. With Incarn your HpS will vary depending on RNG. I've had some bad luck in the past where I don't get an OoC proc until half way through the duration and I may only get 2-3 procs total.

The default choice for me was always Incarnation outside of SotF with our 4pc. I hate SotF without the 4pc since it creates an extremely awkward AoE setup since the CDs of WG and SM don't lineup properly.

The thing with Force of Nature is it's reliable HpS not based on RNG. On the PTR, Skada was reporting that Treants provide a 12-13k HpS increase for the duration with total healing being 230k (no Spellpower buff) at 7 casts with no Crits (7 should be possible with the Haste buff). That results in at least 690-700k free healing every 3 minutes, or half the healing of Tranquility. Treants also have virtually no overheal. Live testing showed overhealing to be about 2-3%.

I like to think of Force of Nature as a mini HpS CD that is available 3x more often than Incarnation. The fact that it will be available more often in an encounter should give Druids more reason to possibly take it now that the healing isn't paltry.

[Sir Render]

Exactly what places a druid above a priest class?

[Dendrek]

Is that question in response to a comment? Without context, I have no idea how this question can be answered.

[Xsy]

Hello everyone. So reading this post it seems most people advice against the 5730 breakpoint. I am now considering to gem towards mastery to reduce the haste to 3043 and only use SotF on fights that will show clear benefit from it( tsulong , garalon , etc... ). This is my armory link: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/characte.../Wooddy/simple , and as you can see my guild has only recently started to progress in the normal modes because of various roster issues , so I probably wont be doing HC's this tier. Do you think its worth the change?

[Juvenate]

I've advocated strictly against having 5730 Haste since I haven't seen any type of throughput increase with it, even with the 4-piece bonus. Math has also shown to be against it since you are trading 4-5% Mastery (4-5% increased healing to all spells) to achieve an 8% increase to 1 spell. WG still doesn't make up enough of our healing to make the trade-off worth it. We shouldn't be aiming for higher Haste breakpoints until we have an overabundance of Haste on our gear.

[Myrrar]

Most people at this point are arguing against even getting the 1st breakpoint unless you are almost right on without sacrificing mastery(only crit and spi when it can't be changed to mastery).

I haven't seen any numbers on it for awhile so I won't say that for certain, but definitely don't think about pushing for the second at any gear level except probably mostly HM gear.

[clevin]

3043 comes pretty easily as you get 460+ gear so I don't think there's a reason NOT to hit it (i.e. to deliberately avoid it by reforging away from haste to mastery). The second breakpoint is hard enough to get that I don't worry about it.

[Xsy]

Yeah I agree now that the 5730 is not the most effective. I just really like that Swiftmend + WG combo Guess i'll start removing all of that haste gemming.

[Deleted]

To people say you have to sacrifice mastery ; i would reply why mastery and not spirit? depending on your raid format (10man or 25man) and numbers of healers you are using reaching 5730 by sacrificing spirit its not bad . Even if you are getting oomed you still have mushrooms , mana pots , mana hymns,innervate (yours or someone's else),totems so unless you 2 man or 4 man heal (25man) and your raid is getting loads of damage you cant handle sacrificing spirit for haste is not bad! Dont forget that you also get extra tick in regrowth (if you dont use the glyph) and lifebloom going above 3043 and to 5730. So you can reach 5730 without having to sacrifice mastery.

[necromorphs]

With the new changes to SoTF in 5.2. How do you think this talent will stand compared to Incarnation? I personally think SoTF might be situational to fights and Incarnation still comes out as default talent of choice. I was thinking instead of buffing SoTF to grant 70% of haste, how about your next 2 spells grant you 50% instead of only 1 spell? Or is that just too OP.....?

[Ifeanychukwu]

Heya folks, haven't really played my resto druid in a while, been really busy with my pally lately =3 Anywho, don't spose somebody would mind taking a look at my druid and seeing what I could do to improve my druid a little bit so I can get back into raiding?

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...hukwu/advanced

There's my armory. Quit a month or so into the launch of MoP, whenever it was the first raid had just come out so I'm assuming some of what I was doing back then is probably outdated. Anyway, any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated

[Monkeyofcode]

Heya folks, haven't really played my resto druid in a while, been really busy with my pally lately =3 Anywho, don't spose somebody would mind taking a look at my druid and seeing what I could do to improve my druid a little bit so I can get back into raiding?

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...hukwu/advanced

There's my armory. Quit a month or so into the launch of MoP, whenever it was the first raid had just come out so I'm assuming some of what I was doing back then is probably outdated. Anyway, any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated

If you have 5% haste buff you should aim for 3043 haste its fairly easy to get and it a nice hps upgrade.

Also personally when i started raiding 10m N i sat around 8k Spr and had no troubles. So maybe move some of that spirit out and grab some more int. Though it does come down to your healing style, raid make up and how you're other healers heal.

I particularly like this blog http://iam.yellingontheinternet.com/...ling-problems/ but like i said take it with a grain of salt depending on healing style raid make up etc.

[ImWearingSpeed0]

Awesome and detailed guide

[Sinitar]

How good is the new SOTF for 5.2 compared to the old one? Is it worth picking it without the tier 14 4 piece bonus? I reckon tree will be suited for fights like Windlord, where burst healing is needed, and SOTF will always be the preferred talent for fights with lots of periodical aoe damage, such as Garalon.

[Gags]

It's my understanding FoN is affected by haste, does anyone know of a break point list? See quite a bit of talk about if you can get them up to 6 casts per use combined with the buff makes them quite reasonable.

[Juvenate]

3043 Haste with the Haste buff should get you 6 casts assuming no interruptions. At a little over 4k Haste (w/Haste buff) you should be able to get 7 casts off. The safest bet would be to hit about 4100 Haste to insure the 7th cast in case of lag.

Hitting the 8th tick takes an extreme amount of Haste, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10k.

As of right now I think FoN is still a bit lackluster than SotF or Incarn. It still needs a moderate buff to be competitive. When I used it in LFR on the PTR I did about 10k HpS less than on boss attempts where I used SotF.

[Gags]

I guess looking at straight numbers it makes sense for it to be under the other two options a little. Since it's healing can be done regardless of you're situation, allowing you to a) continue healing on top of it or b) cc or whatever else is required. If it was just pop cd and expect it to do as much as the other two options it might seem a little op and the obvious choice, strictly speaking output.

Looking forward to playing with this on the live server.

[Juvenate]

Just as an FYI, I have updated my resto gear guide for 5.2 that is linked on this sticky so that it is still relevant.