Quick thoughts on Resto Druids (3.1 edition)

Instant reactions/quick thoughts while at work.

Issues going into 3.1 (or where we stand on live)

Rather uneven talents: Overall the resto tree was incredibly solid, but the value of individual talents was incredibly diverse. There were many talents that obviously powerful, and most of the rest were largely just there. You'd end up with around 4-7 points after taking everything you wanted, and instead of asking 'Which of the remaining options is the best' the question would be more of 'None of the remaining options is particularly appealing, do I really need to expend the energy to click those last few times or can I just run around with unspent points?'

Poor scaling with crit: Only three of our six primary spells scaled at all with crit. Living Seed (proc'd heal on crit) was very lackluster as it only worked off effective healing.

Poor scaling with haste: Effectively, only two of our six primary spells scaled with haste. One of our talents, Gift of the Earthmother, actually scaled negatively with haste, as more haste meant you needed less points to max out your GCD.

Clearcasting Procs hard to manage: Since we had so many spells, many with 1s GCDs or very fast cast times, clearcasting procs would often mindlessly get eaten up since by the time the proc registered, we were already hitting our next spell. Even if we did notice, the inherent value of certain options, such as renewing an expiring lifebloom, meant that we still wouldn't think much about where we spent the clearcast.

Nourish sucked: Alright, there was math that showed Nourish being comparable to Regrowth. In ideal Nourish situations, while wearing 4 piece T6, and in a fight where mana actually mattered. Without those three things, Nourish generally got trumped by Regrowth spam.

Int versus Spirit: Int was better than Spirit in terms of regen, and the difference was large enough that the minor +spellpower from spirit did not warrant gemming/itemizing/enchanting for it anymore than the basic spirit we get on our healing gear. This made spirit once again the second class stat it was before 2.4.

Changes in 3.1 (or what we see in the initial PTR)

Improved Regrowth changed: Improved Regrowth is now 'Nature's Bounty', going from 50% crit to Regrowth to 25% crit to Regrowth/Nourish. This decreases the value of Regrowth while increasing the value of Nourish. With Nature's Grace being a flat proc (-.5s), this is a significant buff for Nourish.

Living Seed changed: Living Seed now takes overhealing into account (probably making it based off total healing, though the notes are slightly unclear) this increases the value quite a bit, as crit heals tended to include quite a bit of overheal.

Replenish changed: Replenish is now 'Revitalize' also proc'ing on Wild Growth. We don't have numbers on this, but it can only be a buff.

New Glyphs: Glyph of Nourish (+6% healing per HoT on target, seems to replace 4 piece T6 going forward) and Glyph of Wild Growth (now affects 6 targets). Glyph of Nourish will very likely replace Regrowth, but I cannot see Glyph of Wild Growth being viable in the cutthroat, competitive world of resto druid glyphs.

New Talent, Improved Barkskin: Obviously a PvP change, I can't see it being worth the points in PvE.


Remaining issues(or what we can hope for in future PTR builds)

We still scale poorly with crit: The Living Seed change was an obvious improvement, but crit will still be an obviously lackluster talent simply by virtue of it only affecting half our commonly used heals.

We still scale poorly with haste: None of the changes thus far do anything to address this.

Clearcasting is still clumsy: Ditto. Blizzard has indicated they're likely to change the way clearcasting works entirely.

A few talents still suck: Tranquil Spirit is still decidely below the curve. If Blizzard is afraid of too much mana efficiency, this might be the slot to address crit and/or haste scaling issues. Improved Tranquility could do with being merged with something (Gift of the Earthmother?)

None of the talent changes really change much in terms of speccing: Celestial Focus was probably going to be useless in Ulduar anyway due to more haste on items, meaning druids were likely to be spec'ing into Replenish/Living Seed anyway. There aren't any meaningful options or choices in resto druid speccing (I know we're not unique in this).

Lifebloom likely to be altered: Blizzard has indicated that they are not happy with Lifebloom from a PvP perspective and want to change it somehow. What this means for PvE is entirely unknown.

Mana Regeneration changes(?): I don't see any of the listed changes doing much to curtail druid mana regen once we acquire Ulduar gear. Int is still strictly better than Spirit.