Druids have an incredibly bloated resto tree and there is no synergy at all in the early talents of the other trees. Only options is putting everything in the resto tree, even on talents that are pretty worthless or going for lunar guidance and moonglow (think few go for dreamstate). If one goes for those two talents in balance then you have put 20 talents in a tree already that you have no use at all for.

Guilds like nihilum does not raid with a single resto druid anymore, mainly because their style of healing is quite a lot much worse than priests, paladins and shamans. So when more and more guilds start to realise that I'd assume most min/max guilds force druids into a feral spec only.


[EDIT] And if some poster tried to say that druids can actually grind with 61 resto, I'm just going to say...no.

I'd disagree with you about druids, having at least one well-geared resto druid in a raid is VERY beneficial simply because of lifebloom. Using lifebloom effectively, I feel that druids are one of the best MT healers.

Consider this: Lifebloom puts out a constant 700+ HPS by itself, with a large heal at the end whenever you feel it's necessary to let it run out. You can keep this up while keeping up rejuv and regrowth on the tank, and cast-cancelling large healing touches (or regrowths if you're a tree). This gives you potentially 3 heals within a couple seconds to deal with tank spikes (lifebloom direct heal, finish your HT/regrowth, swiftmend), as well as an NS 1.5 seconds after that if he's still in dire need. That is incredibly powerful, and I don't see why guilds wouldn't want at least a single resto druid to increase their tank's survivability.

It sounds like you're asking for Meditation and Mental Agility to get moved to the first or second tier of Discipline. Divine spirit is a great buff, and I still content it should be trainable (and maybe bundle the improved spirit talent with improved fort, putting them both at tier 3). But it's the extra mana regen and decreased mana cost that are an absolute requirement for holy priests. Shadow priests would like it too, although the extra talent points would probably get filtered to PvP oriented stuff at that point.

Honestly, I think this change would help the diversity issue a LOT. Yes, you'd still need the 11,31,41 point talents in holy to be worthwhile, and deep discipline has issues as well. But at least you wouldn't feel like you need 23 in discipline and 40 in holy to be an effective healer.

As a note, the primary reason druids can spec 61 resto is that stuff like meditation is in the resto tree. Since they only have one tree for healing, all the stuff they need is in that same tree. Ironically because priests were designed to be the "primary healer", they have 1.5 trees focused on healing, meaning the crucial talents are spread out more, giving them almost no flexibility in their talent selection. I think this is the true reason hybrid classes are more desirable healers these days. They can put all their points in the same tree.

While no class can match the HoT power of a druid, other classes can emergency heal just as well. Priest Flash Heal and Shaman Lesser Healing Wave are .5 faster than Regrowth. Paladin's can Lay on Hand or use there Divine Favor (I think) and Holy Light in the same time as a Regrowth. Priests could have a 2.0 Greater Heal, or even faster.

One thing though, I believe druids are the most nimble of healers. Even if its on 15 seconds, one thing the rest of us can't do is constantly move while throwing heals, not counting Prayer of Mending/Power Word: Shield.

I think people overlook this, but honestly, for fights like Tidewalker, I think a druid is really effective at raid healing. The earthquake damage is far enough part for HoTs to work and besides the Watery Graves, the raid shouldn't be taking much damage. But alas, people probably will tout chain heal over hots.

I'd never try this. I'll tout my uber lawl-smite dps against unbuffed Starfire and Moonfire any day! We'll race to see who can take the longest to kill something.

If tank spikes are an issue then you will have people spamming heals on the tank and thus almost all hots will be overheals. Juggling 3 hots and cancelling direct spells is also freaking hard and compare that to having a paladin instead as the MT healer, a paladin that also brings another blessing. Priests have one spot due to spirit buff and can also do the job as well as the other two classes. A resto druid brings nothing that a feral druid cannot bring buff wise and is also not suited for most of the raid encounters when compared to the other healing classes.

My main concern with buffing utility of healing priests at this point in time, is then you'll have your 1-2 shadow priests and 2-3 holy priests, then you'll likely have 4 priests. It's definitely not balanced to have 4/25 as 1 class. If you buff the healing priests you'll have to nerf the shadow priests.

2 paladin buffs would create some imbalance in pvp, where paladins are already considered above average. Buffing our off specs would probably create more room for holy priests as well, and there's at least 2 threads packed with the main issues those specs face.

Edit: Sorry didn't get all of what I was saying in, read #171 as well.

Resto druids bring perhaps one of the most useful raid buffs on any fight where the MT takes large amounts of spike damage - the +25% healing aura.

Any guild that "forces" one class into a certain spec should "force" every class into optimal specs. Else I wouldn't play in that guild. Perhaps your standards are too low.

Wrong... Please get your facts straight. It's rather frustrating when people tell me what my optimal spec is based on hearsay. I'm not going to sit here and say priests need to spec x for raids because honestly that's not my place to do.

Wrong... 3 blessings and after that point they become worthless or much less useful to me than imp ds. Actually personally I'd rather have imp ds over any paladin buff as a mage. Maybe sans salv.

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This thread is going nowhere other than the shitheap. The blatant refusal of most priests in this thread to acknowledge that many other classes have basically every single "issue" that priests have (and more) and then citing false data like "mages have 3 raid viable specs" is rather amusing and frustrating at the same time.

I'm not saying dicipline couldn't use some work or that you don't have issues. However, this thread is basically a big whine fest with no real theme other than oh look the grass is greener over there.

25% of the tree spirit will perhaps add around 200 healing, but that requires that the tree is in the already crowded MT group. You might as well put the bear off tank in the same group instead and give the MT improved pack of the wild. And put a holy priest with inspiration healing the MT instead of the resto druid.

Inspiration doesn't require being in the same group.