Has your raiding guild embraced the Lifebloom? - Page 5

Starfire · 08/27/07, 12:26 PM

Originally Posted by Nurru

Our healing these days seems to consist of 1 Holy Priest, 3 Paladins, 1 Resto Shaman, 3 Druids. This changes from encounter to encounter, but that's the general setup in BT/Hyjal for us thus far.

On a unrelated note, I feel sorry for Priests who want to heal these days. I wonder how many raids just have 1 token Holy Priest.

Divine Spirit bot, and thats it.

So sad. I am sure many people rolled Priest in WoW vanilla expecting and wanting to heal, only to have 2.0 come and to hear their raids are only taking 1 priest, 2 if the other healers don't show up.

Priests are still powerful healers, they just lack the utility of the other healing classes. I think its a bit funny, remember when druids were "forced" to spec Innervate?

KrinKer · 08/27/07, 1:58 PM

Originally Posted by redef

Other fights, like najentus, druid hots are completely useless--they simply arent fast enough.

That's 'cause you're not using it right for naj'

For me, since we've killed him, i just decide on 4 targets ( usually mt + me + warlock in my group + someone else) trinket up and keep the lifebloom rolling. This means that other healers don't even have to worry about these 4 target because they'll be "full" all the time. Not only does it mean that the other healers can't concentrate on other people but i can almost heal the main tank by myself only needing a bigger heal from time to time. Lifebloom ticking for close to a 1k a sec is a little overpower i must say.

Melador · 08/27/07, 2:28 PM

Originally Posted by Playered

Not the best, but the most useful generally, there are several encounters/occasions where allowing it to bloom is v.useful, one example being Blooboil healing (4200 damage in 7sec, around 3300+ healed in 7sec with the bloom), with 2 druids cycling through the groups.

Just because the final tick doesn't show on the meter for the druid doesn't mean its bad and should never be utilized.

Absolutely -- it's all about using the right tool for the job. In typical "multiple tanks taking fairly steady damage for quite a while" keeping it rolling is clearly optimal.

Other places, like (as mentioned) bloodboil, I cycle through my entire group letting it expire a couple times and we're good to go. Another example -- on RoS phase 3, I start by cycling lifeblooms through my group, letting it expire, when that starts falling behind the dot I tranquility and then pot/barkskin/haste trinket and regrowth like mad until it's dead.

Trinketing is nice, but it's not that big a deal (though it has the nice side effect of making clicky trinkets more tactically interesting). So it ticks for 100 more than it did before...they could nerf that and it wouldn't be a big deal. In the right situation lifebloom would still staggeringly optimal.

Playered · 08/27/07, 2:51 PM

Naj'entus isn't anti-hot, you can MT heal with them, you can keep melee hotted up as they almost always take lots of damage.
Regrowth is perfectly fine on Naj'entus and it provides the ability to SM on targets who get spiked.

Heavenfall · 08/27/07, 4:36 PM

Originally Posted by Althir

This is not how "empowered" (Empowered G heal, Fireball, whatever) effects work. The talent adds directly to the coefficient. So, instead of:

((PlusHealing * Empowered) * Coefficient))

You have:

((PlusHealing) * (Coefficient + Empowered))

Using an example of Greater Heal with 1800 + healing (I'm a priest, after all):

((1800) * (.857 + .20)) -------------> (1800) * (1.057)

Everything else looks right though.

Just wanted to pop by and mention that while this is accurate, empowered rejuvenation only boosts the tick part of the lifebloom +healing. I know that you were discussing tick heals, but I just thought I'd add it for future reference.

=((273+600+I50*(C34*0,04*(K56-L56)+K56))+(600+I50*L56)*0,5*0,11)*(1+C29*0,02)

(Original tick healing + Original Bloom healing + Healing from Gear ( Empowered Rejuvenation Talents * 0,04 * ( Total Coeff - Bloom Coeff) + Total Coeff)

Then add the crit.

+ (600 + Healing from Gear * Bloom Coeff) * 0,5 * Target Spell Crit Chance

Then add the Gift of Nature

* (1 + Talents in Gift of Nature * 0,02)

For a total of

(Original tick healing + Original Bloom healing + Healing from Gear ( Empowered Rejuvenation Talents * 0,04 * ( Total Coeff - Bloom Coeff) + Total Coeff) + (600 + Healing from Gear * Bloom Coeff) * 0,5 * Target Spell Crit Chance ) * (1 + Talents in Gift of Nature * 0,02)

Edit: Ofc, lifebloom bloom crits is based on target spell crit

Kazanir · 08/27/07, 4:51 PM

Originally Posted by Playered

Not the best, but the most useful generally, there are several encounters/occasions where allowing it to bloom is v.useful, one example being Blooboil healing (4200 damage in 7sec, around 3300+ healed in 7sec with the bloom), with 2 druids cycling through the groups.

Just because the final tick doesn't show on the meter for the druid doesn't mean its bad and should never be utilized.

Certainly that's true, we just find that except in situations where you know targets are going to be taking predictable damage, but not constantly, and won't be healed by others, the rolling-stack is probably better. The Bloodboil situation you describe is an excellent counterexample because you can predict the damage, it's not a continuous inflow of damage (thus making the bloom useful whereas rolling would be a waste) and you can assign people to heal and make sure that the "spot healers" or "raid healers" don't overheal the HoTs.

Anaram · 08/27/07, 5:10 PM

Generally speaking the most mana-efficient cast of lifebloom is the first one with the second cast being worst and third in between the two (in theory third is most efficient, single cast just tends to overheal a bit less). A common mistake made is to stack up lifebloom on targets and then let it expire. A rolling 3-stack just barely heals more per unit of mana than a cast of 1 stack (trinkets excluded). Second cast only heals 66% of the third, ending up at approx 70% of mana efficiency of other casts. You need to roll a lifebloom for a long time to beat the efficiency of a single cast.

The aspect of 3-stacked lifebloom that rocks isn't so much HPM or HPSC but the steady way it heals. Also often times there aren't more targets to throw hots on than the tank. Rolling 3-stacked lifebloom with Eye of the Dead and Essence of Martyr sure is sweet though. To shamelessly float my own boat: http://www.niksula.cs.hut.fi/~tmilmone/illidan.jpg (fine, most other healers were dead before Illidan...)

crimsonsentinel · 08/28/07, 3:29 AM

Originally Posted by Anaram

Generally speaking the most mana-efficient cast of lifebloom is the first one with the second cast being worst and third in between the two (in theory third is most efficient, single cast just tends to overheal a bit less). A common mistake made is to stack up lifebloom on targets and then let it expire. A rolling 3-stack just barely heals more per unit of mana than a cast of 1 stack (trinkets excluded). Second cast only heals 66% of the third, ending up at approx 70% of mana efficiency of other casts. You need to roll a lifebloom for a long time to beat the efficiency of a single cast.

The aspect of 3-stacked lifebloom that rocks isn't so much HPM or HPSC but the steady way it heals. Also often times there aren't more targets to throw hots on than the tank. Rolling 3-stacked lifebloom with Eye of the Dead and Essence of Martyr sure is sweet though. To shamelessly float my own boat: http://www.niksula.cs.hut.fi/~tmilmone/illidan.jpg (fine, most other healers were dead before Illidan...)

Can you really count the bloom part of lifebloom into its efficiency though? Unless you either healing someone who's already down and you know he's not getting heals from someone else, or you're healing a timed burst so that the bloom occurs right after the burst, its near impossible to ensure that lifebloom will actually do much healing on the bloom, given the spikey nature of damage and healing. Since you don't know if the bloom will actually do any effective healing, I don't think it should be given much weight in efficiency calculations.

Kretschmer · 08/28/07, 11:21 AM

We're having a bit of throughput issues with our tree on our Kara boss fights. He's doing substantially less healing than our direct healers (priest, pally, dreamstate druid, and shaman), we're trying to troubleshoot it. We had a rockier-than-usual Nightbane night (he was a one-shot the week before), and part of it was the tank getting knocked down by burst damage. Is this just a limitation of treeform (i.e. it requires multiple tanks with their own lifebloom stacks to excel), or do we need to work on his healing rotation? We're shooting for roughly equivalent numbers from all our healers, so we - being a more social guild without a defined composition on our two teams - can mix and match as needed.

Thanks.

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Ragnorr · 08/28/07, 11:40 AM

Looking in his log, i often see him letting either his 3 stack lifebloom fall off or as most of the time is the case, its 1 stack. Get him to keep his lifeblooms up a lot more than he does shown on that wws.

Kretschmer · 08/28/07, 12:03 PM

As a comparative, I was actually pretty far behind when I healed Att with him and he could keep two lifebloom stacks up. I stupidly asked him not to roll lifeblooms on both tanks during Curator, misunderstanding tree mechanics.

Should we politely ask him to go casterform on single tank fights?

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stormb · 08/28/07, 12:18 PM

Originally Posted by Kretschmer

As a comparative, I was actually pretty far behind when I healed Att with him and he could keep two lifebloom stacks up. I stupidly asked him not to roll lifeblooms on both tanks during Curator, misunderstanding tree mechanics.

Should we politely ask him to go casterform on single tank fights?

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Really, it depends on how his mana is. Tree form can save you alot of mana, but for fights where you have to move very quickly it can be somewhat limiting. For example, my guild just downed Al'ar last night, and myself and another resto druid usually are out of Tree form for phase 2 or phase 1 if we're running back and forth. Also, being able to do a quick NS Healing Touch is incredibly nice. Tree form and caster form both have their pros and cons. Also, do you keep the tree in the tank group? If so, he should honestly be tree whenever he can during a boss, that extra 100+ healing is extremely nice, as it relates to ALL healing.

Anaram · 08/28/07, 2:09 PM

Originally Posted by crimsonsentinel

Can you really count the bloom part of lifebloom into its efficiency though? Unless you either healing someone who's already down and you know he's not getting heals from someone else, or you're healing a timed burst so that the bloom occurs right after the burst, its near impossible to ensure that lifebloom will actually do much healing on the bloom, given the spikey nature of damage and healing. Since you don't know if the bloom will actually do any effective healing, I don't think it should be given much weight in efficiency calculations.

I think the long-term overheal of final lifebloom tick is very high most of the time. I've just a hard time imagining when it would be more than a rolling lifebloom on anyone but tank :>

lairpie · 08/28/07, 2:23 PM

We're having a bit of throughput issues with our tree on our Kara boss fights. He's doing substantially less healing than our direct healers (priest, pally, dreamstate druid, and shaman), we're trying to troubleshoot it. We had a rockier-than-usual Nightbane night (he was a one-shot the week before), and part of it was the tank getting knocked down by burst damage. Is this just a limitation of treeform (i.e. it requires multiple tanks with their own lifebloom stacks to excel), or do we need to work on his healing rotation? We're shooting for roughly equivalent numbers from all our healers, so we - being a more social guild without a defined composition on our two teams - can mix and match as needed.

Thanks.

Wow Web Stats

With the exception of a fight where you simply can't cleanse poisons or curses well enough with the other classes that can do that, there's pretty much no reason a resto druid should ever be staying in caster form for an extended period of time. assuming you spec into natural shape shifter, which i highly recommend over the silly healing touch talents when you're not really going to use HT (other than emp touch, solely so that when you do the raid save NS-HT its that much bigger), its not even that much mana. It kinda sucks to shift in and out, but just do the math for how much it costs you to shift, how long of being in tree it takes you to make that mana back.

One of the major issues with druids that people have is there has to be thought put into how to best use them. They are simply not usually a reactive class. I'm claiming the term leafwell, in homage to the relatively bad priest talent light well, as the new term for any druid whose primary form of healing is just looking at whoever takes damage and putting a slow ineffective hot on them. To me, those druids are just great big leafy lightwells. They don't save people, they just sorta top some people off here and there. It's not useless, but its not that good either.

Playing as a druid, or with a druid is all about how best to use them in any given fight. Like, a paladin, the description of their role in almost every fight, at least up through the first several raids in BC, is "target a person with low hp, cast a heal on them. if you see something light up on grid, cleanse it" shaman: "target a person with low hp, that has another person with low hp close to them, cast chain heal. lay totems" priest: "resent the fact that all your cool healing abilities don't really provide too much use in this fight, cast gheal, flash heal, renew, pw:s semi randomly while suffering from inner turmoil over the comparative benefits of mp5 vs +heal vs spirit." Druid isn't like that. Different fights are different. Some fights you'll be keeping full hots on 1 person and just watching them to get a swiftmend in. Some fights you'll keep a hot stack up on 2, 3, or even 4 tanks. Some fights its to desperately try not to get agro. Some fights its keep a hot stack on 1 tank and use lifeblooms to top people off between tank hot refreshes. nightbane is the last of those.

On nightbane if you're bringing 3 healers i'd recomend having:
-2 healers on the opposite side from most people, out of fear range, just worrying about the MT. This should not be your resto druid.
-your resto druid on the side with your damagers.
why?
Other than the tank, no one ever ever needs healed right away when hes on the ground. Theres simply no way to take damage other than getting agro, where you're probably best off letting the person die fast so you don't get the whole raid cleaved, and the burning ground thing. Tossing a lifebloom when you get around to it onto each person that gets burned is plenty enough healing. The reason this often doesn't work, is that in most fights, its not ok to let someone sit there missing 2k hp. On nightbane, its fine. There's not really a better way to top off people that are in no danger of dying than lifebloom.

If you put the paladin over by the other damagers though, he will be unable to curb his whackamole ways, and will stop healing the tank, to zomg must flash of light all the damagers. This is dumb. The druid can top them off easily, without stopping his healing on the tank. No other class can do that.

A druid can easily sustain keeping at the very least lifebloomx3 and rejuv on the tank. In that 6 seconds between each Lb refresh, either just chill out waiting in case you need to swiftmend the tank or if the damagers get burnt, toss them a lifebloom. You'll be putting, in kara gear, roughly 1k hp/s into the tank (roughly what a paladin does flash healing) while at the same time keeping the whole raid topped off and swiftmending the MT anytime he's remotely in danger of dying.

One caveat i've found, is that as fights get easier, or you have more healers than is needed, druid healing goes way down. Simply put, if the tank is always getting topped off with flash of light because that's all it takes to heal him, hots just aren't going to tick for as much. Once you've downed nightbane a time or two, taking only 2 healers to kara is pretty common.

Monsanto · 08/28/07, 3:37 PM

Originally Posted by 8ballistic

I have to believe that the [Idol of the Emerald Queen] is not working as intended, it was likely designed tested without properly stacking lifeblooms. It doesn't seem right that I see Black Temple restoration druids favoring a drop from the first boss of Shadow Labs. I also doubt the trinket stacking trick was intended by Blizzard, we'll have to see what Blizzard does. They may do nothing.

Well why not, I'm tanking Hyjal and BT bosses using an idol out of Stratholme: [Idol of Brutality]. Not that it's acceptable, just the way it's always been...

Erinshe · 08/28/07, 4:05 PM

Considering [The Idol of the Cresent Goddess], my guess would be that Blizzard thought druids might gravitate towards Regrowth. It certainly feels like regrowth becomes a better and better option the further one goes into BT.

When AOEs Start to hit for the low 5000s, lifebloom doesn't cut it. You need at least some healing immediately.

Anaram · 08/29/07, 3:21 AM

Originally Posted by Erinshe

Considering [The Idol of the Cresent Goddess], my guess would be that Blizzard thought druids might gravitate towards Regrowth. It certainly feels like regrowth becomes a better and better option the further one goes into BT.

When AOEs Start to hit for the low 5000s, lifebloom doesn't cut it. You need at least some healing immediately.

True enough regrowth is useful in Black Temple but for the idol to be useful regrowth needs to be useful in a fight AND mana needs to be an issue. I spam regrowth a lot on RoS but don't even bother to unbank my idol since mana simply isn't an issue. When mana IS the issue, regrowth can very seldom be the majority spell to cast.

The common reaction to mana issues is to move away from regrowth a bit to lifebloom (and possibly to equip the idol, but compared to other factors it really doesn't make a big difference). Lifebloom is in almost any fight cast so many times that it simply makes sense to buff it at the cost of other spells. For pretty much the same reason druid BT trinket is so seldom used by restoration: buffing a seldom cast spell doesn't benefit us much all things considered.

HaklePrime · 08/29/07, 9:43 AM

Originally Posted by Erinshe

Considering [The Idol of the Cresent Goddess], my guess would be that Blizzard thought druids might gravitate towards Regrowth. It certainly feels like regrowth becomes a better and better option the further one goes into BT.

When AOEs Start to hit for the low 5000s, lifebloom doesn't cut it. You need at least some healing immediately.

I was noticing that more and more the deeper we got in to BT.

I'm normally feral, but vacations and such caused us to need a few more healers, and I strapped on the roots. My last raiding experiences healing were Sapphiron, 4H, etc., so I was very stingy with my mana, and rolled Lifebloom when it was convenient, never touched Regrowth, and habitually feathered the HTs. But as I healed a bit more, I kept finding Regrowth more and more useful. Actually, useful isn't the word, perfect is a bit closer.

FA targets are a natural target for a Regrowth, since most raid healers will be trying to cycle 1.5s casts or Chain Heal through them, not quite topping them off. Due to the nature of the encounter, even >75%, most targets will still be taking some type of Beam damage, so Regrowth was a perfect way to get them to 100%, and the HoT would keep them there.

Another amazing example is Veras' Deadly Poison+Envenom combo. I've never seen him Envenom before 2 tics(2sec) of Deadly Poison, so Regrowth kind of lended itself towards firing one off, then moving to the next DP target.

It's still horribly mana inefficient (not that mana is a huge issue, but still, it's the principle of the thing!), and the idol is utter shit, but I find myself using it (Regrowth) quite frequently of late.

Kallisti · 08/29/07, 12:04 PM

Regrowth is still more mana efficient than Healing Touch if either some of the hot ticks actually hit or swiftmend is used. Especially with the 2 T5 Bonus which means 27 seconds swiftmendable-hot availability, it's really worth it. If i remember correctly, my HT has a hpm rate of something between seven and ten, depending on the rank, while a full regrowth should be at around 14-15 hpm, without calculating the crit in.

We usually run two resto druids, one in the MT group without a shadow who primarily uses Lifebloom on everything (especially rolling on tanks) and one in a healer group with a shadow who heals tanks as well, but also keeps an eye on everything where heal is missing. On farmcontent, i take the MT group, on progress content, i take the shadow group and there has been not a single fight yet where someone else topped me on healing output until our firstkill (not even a shaman on tidewalker and void reaver :P now he does though ^^).

So yesterday we went to Hyjal and killed Winterchill which lead us to the Black Temple where we wanted to see Naj'entus for one or two tries. While doing the fight, i just thought "what the fuck, this is mana intensive", because i was at 20% mana at 70% of the boss, not having used any pots and innervate yet (so it should be possible to sustain this healing). We only had 20 players at that time, so damage should be higher normally, but healing requirements as well of course.

For me the fight felt to be sooo resto druid unfriendly, that i just thought "man i probably suck here" - until i watched my recount statistics...
Anyway, when we wiped, i was #1 in the healing meters with 290k healed and over 1100 hps, while the rest of our healers (3 paladins, 1 shaman, 1 priest, 1 other druid) followed far behind with like 120-190k healed and 600-800 hps.

There can be various explanations of course. On the one hand, i suppose that the other healers were just tired, since it was 1 am and we had some trouble with the 6mob trash group before plus respawning pats on the way back after a wipe. On the other hand, i think that you should never underestimate a simple Lifebloom cast, without rolling it.

It costs 176 mana... Even if it ticks only 3-4 times, it's as mana efficient as a normal healing touch with 20-30% overheal. And then you still have 4-3 seconds of "protection" for further damage and a huge endtick.

Well and i think most of my healing still consisted of keeping the main tank alive with 3x lifebloom and those 27 seconds regrowth hots which quite often ticked since the same target received damage multiple times.

The conclusion of this story is, that i think druids are actually very nice support healers who can fulfill nearly every role, just in a different way. ;-) We can sustain MT healing, we have a high burst heal potential (NS, HT, Regrowth, Swiftmend = 13-18k Heal in 3.5 Seconds), we can support raidheal (of course not alone, but still do alot of healing) with distributed single Lifeblooms and we can throw off quick heals if necessary on bosses like Winterchill (if a priest shields, Regrowth definitely hits before people die, as long as they have like 10k life). Things that were mana efficient in the past or may even look mana efficient now, are actually not that bad. I also think that flash healing as a priest was sooo bad in vanilla wow, but these days, it's just required at some places.

Think different and use what you got, depending on the situation.

Erinshe · 08/29/07, 1:11 PM

Originally Posted by Kallisti

For me the fight felt to be sooo resto druid unfriendly, that i just thought "man i probably suck here" - until i watched my recount statistics...
Anyway, when we wiped, i was #1 in the healing meters with over 220k healed and over 1100 hps, while the rest of our healers (3 paladins, 1 shaman, 1 priest, 1 other druid) followed far behind with like 100-120k healed and 600-650 hps.

Your experience is pretty accurate. Najentus is actually one fight where healing druids shine the most becuase your HOTs actually have a chance to tic for a long time.Tranquility is also godly.The whole point of Naj is whether your healers can EVENLY recover your entire raids HP to some point within 10 seconds, which is pretty much the main thing HOTs were designed to do.Gurtogg and ROS are also fights where lifebloom has its moments.

However onr thing I've noticed is that any fight where lifebloom would work well, shamans completely dominate with chain heal. Every Gorefiend fight we do, 2 shamans contribue to 50% of entire healing. The same with Illidan P2.

Ribeye · 08/29/07, 1:25 PM

On Najentus I am usually responsible for one group, and my own health. For pre-shield I use small regrow and lifeblooms to keep everyones health above 8k. Just before everyone takes the huge damage tick, i refresh one lightbloom on everyone I'm watching and let it tick just after the hit. I start with myself and rejuve/swiftmend. Then i go down the line with max rank regrow on the other 5 people. If anyone isn't full from that point i apply another lifebloom.

Generally I go through alot of mana on this fight and while I agree it isn't the perfect place to show off tree healing, It's not exactly "easy" for any class. Its a healing test pure and simple. The raid leader takes the time to switch us all in and out of Shadowpriest groups and we pot when neccessary.

Melador · 08/29/07, 1:37 PM

Speaking of lifebloom -- anyone tried keeping a dementia lifebloom rolling on a tank all the way into a Mother pull? Seeing as keeping a single one going (I had 2912 on a warlock last night) is pretty much mana-neutral it might be worth it if you get the buff on the last pair of sisters.

Erinshe · 08/29/07, 4:23 PM

Originally Posted by Melador

Speaking of lifebloom -- anyone tried keeping a dementia lifebloom rolling on a tank all the way into a Mother pull? Seeing as keeping a single one going (I had 2912 on a warlock last night) is pretty much mana-neutral it might be worth it if you get the buff on the last pair of sisters.

I don't think it would be practical given the time it takes to position the raid, buff up and such. Your mana pool and regen will also become severely gimped when you switch sets so casting every 6 seconds while waiting impatiently for the pull seems a bit wasteful as well.

Not that I've actually tried it, mind you.

Anaram · 08/29/07, 6:39 PM

Originally Posted by Melador

Speaking of lifebloom -- anyone tried keeping a dementia lifebloom rolling on a tank all the way into a Mother pull? Seeing as keeping a single one going (I had 2912 on a warlock last night) is pretty much mana-neutral it might be worth it if you get the buff on the last pair of sisters.

Contemplated it, but seems that it would be too much trouble for the benefit. If you can reasonably expect to oneshot mother, then certainly you can do it without a bloated lifebloom stack. Besides you might still lose it on a teleport etc.

Now, if you had a priest with power infusion that might be something to consider, since at least it's repeatable. Then again, why would you have a priest with power infusion.. :/

Heavenfall · 08/31/07, 5:02 AM

Just thought I'd post this for those who mentioned that Lifebloom blooms don't show up on Damagemeters.

I posted yesterday on the wow-eu druid forums about Recount doing exactly that, and doublechecked it this morning. I have no idea how advanced, or perfect it is, but it's happening.

WoW-Europe.com Forums -> Recount and counting Lifebloom blooms

And no, you don't need to lecture me about the proper uses of damagemeters.