[Druid] HoT Build vs. HT Build After Patch
 

Note: This is not my own work but that of a Druid in my guild. I copy and pasted it from my guild's website as it seems like it might be something people would be interested in. Unfortunately he did not include the underlying math that brought him to these results but I can work on getting it from him.

By Lyoncet <Nameless> of Dunemaul.

The premises are this:

HT Build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=MxcrzicsZZxxcuxqM0s
HoT Build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=MzZZxEcteqrest

Full T5 gear with tier-five equivalent gear on off-set slots; tested this on the test server so numbers are actual, not theorycrafted. The gear comes out to 1282 +healing base and 383 spirit, which yields 27 extra mana/5 when not casting, 4 while casting, and 95.75 healing to the group if in Tree form. The int provides an extra 110 damage/healing if specced into Balance. Only Mark of the Wild was up when testing these builds. Additionally, the HoT build includes full ranks in Nature's Focus and Subtlety, while the HT build only has 3 points to split between these two.

Gear (for those interested) Full Tier 5, Lord Sanguinar’s Claim, Sunshower Light Cloak, Grove-Bands of Remulos, Girdle of Zaetar, Orca-Hide Boots, Naaru Lightwarden’s Band, Band of Halos, Ribbon of Sacrifice, Living Root of the Wildheart

As a side-note, I did not include in these calculations the set bonuses for the T5 set, which increase Regrowth's length by 6 seconds and add 150 to the bloom of Lifebloom, and also unequipped the provided idol that subtracts 29 from the mana cost of Regrowth.

I'll skip all of the math in terms of determening efficiency of spells, but I'll post the results that I found. I made up several healing sequences based loosely around the 21 seconds that Regrowth lasts.


http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g1...t/hotspec1.png
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g1...et/htspec1.png
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g1...olsequence.png
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g1...cet/htspam.png

Of course, these are very loose guidelines for how healing will be conducted. There is lag, human error which makes it impossible to cast every spell exactly when the last spell/global CD is up, and extra spells such as Swiftmend and re-applying the HoT afterwords that did not make the calculations. Also, I know that you will not cast HT every time it is up as that would result in large amounts of overheal. However, the overall results should still be about the same between the different builds.

As you can see, at the moment (1a and 2a in the first two pictures), the HoT build has nothing in terms of healing on the HT build if they both use the same rotation of full HoTs along with HTs interspersed within. Whle the HoT build manages to squeeze out about 30 more healing, it's efficiency is 6.3 as opposed to the HT build's 6.8. However, when rolling lifebloom are made viable in 2.1, they will entirely shift the tables.

Sequences 2a and 2b in the first and second pictures demonstrate the first rotation in which the stack of lifeblooms is built. The healing efficiency of this sequence suffers somewhat while stacking the lifeblooms as you can see, but when that is established, they can move to sequences 1c2 and 2c2, where the only casts of lifebloom are to refreshing the stack one second before it expires. Once this happens, the mana efficiency of the HoT Druid dips a bit below that of the HT Druid, but the healing of the HoT Druid eclipses that of the HT Druid. However, since it is unlikely that either will be using HT every time it is in the rotation due to overheal potential, these numbers shift back to the typical HoT build doing greater efficiency and the HT build doing more healing per second.

Now, if we look at the last two pictures, we see two thigns. On the HT build, we have the sequence for nothing but HT spam. This gives almost equivalent healing per mana to the HT + Hots without rolling lifebloom sequence for the HT Druid, and also gives about the same healing/second. It gets less efficiency than the same spec's HT + rolling lifebloom + hots sequence, but only but 1 healing/mana and without the potential HoT overheal.

On the HoT build sheet, we see the stats for the Druid while in Tree of Life form. As you can see, while the healing/second drops considerably (about 950 healing/second as opposed to about 1650 on the HT-spam sequence), the mana efficiency jumps up to over 10.6 healing for every 1 mana spent. That's almost double the HT spam's efficiency. So while a HoT Druid in ToL form won't keep the tank up by him/herself, he/she will be able to, for very little mana, reduce the number of HTs and other direct heals necessary to keep the tank alive by a great number.

While a HoT Druid can certainly use lots of HTs and the HT Druid can stack up tons of HoTs, I think the best compromise is a "you do your job I'll do mine" approach to the task. You've got your HT Druid keeping the tank from taking more damage than the HoTs can heal, and you have your HoT Druid keeping the tank at the level where he/she rarely needs HTs. This way, the HT Druid can keep from running OOM and the HoT Druid has all the help he/she needs in churning out that little extra to keep the tank alive. (The Tree Druid's HoT rotation only requires 89 mana every second, more than simple enough with decent mp5 and a fair-sized mana pool along with a few breaks where the HT Druid picks up the slack).

Why do you have natural perfection in your HT build? Living Spirit would be a better choice. You can also make the argument for tipping the spec more towards balance for dreamstate, but I prefer the swiftmend variant.

Overall, I don't think HoT healing has much use in raiding (disclaimer: I've seen up to Morogrim Tidewalker). Just about every fight is a Patchwerk-style burstfest that requires nuke healing and spell-cancelling on warriors with 50%+ avoidance.

From your tables, you show what we all know - that the efficiency of certain HoT rotations comes at a heavy cost to your heal-per-second. This doesn't even capture the fact that HoTs are much more uncontrollable than HT (people overhealing your HoT, avoidance on tanks).

I think I'd be inclined to disagree with this statement - we run with 1 healing druid, and its a tree. Granted he probably is losing alot of healing due to overzealous Paladins, but he still maintains very good #'s on the heal meters which belie his overall actual healing via hots since those aren't added in to effective or overheal. I guess it really depends on your raids healers and if they know how to take advantage of the tree (i.e lock at 90% health - don't heal him since the tree is going to, plus the lock can tap more to obtain full use of the hot) but I am sure we could be alot better about using the strengths as well.

There isn't just the MT that needs healing in a raid and a Tree of life druids makes the other healers more focused on the tanks. Raid healing is really where ToL Druids shine.

On our last Maulgar we had 2 Tree of life using Each other's Hots to swiftmend as needed on The 2 hunters tanking the shaman, the 2 tanks on the lock, the tank on the priest and everyon else in the raid in that part of the room. (not MT, not the 3 MT healers, not the mage and his healer.)

That's 2 ToL Druids watching 19 people and keepign them up while tossing a Rejuj on the MT when they could, mana and gcd wise.

Edit: Our main ToL Druid has 1431 +heal and 402 Spirit with only Mark of the wild.

I really don't get how he calculates only 1280ish +healing and 380ish spirit - in my gear on live I have 500ish spirit unbuffed and over 1400 +healing (as a feral druid so i don't get any extra spirit from talents, and my gear is certainly not the best although it is good).

I also disagree with your last statement. Theres one class that focuses on HoT's, one that is a semi-hot, semi-direct heal (priests), and two that focus mostly on direct healing (shamans and paladins). Having druids direct healing kinda seems pointless to me after the patch - lifebloom is going to be so good especially if you can keep it rolling after trinketting (i.e. add 300 +healing to it and then keep it rolling, it's pretty sick at that point).

When you factor in that HoT specced druids can still HT for very decent amounts if they wish to (losing out on the +dmg/heal from int in balance) and that with ~1500+healing and then amplify, rejuve will be ticking for around 900 which means swiftmend will be around a 3.5k heal if you need it.

I understand why some druid's prefer to stick to HT spam build, but I don't think it entirely makes sense when you look at how many druids there are (in general and in raids) and the strengths of the other classes.

Just a thought, but with the flask and elixir nerf next patch, 6 piece dreamwalker is starting to look very good. It scales up with a higher rank of regrowth so at 7 stack, it's a ~380ish hp buff. Also, since lifebloom ticks every second, you are pretty much guaranteed that it will tick inbetween hits so that's another 600 hp buffer from a 3 stack of lifebloom. In today's end game raiding, the only reason MTs die is because they get hit faster than healers can respond; mana and thoroughput is never an issue so an extra 1k hp buffer might be worth speccing and gearing for.

Agreed, but my observation (up to Tidewalker in SSC) is that there aren't that many fights with massive damage being done to the raid (as opposed to Sapphiron, as an example). It's mostly Patchwerk-style fights where the tank gets pounded for up to 10k every 2 or 3 seconds (not counting avoidance).

Right now, raid healing is a relatively simple task that can be done by any druid regardless of spec.

I like healing with HoTs, and every time I go back to resto I end up getting Tree of Lawl, but as much fun as it is, my hps really suffers in most situations.

I disagree wholeheartily with ToL being useless.

Right now fully buffed and talented I'm at 600 spirit, once I get Nightbane's staff I'll be 660ish. I can solo heal our raid through any encounter and that allows everyone else to focus on the tank and anyone who takes a big hit. Even if they take a big hit and it doesnt have a bleed with it I can heal them as well. Not to mention that you take those who are spaming the tank non-stop with heals and add my +150 healing buff and you get even more efficeincy from that.

I admit we havent entered SSC yet, but to say based on one dungeon there's no AE damage in the others is just not smart. Gruul and Mags have plenty of ae damage to go around.

Yes raid healing can be done by any druid of any spec, but why not use a tree which has more effeicency in the matter and get the tank buff? Besides that same tree can still deform and spam healing touches if need be, but again while scarafice that tank buff. Just have the Tree spam regrowths instead. The added bonus the toher healers get from healing the tank out do the healing touch added performance over regrowth.

To each his own, both specs are viable. But to say your raid should never run with a tree; A) based on one dungeon & B) Becuase any other druid can do the same job; is just nuts imo.

I think that this is something Blizzard needs to take into account. My girlfriend says the same. She said she like ToL Healing style a lot more by a fair margin on HT spam. And i don't think we can disagree with that. Fun in healing is definatly something that need to push for.

Example: I like Healing as a shaman, between Earthshield refreshes, Chain Healing in the rogue pack, Keeping Healinn way up and having NS.. I can make decision and i can improve my judgement.

Paladin Healing.. i hate it i have about 1 button to spam or cancel.

From what i saw in Druid's ToL Healing it looks like a lot of fun and decision making, HoTs duration managing..

Note to the poster above me: Regrowth has a huge tendency to crit when being spammed too.

Yeah all our Healadins are dispearing on us. We're actualy consdiering using a Ret Paladin jsut so we can get some dang buffages. Healadins has got to be the most boring class in the world to play.

Tree healing is an absolutely blast. A big challenge deciding quickly which hot and how many of that hot to use to keep people alive. and to decide who lives nad die and who gets the rezed, I love it. I have to be fully aware of the encoutner and who's hte most valuable in that encoutner.

Who are you disagreeing with, no one said that.

Who said that?

Who said that?

Sorry I just got that impression.

Current paladins seem like 1.0 combat rogues in terms of choices. For rogues it was just mash the same button 3 times, and then hit your finisher, and repeat. Then they added lots of variables like combat potency and mutilate spec is much more interactive. Something similar should be done for paladins but that'll likely happen next expansion.

For the TBC talents and abilities it seems like they just went to paladins and said "you really like crit and saving mana right, and maybe even have your big heal cast a bit faster? That's fun and interactive, lets make all of your talents and new abilities about that"


Druid healing is fun as hell in pve and pvp. We're the only class that has more than one "best" healing spec and spec actually determines which heals we focus on.

I have to agree with Lord Beef on this one. There are two really solid healing specs with many other hybrid specs that can truely maximize our potential in both raids and PvP.

One note, I've been trying to get the math behind all Lyoncet's equations but he's been at work a lot recently and I've only seen him on very briefly. Also, I don't believe his testing was done with any buffs besides MotW, so a fully raid buffed and potioned Druid with enchants, sockets, and perfected talents will come out a little different. However, this seemed like a good glimpse into the future of Druid healing.

You're probably factoring in the addition of 50% of your strength there from talents though, correct?