Druid: Tree Druid Stats - Page 2

CasT · 05/08/07, 2:44 AM

Innervate needs Spirit. Thats all we need it for. Every other stat is in my oppinion much better. Treeform needs a real review. So does innervate. I think that stacking on a stat like spirit is a waste. And it's sad to say, I really like the Idea of Tree form, but as stated above the form just don't cut it. Not may uses it in pvp, and in PvE the hots mostly overheal due to the quicker heals of paladins.

♦ Lorewanderer · 05/08/07, 5:07 AM

I actually reworked my spec (Dreamstate Resto) slightly to make it a reasonable hybrid HT/HoT spec, and I'm really quite happy with the results. Prayerbook + Lifebloom is crazily efficient and I've managed to train our priests to let them tick. The duration is short enough that they tend not to get too fidgety on the quick heals. The complete absence of paladin healers in our raids may have something to do with my feelings about that though.
Swiftmend would be a nice tool to be sure, but I'm actually not that sure I would gain as much from it as I would lose in return. (From a playstyle perspective more than pure healing ability). I can't really see it being that much of a difference even with a drastic upgrade in gear.

(I just checked my armory and have no idea how I ended up in that gear combo. I don't normally wear such a schizophrenic mishmash of tank/heal/pvp/nuke gear. I'm at ~1100 heal, 180mp5 with talents in my heal gear, minimally enchanted.)

Sonrise · 05/10/07, 8:24 PM

A lot of comments on here are helpful, thanks for the input.

Basically, I'm finding that stacking healing and spirit are the best choices. Healing being first after dabbling on the PTR's. With about 1400 healing you get 600/tick on LB. And that's 1 sec a tick. Spirit is still important though, because I find myself atleast 2 sec outside of the FSR, and get quite a bit of mana.

As far as the druid being the backup healer in raids. Personally, hots are helpful. Usually if I have to cast HT on a certain fight, the MT's health is way to spikey. The hots atleast add some assurance and allow other healers some breathing room.

Ideally, I'm finding out that with LBx3 and rejuv, there is no such thing as too much plus healing. You eventually don't even have to use regrowth that much which then reduces your mana cost greatly.

The spirit isn't just about the aura though, it's about the large amount of mp you get back outside of some of those casts. It just depends on your healing style though I suppose. I have mp/5 but I haven't excatly concentrated on it. (plus they haven't technically fixed the mp/5 bug yet)

Norfair · 05/11/07, 6:23 AM

Originally Posted by Sonrise

A lot of comments on here are helpful, thanks for the input.

The spirit isn't just about the aura though, it's about the large amount of mp you get back outside of some of those casts. It just depends on your healing style though I suppose. I have mp/5 but I haven't excatly concentrated on it. (plus they haven't technically fixed the mp/5 bug yet)

If you "do the math" you'll find out that spirit is really inferior to mp5. I have a mod that tells me how much time of a fight I am inside the FSR (it's ManaRegenFu). Usually I'm around 70% inside the rule, sometimes more, sometimes less. Let's say I'm a real n00b for not knowing how to avoid it, and a good druid can manage to be only 50% of the time in it. Then every 10 spirit gives you (with Intensity and Living Spirit talents, and Blessings of Kings buff):

((10 * 1.15 * 1.1) / 4.5) * 0.5 + ((10 * 1.15 * 1.1) / 4.5) * 0.15 * 0.5 = 1.62 mana per tick.

So, in 10 seconds, you'll have 5 ticks, which results into 8.1 mana. This equals about 4 mp5.

So in this very "best case scenario", 2.5 spirit = ~1 mp5. However, the more time you spend in the FSR, the faster this number goes down. Doing the same calculation for 70% (which is my personal number), results into 3.5 spirit = ~1 mp5. If you then go do the math on various healing oriented items in the game, you'll quickly see how "underrated" mp5 is by Blizzard, and how you'd always want items with mp5 on it (most of them have both btw).

This however, is without calculating in Innervate. For Innervate, 1 spirit roughly equals 11 more mana. (1 * 1.15 * 1.1) / 4.5 * 4 = 1.12 per tick, so 10 ticks give 11.2 mana. So if you really want to theorycraft further, you could check the difference between mp5 and spirit in terms of mana regen in a 6 minute cycle, and then reduces the amount of mana that the extra spirit will give you on Innervate.

If any of these calculations are incorrect, I'd really like to hear it btw, as I've based a lot of my gear decisions on it.

Apate · 05/11/07, 11:12 AM

Forgive me if I am making a blunder here, but is it not also worthwhile to factor in the Tree of Life aura? It's trickier to calculate, but I think it would increase the value of Spirit relative to MP5. It would heavily depend on your raid composition, but I don't think it's negligible.

Norfair · 05/11/07, 6:21 PM

Originally Posted by Apate

Forgive me if I am making a blunder here, but is it not also worthwhile to factor in the Tree of Life aura? It's trickier to calculate, but I think it would increase the value of Spirit relative to MP5. It would heavily depend on your raid composition, but I don't think it's negligible.

Yes, of course. I was only commenting on the "spirit is also nice because of the mana regen it gives" part. Still, given the fact that the aura scales poorly with spirit (4 spirit for 1 +healing), I'm still convinced mp5 is the way to go.

Edit: Although, on second thought, if you are the MT-group-tree-druid, the spirit might be more important for the rest of the raid, as having incoming heals for 100 more (I assume this number as an mp5 druid vs a spirit druid would have no more than 400 spirit difference), could be beneficial. Since the MT receives an immensive amount of heals per minute, the 100 extra healing per heal would probably give more healing overall than what the healing output of the tree-druid might have been if he had focused his gear on mp5.

Calya · 05/11/07, 6:57 PM

Originally Posted by giansm

One suggestion I have is for the other healers in your guild to set up their raid frames to show druid hots

Just reading this thread with interest as I'm considering rolling a druid, and I had to chime in and say that this is a very good suggestion. For awhile I was overhealing our tree druid's HoTs without even realizing it because PerfectRaid didn't display them until I added them in myself. It's worth bringing this up to the other healers, maybe on your forums.

I'm not all that knowledgeable about druids yet but it does seem like tree form could use a reworking. It just seems to have a fair amount of drawbacks and design contradictions (like the aforementioned "do I want spirit for the buff or mp5 because I'm always in HoT-spam-mode" debate). And a 41-point talent that can't be used to effectively heal in 5-mans is just disappointing.

DeadSpace4 · 05/11/07, 10:30 PM

This is not a problem with tree form, but rather a problem with the other healers in your guild.

I completely agree.

I don't really belive that when you want to prove druids tree form as bad is the right person to be the tree as you (unconciously) will under perform.

Honestly, I really DID try... almost OVER tired... to do the best I can.

Now back to my point though, unless you have really specific healing assignments and healers who are willing to stick with them most Druid HoT's will just get healed over. Now, don't get me wrong, I think tree form IS viable, it's just a matter of making sure the whole raid is on the same page. For MOST guilds and the majority of healers out there is think the Hybrid Healing Touch spec is most viable for mana to healing ratio and for straght throughput.

However, this will all be different in 2.1 when Lifebloom gets fixed and some of the gear gets re-evaluated.

Lavode · 05/12/07, 4:30 AM

we gave our resident resto drood a shadowpriest and had him soloheal the raid at grull last night - One pally on me (ot) and everything else on the MT, with the message that if people were worried they should eat a healthstone - Result; one 0.01 % wipe at 18 grows (that sucked - and 18 growth hurtfuls are,,, quite hurtful) and then a "MT is dead, rogues evasioning hurtful like gibbering lunatics" kill.
Healing Stats from the kill :http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report...ma&s=5898,6334

Sonrise · 05/14/07, 12:51 AM

Solo heal the raid? What do you mean?

You should be killing Gruul much earlier than grow 18 unless you have like 15 healers all healing. And eventually grow 18 is a one shot regardless how much you have.

Once again, heal stats do not reflect druids actual healing, even if it is an overheal by lifebloom.

Kelyas · 05/14/07, 7:01 AM

I still swear by 33/0/28.

Tried out tons of fun little specs, ranging from 27/0/34, 23/0/38, 0/0/61, 21/0/40, 0/22/39 (I swear to God I was high when I did that), and 0/30/31.

In the end, Dreamstate just won my heart.

The constant flow of heals I burn out is extremely steady, especially with a 12k mana pool, a shadow priest, alchemist stone, and occasionally a mana spring.

I also have the benefit of NOT being in a shadow priest group due to my self-sustaining longevity, which allows a DPS or another healer to take advantage of it.

However, I do not use HoTs as much as I should, mostly because I hate fucking up a perfect endless cycle of healing the tank/target as soon as he takes enough damage for rank 7 to top him off again.

26/0/35 proved valuable as well. I do not like Nature's Grace for healing, as it's main "power" is from slappin down a regrowth, which really fucks up my ... rotation, I guess. I prefer to keep cast times at a very consistant level, especially on an encounter where burst is predictable.

I just can't bring myself to use tree, even with nearly 600 spirit and 1400 healing, I still see shamans as the more powerful raid healer, and losing the very efficient, giant heal blows. Granted, the HoT power is amazing, but I still like NS+HT for "oh shit" situations, and massive regen.

Also, fuck the 15% reduced speed. Cave in fucked me up last time I was a tree.

dukes · 05/14/07, 7:35 AM

I suppose the power of Spirit is to get outside the 5 second rule. If you're downranking, it's much harder because you need to be letting heals go off much more often. I would've thought a 23/0/38 build would be much more appealing to most people, as you end up with swiftmend, more spirit regen, more hot power and still keep the mana reduction on HT.

I'd be interested to know how you have a 12k mana pool though - In my healing gear fully buffed I have ~11.5k, and I'm feral spec (so 20% more int from HoTW). My healing gear isn't very shabby either (~1450 +healing, ~650 spirit as feral, bugger all mana/5 though).

Kelyas · 05/14/07, 10:50 AM

Counting full buffs, BOK Included.

I also went gimp and tossed 30 int on my staff. It might be like 11.8-9k or something, but I round up.

EDIT: Ignore me, I'm retarded. It's only 11.3. I pull numbers out of the air. But with a wisdom next patch it'll be 12k, and I'll pretty much always have one up considering how cheap they are :P

Gir · 05/14/07, 2:26 PM

I personally have the (nearly) full resto spec, simply because there are no synergies to the resto tree tiered low in other trees. I just don't like to miss out on the heavy resto things like Swiftmend, Living Spirit or Empowered Touch.

The thing I don't like though, is the current state of Tree of Life. I can't get around to gimping myself in the form and getting put into the MT group. You could pretty much gain the same mana efficiency by letting that mana tide and/or Shadow Priest regen that mana for you. In the end, that extra +healing on your MT won't cut. This is personal opinion though. I liked it alot more when it gave your healers +healing based on your spirit instead of the healing received.
Not being able to cast Healing Touch is the other part. When your MT is in trouble, you'd have to shift out of ToL, then cast NS+HT13 and spend another 660 or so mana to shift back in ToL. NS feels kind of wasted when you're in ToL.

The reduced movement speed just makes no sense at all, I really do not see the point of this. If this is to make it seem more realistic in a game where nearly nothing is based on realism then I don't know.

Anyhow, I personally enjoy being spirit heavy. I have around 570 spirit buffed with BoK, Divine Spirit and Mark of the Wild. It really adds up, my innervate gives me a full mana bar of 9k when I use it. I always pop my innervate along with my Bangle of Endless Blessings (+130 spirit for 15 seconds) and I just can't get myself to replace the trinket for anything else. Mana is almost never an issue, you have the potions, the spirit and where Priests go oom, you innervate.
It's not only innervate though, you can regen back mana now and then since you're not constantly casting. Thinking about it, you're usually casting though when you're in ToL-form and having Spirit along with that doesn't make that much sense.

In the end, I don't feel Tree of Life deserves to be a 41-point talent. It's too situational and too restrictive for the benefits it gives. I guess it has to fit your playstyle but not mine anyhow.

(I apologise for the lack of structure or mixing subjects in between, but I'm generally not that good at writing long posts)

Monsanto · 05/14/07, 5:20 PM

Originally Posted by giansm

This is not a problem with tree form, but rather a problem with the other healers in your guild. If a tree is assigned to keeping the raid topped off, the other healers need to trust the hots and believe that the tree is able to do his job unless he calls for help

Famous last words before a raid leader goes ballistic on vent because a cave in landed on someone who wasn't topped off.

"Whack-a-mole" healing isn't really helping anyone, it just means wasted mana and less focus on the MT. I tend to think that very focused MT healers add a lot to his survivability, since the constant casting and canceling on one target (rather than taking time out to whack moles) increases the odds of a heal landing right after damage is taken.

Two problems with this statement. For starters, you assume every single healer in the raid is just doing his own thing, sometimes healing the raid, sometimes the MT. That's pretty unfounded. Most raids probably have raid healers and MT healers. How the raid healers top off the raid is entirely up to them.

However, I'd argue that the faster the raid is topped off the better. The 1.5s cast time of a Flash of Light or Flash Heal is the same as the global cooldown after a druid casts a HoT. It also heals faster, and can be cancelled if necessary. HoTs generally have the advantage in efficiency, so that's a point in their favor (generally because of paladins and their ridiculous mana regen making efficiency moot).

I like HoT healing. However I know that my throughput is much worse than with a HT build. Back in Naxx (when you could only be resto to raid), I would often top the healing meters with Healing Touch spam (2 second Rank 3 was my dirty little secret). When patch 2.0 came out, I tried tree form. I like the feel of it, I really do. But I dropped a very long way on the meters. Having to tell your entire raid to stop healing a certain way because a druid wants to spec tree form seems pretty reactionary to me. Raid healing for 2 years has been pretty good if you ask me.