DecimusGarona

To Zure - you forgot one thing

Amazing Efficiency
Tree druids can put out the most healing of any class given the same amount of mana, lifebloom has ridiculous HPM. As a side note, this also means that a druid can maintain a 1000+ HPS trinketed lifebloom on the main tank even if they are completely out of mana, simply by refreshing lifebloom every 6.5 seconds. Every other healer is rendered almost completely useless if they run out of mana and don't have a potion cooldown / shadowfiend / mana tide / whatever to get some mana back.

 

• Playered

Whats the difference between a Druid using HoTs, or a Paladin spamming FoL on the tank? not very much.
The Paladin will do more HPS due to crit, we will do more HPM.
Assuming all HoTs are up, 900 Rejuv, 900->2700 LB, 500 Regrowth = 4100/3sec
FoL I believe heals for around 2k by our Paladins now, so thats 4000/3sec (excluding crits)


The one issue I have is when things get bursty and I've already used my NS and Swiftmend im pretty much feeling helpless and hoping another healer can cover it quick, because my target will die unless I have the grace time to setup all my HoTs and incorporate HT's into it

 

DecimusGarona

There is a big difference really, because the druid can do other stuff while HoTing the tank (such as HoT an offtank), and the druid has instant cast swiftmend as well. Also a lot of encounters require movement at some point, HoTs can be applied/refreshed on the run while FoL spam cannot.

 

Ribeye

After reading through the bulk of this thread I am struck with one very strong revelation. There are alot of bad tree druids out there. Now I don't mean to pick people out or make them feel bad, but if you are incapable of topping out the healing meters as a tree you are either healing ineffectively or being used ineffectively.

Tree Druids have a variety of heals to use and its important that we use them all. Being forced to come out of tree to HT the main tank is a waste of your skills, and any tree that is asked to do that should resign his place in the raid in disgust. I, and the other tree druid in my guild, are primarily raid healers, but that isn't just the soft squishies, its the tanks too. My raid frames give me access to everyone's health, and I make sure to stand in a spot where i am in range of ALL of them. If you gain aggro, you can expect a hot from me, which brings me to the first important point of being a Tree Druid.

Good Raid Frames. If your raid frames aren't telling you who is in range, who has aggro, and how much health everyone has, you need to get new ones. Grid and Perfectraid are great raid frames, but I prefer Perfectraid cause of its sleek elegance.

Know your heals! Use them all! 1 Lifebloom, 2, 3, Roll them or let them pop? Toss out a midrank rejuve like a handgrenade, if someone starts to take a health spike you fire out your swiftmend and save them. Regrowth is my lifeblood. Depending on your plus healing of course, a low rank regrow spam chain can heal the entire raid very quickly. Sure, the shaman is chainhealing, but is he prepared to do that and save the Tank who just started to dip because his healer got silenced? Bam 3 rolling lifeblooms a rejuve and a Natures Swifted Regrow, that tanks health ain't going nowhere.

Use your own innervates!! Gone are the days when we saved these for the priests. We are far more efficient with mana than they will ever be and it makes no sense for you to give away your innervate while chain chugging mana pots. Use it early if possible so you have it up again for the last minute of a fight. If a boss dies and you still have mana, then you weren't healing hard enough.

Don't stop healing! We have enough mana to contiuously cast Lifebloom without stopping for eternity. As bursty as the world has become, proactive healing is one of the edges we have over all the other healing classes. Drop them on the locks and let them convert it to mana, drop them on the tanks to help buffer damage for their focus healer.

The only time ever you should leave tree is for the sake of movement. Let the mages dispel curses inbetween summoning water, you have healing to do. If I'm running from Thaladred then I'm prepared to untree, but until then, why would i sacrafice the mana discount i get while in tree?

Most imporantly, stop giving tree druids a bad name. We are the most versatile healers in the raid with the largest collection of heals to choose from. Don't pidgeonhole yourself into one type of healing then wonder why the raid leader wants to add another paladin.

 

Benhoof

I totally agree with Ribeye...

...apart from one little detail: Do NOT use Lifbloom stacked twice!

Either cast a single Lifeblooms on multiple targets or stack it up three times and keep it rolling. A double-stacked Lifebloom should never be used. It just can happen when you intended to stack it up but had to switch the target.

One can argue about using Regrowth, but as a matter of fact, you will have a hard time topping the healing meters without using it. The mana efficiency is not really an issue, since tree druids tend to have enough mana and regeneration for most encounters even without Innervate.

Innervate just on your self? Well it surely helps topping the healing meters, but I think Inervate should be used according to the situation. General advices suh as "Use it only on yourself!" are not very practicable. Use it on whoever needs it, for some encounters/situations this can mean "Cast it on a Mage".

From my experience druids really shine when there is a lack of healing in the raid. If you go into 25-man instances with only 4-5 good equiped healers, druids will allmost always top the healingmeter.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

Okay, double trinketed lifeblooms is downright retarded for Hyjal trash waves. Pick four targets, roll lifeblooms, win healing meters by a million

Wow Web Stats

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◊ Noressa

Do you have a record/history of a Kael kill that includes a tree? I went to the WWS thread and the one I saw posted didn't have any resto druids in it.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

Here's one Wow Web Stats

We do decently on kael but there are parts of it where direct heals are just better

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◊ Noressa

Ah, thank you for that. I grabbed all the Kael parses that were still available from the other thread too. I noticed a lot of HT being used in some cases, and was curious to see a tree (as well as getting another point of reference.)

 

pinchet

edit: nm

 

Adrenalize

Keep in mind the meters aren't always correct. Lifebloom for example doesn't get tracked properly with regular meters:

Example:

6/26 21:53:38.429 You gain Lifebloom.
6/26 21:53:39.010 You gain 185 health from Valda's Lifebloom.
6/26 21:53:39.942 You gain 185 health from Valda's Lifebloom.
6/26 21:53:41.027 You gain 184 health from Valda's Lifebloom.
6/26 21:53:41.971 You gain 185 health from Valda's Lifebloom.
6/26 21:53:42.932 You gain 185 health from Valda's Lifebloom.
6/26 21:53:43.940 You gain 185 health from Valda's Lifebloom.
6/26 21:53:44.944 You gain 185 health from Valda's Lifebloom.
6/26 21:53:44.944 Your Lifebloom heals you for 1448.

In this example Valda earned +1294 to the meters for a lifebloom casted on me, but the meters totally missed the 1448 end tick because of the way the combat log returns the information.

She should have gotten 2742 on the meters for this single spell but instead only got 47.19% credit for the spell.

I'm not saying you should plan on being dead-last, because its a cold day in hell when Valda in our raids isn't near the top of the meters, I'm simply saying in some situtations a large % of your healing could be "lost" in the meters.

If you have your fight on webstats look up your main tank and take a look to see how much healing he did. (yeh you'll laugh when you see the main tank/warrior is casting lifeboom on himself, thats what it should look like on the meters).

Edit:
Here is an example of what i'm talking about

Paches - WWS

Notice "Paches" the main tank from the above webstats, scroll down to healing. Somehow patches casted like ~500,000 worth of heals on himself! 272K worth of lifebloom and 218K worth of earthshield. Obviously someone is being 'robbed' of these potential points. If you flip back over to the healing meters though you'll notice their druid is still doing amazing even without these points being tallied towards him.

 

Melador

Uh, yes, the lifebloom payload is credited to whoever it was cast on, as has been mentioned in this thread at least once already.

Hjyal is pretty much the optimal place for tree druids. Multiple tanks taking steady damage? Yes please. Almost as good as Illidari Council.

Here's our most recent full clear: Wow Web Stats

Ribeye, I mostly agree with you, but I think you take it a bit far. There are definitely fights where I'm better served being out of ToL form. Either I need to be mobile, or I need to decurse, or I need more HP/s than ToL can put out. There are no hard and fast rules -- pay attention to the situation, and what it calls for, and choose the tools from your toolbox accordingly.

Sure, I could be in ToL form for Thaladred, but why? There's basically no healing necessary and I guarantee I'll be at full mana at the end of his phase anyways. Might as well be fully mobile and throw some moonfires/starfires on him.

Also, I think "use your own innervates" is potentially bad advice. Given how efficient ToL is, there often isn't a huge reason to need it. If you've got a SP in your group, give it to them. So long as they have mana, you'll have mana. Or a mage if they need to AoE a lot.

One question -- do people typically keep 4 lifeblooms up, or only 3? I generally stick with 3 because with latency (~175ms ping typically) I can baaaarely beat the GCDs with four targets. A moment of hesitation and I'm losing the roll on at least one target. And four targets taking steady damage isn't very common either, in my experience.

 

◊ Noressa

I usually pick 2 tanks to always refresh, 1 dps or tank to keep an eye on, and leave the last gcd for either catch up (if I was slow to refresh) or to toss a HOT on a random raid member who took damage.

 

◊ Lrigatonmai

I have trouble past 3. Usually I try to do 1 or 2 and do raid healing/warlock feeding with the third/fourth if I can squeeze them in (but my guild is still in SSC/TK so it may not be as relevant).

Note: The statement above is probably a lie.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

Yeah, the same applies to earth shield for shamans and prayer of mending for priests though, so it's somewhat of a wash overall.

Last night was the first time I did four at a time. It has the obvious limitations of requiring VERY tight timing, and you can do absolutely nothing else while you're keeping up the rotation. If a rogue suddenly takes 9k damage from something, you have to trust that the other healers will cover it. Also you're hosed if one of your four targets moves out of range for half a second, and you waste mana if one of the tanks is no longer tanking and you don't realize it.

That said, you're healing a potential 3200+ health per second when it's working.

What I did was start by healing four, and then when I realized that one was no longer tanking I'd move to just three, and maybe add in a rejuv to one of the tanks while I'm doing it

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Blackpatch

I am considering a return to serious play after a long absence (last boss kill was Twin Emps, character currently level 62). I mainly love to heal, and this thread has made me really excited about tree healing. I'm not expecting to encounter cutting-edge content (although I'd be thrilled to experience it) so I've got some questions regarding tree and general druid healing in entry-level raiding.

- Is tree a valid druid healing style for heroics and Kara? Are trees wanted for heroics and Kara?
- Are there circumstances or levels of gear (+healing, SPI, etc) in which Dreamstate is a better spec?
- Which stats should an aspiring tree druid focus on? +healing seems obvious, but what else?
- Does Dreamstate druid healing rely on the HT cast/cancel style of late vanilla or have new styles supplanted it?

CONSERVE YOUR RAGE AND LUST

 

Akomos

Even in my alt experience in Kara, trees are great. And my tree has *awful* gear.

At least my fellow healers were very appreciative of the aura and the spike cushion that Lifebloom provides.

 

Melador

Kara you'll be totally fine with ToL, though I'd be concerned solo healing heroics in trees. It can take a while to really ramp up your hps, and heroics can have some nasty spike damage. You can lead with a rejuv and swiftmend it if you need to, but any time lifebloom falls off your tank is going to be in a risky spot. I suspect you're going to need to bomb some HTs.

 

◊ Noressa

Start here:
WoW Forums -> To be a Tree: The Evolution of Healing
Good breakdown of how to heal post 2.1 as a TOL.

1) Tree is perfectly valid in Heroics and Kara. Your group needs to understand you don't have the cast times of a pally, or the aoe healing capabilities of a priest, but if they wait for your HOT's, they'll be fine.

2) If you're under 100 mana/5, I might suggest a dreamstate build, but the limitations of losing swiftmend and most of the HOT bonus is a lot to ask.

3) +heal, mana/5, stamina, spirit, int. We aren't crit healers, and we're rarely outside of the 5 second rule. Sure, spirit helps the aura, but it's underpowered when it comes to regen even with intensity.

4) DS is cast/cancel as well as a high focus on HOT's. A DS druid will often have lifeblooms on their main targets in addition to cast/cancel as needed.

 

anathor

Noresaa, thanks for your post, but I have to say I'm still a bit confused regarding the relative value of spirit vs mp5 in terms of mana regeneration.

The formula I've found so far in caster was Spirit/4.5 + 15 mana per tick (i.e. every 2 seconds). I skip the math but that means that Intensity would give 1 mp5 per 12 points of spirit while in the FSR. Is that correct?

That would give me a good rule of thumb when deciding between 2 items re: mana regen.

To give a concrete example, this is a gear decision I have faced recently. I am currently using Vestia's Pauldrons of Inner Grace and then Forest Wind Shoulderpads dropped for me.

There using the epic over the blue would give me:
+156 ac
+3 int
+18 heal
-2 sta
-6 mp5 (assuming 24 spirit = 2 mp5 as stated above)

I'm undecided because +18 healing is a significant upgrade, but -6 mp5 seems like a lot as well... (I'm feral but for the sake of the explanation we can also assume I am resto and take into account the ToL bonus)

 

◊ Noressa

Sorry for taking so long to reply! There had been an amazing thread on the druid forums in regards to our regen, and I wanted to find it again, rather then share the fuzzy numbers I base my decisions on.

WoW Forums -> Spirit -vs- MP5 healing debate

While I feel the whole thread is valuable, a piece to note is as follows:
Out of Five Second Rule
1.8 spir = 1mp5 without living spirit talent
0.86 spir = 1mp5 with living spirit talent

In 5SR
12 spir = 1mp5 /wo LS
10.4 spir = 1mp5 /w LS

Don't base getting anything with spirit simply for the TOL bonus, or a slightly larger innervate. While they are nice, you need enough regen to accommodate a TOL healing style, which is typically not outside the 5 second rule. (Refreshing HOT's on 3-4 tanks means your GCD is hard pressed to keep up with you, much less letting you get out of the 5 second rule.) In the end, you could stack spirit or mana/5. There are healers who use both. I personally got myself to 140, 150 is where I want to "stop" and focus on +heal.

As a side issue, the Royal Nightseye are over-budget, so if you're taking gemming into consideration, it's a better value for stat points then the 9 healing/4 spirit, since they rounded up from a regen of 1.5 mana/5 to 2.

Something I forgot to mention. I tend to value 8 healing to 1 mana/5. It's been posted about in the druid and priest forums as "Blizzards Itemization" for stat point allocations, but I haven't gone to the trouble to compare iLevel values. If someone else wants to validate or refute that, please do.

 

thedruidness

I love this theorycraft, but it the end it comes down to itemization - what loot is available to take the most advantage of the theorycraft. It seems most leather healing gear has spirit. I don't raid nearly as much as I used to, but I'd prefer to stack mainly mp5 for the reasons listed in the above post, as well as others.

Really though, it's tough to expect Blizzard to create massively diverse itemization without pissing a lot of people off, or implementing a token loot system for ALL drops, not just tier sets.

 

Ribeye

Here's a couple druid healing parses.

This is froma recent trip to Hyjal.
Wow Web Stats


Here's a Kael, some Kael wipes and a Rage
Wow Web Stats

To respond to an earlier post. Mobility is really the only reason to leave tree. As I stated, Thaladred is a great expamle, as is Supremus. There is also the rare fight like Kazrogal where I spend 90 pct of the boss fight in cat. If we are short on mages I'll decurse, but my healing suffers. A future patch is supposed to let us start decursing in tree anyways, so i guess it solves that problem.

The main thing with tree healing is just to take all of your fears and reservations of giving up your HTs and just let go. Its very tempting at times of great healing stress to want to jump out and just to start spamming HTs, but we lose so much of what makes us great healers by doing this and by the point you reach that desperation you have probably already lost anyways. The more you play in tree, and stay in tree, the more that type of healing just becomes second nature to you.

About using your own innervates. I do occasionally give mine away. I'ts rare, but it happens. I am an oldschool healer, all the way back to a cleric in EQ. My feeling has always been that the raid suceeds or loses on my healing. If i don't turn every single ounce of my mana into heals then I truly believe there is a chance we are going to lose. I heal hard, in the beginning of the fight, in the middle, and in the end. and the only way I know to guarrantee this sort of healing is counting on my innervates. Selfish maybe, but well intentioned.

 

Jeffrey

Because nobody else seemed to do some actually theorycrafting on Innervate, here's mine. Keep in mind that this was mostly done half asleep.

First to fix a common misconception which I've actually had to explain to a few people before: Innervate is NOT affected by mp/5 on gear. Just spirit. Yes, really. Broken tooltip or broken spell - you decide but this is how it is currently.
There are really only 3 classes which have spirit on their gear: druids, priests and to a lesser extent mages

Innervate gives you 10 ticks of 500% regeneration (it "increases by 400%"). Every 1 mana/normaltick will turn into 50 mana. 5 spirit per 1 mana is needed so 1 spi = 0.2 mana/normaltick = 10 in the duration of Innervate. For 4.5, 1 spi = 0.22 mana = 11.1 when innervated. For 4, 1 spi = 0.25 mana = 12.5 when innervated.

For shamans, paladins and warlocks, the average base lv70 spirit values are around 100. Raidbuffed, you will gain 50 from Divine Spirit, 20 from food = 170 then 10% of that from BoK = 187. Because wearing a cloth/leather piece or two (and to factor in stuff I missed - did I miss anything?) doesn't seem all THAT uncommon, I'm going to use a bit higher number, 220. Using my numbers above, this gives those classes 2200 mana back. Not exactly an amazing use of a 6 minute cooldown skill.

Next is the druid at 4.5 spirit per mana. Using the same buffs as above but wearing leather instead, it is very, very hard to avoid getting under 400 raidbuffed. Assuming no trinkets/weapons, the druid gets back minimum 4440 mana.

Holy priests have it even better with their 4 spirit per mana, but I'm not sure how much spirit the average priest actually has (seeing more spirit-less cloth around). Guessing around 400 raidbuffed as well = 5000 mana. Likewise I guess mages are around 300 = 3750. I really don't know a thing about shadow priests.

However:
The use of Bangle of Endless Blessings during Innervate adds anywhere from 1200 mana to 1680 mana, depending on class/spec and presence of BoK. If I'm doing the math right, a Priest who uses the SSC class trinket will add 4330 mana to being innervated - hope I did the math wrong there or I'll cry for it being class-restricted.

A high spirit (Staff of Divine Infusion with +20 Spirit = 70) weapon being switched in will be 700 to 980 bonus mana, depending on class/spec and BoK. Note that these high-spirit weapons are generally not main weapons and have a lot less +healing than you'd get from 1h/offhand or high-mp5 staves so you'll heal for a bit less for 20 seconds (unless you are a resto druid rolling lifebloom).
Priests and mages can also add a 25 spirit wand which works out to a bonus 340-360 mana.

Usually, these items are really only considered useful if you can expect an Innervate in a given fight, so they are somewhat rare to see on priests and mages while druids can plan ahead more easily.

Of course, all of this requires that your priests and druids actually run out of mana. If you have overgeared/overskilled priests/druids who won't need Innervate at all, the 2000 to a paladin is obviously better than the "hey I ended the fight at full mana! oh well the other healers are OOM, their problem!" to a druid. However, from my experience, people will run out of mana, even if in a shadowpriest group chainpotting fully raidbuffed/flasked. Eventually, that is. I'm very well capable of using ~200 mana per second if I wanted to go all out raid-wide HoT spam, 1000 mp5 is a bit more than you can get at the moment.


TLDR version: Innervate should be off limits for classes which aren't priests, druids or in rare cases mages.

 

◊ Lord BEEF

The math on the priest earring sounds right, though I'm not sure if you factored in blessing of kings or spirit of redemption (another 5%).

That brings up an interesting question. Shadow priests typically need mana more than holy priests in my experience, and I can often spare my innervate. What would the DPS gain of another 4000+ mana be for a shadow priest in a given fight, versus what they'd lose by choosing a DPS trinket?

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