Quantum

Here's what I learned from the experience being a raid healing ToL:

• I do lobby. I asked everyone using Grid (or equivalent raid frames) to watch out for my lifeblooms. If it's me raid healing, then it should stay that way. I remind fast fingered FoL-paladins from time to time of that fact.
  
  
• I try to play totally proactive. Vashj is a perfect example where druids can totally outrank every other raid healer by watching Vashj's current position and casting LBs on every player inside her line/cone of sight. If executed correctly I can take a lot of pressure out of the fight (WWS log example) (Apologies for patting my own shoulder, but it's hard to find logs with tree druids these days).
  Playing proactive also means to me to not be shy about casting too much HoTs. Better to spend a bit more mana then to loose a player to repeated incoming damage. It's sometimes educated guessing but it works (almost always).
  
  
• I do not use Healing Touch. Ever. It's just too expensive to shift out of ToL, NS+HT, and shift back in, even with 3 points in natural shapeshifter. If a 60% crit regrowth + swiftmend won't do the job, the player taking damage will be dead soon anyway.
  
  
• I cast a life bloom after a regrowth. More often than not, players in need of burst heal (i.e. regrowth) often do require more heal in the near future.
  
  
• Bit of a cheat, but I deem it important nontheless: I cast rejuvs on the warlocks of my raid and tell them about this before the raid. After a short learning time, their life tap ability will go totally unnoticed to other healers (thus decreasing distractions). It also helps warlocks to not run around half dead when they are in need of mana.

 

Balean

Imo the times of HT spamming Druids are basically over. Dreamstate for a better mana regen gives more possibilities, but that leads to the missing of SM, which is, especially with T6 2set bonus far to usefull to give it up for Dreamstate.
Beside the high effective heal output, the casting time-mana relation is just way better covered by a HoL Pala.
Regrowth as a reactive heal is nice but about the same eff. heal can be done by a Pala with FoL. The difference can be done with imp regro+ Nature's Grace. With a crit build around 70% for the regro you can pretty much rely on Nature' s Grace and reduce the casting time most of the times to 1.5 seconds with equal or higher eff. heal as a FoL Pala. Of course the spells will be, even tho with Moionglow be 11%more expensive compared to a ToL.

About the LB it s a matter if you re on raid healing or MT/'s: on the MT/'s a rolling LB ( I dont give a lot on heal+ trinkets as a lot of fights dont allow a constantly renewed LB and that way you will sooner or later loose the +heal of the trinkets) in combination with rejus for SM is imo without a doubt the best in terms of combined preemptive and reactive healing.
On th raid it requires as mentioned above a little talking to the Palas and the use of single LB with the final tick(tho this might be quite often be overwritten by FoL spammers), rejus+SM with (NS)-regros for a little bit of burst/emergency healing.

 

Aranik

I've read the thread and looked through Werebeef's posted WWS, and I still can't for the life of me work out what the other trinket in a "double trinketed lifebloom" would be. Essence of the Martyr is one, but I haven't been able to test to see if any trinkets can be activated concurrently with it, nor can I see another buff on the WWS list that suggests a healing buff. I'd be grateful if anyone could fill me in.

 

Mishdan

I'm not 100% sure all of these can be used in conjunction with Essence of the Martyr, but I believe they all can, and could all take the place of that second trinket in a "double trinket lifebloom":
Zandalarian Hero Charm
Eye of the Dead
Hibernation Crystal

 

Maynard

Pretty sure you can use Living Root of the Wildheart with Essence of the Martyr as the former is a % based proc with no internal cooldown.

 

Quantum

Yes, [Zandalarian Hero Charm], which I use, indeed doesn't share cooldowns.

 

Cesar2000

I use this one with Essence of the Martyr as well. Never did I expect it would ever be this useful :p

(also, if you have an arcane mage, I'd strongly suggest you get him to spec into 2/2 Magic attunement, with Amplify Magic and 2 trinkets, I do almost 1.1k hps on my lifebloom)

 

Gir

I use Warp-Scarab Brooch in conjunction with Essence of the Martyr. They don't share cooldown so they can both be used at the same time for maximum lifebloom tick output.
I was able to achieve 1040-1041 ticks on the tanks with Elixir of Healing Power, Food buff and Tree Aura on the tanks.

I'd recommend it to anyone else actually.

 

Aranik

Hmm, shame that a lot of these trinkets are old-world stuff (my druid was levelled post-BC), I guess the warp-scarab is attainable at least. Thanks for the responses.

I can see that the proc-based trinkets (ie, Living Root) would be able to stack with the powerups, but I'm surprised that they are allowing an activated double +healing powerup with some trinkets while disallowing them with others (and especially, all +damage trinkets I know of initiate cooldowns on each other). I had feared it may have been an oversight and that the old world trinkets were simply not correctly tagged, but that warp-scarab/essence will happily stack may suggest otherwise.

 

Gruten

The Hibernation Crystal (+350 heal on use) is from Ysondre (a level 60 outdoor boss). You should be able to easily 5 man him with your NR Hydross tank.

 

Aranik

Indeed, unfortunately my druid is an alt and currently not a raider, so I'd feel a tad too cheeky trying to drag some mains down there to kill an old boss just for my tree

 

Quantum

I personally would not suggest to put any effort in aquiring old world trinkets. It's almost impossible that Blizzards thinks the actual trinket behaviour is "working as intended", although I assume it won't be a high priority fix due to the overall lack of resto druids.

 

Malazaar

Interesting thing is - i looked up Eye of the Dead on Wowhead and there's an old comment stating it doesn't "stack" with Essence of the Martyr and a now one saying it does.

There's of course the possibility of misinformation but it could also have been changed in a recent patch.

 

Melador

As a raidhealer, I generally strongly favor Regrowth, canceling when appropriate, and treat the long HoT (especially with 2-piece tier 5) as lifebloom fodder. 2 pieces of Tier 5 and Tier 6 work really well together for this.

 

Ribeye

When raid healing, don't lock yourself into any one spell. The key is to be casting all the time. Low rank regrows, depending on your plus healing, are gonna be your main spike dmg heal spell with a follow up SM if your target's health is still dropping.

If none of the squishies are taking dmg just roll your lbs on the tanks and wait for the next round of dmg to start. If your using proper raid frames, you should also get alerted to sudden agro changes to mages or rogues. You can proactively drop a rejuve the second you see it say "agro," then SM it for a quick heal if there is an expected burst.

I like to have at least 4 different heals at my fingertips, rank 8 regrow, rank 10 regrow, rank 13 rejuve, and rank 9 rejuve, along with Swiftmend and Nature's Swiftness. Lifebloom is done with a click of the mouse which lets me toss them out quickly without too much thought.

As someone posted above, I often drop a lifebloom just after a low rank regrow if I know the target's health isn't likely to be dropping again and this assures me they will end up full by the time both are done ticking.

 

starcore

All my following posts were originally on my guild forums but unfortunately there were some players in the guild who were simply too immature to have a good discussion with, resulting in the thread being locked... hopefully i will have more success here

The 'bare minimum' spec

The following allocation of points is the absolute minimum you will need to heal using the methods i will be describing. What you do with the rest of the points is up to you!

WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Druid -> Talent Calculator


The basic application of druid healing

The idea behind the style of healing i will be discussing is this.

Maximizing the tick of HoT spells on predicted targets in order to minimize the effect of spike damage in a sustainable and mana efficient manner.

The main tool that allows us to do this is the lifebloom spell. The reason this spell is so effective is the fact that it ticks every single second and scales incredibly well with gear.
Thus as soon as the tank takes any damage they are instantly healed by the lifebloom tick, essentially giving the other healers more time to cast larger, longer cast time spells.


WWS
heres a link to some of my guild's WWS parses...
As you can see druid healing is very suited to some encounters, whilst not to others (and some i'm just lazy), but as of late, on encounters suited to it i am coming close to doubling all the other healers
WWS History


Idealized Application of druids for specific encounters

Probably said so before but i'll sum up quickly here...
Druids are basically good at healing any target that takes a lot of damage (spike or not) over a sustained period of time. Having to switch targets and restack is where we loose efficiency BUT keep in mind it is very easy to keep more than one target stacked at the same time with hots...

Here is the "ideal" druid placement for the boss fights that my guild have completed(in my opinion)



Hydross
LB stacks on both MT's - Also either keep Rejuv up on both MT's or stack LB on one of the AD tanks as well (could even do 2 AD tanks if lag isn't bad but need very careful timing on the refreshes)


Lurker
Stack both MT's (if theres 2) otherwise just MT heal and use the rest of your rotation for raid heals where needed

Leo
Stacks on both the druid tanks (mobility is win here possibly consider not using tree from). Stack the Warlock in demon phase.
(i personally haven't been doing too great on this one... been wearing way too much dps gear to sustain stacks... wearing all healing gear with a good weapon and offhand to switch to will easily down the demon as i recently found out... now i have a mindblade the healing in this fight should step up a lot)

FLK
Heals on shaman from a druid i would say is almost essential here... the massive damage spikes can really hurt... other good druid position is on MT... after the shaman goes down the druid can hot stack the MT, themselves, and the other healer healing MT... this should eliminate the need for a healer to heal the healers healing the MT (mouthful)

Morogrim
Should definitely stack both the MT as well as the pally tank

Vash
Stack MT's For P1 and P3... P2 stacking the 2 tanks is good as well as using the spare rotation time to throw a few hots on the kilters and rogues (so basically center)
Although that said outside will be kinda useful as well due to cleanse poison and additional mobility (i personally don't like it though).

Alar
P1 MT chasing
P2 stack both MT's

VR
Run around spamming regrowth... this fight sucks for us

Solarian
Stack both Arcane soaks

Comparison of heavy spirit based weapons vs heavy mp5 /+heal for tree druid



Stats on solarian staff:

41 stam
40 int
60 spirit

386 healing


----------------------------

Lightfathom Scepter

27 stam
19 int
431 healing
10 mp5

----------------------------

Tears of heaven (offhand)

75 healing
6 mp5

----------------------------

Raw stat comparison

Staff > Mace + OH

stam: 41 > 27
int: 40 > 19
spirit 60 > 0
heal: 386 > 506
mp5 0 > 16

so by taking the staff we would be loosing out on 120 healing and 16 mp5 for some spirit and a bit of HP ... but how does that spirit affect healing stats... lets examine further

with the 15% regen in combat talent each point of spirit gives 0.09 mp5, netting us 5.4 mp5 additional

with the tree 'aura' the spirit would grant an additional +15 to all heals cast on the tank.

so now the breakdown becomes somewhat simpler...

by taking the staff we
gain 240 hp
loose 10.6 mp5
loose 120 healing (but give an additional 15 to everyone else)

but just how effective is this 15 for everyone compared to the 120 for a druid...

most SSC/TK fights typically run with about 8 healers, so if we consider total +heal for everyone in the raid (15x8) we come up with 120 again... which doesn't seem so bad (although keep in mind this bonus will ONLY be recieved by those healers healing the tank). But +healing gear isn't focused on to the same extent by all classes. A druid is one of the few classes that can happily itemize away from other stats for more +healing (as long as they are over the necessary mp5). Due to the fact that we are healing with lifebloom primarily, our hots tick every second, meaning we have a faster response to spike damage than any other class... the bigger this response is, the more chance the other classes have to get off a longer cast time heal to bring the tank back to full and ultimately the less chance of tank death. The other good thing about lifebloom is that it scales incredibly well with +healing gear. Another thing to note is that other classes upon reaching higher levels of +heal will typically down rank their spells, further reducing the +heal scaling.
SO, while in essence the same total +heal level in the raid is maintained either way, its is more effective in the hands of a druid. Not to mention that the druid actually has to be in the tanks group for them to receive this benefit.

Lets examine the typical tank group makeup...
Tank
Offtank
Warlock (imp)
Shaman (totems)
Paladin (armor aura) (can vary here but lets assume)

now to switch a druid into this group we would be reducing effectiveness of at least one other synergy

now if the only differences between the weapons was how the +healing was applied i believe it would be a simple choice the mace over the staff... BUT ITS NOT... by taking the staff you loose an additional 10.6 mp5!!

this one is called hands down to the mace/OH combo in my opinion.

The last thing you may argue is the benefit to the out of combat mana regen. While yes, this is nice, if a druid is healing at optimal capacity (see the post on healing rotations) there is no point where you will get the 5 second regen tick... its essentially all chain cast.. and as for innervate being buffed... mine usually goes to a shadow priest anyway, netting more total raid mana


Healing rotations

For single MT healing the maximum HPS to keep up is Lifebloom, Regrowth, and Rejuvenation.

Lifebloom needs to be refreshed once every seven seconds (usually every 6 to preserve the stack). This is first priority as it is the highest HPS hot that we have. it also happens to be the most mana effective too.

Rejuvenation needs refreshing once every 12 seconds (every second rotation). This is our 2nd biggest HOT.

Regrowth lasts 21 seconds and thus only needs to be refreshed every 3-4 rotations. Regrowth however is a comparably weak HOT, ticking only once every 2 seconds for far less than rejuvenation. The main component of regrowth is the large heal it applies initially. Thus i only find myself casting this when the tank takes spike damage, giving a large heal to get the tank back up whilst the other hots help to ease the spike damage. This is a very inefficient heal especially because a paladin or a priest can heal for much more with faster cast time and less mana cost in this type of style.

Thus in my 6 second rotation i find i have a lot of spare time in which i could be casting other spells without loosing ANY HPS on the MT (the only issue becomes mana)

The actual rotations would look something like this...

First rotation

0-1.5 Lifebloom
1.5-3 rejuvenation
3-5 regrowth
5-6 Unused

Second rotation
0-1.5 Lifebloom
1.5-6 Unused

Third rotation
0-1.5 Lifebloom
1.5-3 rejuvenation
3-6.5 Unused

ETC

SO basically we have a lot of time where we could be casting, as well as maintaining 100% of our HPS on the MT, but aren't. A lot of druids simply use these spaces to help conserve some mana due to lack of MP5 (such as not bothering to chain pot), others will just be lazy at this point an not use those available slots. However with sufficient MP5 this is where our rotations can become interesting...

consider this rotation

First rotation
0-1.5 Lifebloom MT
1.5-3 rejuvenation MT
3-4.5 Lifebloom OT
4.5-6 Rejuvenation OT

Second rotation
0-1.5 Lifebloom MT
1.5-3 Lifebloom OT
3-5 Regrowth MT
5-6 Unused

Third rotation
0-1.5 Lifebloom MT
1.5-3 rejuvenation MT
3-4.5 Lifebloom OT
4.5-6 Rejuvenation OT

Using this rotation we maintain EXACTLY the same HPS on the MT as well as maintaining our best two HPS HOTs on the OT.

I will typically however drop regrowth out of my rotation a lot of the time due to high inefficiency. This allows an even more interesting rotation

First rotation
0-1.5 Lifebloom MT
1.5-3 Lifebloom 1st OT
3-4.5 Lifebloom 2nd OT
4.5-6 Rejuvenation MT

Second rotation
0-1.5 Lifebloom MT
1.5-3 Lifebloom 1st OT
3-4.5 Lifebloom 2nd OT
4.5-6 Rejuvenation OT

Third rotation
0-1.5 Lifebloom MT
1.5-3 Lifebloom 1st OT
3-4.5 Lifebloom 2nd OT
4.5-6 Rejuvenation MT


This allows us to keep our highest HPS hot on 3 tanks! as well as our 2nd highest HPS hot on 2 of them. The potential HPS at this point is becoming somewhat insane

Lastly, my favorite rotation

(all instances of this are the same)
0-1.5 Lifebloom MT
1.5-3 Lifebloom 1st OT
3-4.5 Lifebloom 2nd OT
4.5-6 Lifebloom 3rd OT

This is the rotation that gives by far the best HPS and mana efficiency, but unfortunately is not suited to many fights.


The thing about all these rotations (besides the first) require low latency (less than 500ms). Good timing and co-ordination (got to remember which spell comes next on which target... can be surprisingly difficult whilst having to move or watch other things as well). A decent amount of mp5 while casting(i will crunch the numbers for each of them when i have more time), and finally require FOKUS!!!


Gems

For the purposes of analysis i am going to with with the basis of 10 gem slots (makes the numbers easier to compare)

The gems i will be comparing are:

Purified Shadow Pearl:
+9 healing +4 spirit

Royal Nightseye
+9 healing +2 mp5

Teardrop Living Ruby
+18 healing spells


First off lets work out the total benefit of 10 Purified Shadow Pearls

90 healing and 40 spirit
40 spirit equates to 3.75 mp5 while casting, 25 mp5 idle, and +10 to all heals received by the group.

Now 10 Royal Nightseyes
90 healing and 20 mp5.

Now lets compare the differences if we were to stack half our sockets with Royal Nightseyes and the other half with Teardrop Living Rubys as opposed to stacking them all with Purified Shadow Pearls

Total benefit of Nightseyes + Ruby's
+135 healing and 10 mp5

Compared to the Pearls this gains us 45 more healing(35 if we are in the MT's group), 6.25 mp5, but we loose +10 healing received by the group and 15 mp5 while not casting.

Firstly i am going to discount the mp5 whilst not casting, as whilst using an idealized healing rotation there is no place for a regen tick outside the '5 second rule' and even if there was to make up for the difference of 6.25 mp5 casting you would need to spend just over 40% of the fight not casting to get more benefit out of it.

now, puerly for the purposes of comparing the benefits of the gems are going to balance our Nightseyes and rubies to a point where the mana regeneration is roughly equal, allowing us to compare the gems on healing benefit alone.

Lets assume we are going to use 3 Nightseyes in our 10 sockets, with 7 Rubies.

In total this would give us
+153 healing +6mp5

compared to the pearls thats
+63 healing +2.25mp5, with a loss of 19 mp5 idle and +10 heals to the group.

Now assuming we are using a 'less advanced' healing rotation or are not healing for a bit... and we are actually gaining mp5 outside of the 5 second rule... with these particular stack ups of gems the mana gained during a fight would be roughly equal if we were to spend approximately 12% of the fight outside of the '5 second rule'. So now the comparison comes down to 63 healing vs +10 healing to group.

if you have a look back at previous posts i have discussed this issue before when comparing heavy spirit based weapons and heavy +heal and mp5 weapons previously, but heres a recap. In any given fight it is unlikely that you will have more than 5 healers focusing on the MT alone. Thus comparing the total amount of +heal in the raid we have 63 alone for the druid vs an additional 50 spread amongst all those healing the MT. On total +healing in the raid alone the spirit gems loose, but also as previously discussed druids by far can make the most out of additional +heal due to gear scaling and faster application of heals (i.e 1 second HoT ticks)

Please keep in mind however, that this 70-30 stack up of gems is not the one i would choose however, i would be taking more Nightseyes as the additional mp5 allows us to use more 'advanced' healing rotations, although a set of gear stacked with nothing but +heal would also be quite useful for fights where the MT is the only person taking damage.

 

Quantum

That's a lot of topics you pasted there, some of them have already been discussed thoroughly (especially lifebloom's effectiveness). But let's see what's to gather here:
I'll disagree with some of your points here:

Buff the MTs with all your HoTs prior to a whirlwind, and you should never be forced to leave tree form. And you should definitely pick up Celestial Focus instead of Vengeance: It eliminates the need for any spell damage gear for me.

I always get assigned to heal Karathress' tank, because 3xLB and Rejuvenation is sufficient healing before any add goes down.

You should definitely outrank any other healer if you stand in the center (Example: Wow Web Stats), because LB will heal for ~3 and Vashj will deal ~3k damage with her forked lightning. Also, cleanse poison is something any other class than druids should do because of the huge mana costs involved. And contrary to popular belief, if you cast HoTs only, you will be more mobile than any other healer, even if you are in tree form.

No, it doesn't. Exclusively stack LB up on the current tank (if he's any good, he'll stay on top of the aggro list for at least a minute) and help out the melee DDs with another LB or two. Pretty easy and very effective. You also stay mobile, because you don't have to stand still to cast Regrowth.

That's what I'm assigned to, too, but it isn't as effective as I would like it to be. The soaks take turns recieving damage, so a lot of the HoTs' healing is wasted.

 

starcore

My apologies for any repeats... i'm quite new to these boards, at least as a poster... i did have a good look through the thread initially and didn't find 'too' much i was repeating on (other than to sum up for purposes the post in general)
this was pretty much a port of all the stuff i have done on my guild forums, just didn't want to see any of it go to waste due to a few 'unfortunate' other people

praise the lord for civilized discussion! others like me do exist out there!


LEO
When you say 'prior' to a whirlwind.. do you not keep them stacked up during the entire duration of leo's human form (other than when he is actually whirl winding)

Will respec and try it, thanks for the tip... also... do you still switch weapons to kill your demon or did i take that mindblade for nothing other than to 'lol' at the warlocks

Karathress
For some reason i keep getting assigned to the shammy tank due to the massive burst damage (he has 'one-shotted' our tank on more than one occasion) dont know if this is a wise decision by our raid leaders or not...
The last FLK fight however i was assigned to MT healing and it really did shine in the parse at least...

Vash
Ok cool, that was essentially the mentality i was leaning towards, the latter statement in that particular paragraph was essentially put there (untested) because the guild saw the parse and had a QQ at me for 0 poison dispells

VR
have been 'trying' to do essentially that but i'm finding the tank and the melee are too far apart to stack properly without potentially getting too close and dropping an orb on them, as well as loosing my stack every minute or so due to orbs or tank changes does become somewhat frustrating

Solarian
Regardless it is a lot more efficient than re-stacking them, and they do (especially towards the later stages) take far more damage than anyone else in the fight... will all be different now with the patch though

 

Quantum

I always try to regenerate some mana or to spread lifebloom all over the players next to me (there is no immediate pressure to heal them up as fast as possible) while Leo is in melee form and not whirling because every other healer starts healing the main tanks. It's more a question of healing assignment. It also helps to have up to three restoration druids in a raid (we lack paladins though, but that's another story).

If your raid leader has issues with tree druids (or your whole raid), try to convince him of your lifebloom efficiency by showing him what you are not good at (healing mages who AoE, healing Solarians arcane missiles or Winterchills frostbolt).

If you still get forced to use your dispells, rejoice! Patch 2.3 seems to introduce just that. I'm actually not happy about this, because I'm used to not having to dispell.

While at the topic of the next patch, the priests of this forum already started to discuss the impact of Meditation giving 30% mana regeneration while casting. What about druids? I'm not that often in the tank group, so I'm not a big fan of our aura. And we don't get a personal healing bonus through spirit, so we just can't stack it up like there's no tomorrow, it's just not worth to loose a rather big chunk of +heal. Any thoughts on this?

 

Aciara

I currently gem very differntly than you (using 1 orange gem and the rest are ALL red +22/+18 healing gems for my +26 healing meta gem ) which I can do because we have another Druid who typically raids together with me who stacks spirit for the MT group This way I can show the other healers that yes a tree is very viable and we still get all that nice +healing from his tree

 

starcore

As implied in my above post with gems etc... in terms of itemization theres pretty much no way i'd stack spirit over mp5/+heal... not to say i wouldn't use an item with more benefit from spirit... its just that generally items of similar level the mp5/+heal will win out every time... especially when you consider scaling on lifebloom compared to the scaling on other classes heals

 

Freddie

The change does make several items slightly more palatable, though. [Enchanted Leather Sandals] from Anetheron turn into ~7.8mp5, which makes them a smallish upgrade from Leo/FLK boots. [Don Rodrigo's Poncho] turns into ~11mp5, and will actually be an upgrade from my present T4.

Spirit will still be inferior to MP5 itemization cost wise, but not so much that it leads to an instant "well, that item sucks". I still have no idea what they're up to with the spell haste on BT gear though :o

And say hi to Quis/Yachi for me :p

 

Aciara

Well the problem is that currently lifebloom doesn't cost us much and if you're in a spriest grp and/or are chugging pots you don't really need to stack mp5/spirit as there is just enough on tier pieces or as a rubbish stat anyway. What you have to stack, because there is no other way to drastically improve this stat, is healing. Which is why imho Void Reaver drops the best waist in game, Kazzak the best boots and so on ([Gold-Leaf Wildboots][Girdle of Zaetar] are the ones I mean, but 2x +22 healing in them and they're better than ANYTHING else currently in the Game).

 

starcore

you'll find for belt slot primal [Primal Mooncloth Belt] is arguably better than [Girdle of Zaetar] if you can be bothered to pick up tailoring.... infact for a druid the whole set is somewhat OP

 

Aciara

Yeah that's right, but I'm herbalist/alchemist (with all but 1 flask) so I'm not going to drop that anytime soon. I'm just hoping they'll soon close this glaring hole in our itemization (there is no waist in BT that comes within 40 healing of the tailoring one and no shoes that come within 40healing of the Kazzak ones either).