[Druid] Raiding as a Tree - Page 43

Daedalix · 05/22/08, 11:01 AM

You won't find a common build between all us Trees here. There's good reason for it.

I come prepared to every fight. Along with bringing consummables and knowing the encounter, part of that is having a spec that will benefit me the most on the fight(s) that we are progressing on. When we were learning Leo, I took Starlight Wrath and other Balance dmg talents to deal with my inner demon. Now that we're in BT and on Archi and working on some healing intensive fights, I'm considering taking the more questionable Resto talents (we have a Moonkin for IS) and Natural Shapeshifter for all the decursing I've been doing. For the first time, I've considered getting Brambles because of the threat-sensitive fights we're getting into (Gurtogg, RoS). Part of being good, and especially being a good hybrid, is making intelligent use of the tools that are available to us. A couple of the hunters and shaman were shocked at how high my respec bill was because I'm the "pure resto guy".

Uldreth · 05/22/08, 11:02 AM

I run with what Lee runs with, but with some slight modifications. I tend to value Natural Petrification over Empowered Touch just due to the fact that I think the returns on chances for Swiftmend criticals is more valuable than a little more bang on a NS Healing Touch.

It'll be nice to see how the top three teirs of the restoration tree get streamlined come expansion time. I hope at the very least that Subtlety and Nature's Focus get fliped for Balance's sake.

charriu · 05/22/08, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by Uldreth

It'll be nice to see how the top three teirs of the restoration tree get streamlined come expansion time. I hope at the very least that Subtlety and Nature's Focus get fliped for Balance's sake.

Here is a talent-tree built from the FFA datamined data... Unconfirmed material, likely to be changed, but nice to play around with nonetheless.

• giansm · 05/22/08, 12:05 PM

I'm a big fan of Starlight Wrath, I think it's all you really need to get your dailies done and it's just 5 points that you don't really have a better option for. It can be nice on certain raid encounters as well, especially Leotheras and Reliquary of Souls. Normally I run 11/0/50, which is Insect Swarm + Starlight Wrath in balance, and the standard 42 resto talents from the first post plus Empowered Touch, Natural Perfection, and Natural Shapeshifter. I didn't list those three as required but I think they're helpful enough to put points in.

One debate I have been having recently is whether I should get Naturalist. This would involve sacrificing either Insect Swarm or some combination of Natural Shapeshifter, Natural Perfection, and Empowered Touch. I ran the numbers for my gear (72 haste, 4pc T6, 2545 healing buffed) and the results are that for maximum single target HPS, the best HT-oriented sequence is 12% better than the best Regrowth-oriented sequence, for about 12% more mana. Maximizing your single target HPS is not a very common case, but neither is needing the mana from Natural Shapeshifter, the extra crit from Natural Perfection, or the ability to put up Insect Swarm (we only use it on bosses where we think the tank has a reasonable chance of dying).

lairpie · 05/22/08, 12:27 PM

Realistically raiding as 0-0-42 would be about 98% as good as anything else you can do with those points. Ignoring the stupid and almost useless things you have to take to get them, those first 42 points are fairly amazing and you get almost nothing useful with the rest of your points. I'd go so far as to say any resto druid that doesn't have those same 42 points (possibly picking nat shifter over the last 3 in focus) is very confused, not concerned with performing well for the content (you can be the judge of whether that's ok or not), or misclicked.

There's going to be a huge variety of what to do with those other points, because it frankly doesn't matter. You would have to actively try to spend them too poorly and the extent to which you use the various talents is probably worth 20 times as much weight in picking talents than slight amounts of theorycraft behind them.

Like Daedalix, I've swapped around where those points are quite a lot at different times in progression or even for different fights. Early on, I was going something like 0-19-42 pretty often because i was routinely off tanking things in kara or going DS/Resto because lifebloom was pretty weak still, my tree form aura was almost useless, and the mana regen was actually really nice. In SSC I found IS and some balance points to be amazing for leotheras demons, killing those stupid water elemental totems, and helping dps adds on vashj. In hyjal I found going to a fairly standard 8-11-42 pvp build just with tree form and 3/3 spirit kept me alive far more often than a few crit regrowths kept anyone else alive. Being able to cyclone things, nature's grasp them as you run away, feral charge things casting at you or feral charge away from things running towards you is amazing in an outdoor instance where trash obviously matters a fair amount and there's enough mobs in a wave that you can pretty easily get agro on something. Then once that got to be pretty easy and the tanks got enough gear where I wasn't getting agro as much, and threat got to be one of the leading restraints on our damage, getting brambles became the best way to spend my throw-away points.

windstrife · 05/22/08, 1:46 PM

Hey, im not too sure if its appropriate to ask, but i just regemmed my gear.... where i had Royal Shadowsong Amethyst, i now have Purified shadowsong amethyst.

I was just hoping someone can confirm that this was an Okay choice, i have around 512 intellect unbuffed, 612 spirit now.

raiding sunwell, mostly in the tank group, sometimes im moved around in other groups.

Kalaghan · 05/22/08, 1:53 PM

Originally Posted by windstrife

Hey, im not too sure if its appropriate to ask, but i just regemmed my gear.... where i had Royal Shadowsong Amethyst, i now have Purified shadowsong amethyst.

I was just hoping someone can confirm that this was an Okay choice, i have around 512 intellect unbuffed, 612 spirit now.

raiding sunwell, mostly in the tank group, sometimes im moved around in other groups.

Absolutely. The regen from 5 spirit is as good or better than 2mp5, and there's the added bonus of your tree aura and +heal via IDS.

Or, as per the front page (always a good thought to check there first):

There's a new epic gem cut, Purified Shadowsong Amethyst, with 11 healing and 5 spirit: source. If you innervate yourself, this is always worth more mana than [Royal Shadowsong Amethyst]. If you do not innervate yourself, the Purified gem is worth more mana if you have over 500 intellect raid buffed. It's very unlikely that you will consistently not be in a tank group and have less than 500 intellect raid buffed, so the new gem will be better in almost all cases.

lairpie · 05/22/08, 1:57 PM

A search for posts with "purified shadowsong" and just just scrolling to the results from this thread shows several posts already discussing these gems. One of the posts was even made by you. Pretty sure I've talked about it a time or two as well.

Secondly, the most basic level of theorycrafting can tell you whether 5 spirit is more mana than 2 mp5 and only you can answer what balance of +healing, spirit aura, and mana regen is right for your play style.

Essandir · 05/22/08, 2:14 PM

Originally Posted by Kalaghan

Absolutely. The regen from 5 spirit is as good or better than 2mp5, and there's the added bonus of your tree aura and +heal via IDS.

Or, as per the front page (always a good thought to check there first):

While Purified is definitly better then Royal, one has to wonder if it is good to gem any more additional spirit. Given the decent Spirit regeneration that came with 2.4 and Innervate, our mana needs seem to be preety much covered. Plus, the aura is less flexible then additional +healing. So perhaps gemming purely Teardrops might still be the best course of action.

That said, Purified is better from a guild standpoint as there is a great demand for Crimson Spinels and gemming Purified saves up the Crimson Spinels for others.

lairpie · 05/22/08, 2:19 PM

As soon as the epic gem vendor is opened on your server, rarity of a particular gem becomes pretty much a non issue. I know we're trading people 2 of the 'bad' gems for their pvp gear, alt gear, or whatever in exchange for spinnels and pyrestones they buy with badges.

Kalaghan · 05/22/08, 2:21 PM

Originally Posted by Essandir

While Purified is definitly better then Royal, one has to wonder if it is good to gem any more additional spirit. Given the decent Spirit regeneration that came with 2.4 and Innervate, our mana needs seem to be preety much covered. Plus, the aura is less flexible then additional +healing. So perhaps gemming purely Teardrops might still be the best course of action.

That said, Purified is better from a guild standpoint as there is a great demand for Crimson Spinels and gemming Purified saves up the Crimson Spinels for others.

There are exceptions (eg. in your helm it's a 4 heal for 5 spirit tradeoff). Also, your discussion assumes self-innervate. There's value in being able to give away your innervate. I still say go with Crimson Spinels except for the helm, but there's room for argument. And as for the "guild standpoint," that's what badges are for.

Nihlo · 05/22/08, 6:47 PM

hey hey,
first post on this forum but reading for months...

I'm playing wow since the gc04 and had always been healing,even lvled with a 18/0/33...blablabla

Just want to ask/mention a few things. Sorry if these things had been asked before. Really tries to search^^

1.
Since mc/zg I always heal with two staves or waepon set. One with +heal-enchant and a spirit-staff with +spirit. I use CasterWaeponSwapper to switch between the sets while using ina or at low-mana. Former I used [Will of Arlokk] and now [Nightstaff of the Everliving] since I never got [Ethereum Life-Staff] which was the staff with the greatest amount of spirit pre 2.4. Before 2.4! Cause now we've got [Rod of the Blazing Light] which could have more spirit with epic-spirit-gems. BUT would a little bit more spirit be worth the difference of 67 +heal ? I mean although you're reggin you will still keepin on rolling your lb's...

2.
As I said,really searched in this thread but no one mentioned the [Scarab of the Infinite Cycle] ? Imho it is one of the best trinkets for us ingame. Apart of the 70 +heal passive it gives you a lot of spellhaste. Apart of the fact that you would be worth casting a regro or even ht (if skilled of course) it's a gread addition to the spellhaste you're currently wearing. The proc-chance is about 15% if you're spamming lb it is very often active. So you won't need a lot of spellhaste to keep 3 lb on 5 tanks...

3.
paladin-buffs: kings > wisdom if you've got more than 360 spirit,right ?

4.
You could also enchant your boots with +5spirit instead of vitality...it would be even better wouldn't it ?

5.
[Shattered Sun Pendant of Restoration] Imho it's the best druid-healer-amulet ingame. I've collected the facts,hasn't been everything on jerks yet afaik (just what is interesting for druids and without range and arena-stuff):

Aldor: 220 Heal and 74 Spelldmg for 10Seks (~613 heal)
Scryer: 618-682 Heal (~650 heal)

The proc doesn't activate GCD.

The heal/buff recieves the target of your heal and not your current target.

It can proc with every hot-tick which heals (won't proc if the hot is on a full player).
If it is a direct-heal like ht,mend or regro it can proc even if the target is at full health.

The Scryer-Version has an internal-cd of 45seks.
The Aldor-Version hasn't got an icd,the 10seks-buff which the target recieves just starts again.

The amount of +heal or +spelldmg doesn't stack with the procs.

The Seher-Version can crit (based on the spellcrit-chance of the player). It's about 900-1050 (~975) heal.

The heal counts like the end-healing of lb or pom for the target wich recieves the proc.

The proc can even be activated by items at least by [Vial of the Sunwell].

Even without the 70 +heal,7 mana-reg and 19sta...what amu could be better ? At least for scryiers...

6.
Is this the best possible gear ? Remember that Kil'jaedens Staff and Mace aren't in chardev yet and you can't give the char fishsticks and oil...
And I won't change to aldor just because of a little better shoulder-enchant^^

greetings
Nihlo

and sry for my bad english...never been good in foreign languanges althoug I learned a lot of them^^

lairpie · 05/22/08, 7:07 PM

If you're ever low enough on mana that you need to swap to a spirit staff to regen mana other than to innervate, you shouldn't be getting things like spirit on boots vs vitality. No, outside of innervating it is definitely not worth using the rod of blazing light over ethereum. Most people can't actually use the full mana regen of their innervate anyway, so swapping to a spirit staff at all doesn't help.

The shattered sun pendant is probably about even with the za haste neck. Random proc things have very little value for druids because the whole point of hots is to be stabilizing people, randomly doing it for more or less doesn't help. The only time +healing procs are good for anyone really is on direct healing and regrowth, our primary direct heal, gets very little out of the +healing proc. Its certainly not a bad neck, But its definitely not way better than [Brooch of Nature's Mercy] and may not be better at all. That's going to be a judgment call based on your style of healing.

The random haste procs don't help you get a 5 cast cycle at all. They probably make it harder. Again, the whole style of druid healing is based around steady output and controlled bursts via sm/ns and that trinket doesn't help either of those. Using a combo of EOTM, LCPB, Battlemasters, Alchemy trinket, Memento, or if you're really short on mana in a particular fight, the bangle is the way to go.

Kings is good.

Kamileon · 05/23/08, 1:47 AM

Stuff like the SSO neck and Hyjal rep ring that proc additional healing get in the way if you have any rotations that clip the end of Rejuv when you refresh it.

Xantcha · 05/23/08, 3:45 AM

Originally Posted by Kamileon

Stuff like the SSO neck and Hyjal rep ring that proc additional healing get in the way if you have any rotations that clip the end of Rejuv when you refresh it.

You should never really recast rejuv when its already ticking.
Rejuv, 12 seconds 4 ticks, clipping the last tick removes 25% of its healing.
A four gcd rotation is 6 seconds , you really should never be recasting rejuv over itself in any thought out rotation.
Recasting the rejuv in every second rotation gives you just the perfect amount of time (12seconds + lag/reaction time) to not override youu original rejuv.

(unless you have some sort of haste which isnt enough to hit the 5gcd per lb, but it's still not worth the recasting rejuv over itself - overall loss of healing/mana effeciency)

Aciara · 05/23/08, 7:43 AM

Originally Posted by Xantcha

You should never really recast rejuv when its already ticking.
Rejuv, 12 seconds 4 ticks, clipping the last tick removes 25% of its healing.
A four gcd rotation is 6 seconds , you really should never be recasting rejuv over itself in any thought out rotation.
Recasting the rejuv in every second rotation gives you just the perfect amount of time (12seconds + lag/reaction time) to not override youu original rejuv.

(unless you have some sort of haste which isnt enough to hit the 5gcd per lb, but it's still not worth the recasting rejuv over itself - overall loss of healing/mana effeciency)

I always refresh my hots before a scripted event takes place which doesn't alow me to heal further (i.e. Silence, Teleport @Kalec etc.) or short before a major event where I know I'm going to be healing someone else (Encapsulate, MTs on Brut before a new burn comes) and I really truly hate my SSO neck and the Hyjal ring because of the procs which often don't alow me to renew these spells before they're off the target.

stephealza · 05/23/08, 7:56 AM

Originally Posted by Atraiyu

The way I look at it is if you do indeed define yourself as a raiding guild, or even a progression raiding guild than that is your sole focus. You don't get top 100 in the world if every member comes prepared in a half arena-half-dps build so that they can go do something else after the raid is over. Maybe that's strict, but either you're giving your all for what you can or you're not. People who aren't can easily be replaced with people who are.

That being said, as mentioned above... not even I take 61 pts in resto, but its sure in hell not because I'd like to do my dailies afterwards. Because when we were raiding BT I found some use for wrath spam, although not exactly using it in Sunwell it is still there.

Hey this is what I'm talking about. Druids are not the most played on this server and finding a good one is hard. Very hard. I'm a healer all i do is heal i do my dailies in pve spec it's not a big issue with getting through it. It's hard getting druids to go a full good resto and non-dps spec.

Kalaghan · 05/23/08, 8:09 AM

1,2&5 What Lairpie said.
3 It's going to depend on your intellect too, so it varies. Which also means that fight length and maximum mana are a factor, so it's not just a question of straight regen. As a general rule though, I always ask for kings over wisdom.
4 Probably not, since int not spirit caps innervates utility for most druids and 5spirit will generally not increase your mp5 inside the 5sr by 4. I'd recommend Boar's Speed over either.
6 I'm a big fan of having a haste set and a max heal set (though haste still has some value in the max heal set). You've matched some socket bonuses that I would definitely not have (really only worth going for +heal socket bonuses imo), boot enchant as mentioned, and I'd definitely recommend the alchemy trinket over EotM.

And as for overwriting rejuvs, in addition to the scripted effects (silences, swiftmend fodder before big dmg, if you know you won't be able to go back to them for awhile), it's also required if you are total avoidance tanking and thus need to keep up 2-piece moonglade.

Nihlo · 05/23/08, 8:45 AM

1&2 yeah see your points lairpie

3. sure also depends on your int. But if you don't have much int & spirit (t4 eg.) wisdom should be better. Just wanted to now a kind of border on which you can say "now I take kings". I thought would be round 380 spirit & 300 int.

4. right Kalaghan

5. sry don't understand^^ or maybe you...First: you can't compare [Band of the Eternal Restorer] with [Shattered Sun Pendant of Restoration],cause the ring has a chance to get +heal while the amu really heals. It heals about 650 instant and can crit. 650...that's almost a 3xlb-tick. And it can proc with EVERY hot-tick. At a Bossfight about 6x lb and 2x reju are active all the time. Every tick can proc another 650 heal by the amu. As a druid spamming hots the amu procs every 45seks (icd). That means that the Amulet gives you a 618-1050 heal every 45seks for free and without causing a gcd...

6. I can't use the alchemy-stone cause I'm a leatherworker and don't want to loose my drums. That's why I use other trinkets,I know that's the best...
btw: love my drums...haste,mana&hp reg...in my raid we've got almost in every group a drummer now and it's worth. Everybody should try it...

@reju same opinion as Kalaghan...there are certainly a few situations in which is worth refreshing reju,those are already mentioned.

lairpie · 05/23/08, 9:38 AM

Oh yeah, most of us are aldor so the neck procs a +heal effect for us. Either way, the entire idea of druid healing is control. Other healers know they have time to do whatever because your hots will keep up the tank. Random procs whether they're a random heal tick or a +heal bonus, don't make the tanks anymore stable. I would however still use it in a fight where I was raid healing if I was a scryer. The fact that it can only proc on someone that isnt at full hp as the hot tick will only have a chance to proc it if it actually ticks is pretty cool. That being said for any fight where I'm keeping a stack of lb on the tank, I'd rather have the haste for helping to make sure lifebloom stacks don't drop off as I run around from the random fires and such.

I would always rather have kings. I don't know what exact balance of int and spirit makes kings more mana regen than wisdom and I don't really care, but if your gear is bad enough that wisdom is more mana, you probably aren't doing any really long fights so the actual increased mana pool of kings is a big deal, and you're probably desperate for sta so you don't die.

Girrass · 05/24/08, 4:52 AM

Hi. First time posting in even though I've been reading this for about a month now on and off.

Firstly.. I'm trying to wrap my head around the formula posted on the first page under Spirit, Intellect, and Mp5. I understand what it means, but it leaves me wondering(and hoping for a few viewpoints on this), is better to have your gear set up for Intellect over Spirit, or Spirit over Intellect, or a good balance of both?

Also after reading the section about haste, I've come to understand that with haste now being at least more useful to trees due to the lowering of GCD that haste gives, it's good to find a happy medium between haste and spirit? (I ask mostly due to the fact that an average amount of gear that drops in Hyjal/BT that gives haste usually doesn't have the spirit stat on it.) So I was wondering where a good balance between haste/spirit lies.

malthrin · 05/24/08, 8:47 AM

I'm not sure how you managed to post asking a question about stats without mentioning our most important stat at all - +healing. The cliff notes for tree gearing is wear the highest +healing gear you can get and drink potions if you find yourself short on mana.