malthrin

I usually end up using about half a mana bar on each ground phase and then regen a significant chunk of that in the ~20-30 seconds between skeletons dying and Felmyst landing. I use full strength Rejuv so I can Swiftmend big numbers if we get an Encapsulate in my group.

 

Dynalisia

Take a breather to regen back your mana after Felmyst begins dusting. The raid will be taking only minor damage at this point and other healers should be able to keep up the skeletons tank and anyone else that takes a little damage (like those that are on the edge of Felmyst's aura range) just fine. If you're using time-outs in addition to normal potting, you should end up alright manawise.

 

ppilatee

No, they don't. Read through the thread, even 5 posts above yours.

 

Kalaghan

Five posts above mine? You mean the post where he asked about downranking regrowth? i.e. The one that I was responding to and quoted?

Edit: To avoid clutter I deleted the quotes, but read posts 1140 (8 above mine and the first in that direction to discuss regrowth outside of a quote/question), 1149 and the one right below this.

I didn't say all druids do it, I said a "fair number." I stand by that opinion. Regardless, what the majority does is not the important thing. What makes you a better healer is what matters. When you have the time to reactively regrowth heal raid damage, there is no sense in over-healing with regrowth unless the more potent swiftmend option might be needed. And as for the read through the thread comment, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a page that I haven't posted on in the last few months, let alone read.

 

• Playered

I downrank to R8 fairly often, provided a SP I will use R10 most of the time but that isnt really frequent for me.

I can sustain R10 sometimes depending on the fight (Kalecgos, most of BT) but for any serious encounter I use R8 as running out of mana is a much more grevious issue.

 

• giansm

Gentlemen, let's keep our arguments away from what most druids do, or what a fair number of druids do, and discuss the reasons behind our choices. Healing tactics aren't a popularity contest and it's impossible to learn from or counter an argument based on popularity.

That being said, when I do downrank Regrowth, the reason is either: a) I already have a R10 hot up and I want to apply a direct heal without interrupting the ticks; b) I'm in a situation where I'm casting a significant amount of Regrowths (read: mana could be tight) and I think a R8 is enough to stabilize the target.

Let me elaborate on that last point a bit. I tend to view a single Regrowth cast not as a way to fully heal someone but rather a way to provide them with enough hit points to survive the immediate future, which usually does not need to be their maximum health. For people that are kind of close to this point already (they need less than 2k hp to survive potential incoming damage) I will downrank Regrowth, generally to rank 8. I'll also use a downranked regrowth if I believe the person is in no immediate danger and will be receiving other medium-sized heals (chain heal jumps, flash heals, circle of healing). In other cases, I will use max rank Regrowth.

The two best examples of very Regrowth heavy fights for me are Naj'entus and Kalecgos. On Naj'entus by tradition we have a paladin solo healing the tank and he really doesn't need any more than that, so I mostly just heal the raid. On that boss my Regrowth healing is usually about 20-25% rank 8, 75-80% rank 10. This breakdown makes sense to me because my default position is to use rank 10, and just drop to 8 if I think it's safe in that particular case. On Kalecgos I usually keep lifebloom up on the tank in my realm and get in two Regrowths or some combination of Regrowth and Swiftmend in between refreshes. Those Regrowths might be on either the raid or the tank, depending on what is necessary. In the normal realm I keep an eye on how many buffets people have, and that influences what rank of Regrowth I'll use. I don't have exact breakdowns for Kalecgos since I usually don't run stats due to the portals, but it's probably similar to the Naj'entus numbers (large majority rank 10, some rank 8).

 

Kamileon

Primarily spamming a mix of HL and FOL on only the burn targets under 20 sec. This is our Prot Pally turned holy. Avg FOL was 1800 and HL was 3900. I've been pretty sure the Burn healing from the pally wasn't good enough based on the amount of extra healing I was doing on sub 20s people.

Anyway, we're not losing people with no extenuating circumstances on Burn. We've looked over people who have died from burn, it's these situations:
1. early burn people with 2-3 slashes
2. people who got hit with slash after burn, or were low on health
3. people who have had a slash during the last 10 sec
4. 2 people had burnsex
5. people who claim to have died to a burn, but burn healers saw no BigWigs warning or timer for them

Assuming I've got a backup doing what they should (it'll be our CoH priest on our next attempts), which of these situations should I be able to manage, and which of these situations need to not happen if we expect people to live?

As I understand it, if my backup burn healing is adequate, I should have the free time to Regrowth #1, and keep them alive. #3, I should be able to use SM or an extra Regrowth to help with the additional healing, and with a good backup, they should live. (and hope that the other 2 burn people don't have slashes?) I'm extremely skeptical about #5, but we had it happen more than once.

#2 feels like either inadequate slash healing, or bad luck, and #4 is people need to not spread burn, but what is a reasonable expectation of keeping these people alive? If 2 people have burn that's been spread, should I pick one and let the other die, or how should I adjust to keep them alive, without losing the new burn guy that has 2-3 slashes?

 

• giansm

1. Early burn with 2-3 slashes. These guys shouldn't die, they're only taking 650 dps at most (assuming early means within the first 20 seconds). Even the worst of them can be almost entirely kept up by a regrowth hot + rejuvenation hot, not even a lifebloom should be necessary.

2. People who got hit with slash after burn, or were low on health. Normally I regrowth people immediately upon them getting burned to avoid this problem. The regrowth hot also has the nice advantage of being able to keep them up through the early part of burn. My attitude is that once they get burn they become my responsibility and I don't wait for the raid healers to patch them up.

3. People who have had a slash during the last 10 sec. If this happens it's the burn victim's fault, you might be able to save them if things go your way, but you should yell at them anyway because this is bad. This means it took more than 10 seconds to get to safety which is a pretty long time.

4. 2 people had burnsex. Again you might be able to save them if things go well, but it's their fault if they die. Yell at them again, it's as bad as #3.

5. People who claim to have died to a burn, but burn healers saw no BigWigs warning or timer for them. This is why you need a mod like grim reaper or expiration. Without more information you can't tell whose fault it is.

In general I think it's probably a big mistake to stack lifebloom on the early burn victims (less than 20 seconds) because it really should not be necessary, and it saps away your ability to put healing where it is really needed (on the other two guys). The early folks should be fine with regrowth + rejuvenation hots, and if they have slashes then when they enter the tougher 20+ second period you can swiftmend them and start stacking lifebloom (since by this time the furthest-progressed burn victim is out of the woods). If they don't have slashes they shouldn't need lifeblooms until 30+ seconds.

 

Kamileon

Thanks Gianism.

I'll grab either Grim Reaper or Expiration. Hopefully that will help the timer issues, since BigWigs also didn't show the duration correctly.

I hadn't been LBing the early burn people, but I did hours of reading on Brutallus last night and saw several druids talking about their healing strat being primarily lifeblooms on all burn victims + the tank. I'll unadopt that strat in my mind.

I've been sacrificing HoTs on the tanks first, in order to focus on burn healing first, and we're addressing our direct healer assigned to burn, in the hopes that i can focus on sub 20/10 people a little less and hot the new people regularly, instead of when I had time.

To summarize my understanding, I should be keeping RJ/RG on Burn people, and lifeblooms on the eldest burn victims, then LBs on tanks if I can?

 

Ribeye

A couple of points about the last 2 pages of discussions I'd like to make.

If you are a regrowth using druid, downranking regrowth really is a neccessity. I am using the direct heal component primarily of regrowth so I like to keep both rank 8 and rank 10 on my bar. If my mana bar is full though, I'm generally using the highest rank.

A couple of tips on Felmyst. If you are a leatherworker, a great time to use your resto drums is during P2 right after the second breath when the adds are pretty much dead. Between that and the 10 to 15 seconds of rest you almost always come out of it with a full mana bar. So many people use rejuve during P1 but im not really sure why. If you time it right, you can set up tons of LBs to fire off right after the Gas Nova. Then use regrowth to catch anyone that is spiking and get ready for the encap.

Slashes on the burn victims is exactly the reason I like two druids on Burns. It allows both druids to keep them up as the slashes fade while simultaneously keeping up the true burn victim with 15 seconds left. This is the best time for NS HT's. The only time you should really ever lose anyone to burn is if they make a mistake and transfer the burn and even then, two druids have a better chance of keeping up both than any other combination of burn healers.

And lastly, since it has come up for pages and pages and pages...I know in T5 there were lots of options when it came to being a druid as far as what gear to use and what items to seek out. The T6 druid really doesn't need to make any hard choices. If all you ever did was take the highest item level leather healing gear that dropped for you, and fill it with the gem choices it asked for, whether it be 22 healing, or 11healing/5 spirit, or even 11healing/2 mana 5, you would be a fine, well balanced raiding druid. I really believe our gear is as well designed as any for providing us with the tools we need to do our jobs whether you be a LB roller or a Regrowther.

 

Clockwise

I haven't had any problems using full-rank regrowth, even without a shaman or shadowpriest in group. Aggressively potting seems good enough to sustain mana. By aggressive potting, I mean potting to full mana as soon as you've used enough, then every 2 mins. If you can use full-rank 100% of the time and never run all the way oom, I can't see any good reason not to.

 

Desadeklit

Probably linked burns, this is why you add burn to grid

 

◊ Noressa

I found I liked using rejuv more then regrow for the aura because it keeps people topped of at all times and gives me time to use regrow where needed on encapsulate groups. With downranking rejuv and potting, I can keep ~60-75% mana on the ground phase, regen on air (I do use lifebloom here) and then rejuv again on ground phases. Checking our WWS from our last groups of attempts, I was averaging double the swiftmends, mostly because they were available and I knew it was a fast way to get someone up. I might try going to regrow, rank 8, but I do like the full rank of regrows still. The only reason I'm using the lower rejuv is because I'm trying to get exactly 1k healing/3 to offset the AOE damage. (We only had 1 resto shaman and 2 CoH priests on the last visit. Druids were the AOE healing.)

 

SilentCom

I too felt that the downranked rejuv did the best healing for the noxious fumes aura. One of the things that I think may be accounting for lack of mana on early attempts was the dispels on the gas novas. Once the priests began to improve on dispelling, the amount of mana I had available shot up rapidly and on later attempts I felt that I had more mana to spare for raid healing rather than only keeping up the rejuvs on the groups to ward off the aura. I think that this also means that regrowth will be a viable option for healing groups after gas nova/encapsulate that I will try to incorporate into my rotation. I may try downranking on it however for that sort of healing.

 

Tetz

My guild normally assigns a druid to keep 5 people (including the druid) up during phase 1. It is really easy to roll rejuvs on the targets and after that apply a lifebloom before the rejuv wears off. It limits the flexibility of a druid, but it enables them to have a burst heal if people are bad during encapsulates or slow dispellers.

 

Norfair

About Brutallus, the easiest way to "learn" to heal this is by just at the start trying to roll Lifebloom on the 2 "major" Burn victims and use the rest of the cycle time as you see fit. Once you get used to the fight, you can keep an extra Lifebloom on the tank as well most of the time. People with slash debuffs and get Burn I throw a Regrowth or Rejuv, which should be enough to keep them alive until they are part of my usual Lifebloom cycle. I myself having lot of success by using 4 macros:
1. Lifebloom tank A
2. Lifebloom tank B
3. Lifebloom focus target
4. Set focus target (/focus)
I focus the "first Burn" player and target the "second Burn" player and just press either macro 1 or 2 (depending on which tank has aggro at the time), then press macro 3 and then press Lifebloom. The last gcd I use for Rejuv on who ever needs it the most. If things go bad you can throw a Regrowth or whatever after it - it will let the Lifebloom of the tank fall off but that's no problem. When the Burn is about to run out I target the "2nd Burn victim" and press macro 4 and continue my cycle. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes really easy and I hardly have to use Swiftmend or NS at all. Of course you cannot heal Burn all by yourself so you will need a competent back-up healer, but by keeping LB on the 2 'worst' Burn people his job will become very easy.

For Felmyst, my typical cycle looks like: Lifebloom tank, 3x Rejuv. This way you can keep 6x Rejuvenation up on different people before it runs out + keep Lifebloom on the tank. Usually one of these Rejuvenation targets is the tank as well. Also I pick people who are out of the CoH groups, so I can Swiftmend them when Encapsulate hits (they will be getting the least healing). During phase 2, once the skeletons are under control I stop healing completely and just let my mana regen, the amount of damage during this phase is pathetic so other healers can cover it easily, and you get over half a mana bar back. Of course I help out when there are people about to die but that's hardly ever needed.

GG Blizz!

 

Bettil

I've got a couple of questions, I rerolled a druid on a new server about 7 months ago, and I'm still learning the ropes

1. What do you guys do with your innervate? I'd say on average R10 regrowth is about 20% of my effective healing, LBs about 70%, and the rest consist of rejuv, swiftmend and the occasional NS. Thing is, with the use of max-ranked heals, I extremely rarely experience manatrouble, even on fights like Felmyst. I use my innervate on myself about midfight (on Felmyst that is), and unless people screw up encaps running or takes 2 or more ticks of gasnova (not included the initial dmg), there is no deaths in P1, I'm usually assigned to grouphealing. I'm gemmed out in reds, so most druids on my level should have more manaregen, so why do you feel the need to chug pots/downrank regrowth? Do you give away your innervate?

2. When grouphealing 5 people in a situation where you have not got enough spell haste to keep 5 rolling LBs, which I guess most of us dont, I see many of you praise the use of rejuvs (this might be on Felmyst in particular, correct me if Im wrong.) What I often do is just roll single LBs and let them bloom, this also goes for grouphealing on Bloodboil, Naj'Entus etc, and seems to work excellent, plus this should be way more manaefficient than rejuvs, am I right? I guess my question is, why would you use rejuvenation as a method of grouphealing instead of single blooming LBs?

 

Dynalisia

Depends on the fight and my assignments really.

Rejuv is nice because if something bad happens you can quickly swiftmend it and it is less maintenance than lifebloom. You just have to look at the amount and type of damage your healing assignments are likely going to be taking during the fight and base your personal healing strategy on that. This includes expected mana expenses.

What I do with my innervates is even more fight/assignment dependant.
- On Kalecgos I usually make a deal to give it to a mage or so, since most of us get patched up well enough by the new fixed Revitalize buff Kalec gives us inside the demon realm. We're pretty comfortable with the encounter now though, I often use it on myself on any progression content because I tend to go nuts on crosshealing.
- On Brutallus I am usually a tank healer and use it on myself so I can spam a few extra regrowths during Stomps and live it up with keeping up crossheals on burn victims. If you are the burn healer, you should probably use it on a tank healing priest.
- On Felmyst I used it on myself back when people still sucked at dispelling Gas Nova and avoiding other kinds of damage, because I'd do a ton of crosshealing. These days I tend to give it to a mage or someone that was just CRezzed.
- On Twins I definately use it on myself because I tend to go the haste/regrowth route here when raidhealing.
- On M'uru it's looking like a/the priest is the most useful target for innervate here.

 

Desadeklit

Swiftmend on encapsulate.

 

malthrin

It's interesting that you mention raid healing on Twins. This week was our second kill of the Twins; first week we had 2 Druids + 2 Paladins covering all the tanks, 2 Priests + 3 Shaman on the raid. This week we first attempted it with one less Priest and one more Druid, and we had a very hard time making up the shortfall in raid healing. What is your healing strategy for that role? We tried various things - rolling Lifeblooms on high flame touch stacks, rolling Lifeblooms on the melee who inevitably take Shadow Blades damage, etc. - but couldn't find a role that really seemed to fit for the raid healing tree. Any advice? How effective do you find yourself compared to a Priest or Shaman in the same role?

edit: clarified

 

Kalaghan

I typically only find a need to downrank regrowth when using my haste set. This is because I'm casting more spells, and also regrowth makes up a significantly higher portion of those spells. In regrowth heavy fights, it's not uncommon for me to hit 30 or even 40% healing done via regrowth.

What I'm currently trying to figure out though, is how much benefit that additional raid healing has. If I stuck to strictly tanks more, efficient spells, and didn't go with my spell haste set, I could most assuredly give away my innervates more often. So while I know I can increase my throughput, I'm trying to evaluate how much value that additional throughput has (or how much it's needed), and if that makes it the best use of my innervate.

Edit: And as for the rejuv in 5-target cases question, I think that might be felmyst specific. Certainly the accepted strat on BB is to go with expiring LBs.

 

Norfair

On Kalecgos I use Innervate on myself since I'm out of ToL and spam a lot of Regrowth. On Brutallus however, I stay in ToL using mostly HoTs. Also the fight is so short, you can easily survive with a mana pot or two. Interesting to see you do it the other way around. On M'uru I use it on a shadowpriest as well, they tend to go low on mana because of dispelling. Yesterday I went to Kil'Jaeden for the first time and I have to say Innervate will be highly needed there. The mana burn gets me oom extremely fast (had to pop Innervate at 80%, although not chugging mana pots yet).

About Rejuvenation on Felmyst - even though Lifebloom is more 'mana effecient' for sure, you can get a lot more healing output by using Rejuvenation since you get to heal more targets. Also the fact the aura ticks for exactly as much as Rejuvenation will make sure the aura gets mitigated perfectly, where Lifebloom might "overheal" (Blooming right before a dmg tick).

GG Blizz!

 

◊ Noressa

With the extra damage we've noticed in Sunwell (Kalecgos, Brut and attempts on Felmyst so far), since we don't have 4+ resto shaman, druids are helping out more with raid healing and heals on the tanks then just maintaining a MT assigment. I'm curious to see how this pans out later in Sunwell, but with a limited amount of tanks most fights, I'd almost assume we absolutely should help out in some part in raid healing, assuming mana isn't an issue. Is that what you were getting at?

As far as LB being the BB accepted, rejuv remains my prefered. I've attempted with with lifebloom and prefer rejuv still. It may be due to the fact that we bring 2-3 resto druids to this fight and we have the druids each rejuv a full group + others (I have group 3, myself and 2 others) so all but a few people always have a HOT ticking on them. When we have 3 we can offer full group coverage. (We still have another healer assigned to help the groups, it isn't 100% druid healing for them.)