[Druid] Raiding as a Tree - Page 9

Bilqis · 02/05/08, 12:54 PM

Yes, if you're talking about the perfect endgame content you might be right - the equip of your raid should be good enough to have short fights (in comparison to first kills) with less mistakes which cause a lot of extra healing, every extra point mp/5 which isn't really needed while potting is just lost heal.

But this answer to the question about what to prefer (+ heal or a mix of mp/5 and heal) is a little bit too generally, too. Every raid has got different healers with different styles of healing: Somehow you might have to heal more or less, you might have to heal the raid or the mt (or even both). LB is a nice spell to heal and if you're just looking into damage meters you might be the king at all. But a druid's task is also to stabilize the raid and the mt with your hots. Remember - druids have more than ONE heal spell - they've got three hots which can be perfectly used for this task. And at this point, there's a second thing you should think of: Every druid has got his own style of healing. If you're fanatically spamming BL, you don't really need much mp/5 at all, but if you are using rejuvenation und regrowth as well you might get into problems.

I can just talk for myself, but some of our directhealers are really awful and I sometimes catch myself spamming regrowth to stabilize the raid in very dangerous situations without having any overheal although it takes me half a second longer to cast than, for example, a paladin. At most raids I'm ending up with 45 % LB, 30% rejuvenation and 25% regrowth. And somehow this is reflecting my opinion - yes I'm a ToL-druid and yes I should be a hot bot but if I'm not neglecting my tasks why should I stop at this point? I think if you want to play your druid with 100% efficiency you are forced to use the right spells at the right time. This means: Raid heal with LB spam (and rejuvenation on targets which are getting more damage), well timed regrowths to safe someone's life and, as good as possible, all three hots on the mts (of course LB is more important than regrowth). Although I'm thinking Blizzard sometimes has no idea what they are doing with the healdruids at all, I'm thankful for the "new" druid with the chance to heal with different hots. (Since you're not wasting as much mana with regrowth as pre BC and you've got LB)

Without some mp/5 I would get into mana problems and without using other spells than LB I'm sure that people would die because of aggro (and because I've got the chance to prevent this I'll never say "its not my fault if they die because we've got directhealers and it's their task"). I think its the best to choose a fixed amount of mp/5 (for myself, I'm thinking of about 215 mp/5) and then to get as much + heal as possible.

• Playered · 02/05/08, 1:22 PM

That you might have to do other jobs in your guild, does not change the fact that the most efficient and best use of a ToL Druid is to maintain LB's on multiple 'tanks' taking sustained damage.

Currently the situation where this becomes possible on 4 doesn't really exist in boss-format, theres Mother, Council which you can do 3 on, Gurtogg, Supremus, P2 Illidan for 2...

The reliability and sustainability of the LB roll is just unbeatable by any other class when its done on more than 2 targets.

Norfair · 02/05/08, 3:02 PM

Originally Posted by Playered

That you might have to do other jobs in your guild, does not change the fact that the most efficient and best use of a ToL Druid is to maintain LB's on multiple 'tanks' taking sustained damage.

Currently the situation where this becomes possible on 4 doesn't really exist in boss-format, theres Mother, Council which you can do 3 on, Gurtogg, Supremus, P2 Illidan for 2...

The reliability and sustainability of the LB roll is just unbeatable by any other class when its done on more than 2 targets.

Using LB on the tanks at Supremus and Mother isn't really "effective" imo. They don't take "sustained damage", but very periodical damage, making Lifebloom overheal like 80% of the time. Those cooldowns are better used elsewhere.

And yes, theoretically Lifebloom could provide the most healing output (HPS) and also the most efficient healing (HPM), making it really good. However, pwning on the healing meters isn't everything. Sometimes it's better so save a life using Regrowth on someone instead of keeping Lifebloom up on a tank who will survive just as well without it anyway. As a healer, even though on some fights I get assignments, I'm not going to ignore everything else just because "it's not my job". So it depends a bit on your guild and other healers as well. I find it hard to "trust" them with healing everyone in time and therefore rather don't risk someone dying, resulting in me burning more mana than the "ideal" druid which just keeps hots on the tank. That being said, if my guild wasn''t so low on red gems I'd probably gem a lot more into red as well.

• Playered · 02/05/08, 4:00 PM

I didn't mean to say all of those bosses were ideal examples of where you can do it, only possible ones you could

I guess EoS P2/3 you could keep 4 up for a while.

Edghar · 02/05/08, 4:04 PM

Originally Posted by Norfair

As a healer, even though on some fights I get assignments, I'm not going to ignore everything else just because "it's not my job". So it depends a bit on your guild and other healers as well. I find it hard to "trust" them with healing everyone in time and therefore rather don't risk someone dying, resulting in me burning more mana than the "ideal" druid which just keeps hots on the tank. That being said, if my guild wasn''t so low on red gems I'd probably gem a lot more into red as well.

The trouble with this line of thinking is that if you're doing it, other healers are likely doing it too. So when someone dies, your raid leader is going to think that there is not enough healing assigned to that person, but in reality the two people assigned decided to cross heal as well (because they don't trust the other healers). Our guild went through a big discussion concerning this type of thing and we decided that it was in everyone's best interest to stick to your assignments as much as possible. Sure, if the assignments aren't solid you're going to wipe, but at least you'll know why and can adjust properly next time.

Pyros · 02/05/08, 7:55 PM

Originally Posted by Edghar

The trouble with this line of thinking is that if you're doing it, other healers are likely doing it too. So when someone dies, your raid leader is going to think that there is not enough healing assigned to that person, but in reality the two people assigned decided to cross heal as well (because they don't trust the other healers). Our guild went through a big discussion concerning this type of thing and we decided that it was in everyone's best interest to stick to your assignments as much as possible. Sure, if the assignments aren't solid you're going to wipe, but at least you'll know why and can adjust properly next time.

Yeah but as a druid, I still end up crosshealing a lot, cause there's only so much to do when there's only one tank. I keep lifebloom and rejuv up, regrowth if the boss hits hard or silence(azgalor is the most obvious one), and all the other GCD are spent lifeblooming people taking random damage, or rejuvenating warlocks before they start lifetapping so they take no risks.

Also while I agree totally with crosshealing with regrowth, I just find it's not efficient for that, in my guild, with our healers. We have a very awesome priest and paladin, and healing the raid with 2s regrowth is mostly always 80%overhealing, even when targetting someone at 20-30%. I'd much rather spam lifeblooms all around, heal for 2ticks, which serve as a way to "stabilize", and will top people if the flash heal/fol didn't full heal them. On the same page, rejuvenation is most of the time wasted because it doesn't tick right away, but instead wait for a full tick cycle(which is 2secs), so it suffers from the same problem that regrowth does.

However, this is very guild dependant. I'd say on most fights, my LB usage is 75% of my healing, the rest being rejuv and swiftmend. I only use regrowth on certain fights, and there's pretty rare. If I want to heal someone fast, I'd rather rejuv+swiftmend than regrowth, because it will land before another heal more often. Then again, unless the target is in dire need of healing(doomfire etc), I'll just ignore it, slap a lifebloom on him and keep swiftmend for the tank.

Sylvannae · 02/06/08, 2:39 PM

My lifebloom is usually over 90% of a fight's effective healing. I feel that my best niche as a tree is to roll Lifebloom on as many tanks as possible, or else spam lifebloom on raid members taking consistant damage. Rejuv is a nice though not stellar spell, mathematically.

Chaincasting lifebloom on the GCD takes 176 mana/1.5 seconds, which translates to 587 mp5. With 220mp5 while casting in combat, combined with innervate, pots, and shaman totems, it looks like mana regen isn't very necessary for me, anyway. I guess that makes season 3 mace the best healing weapon, then?

Kamileon · 02/06/08, 5:22 PM

The other day when we went back through SSC for keying people, I had 300 mana/5 while casting after full buffs and consumables. I don't get a spriest, or a shaman. I have almost 12k mana when buffed out the yang, mana pots, and resto drums. And I don't gem for mana/5.

My gearing choice for spamming mostly lifebloom and my regen works for me. I don't need to cross heal, though I will when bored, or regrowth because we have 2 amazing pallies, 2 amazing shaman, and a god of a holy priest. These guys actually make my job pretty damn boring, and they're on top of it to the point where I can't just cheese the meters rolling 4 stacks.

As long as people are gearing just enough regen to do what they need to do, they're not gearing incorrectly. That's the argument we should be pushing rather that denegrating lifebloom bots for stacking heal, or telling people their regen is wasted if they're turning that mana into effective healing.

Currylaksa · 02/06/08, 8:54 PM

Of the other healers, which class is best suited for dealing with spike damage? When you have skills like swiftmend, why is spike insurance delegated to classes with casted heals, who have their own assignments to watch unless you decide to stack excessive healers. There are splash damage and boss skills to deal with, not just the 2-4 people you LB bot on. So if the MT gets judged and your 2nd healer is running from an AOE, you keep the LB3 and glare at the shamans when the tank dies? Even a rejuvenation there to be swiftmended would have made a difference, but rejuvenation is inefficient now? Encounters are about spike damage, not steady damage, which LB3 does not mitigate when it really counts. If having amazing priest/shaman/paladin is pretty much the reason to not pulling your weight in keeping people alive, well that's fine.

Kamileon · 02/07/08, 1:48 AM

Because even a swiftmend is a one-shot 5k heal with top gear. When tanks have 20k+ health, 5k can keep them from dying, but it won't keep the next hit from killing them. The spike-insurance comes from your direct healers who are spamming or cast-canceling heals. You can't swiftmend again in 1.5 seconds, you have to wait another 15(12). Another spike can occur in 15 seconds. You can't guarantee that swiftmend will be there. You can guarantee that your direct-healing tank healers are on their assignment.

Spike insurance comes from your 5k swiftmend, and the Flash(es) of light, the Greater Heal, etc. that are also going to land to fix a big spike (10k+) that puts the tank in danger.

There's also the factor that if your healing lead has you assigned to roll HoTs on certain people, it's not your job to go mavericking about, and leaving your assignment.

We get that you hate "lifebloom spambots".

• Playered · 02/07/08, 8:43 AM

5K Swiftmends? Im impressed, I'ld hazard a guess at it being somewhere around 4.2~4.3 at most (mine is 4.0-4.1 and im done on gear) provided you have some stacked healing.

Often its not going to be the heal to bring them back to full HP, but its the one which will allow them to be alive to receive it.

Kelyas · 02/07/08, 1:15 PM

Once again, another post that may be VERY premature and based of potentially false information, but I'd like to run with it here since the proposed "to change" list supposedly came from within the EJ forums.

*Tree of Life: All Restoration spells are now available in this form.

This would introduce HT into the tree build, reducing the cost by 20%. Still a 3 second cast time, but would the 20% reduction AND being usable while LB stacking make it extremely effective as a more MT healing class, or more of an "oh shit" button?

Also, I have a question regarding the Tier 6 HT Bonus: Does it apply after or before talents?

Kamileon · 02/07/08, 4:41 PM

Originally Posted by Playered

5K Swiftmends? Im impressed, I'ld hazard a guess at it being somewhere around 4.2~4.3 at most (mine is 4.0-4.1 and im done on gear) provided you have some stacked healing.

Often its not going to be the heal to bring them back to full HP, but its the one which will allow them to be alive to receive it.

I've seen TopScoreFu flash a new record swiftmend that was 4995 the other day. I don't have the best gear, but I do stack +heal in gems. Because of the size, I'm certain that was a tree aura target. I basically wanted to give the argument the benefit of the doubt of top progression with the best gear, what a Swiftmend could accomplish on a high end, and how that still won't be good enough to deal with a tank spike.

Originally Posted by Kelyas

Once again, another post that may be VERY premature and based of potentially false information, but I'd like to run with it here since the proposed "to change" list supposedly came from within the EJ forums.

*Tree of Life: All Restoration spells are now available in this form.

This would introduce HT into the tree build, reducing the cost by 20%. Still a 3 second cast time, but would the 20% reduction AND being usable while LB stacking make it extremely effective as a more MT healing class, or more of an "oh shit" button?

Also, I have a question regarding the Tier 6 HT Bonus: Does it apply after or before talents?

It's multiplicative, so it shouldn't matter what order it applies in.

Also, assuming those notes are true, and the Lifebloom coef. nerf is substantial, it could definitely be valuable to have a Druid assigned to keeping LB/Rej. up with Regrowth and cast-cancelling HT on a single MT. We'd have to see actual numbers of changes to determine in multi-tank situations what the Druid is best off doing.

fuzzynavel · 02/07/08, 6:12 PM

The TOL buff reduces mana cost to Hots no HT. So, even if the rumors are true, it will not reduce the mana cost if thats what you are referring to (and not talents.) I think that if they do this the only major benefit is the mana savings of a NS + HT in TOL form. Unless you stacked a lot of haste, which would gimp your heals, and you were in a fight with only one target to roll, it would seem to me to be inefficient to use HT.

Benhoof · 02/08/08, 4:53 AM

No, ToL reduces the costs of all spells castable in that form.

• Playered · 02/08/08, 10:10 AM

Its a gray area, currently ToL does not reduce the cost of HT while in the form (unable to cast still..), and the ability itself states "can only use x/y/z... but the mana cost of these spells is reduced by 20%" - wether or not each spell is individually flagged (which will result in HT being forgotten at first most likely) to cost less mana or its a passive change within the ability itself... no one knows.

Norfair · 02/08/08, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by Playered

Its a gray area, currently ToL does not reduce the cost of HT while in the form (unable to cast still..), and the ability itself states "can only use x/y/z... but the mana cost of these spells is reduced by 20%" - wether or not each spell is individually flagged (which will result in HT being forgotten at first most likely) to cost less mana or its a passive change within the ability itself... no one knows.

They added the poison removing spells as well, which also received the mana-reduction bonus, so it's very likely that if HT will be able to be cast in Tree of Life form, it will also have a 20% mana reduction. To be honest, if this change will ever happen I'd probably be more happy that I can finally buff people with MotW/GotW without having to leave ToL.

• giansm · 02/08/08, 11:50 PM

* Spirit-Based Mana Regeneration: This system has been adjusted so that as your intellect rises, you will regenerate more mana per point of spirit.

When the numbers come out for this it will be a lot of fun redoing all the calculations in the first post, let me tell you. I don't think the PTRs are up yet, but when they are, I would really appreciate if someone could get on and test the following things:

1. Assuming this just adds straight to your out of FSR regen (shown as "increases regen by xxx per 5" on the Spirit tooltip) what is the formula?

2. Does Intensity still give you 30% of that Spirit tooltip value while in the FSR?

3. Do the mechanics of Innervate change at all, or does it still give you the normal amount: gear mp5 + 5*spirit tooltip?

I'll try to get on it and test as well, but if the past is any indication that may be difficult.

Kelyas · 02/09/08, 1:19 AM

From the way it's worded, I ASSUME it'll affect intensity as well, since INT will now affect spirit regen, and intensity is 30% of spirit regen. Nothing is in stone until PTRs go live, and even then it's still written on a chalk board.

The change itself is a massive welcome in my books. Spirit is an amazing stat for Tree, don't get me wrong, but for the average raiding team adding 100-200 healing isn't a major issue anymore (that's a food buff+elixir). Sure, you can break 700 spirit, but what would the point be now? INT will now be granting a larger mana pool, more effectiveness per point of spirit, and spell crit (not a big bump, but it's still something.) Healing leather already has an abundance of spirit on most pieces, so I believe INT stacking may be the next craze to maximize efficiency. I don't believe the aura is that valuable anymore with people breaking over 1900+ healing relatively easy.

Norfair · 02/09/08, 5:39 AM

Originally Posted by Kelyas

From the way it's worded, I ASSUME it'll affect intensity as well, since INT will now affect spirit regen, and intensity is 30% of spirit regen. Nothing is in stone until PTRs go live, and even then it's still written on a chalk board.

The change itself is a massive welcome in my books. Spirit is an amazing stat for Tree, don't get me wrong, but for the average raiding team adding 100-200 healing isn't a major issue anymore (that's a food buff+elixir). Sure, you can break 700 spirit, but what would the point be now? INT will now be granting a larger mana pool, more effectiveness per point of spirit, and spell crit (not a big bump, but it's still something.) Healing leather already has an abundance of spirit on most pieces, so I believe INT stacking may be the next craze to maximize efficiency. I don't believe the aura is that valuable anymore with people breaking over 1900+ healing relatively easy.

Indeed, the other healer's +healing gets increased by a much higher rate than the druid's aura, making it less useful as people gear up. If I interpret the patch notes correctly, it seems indeed that "nothing changes" except that the more intellect you have, spirit will regen more. So instead of SPI/4.5 = 1 mana per tick, it will be f.e. SPI/4 = 1 mana per tick, giving us more from it through both Intensity as Innervate. The only question is how much intellect is needed to say, decrease the divisor by 0.5. Probably this will result a buff for druids who are already well geared, giving us even more mana regen (again), making it even more obsolete. Maybe it will has its use in Sunwell...

Norfair · 02/10/08, 8:04 AM

*bump*

The new loot is revealed on MMO Champion, it seems that we can practically throw everything we have now away. Even though I'm pleased to see the amount of red sockets on the gear (finally), I'm afraid the queues for red gems (at least in our guild) will get even longer. Also pretty remarkable is that the best chest is from a LW recipe. I think the "best" gear now would be (still 'ignoring' haste and using current spirit formula):

Head: Cover of Ursol the Wise (1x red socket, meta socket)
Shoulders: Spaulders of Reclamation (1x blue, 1x red)
Cloak: Shroud of the Final Stand
Chest: Leather Chestguard of the Sun (3x red) [or Sunglow Vest (2x blue, 1x red) if you don't have LW]
Bracers: Thunderheart Bracers (1x blue)
Gloves: Tranquil Majesty Wraps (2x red) [T6 still is better if you prioritize on mana regen though]
Belt: Thunderheart Belt (1x red)
Legs: Breeches of Natural Splendor (2x red, 1x blue)
Boots: Thunderheart Boots (1x red)

Jewels:
Neck: Amulet of Flowing Life (1x red)
Ring1: Blessed Band of Karabor
Ring2: Band of the Eternal Restorer
Trinket1: Memento of Tyrande
Trinket2: Glimmering Naaru Silver

Weapon: Golden Staff of the Sin'dorei (1x red, 2x blue)

I might have missed something, the amount of information is rather overwhelming at the moment, but it looks like we only get to keep our rings, cloak and Memento. The amount of gems:

Red: 13x
Blue: 7x
Yellow: 0x

Seems like IED will be a really big nerf now.

Ribeye · 02/11/08, 8:22 PM

Well, its pretty safe to say that we are getting another huge mana regen buff in 2.4. When it was all said and done, completely buffless, I gained another 65 or so mp5 in combat and about 100 out. Assuming this remains, its pretty clear that the only way for us to stack gems is going to be +heal. I can't for the life of me figure out why they continue to push our mana regeneration so hard and while I know other classes get some boosts, I don't think there has been anyone who has benefited more than us in the last 2 patches. This of course makes my raid healing style beyond overly viable and while we can argue all day the merits and demerits of such a style, you can no longer include the inability to spam regrowths as one of them.

• Playered · 02/11/08, 8:35 PM

Mana Regeneration in 2.4:

Originally Posted by Whitetooth

ManaRegen = (0.001+SPI*0.009327*(INT^0.5))*5

Multiply the answer by 0.3 to get your Intensity regeneration.

So assuming 600 Int and 500 Spi your looking at:
Out of combat (OO5SR) = 571 (+MP5)
In combat (I5SR) = 171 (+MP5)

Add BoW (40~), Oil (14), Mageblood (16) = + 70 MP5
Gear should be between 100-150 MP5
Round them both up to being 200 MP5 bonus, this puts you at 771 (OO5SR) and 371 (I5SR) with the above stats.

Innervate in 2.4: