Druids: Balance/Resto the best Raid Healing Spec?
 

So I'm healing in Kara last night, and I realize that Treeform is basically useless on a significant portion of the fights:

For trash mobs, I can't possibly be in treeform for:
- Ushers
- Stagehands
- Ghosts

And for the Romulo and Julianne fight, I can't even idle in treeform as an off-healer, because I am Abolishing Poison...

Now don't get me wrong, I love my HoT's. I think lifebloom might be the thing since sliced-bread, but I found that 80% of my healing was being done by Healing Touch.

So, the next step in this logic is: How can I make healing touch better?

Well, you only need 28 points in restoration to max out Healing Touch. So, can these 33 points be uses elsewhere to maximize the healing by Healing touch? Turns out you can, by adding 33 points to balance. This isn't a Balance spec, I couldn't care less about wrathing/oomfiring.

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/...d/talents.html

The relevant talents out of balance are:
Moonglow: Reduces that Mana Cost of Healing touch by 9%. That's 9% more healing done.
Lunar Guidance: Increases Healing done by approximately 125 (at 500 intellect)
Dreamstate: Grants 50 mp5 (at 500 intellect)

These are not insignificant contributions.

The improvements to Healing Touch can be summarized as follows:

Assumptions:
1200+ Healing
5 minute duration fight
75 mp5
16,000 base mana (11,000 + innervate)

Original amount healed: 144,540
With Balance Talents: 193,112

That is a 33% increase in healing done. I speculate, that in these endgame, high HPS fights, that this might be the way to go...

Thoughts?

You can probably find some thoughts here: http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t9676-druid_healing_specs_hot_vs_ht/

Ive found 33/0/28 (Regen Spec) or 27/0/34 (Swiftmend + Cheap Spec) to be my favorite specs atm for healing.

It really depends if you use Swiftmend alot or not, as generally all that Dreamstate is providing you with is mana regeneration you can simply get from consumables anyway and with consumables ontop you generally end fights on high mana while other healers are near empty.

Its also somewhat dependant on your stance with Lifebloom, I used to be a Rejuv spammer quite alot, but after mathing it up and realising I get about 6HPM from Rejuv, and over 10HPM from Lifebloom (same healing, half the price basicly, however im only doing 1cast, not 3 stacks), not to mention its also healing the amount in 7seconds instead of 12, so its better HPS aswell.
Nowdays I rarely cast Rejuv on anyone except the MT in raid situations, so my Swiftmend usage has shot down so low that even when I respec back into it, I so rarely use it im contemplating dropping it again for Dreamstate.

You will probly need to have Swiftmend for viability in 5man heroics as a main healer however =/

Nitpicking but it's 9% more healing done if you never regenerate mana. Since you do, it's a good deal more than that. I'm sure you knew that already though.

^ Indeed, it also provides you with 9% more healing out of every consumable you use.

However if you are truely using only HT pretty much on most fights, then consider that like other healers, you will be canceling your heals fairly often and thus getting the 5sec rule regeneration quite abit, so the pure MP5 from Dreamstate is not really 'needed' so much as you will benefit from spirit regeneration more notably.

You will probly find This to be fairly good as you then dont need to 'waste' some points in dps talents to get up to Dreamstate and honestly if your not chain-casting HoTs alot then I doubt you will have many mana issues that cant simply be resolved by basic consumables

On a bit of a tangent but I was wondering how the trinket Bangle of Endless Blessings would impacts the equations. Not sure I got the name exactly right but it's the healer trinket off the last boss in Botanic I think. The description reads chance on spell cast to allow 15% of your mana regen to continue while casting and it has an on use effect to give 120 spirit or so for 20 seconds. I am not really sure how well this trinket works as for me it has been very buggy, it will proc on anything from melee attacks in cat form to crossing from one zone to another and there is even a typo on the tool tip in the buff. Can anyone confirm that it's chance on cast buff is working properly and that it stacks with the talent that provides the same thing? Coupled with innervate and living spirit on a full resto this seems like a very power full trinket for mana regen that would not be quite as good with the balance/resto vs the full resto. 15% spirit in general seems like it might out regen stright mana/5 from dreamstate with enough time outside the five second rule.

The trinket basicly procs from anything, and I cant even comprehend replacing it at any stage in TBC as I love it so much.

Wierd Procs : Mining / Opening Abilities Tab / Opening Smelting Tab / Flying over a sub-zone / Flying / Walking / Drinking a potion / Equiping Gear etc...
I was actually bored once and during a fight I just spam opened/closed my Smelting tab to make it proc more often :) & by walking I litrally mean walking, no new sub-zone or anything.

And concerning Innervate, the spirit proc increases your mana/tick by about 100-200 (never really tested exactly) which is an insane amount, you can also activate it 2 times after you use it with Innervate before its needed for it again, ideally when it procs so you get 30% incasting regen with it, or if you are going to be sitting out of the 5sec casting rule, pumps it up too

I wouldn't build a spec or strategy around the Bangle. It will likely go the way of the Blue Dragon Card. Just consider it a neat bonus until it is fixed. On a related note, our priest discovered that it proc's off dying.

Errr... I think the spec in the original post is blank? :D

Does Nature's grace proc from heals? The way it is worded would seem to indicate that it would. Would be another boost to healing in the balance tree.

Yes, Nature's Grace proc's from heals. That is one of the reasons I asked in a previous thread if anyone has tried a Nature's Grace + Imp. Regrowth build now that Regrowth is more efficient than it used to be. My gut feeling is that regrowth is still too clunky to make this build as effective as an HT balance/resto build, but I'd still love to hear if anyone has tried it.

Yes it does

Yes Nature's Grace procs off any spell crit you get, and I never really thought of imp Regrowth + Nature's Grasp for healing purposes, its worth a test next time I respec xD

Speaking of Druid talents, I really wish that Improved Faerie Fire were further up the balance tree, as that would be a great addition to a 33/0/28 build.

To be fair there are/should not be many issues of hunters or rogues having a lack of +hit, the only real gain would be to feral druids and dw warriors, neither of which are of such an importance/quantity that would require you to spec to help them.

If they made it also work for spells (Which would also help the BALANCE druid side) however...