[WOTLK 4.0] Restoration Discussion - Page 4

Anaram · 07/05/10, 6:08 PM

A few notes based on talent & spell descriptions currently on mmo-champion:

- Tree of life seems like it could potentially be used as a DPS cooldown in a fight where there are some phases that require lowered healing output instead of a healing cooldown in phases that require higher healing output. Given that you can get +15% damage, -50% cast time on wrath and +30% wrath damage my napkin math would indicate a damage level that's not completely overshadowed by DPS specs. Obviously mana issues might be a concern even if damage spells tend not to cost that much compared to heals.

- It remains to be seen if nature's bounty will work on regrowth ticks or only the initial heal.

- Fury of stormrage doesn't give any direct healing boost but it can still trigger things like omen of clarity for some free healing. I doubt this talent would be worthwhile in PvE though, it only procs on a few spells and any being anything other than lackluster might make it too strong for PvP. Still, might be useful for some fights.

- Situationally a point in furor should help get out a stampeding roar, or even skull bash.

- Improved tranquility seems a very nice defensive cooldown.

Nethris · 07/05/10, 10:46 PM

Originally Posted by Erdluf

Just pulling from Lissana's site (talented, but no gear). Here are raw-heal numbers with no haste and no crit (ignoring NG, Seed, and Effloresce).

Spell HPM HPET

Rejuv 7.4 7666

Lifebloom*1 14.9 3379.3

Wild Growth 1.0 2475.7

Tranquility 7.9 1937.5

Regrowth 3.9 4252.5

Healing Touch 4.6 3882.6

Nourish+1 10.9 1690.2

Swiftmend 11.2 5156.0

Erdluf, am I right in thinking your numbers for Rejuv are assuming that the initial heal on it is affected by the extra tick it gains via Nature's Splendor? Doesn't affect the numbers much overall, but do we know if it does or does not include that? I would assume it's not affected by ticks gained via haste, though that's also an interesting question. Also, those Nourish numbers seem to be assuming no HoT on the target.

Lifebloom seems very weak if it takes a 3 stack of it to give as much HPS on the HoT as a Rejuv, I have to wonder if the scaling factors change that with gear. Regrowth at 2 seconds worries me a bit though, as that leaves us with no quick heal, and with less base haste on top of that. With half of Regrowth's HPET being in the 27 second HoT, those numbers seem very low for both HPET and HPM compared to our other spells - I'm not seeing how we have a better raid heal than Rejuv or are in any way better at healing when not moving based on those numbers. Not sure what we're supposed to use to heal targeted spike raid damage either (that hits more than 1 target every 15 seconds), which seems like the primary healing situation we tend to spam Rejuvs for currently that we could use a better option for.

Erdluf · 07/06/10, 12:10 AM

Nethris,

That is what I assumed on Rejuv, and I don't know if it is correct.

That non-crit Regrowth is weak. When you proc Efflorescence though, you get a double-strength WG, and no limit on the number of targets has been announced (and presumably people can make an active decision to move into the AoE). If you've got a tight group that has (or will have) a health deficit, Regrowth may turn out ok. Hard to tell before we see it in action.

♦ Carebare · 07/07/10, 3:08 PM

I updated the original post of this thread to reflect the new changes to the talent system. I think overall this change is definitely a step in the correct direction. So many talents had hit the point of being "duh obviously" that the trees even after the Cata overhaul were still bloated and had a pretty obvious path for each spec (with the typical float of about 5 points depending on your personal preference). I look forward to seeing where they will go with this for druids.

Arentios · 07/07/10, 3:18 PM

To throw in a few additional notes that have been added by blue posters (mainly GC) today:

1) The Resto Druid 'signature ability' will not be Tree of Life, nor will with it be Omen of Clarity. That leaves Swiftmend as the likely choice as NS is very niche and WG is near useless solo.

2) You will not be able to get active abilities in your secondary trees in Catacylsm. This does a good job of nipping things like resto druids potentially having silence + knockdown in the bud.

3) The talents being pruned are mainly the obvious and the shunned. That covers a large portion of the early restoration tree, and improved tranquility.

(source)

Nethris · 07/07/10, 6:16 PM

Originally Posted by Arentios

2) You will not be able to get active abilities in your secondary trees in Catacylsm. This does a good job of nipping things like resto druids potentially having silence + knockdown in the bud.

Note that this is just due to only having 10 points you can place in other trees, not any direct limits announced other than having to put 31 points in your main tree first. Ghostcrawler did imply that we wouldn't be seeing active talents in those first 10 points though.

Supposedly the trees are already reworked and we'll be seeing them in the next beta build, and that this shouldn't be more than weeks away at the most. Will be interesting to see where we are then - hopefully some of the resto bugs will be fixed too.

Rijndael · 07/08/10, 2:55 AM

Originally Posted by Arentios

To throw in a few additional notes that have been added by blue posters (mainly GC) today:

1) The Resto Druid 'signature ability' will not be Tree of Life, nor will with it be Omen of Clarity. That leaves Swiftmend as the likely choice as NS is very niche and WG is near useless solo.

2) You will not be able to get active abilities in your secondary trees in Catacylsm. This does a good job of nipping things like resto druids potentially having silence + knockdown in the bud.

3) The talents being pruned are mainly the obvious and the shunned. That covers a large portion of the early restoration tree, and improved tranquility.

(source)

It's interesting. I am not sure restos HAD a signature ability historically. In BC we rolled Lifeblooms, in Wotlk we spammed Rejuvs. In MC we spammed Healing Touch and innervated priests

. Now in Cata we are getting a crazy Regrowth proc? I guess if I had to name a resto druid signature ability, it wouldn't be a spell, but the whole idea of being able to throw out mana efficient heals while moving and despite interruptions. The heals themselves change, but the idea stayed the same for a while. Swiftmend is not really that great, in the sense that it's not in the ballpark of Penance or Circle of Healing. I do agree that Swiftmend is a good candidate for being given to restos early, so it's "signature" in that sense (although really, as far as soloing gnolls of Elwynn, the most useful spells for a resto are damage abilities, root and innervate, none of which are resto specific).

I think for healers "signature" abilities should be those which make healing early instances like Deadmines or Wailing Caverns easier.

♦ Carebare · 07/08/10, 3:38 AM

I really think the idea is that your signature talent will make solo leveling easier -- not make grouping easier, though Swiftmend would help both. Swiftmend is really our only talent that has a pretty large life-saving net and that would work even at early levels. Also, personally, I don't feel enough druids use it as much as they can/should and often attempt to hold off "so that it's available". I think letting druids play with it much earlier on would make it the go-to amazing heal that it can be. The first thing Moz said to me after we killed H LK was "I turned on incoming heals so I could see what was happening, and gd swiftmend saves lives." I definitely don't mean to start a "Hey you're doing it wrong deal with Swiftmend discussion." I just feel like many druids could benefit from playing with it earlier and having the use of it be a bit more natural.

Pudgeball · 07/09/10, 10:20 AM

Originally Posted by Carebare

I really think the idea is that your signature talent will make solo leveling easier -- not make grouping easier, though Swiftmend would help both. Swiftmend is really our only talent that has a pretty large life-saving net and that would work even at early levels. Also, personally, I don't feel enough druids use it as much as they can/should and often attempt to hold off "so that it's available". I think letting druids play with it much earlier on would make it the go-to amazing heal that it can be. The first thing Moz said to me after we killed H LK was "I turned on incoming heals so I could see what was happening, and gd swiftmend saves lives." I definitely don't mean to start a "Hey you're doing it wrong deal with Swiftmend discussion." I just feel like many druids could benefit from playing with it earlier and having the use of it be a bit more natural.

If they allowed Swiftmend to 'ignite' all DoT's (Moonfire) on an enemy as well, then I think it would be quite fantastic for a starting ability. Wrath -> Moonfire -> Swiftmend = dead would be nice for soloing.

Nethris · 07/10/10, 7:14 AM

With the mana regen bonus presumably baked into choosing resto, and Insect Swarm trainable for all druids at 20, leveling as resto may at least be tolerable with the current design - Rejuv -> Swiftmend would be a pretty solid quick heal for when you accidentally get extra mobs beating on you and need more time to kill them, especially if you put Insect Swarm and Moonfire on everything. Mana would be better than with current balance leveling, where it is an annoyance before getting Innervate.

Lissanna's site is now updated with numbers with gear equipped. Biggest obvious thing I see is that a 3 stack of Lifebloom appears to scale at the same rate a single Rejuv does, remaining about the same HPS both with and without gear. If Lifebloom is going to remain that weak, I really don't see the point to limiting it to one target, as at that level of power it's only use for raid healing will be slow rolling a stack for revitalize procs if you aren't using regrowth much. With nourish a 2.5 second cast, nourish rolling Lifebloom on 2 tanks would be very vulnerable to disruption from needing to throw out even the occasional Healing Touch to actually keep up with healing, so I'm not sure what exactly the issue is - hopefully they're planning on buffing it and just haven't yet.

Based on those numbers, with gear Rejuv's initial heal is about 47% of a tick, which comes out to 11-12% of 4 ticks or 9-10% of 5 ticks, leaving me horribly confused as to how this is 15% of anything. Wonder if that's just a bug or if it's 15% of the base spell + a spellpower coefficient that doesn't match up to 15% of the normal coefficient. Or if they changed 15% without changing the tooltip.

Erdluf · 07/10/10, 4:56 PM

Originally Posted by Nethris

Based on those numbers, with gear Rejuv's initial heal is about 47% of a tick, which comes out to 11-12% of 4 ticks or 9-10% of 5 ticks, leaving me horribly confused as to how this is 15% of anything. Wonder if that's just a bug or if it's 15% of the base spell + a spellpower coefficient that doesn't match up to 15% of the normal coefficient. Or if they changed 15% without changing the tooltip.

4t8 didn't benefit from all Rejuv talents, so perhaps GotEM doesn't either.

Genesis: 5%
Blessing of the Grove: 4%
Improved Rj: 15%

47%*1.05*1.04*1.15 = 59% ~= 60% = 4*15%

It could be something along those lines, although even that 1% error is too large for me to believe I've got it right.

Hoticehunter · 07/11/10, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by Arentios

To throw in a few additional notes that have been added by blue posters (mainly GC) today:

1) The Resto Druid 'signature ability' will not be Tree of Life, nor will with it be Omen of Clarity. That leaves Swiftmend as the likely choice as NS is very niche and WG is near useless solo.

I could see Lifebloom being the "signature" Resto Druid ability you get at level 10. It's always seemed to be the "iconic" resto druid spell to me, at least since I started in BC. A Druid that has played since Vanilla may feel differently.

Keeva · 07/11/10, 6:45 PM

Originally Posted by Hoticehunter

I could see Lifebloom being the "signature" Resto Druid ability you get at level 10. It's always seemed to be the "iconic" resto druid spell to me, at least since I started in BC. A Druid that has played since Vanilla may feel differently.

They've said that these iconic abilities will be unique to that particular spec:

The unique ability you're given at level 10 for choosing a specialization can never be obtained by someone of a different specialization. The idea is that you get something which feels specialization-defining right away and will play a core role in your rotation all the way to the end game.

The special ability will unlock for you when you make your choice. As with the current system, you will lose the ability if you re-talent or switch to a different specialization via dual specialization.

Considering that Lifebloom isn't unique to resto druids, I doubt they would make it our signature ability (unless they suddenly decide to take Lifebloom away from ferals and moonkins). It needs to be something from the resto tree that isn't available to the other specs. TOL is out, Omen is out, leaving Swiftmend, Nature's Swiftness, Wild Growth (from the current tree).

I'd take any of those three, but WG is going to be pointless at level 10, so I doubt that will be the one. NS is great to have, but my money is on Swiftmend first, as the more iconic spell.

Dynalisia · 07/12/10, 4:35 AM

Originally Posted by Pudgeball

If they allowed Swiftmend to 'ignite' all DoT's (Moonfire) on an enemy as well, then I think it would be quite fantastic for a starting ability. Wrath -> Moonfire -> Swiftmend = dead would be nice for soloing.

This.

I also completely agree with what's been said about Swiftmend being a fantastic go-to heal that everyone should learn to incorporate into their standard routines. In the same way most of us probably chain rejuvs after nourishes or regrowths, swiftmend can be chained for a really really big chunk of healing. This can be either a lifesaver when someone (a tank) suffers critical amounts of damage, or you can plan to ignore someone who is losing health steadily while you attend to more pressing matters and really quickly restore him when you get back to him; the possibilities are many. I absolutely love swiftmend and I think it's a big part of what can make healing on a druid creative and dynamic. Leaving it as an 'Oh crap' ability is such a terrible waste.

Salyna · 07/12/10, 1:09 PM

I would like to point out that the idea for the Resto Druid's iconic ability should not be limited to what we already have. There was a blue post recently musing about how Divine Storm didn't seem right as the iconic level 10 Retribution ability, so they were probably going to introduce a new ability.

Originally Posted by Ghostcrawler

Divine Storm will probably go back into the talent tree. It won't be the 31-point though. Both the 31-point and the 10 ability need to have more single-target use. That means something like 3 new abilities for Retribution and several new or modified talents on top of that. Crazy.

While this is a bit unlikely since it has also been stated that they don't want to give Resto Druids any more spells seeing as how our 'toolbox' is rather large as is, I find it possible that they might introduce a spell that gives the Resto Druid some of the Hybrid damage that we are missing and other healing classes possess at the moment, and was a large portion of their reason(or so they said) for turning Tree of Life into a CD.