savernon

Well, the amount I heal is extremely limited at this point (read: when we want to do a kara badge run and already have enough tanks), but when I do heal, I respec resto and get the appropriate talents. Mana regen hasn't really been an issue so far for the times I have healed, so I think I may end up going with the treemenders to bring up my +healing a bit more, as high 1500s seems a bit low to me. Thanks for the advice.

 

Starfire

I admit I don't really know much about druid gear... but are you guys really only looking at 2k healing and 200mp5 in End BT? As a Holy Priest I sit aroun 2500 unbuffed and get up to just under 2800-2900 range with buffs.

I am under the impression that most Resto druids socket straight +22 unless its for a beneficial set bonus or a meta, no?

Anyways, I think the main reason I am asking, we have some apps sitting in the 1800-1900 range, so I am beginning to wonder if I misjudged their gear.

 

• Playered

2000 seems like a range for entering BT from my experience, at the end of BT you should be between 2200-2400, the statement being near or at the end of your potential 'best' gear from that level of content, not after first beating Illidan.

I think I was around 1800 T4, 2000 T5 and that was after 'farming' them for some time and not just completing them once.

 

• giansm

It depends what you mean by "End BT". If you've been farming for a long time and have most of your gear, you will probably be higher than if you just killed Illidan. To use myself as an example, when we started MH and BT, I had roughly 1800 healing. When we first killed Illidan (in December) I was around 2000. After some farming, now I'm at 2200, and I don't see it going much higher than 2300 before Sunwell.

To give you some context on those numbers, my general gemming setup is to use an IED meta and socket for +healing bonuses if there are no yellow sockets, and otherwise go all red. I always enchant for +healing if it is an option. I use a staff and I generally double up on +healing trinkets (it used to be Martyr and Prayerbook, then Martyr and Battlemasters, now Martyr and Memento).

We are probably always going to be a little lower than you guys, since our gear has similar amounts of +healing on it but we don't have a talent like Spiritual Guidance.

 

Currylaksa

2000+ with T4/5 level gears before entering MH/BT is going all out for +heal at the expense of regen. Two +heal trinkets (e.g. prayer book and essence) means the druid does not have mana trinkets like alchemist stone and bangle. He has to: 1) have a shadow priest and/or 2) refresh LBs and not too much else. It makes sense if the RL decides your role to be solely LB renews.

Anyways, druids can do BT comfortably with sub-1900 healing, as some may opt to use royal nightseye and alchemist stone in place of teardrop and essence for example.

This reminded me cheerfully of the time when I applied to a guild. I took care to swap in two +heal trinkets and some high +heal gears I normally don't use, and waited for armory update before applying. Of course when application was successful and my 1st raid started I went back to a balanced set.

 

• giansm

Yeah many druids will have a few changes they can make in order to shuffle their stats around a bit. Mostly this is in the trinkets, which I change usually a few times a night as we go from boss to boss. My default setup is Martyr+Memento, but I swap in a Stone for the Martyr on the more mana intensive encounters, which trades 84 healing for 35-45 mp5. Before I had a Memento I would sometimes swap out both +healing trinkets for regen trinkets (usually Stone and Bangle) and this would trade 172 healing for around 70 mp5. The weapon can also be a factor as well, for example I can use the S3 mace + Touch of Inspiration or I can use Apostle of Argus, and my choice will trade 42 healing for 11 mp5.

Anyway that means that before I had a Memento the difference between my high healing set and high regen set was 214 healing and around 80 mp5, just by switching out trinkets and weapons. It's important to take this into account if all you're looking at is the amount of +healing someone has on armory.

 

• Playered

You would be ignorant to just look at someones healing on armory and not at their general gear and other potential items based on progression level, picking up on things they miss which you would assume normal.
If you dont know personally about the itemization then just ask one of the Druids in your guild to check it out for you.

I used Bangle untill I got Memento, and LCPB is a perfectly good trinket for both healing and regen, but to use two regeneration trinkets would be abit too much from my experience especially considering the 'norm' for Druids is to focus more on LB than I ever did.


Im killing myself to replace my Apostle now though, costing me a hefty chunk of healing carrying that thing around this late in the game, but I managed to score off one of the rare (the first 3 got sharded basicly, and it had never dropped since) Archi offhands in waiting now for when I either 'steal' Crystal Spire or take the S3 mace.

 

Ribeye

It should be noted you can't judge the quality of a druid on heal alone either as there are druids like me that don't specifically push heal. Raid buffed im at about 2100 and as far as I'm concerned I have a complete gear set. Reading through this thread should give you an idea of the major differences in gearing between druids though.

Also, druids do far more with less plus healing than our healing counterparts so its only natural that we are a little behind in pure bonus healing compared to them.

 

◊ Noressa

I've essentially got best in slot at this point, with a few gems that can be replaced and I'm sitting at 2330 unbuffed. The mace would give another 30, and regemming would only net me around 50 more if I recall correctly. A druid flirting with 1850 and at least 120 mana/5 would be a decent pick-up. With the new badge gear if they're serious about raiding, they should easily be able to get there. Lifebloom stacked x3 gets 150%, and a good portion of our healing is done through that. Rejuv, Lifebloom and Regrow also get bonus healing that isn't accounted for our our sheet, due to the talents Empowered Rejuv and Improved Rejuv. (to Ribeyes' point)

 

GTtheBard

Yea, the other members of my guild are always shocked when I say I have around 1500 +healing unbuffed, since our Prot Pally has a Holy offset with around 1800 +healing, and I'm the only competent Resto Druid in the guild. One of our other Restos has moved on to a Fury Warrior, and the other spams Regrowth and is oom two minutes into the fight. I know that you use Regrowth a lot Ribeye, but you apparantly do something right :-P

I've personally always focused on mana regen, using both [Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] and [Bangle of Endless Blessings] (yes, it's far too much mana regen, but I've always been able to give my Innervate to a Priest while still healing for a full fight on one or two Mad Alch Pots), but I'm looking forward to the new Alch Stone in 2.4. I'm trying to figure out which one to drop for the new Alch Stone, and it's hard for me - that On Use Effect of the Bangle is nice to pop after 30 seconds or so (on the first Bangle/Blue Dragon Proc that I notice), and then keep it rolling on cooldown. I currently only use the Alch Stone on fights that I know I'm gonna need more mana immediately (like Lynx), but the passive healing along with such a great effect makes it a no-brainer to use.

I'll have to do some number crunching...cause the Dragon gives more straight mp5, but I've never calculated how much of a difference that On Use Effect gives in addition to the proc (inside and outside a proc buff).

Someone brought up a point that's been in the back of my mind for a while:

Which is better for a Druid? I've generally understood Staves to be swapped in during Innervate to get a little extra mana, but every Druid that's further along in progression than myself (that I've seen, at least) has the [Ethereum Life-Staff] as their main weapon. Yes, that is a GREAT staff, but wouldn't a Mace+Off Hand give similar stats (and definitely better +healing)? I've never seen any reason to use Staves, especially at further stages of progression, because there's generally a better One Hand+Off Hand combo out there (I was planning on using Light's Justice + Badge Off Hand until T6, unless there's an off hand I don't know about in T5).

 

• Playered

Weapon choices purely come down to Healing (MH/OH) vs Regen (2H), this is purely coming from a *selfish-tree* standpoint which focuses on your personal healing alone.
The ELife-Staff is an Innervate weapon to be fair as untill 2.4 the spirit regen was nothing great unless you do a spirit based tank group buffer, but drilling that role into people and making them look past your mediocre healing is often not the easiest thing :P


T5 has the Al'ar offhand by the way but it's nothing amazing, a slight upgrade from Aran with additional sta.

 

◊ Earen

Personally, I prefer to use a MH/OH combination over a staff. For me, I can't see giving up the +healing that I get from that combo for slightly more regen on the staffs that are available to me at my raiding level right now. That isn't to say that if I ever see the Archimonde staff I wouldn't consider it, but I would probably pass it to someone with greater interest in it than I have at this time. Additionally, I have opted to use the S2 pvp mace over Light's Justice as for me the plus healing increase still resulted in larger heals than the spirit on the prince mace (which only would have had any impact on the 4 other people in my group regardless).

All of that being said, and after some gemming discussion with Ribeye, I have also opted to go with +healing/mp5 gems at this time to beef up my regen a bit, although I may make some changes to this when the patch goes live, I've not difinitively made a decision on that yet. Based on some of the same gemming discussions I did toy around for a bit with +healing/spirit gems, and honestly I felt that I should have left them as mp/5 gems, but at this time have opted to wait for the patch to go live to make any additional gemming changes to my gear.

For you, if the etherium life staff is the best staff that you currently have available to you, I think that a MH/OH combo would probably serve you better in the long run. In the alternative you could toy arround with the staff from the second chest in ZA but I found that my MH/OH was still more plus healing and I didn't have to give up the spirit on my OH, and in your case your MH as well. I just don't think that you can replace the healing that you can get from that combo with any staffs pre-Archimonde. However, I would definately pick up the Etheruim Life Staff as an innervate tool if it is just going to rot. I don't recall where I saw the math, but that staff with the +20 spirit enchant on it is something like 1250 additional mana to your innervate without sacrificing a ton of +heal while your innervate is active. I tied my innervate to a macro that will equip the staff when I cast an innervate to myself, and then another that I click to re-equip my MH/OH when my innervate has finished.

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

 

Currylaksa

MH OH combos tend to have high +heal, while 2Hs have lots of stats across the board, especially stam and regen. There's no mystery to it, you just pick whichever you need more - heal or stats. Why would you need stats? Some fights may need more mana sustainability and HP (Archi, BB and Naj for example), of course your heal role may vary. However, the Etherium Life Staff thing may be just them taking the best weapon available at the SSC/TK stage, since I don't fancy them passing up a Vashj mace if it dropped onto their laps.

Again, it is all about what you are assigned to do in your raids. MT-LB role means you would likely under-use your regen so it would make sense to go for +heal in terms of gemming, trinkets and weapon choice. A more helter-skelter heal role (like HoT MT + heal your group kinda stuff) means you expend a lot of mana especially during boss skills, so you might need a bit more regen.

 

Pyros

There's also my theory, get whatever drops first. Especially true when staff drops first, because MH+OH is 2 different drops, and while you can keep using a crappy offhand for some time, it always feels incomplete. I would have preferred getting illidan's mace and archi's OH, but only one mace has dropped for now(our resto shaman with tons of dkp got it) and one offhand that got sharded when I wasn't there. I got the first archimonde staff(our luck with weapons is pretty terrible, unless you want to gear dual wield dagger hunters, since we get 2-3daggers and a bow from every reset), and while I lose healing, it's still a clear improvement on my old prince's mace+alar offhand. Helaing weapons progression s really shitty, so well.

Really unless you've been farming for months and months and everyone is already well geared, you should just get whatever drops first and that is a clear upgrade. When it's a small upgrade, I'll usually hold until what I want drop(like I passed tons of trash healing cloaks until bloodboil finally dropped a SECOND cloak, and got it for cheap since everyone had gotten illidan's or trash ones). Quite frankly, with 2.4 hitting soon and the fact we might not go back to T6 for 2-3weeks until we get a few bosses on farm in sunwell, since we didn't test them on PTR, I don't regret getting my staff now. I'm also pretty unhappy I couldn't get my hands on some damn T6 because it always drops crappy hunter/war/shaman that go for min price and/or offspec.


As for the priest who asked, remember that priests get a +heal talent that scale with their erm, spirit is it? Druids get nothing of the sort, so our healing value is raw. Different mechanics for different classes, that's like comparing your spirit to a paladin's, they don't regen the same way. 2300-2400healing is what you get from endgame gear with full healing gems/enchants. I'm currently sitting at 2250something and my only big upgrade is illidan trinket with +40 and T6 shoulders with around +25.

 

Uldreth

One of the first things I plan to do now that 2.4 is live is run Heroic Magister's Terrace until [Rod of the Blazing Light] drops from Vexallus. 41 natural spirit plus 30 from [Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire] x 3 plus 20 from [Formula: Enchant Weapon - Mighty Spirit] should make for one heck of an innervate stick (+91 spirit in total).

Edit: Your mileage may vary. The 2.4 spirit change may have made this completely unnecessary, as stated below.

 

Ruby Moon

Has anyone done calculations in how much haste is needed to reach 5 rolling lifeblooms? There's a lot of nice haste gear for druids in Sunwell and I'd like to know if it's worth the effort.

 

• giansm

With perfect conditions it would require 113 haste rating. Unfortunately perfect conditions are impossible, so it will in reality require some amount more than this. I'm not completely sure if latency causes a delay between each cast, or if you are still able to chain casts pretty well even at high latencies (in this case only the latency fluctuation would matter, not the absolute number). If latency adds between each cast, you would need 242 haste rating at 100ms, 314 haste rating at 150ms, and 393 haste rating at 200ms. If latency does not add between each cast, you only need enough haste rating to overcome the fluctuations in your latency, which would be a much smaller requirement. If this is the case, you probably need around 180-220 haste rating depending on your latency fluctuation. Obviously this second situation would be better than the first, since it requires much less haste rating.

Unfortunately there weren't many druids that had a wide variety of haste gear to test with on the PTR, so data from there was somewhat limited. With that in mind, some testing that did occur earlier in the thread (look at pages 18-19) indicates that the second scenario is more likely, meaning you would want to aim for slightly over 200 haste rating.

If you have any further information that confirms or denies this result please enlighten me.

[edit] It is clear, however, that 392 haste rating is needed to make 5 lifeblooms cast in the same space as 4 normally would. The numbers above are all less than that because they take advantage of the "extra" second in a normal 4-GCD cycle.

 

lairpie

I got myself to 0 mana (raid buffed) then hit innervate and chain casted regrowth and couldn't burn enough mana not to top out before the innervate was over. That combined with our only real mana dump being cheaper now, and the fact that I'll have an alchemist's stone for more potion effectiveness soon, and god i don't know what I'm going to do with all this mana.

Brewmaster of WBC

 

• Playered

Innervate only lasts 20 seconds, and I believe most encounters will last longer than 60 seconds, I dont think it will really be hard to dump your mana while raiding or anything else.

 

fredstar

Hey guys, I had gotten [Vial of the Sunwell] yesterday from Heroic Magisters Terrace. Just came to drop by to see what everyone things about it. I decided to replace my [Tome of Diabolic Remedy] with the Vial of The Sunwell in Mount Hyjal that night. Although the cooldown is long, when rolling lifeblooms, regrowthing people, and rejuving people the Holy Energy buff stacked up quickly. The cooldown is currently 2 Minutes.

Anyone think it is worth it to replace the Tome with the Vial?
Thanks in advance.

 

◊ Noressa

I haven't tested it yet, does the Holy Energy get your +heal bonus?

My initial thought is as a druid, we already have several instant heals and I'd rather have the healing boost from the tome then a 2k heal every 2 minutes.

 

fredstar

Does not stack with healing bonus. And Heals warlocks for about 2.5k with Fel Armor Buff.

 

◊ Noressa

I would personally recommend against using it then, unless you don't cast HOT's all that often. You have a high probability of getting more then a 2k bonus from the tome while it's active. Again, since we already have many instants to choose from, I wouldn't see myself going for a 2k heal while giving up the +396/20 seconds bonus (150% bonus on lbx3) and 3 more mana/5.

 

NinJOu

I tried today with my spell haste gear (~160) and i couldnt get 5 LB stack running.
I had a latency between 80 - 100 ms.

 

Foxtrap

I have not picked up the trinket yet on Live, but on the PTR it was limited to a range of 10 yards. This alone made it fairly unusable in the majority of practical applications.

Regarding the original post, Gian -- I have been a long time stalker of this thread but haven't bothered to post yet. In any case, I was wondering if you were planning on updating your Loot Rank. Although I found it highly appropriate for 2.3 and previous patches, I believe a heavier weighting to Spirit (and significantly less weighting for MP5) would be a worthwhile change. Intellect's weight might also increase, as it is now a key factor in determining the weight of Spirit itself.

Haste rating, for the reasons previously discussed, also may deserve a light weighting. Even just a touch of haste rating could be beneficial; in cases where a Druid is raid healing with lifebloom, being able to distribute them more quickly among several targets would be helpful.

Just a few thoughts.