Raiding as a Tree - Page 29

Benita · 04/11/08, 5:32 AM

Originally Posted by Kanji

However, judging from your WWS, you simply seem to keep LB up on the tanks and burn victims while occassionally throwing out other HoTs. Would you say that's the best way to maximize Druid healing for Brut? And if so, do you have another person assigned to heal burns full time while you simply keep LBs on them as a "cushion" of sorts to help them out?

Yes and yes and also a yes to me organizing the healing. It comes quiet naturally though. We put druids on any constant damage takers, meaning in this case tanks and burn victims which is really great for druid healing. Druids do the big chunk of healing needed, which is the best use for druid healers (most hps output while still being efficient as hell), Shamans do raidhealing and spike healing if its needed, Palas on tanks and raid spikes. Priests are on raid healing usually, PoM/CoH where its applicable. This isnt really big news, just that the druid role changed alot during BC due to LB.

There was one raid where i did 25% of the healing on council with 8 healers present. It was our best kill by far as there was just tons of healing available for spike damage, just not very interesting for the 7 others. All those people who say "but a 1k hot isn't doing much against brut" don't realize how big of a buffer 2-3k hp are, because apparently they never tanked cutting edge stuff. Druid healing is amazing if utilized correctly, they just have to be worked in as opposed to the straight forward uses of shamans and palas.

SyZ · 04/11/08, 5:46 AM

Amazing post, but as I don't have time to read the full thread, are there gearsets listed anywhere? Specifically, a set that focuses on Spirit using Sunwell items?

grutak · 04/11/08, 8:51 AM

Loot Rank

That'd probably be a good place to start. I'm not terribly familiar with lootrank, so I'm sure you can tweak the search string to find what you want.

And as a piece of advice, this thread is not about showing you lists. Its about educating you on how to find out for your self. I'd suggest you make time to read the thread. I started by reading it backwords, since the newest posts are the most relevant.

Dynalisia · 04/11/08, 8:56 AM

I'm still not quite clear on your exact role during Brut Benita. Are you healing Burn all by yourself or do you have someone else jumping in at the last 15 seconds? Like Kanji said, I can hardly imagine healing the last stretch of burn with nothing but Lifebloom, even if I account for gear diffirences.

Kanji · 04/11/08, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by Benita

Yes and yes and also a yes to me organizing the healing. It comes quiet naturally though. We put druids on any constant damage takers, meaning in this case tanks and burn victims which is really great for druid healing. Druids do the big chunk of healing needed, which is the best use for druid healers (most hps output while still being efficient as hell), Shamans do raidhealing and spike healing if its needed, Palas on tanks and raid spikes. Priests are on raid healing usually, PoM/CoH where its applicable. This isnt really big news, just that the druid role changed alot during BC due to LB.

There was one raid where i did 25% of the healing on council with 8 healers present. It was our best kill by far as there was just tons of healing available for spike damage, just not very interesting for the 7 others. All those people who say "but a 1k hot isn't doing much against brut" don't realize how big of a buffer 2-3k hp are, because apparently they never tanked cutting edge stuff. Druid healing is amazing if utilized correctly, they just have to be worked in as opposed to the straight forward uses of shamans and palas.

I agree with what you're saying, and I too know the joys of having 25% of the total effective healing on Council with 8 healers as well, haha. It just seems with Brut that the typical role Druids get put in is, "Just heal burn victims." which puts you in a role where you deal with burst healing, which isn't a Druid's strong point at all. And when placed in said role, it leads to unconventional healing methods which also leads to a lack in preformance, hence why I'm here, trying to make it better. :P

In addition to the information you provided, would you say that you need 8+ Healers present at Brut to maintain your playstyle for the fight? Typically, we only run with 7 (or sometimes even 6 . . . ouch) healers for Brut to make up for DPS. So it doesn't really seem you can put a Druid in the role of, "Just Lifebloom ppl who take damage." even though it's the most effective way to maximize their overall healing. Or do you think it'd be possible to have 3 tank healers, 2 soak group healers, 1 burn healer, and then the Druid who HoTs everything? I remember one of our Paladins saying he could solo heal Burn vics provided they had HoTs on them to heal between his cast, but said Paladin wasn't present this week, so I didn't really get a chance to see how that'd work out.

In any case, thanks for all your feedback thus far. It's been much appriciated.

Edghar · 04/11/08, 12:33 PM

Originally Posted by Tiranar

I have recently acquired 2 new resto Druid recruits. We typically have no raiding resto's as the player pool on my server is relatively low. I wanted to submit our 4/8 Hyjal and 4/1 Black Temple WWS' for your review. Since I am raid leader, I want to make sure I am utilizing my Druids in the most efficient way possible. Thank you in advance for your help. If I am in the wrong thread, I apologize.

4/8 Hyjal Wow Web Stats

4/1 Black Temple Wow Web Stats

In my opinion, I'd suggest that they make more use of regrowth. Since 2.4 it's become an incredibly powerful heal. On Archimonde for example, its a great way to cover someone with a doomfire in a fire-and-forget kind of way.

Whïspur · 04/11/08, 3:31 PM

Originally Posted by fuzzynavel

I was using this neck in BT today and I did not see a single buff, nor does my WWS show any buffs. What is the buff called, do you know? And yes I am exaulted with scryers.

Edit: I did some more research and the scryer proc is called "arcane surge." It heals for anywhere form 600 to 800 on your target.

I'm scryer and recently got the healing necklace.

Here's a WWS with me using in on 3/9 BT.

Wow Web Stats

Here's a WWS with me using it on Gorefiend attempts (ugh, some people really have a hard time with constructs... and our main tank disconnected a few times).

Wow Web Stats

I'm pretty pleased with how Arcane Surge ends up as about 2% of my healing.

I believe it only procs off of hots that heal, rather than hots on a full health target, which is why on self testing a few people come to believe it rarely procs. I originally was quite saddened that I was scryer vs aldor for this neck piece, but I won't complain about a 2% boost to my heals off a neckpiece.

Benita · 04/11/08, 3:56 PM

Originally Posted by Dynalisia

I'm still not quite clear on your exact role during Brut Benita. Are you healing Burn all by yourself or do you have someone else jumping in at the last 15 seconds? Like Kanji said, I can hardly imagine healing the last stretch of burn with nothing but Lifebloom, even if I account for gear diffirences.

We had 2 druids healing burns, me focusing less on it than the other. I built my job mostly around always keeping max LB up as i was also leading the raid (not that theres much to lead during brutallus).

@Kanji: We had 6 healers and 3 spriests. Usually its a good idea to set up as many constant output healers for as many constant damage targets as possible. Less spike damage healers means potentially less people overhealing on the same targets, but i cant really state this in general, just something i noticed as a raidleader for our guild.

lairpie · 04/11/08, 4:54 PM

We've found that almost any healing strategy involving 1 druid, works better with 2 druids and 1 less of some other healer. 2 druids transform hots from a convenient buffer on tanks into the primary source of tank healing for many fights. For most fights we've found having 2 druids and a 23-38 priest topping up whatever hots don't get on the tank or tanks is all we really need. That's let us run with a healer or two fewer for a lot of content, and have all the other healers mostly watch raid damage.

• giansm · 04/11/08, 5:27 PM

I've put some new wording in the first post about my impressions of spell haste in particular and stat balance in general depending on whether your assignment is heavily tank-oriented or if there is a decently sized raid healing component. It is in the "Stats" section under the bonus healing and spell haste subsections. I would greatly appreciate feedback based on other people's experiences:

Bonus healing: An extremely important stat for all healers in TBC, and druids are not an exception. The relative value of bonus healing depends on your assignment. When healing tanks or any other raid member taking consistent long-term damage, the strength of our HoTs is what makes us viable and so bonus healing should be stacked as high as possible. If you are doing a significant amount of raid healing, bonus healing is still a very important stat but it is not the end-all stat that it is in a tank healing situation. Mana regeneration increases in importance as it becomes useful to be "wasteful" with mana by refreshing lifebloom stacks early and using regrowth and swiftmend liberally. Spell haste allows you to deliver healing to more targets than you could otherwise, which can be better than simply delivering more healing to the same number of targets. In a situation where you do a lot of raid healing, it will be up to you to choose an appropriate balance of bonus healing, mana regeneration, and spell haste.

Spell haste: Formerly a worthless stat, haste serves a purpose now that it reduces the GCD. It does this using the same formula that it reduces spellcasts with, meaning your GCD will be: 2355 / ( H + 1570 ), where H is your haste rating. There are two primary uses of haste: first, to attempt to stack haste high enough to achieve a 5 GCD cycle, as opposed to the normal 4 GCD cycle (see the section on "Rolling Lifebloom" if you don't know what this means). To my knowledge not many restoration druids are attempting to do this, but in theory it allows for some interesting 5 GCD cycles: 5xLifebloom, 4xLifebloom + 2xRejuvenation, or 3xLifebloom + 3xRejuvenation.

The second use of haste is to allow us generally deliver healing more quickly by speeding up the GCD. This will improve the speed of the rejuvenation+swiftmend combo, will allow us to deliver healing to a tank in crisis faster, and will allow us to spread HoTs around the raid faster. If you intend to use haste in this fashion, it is worthless when you are operating in a strict cycle but can be very useful when you are splitting your attention between a single tank and the raid. For this reason I believe haste is a useful stat to have on a generalist healing set, but a fairly weak stat if you are primarily healing one or more tanks (unless you are attempting to achieve a 5 GCD cycle, of course).

◊ Noressa · 04/11/08, 5:35 PM

For what its worth, the cycle I find myself most often with is 3xLB, 3xRegrow, 2x Rejuv.

• giansm · 04/11/08, 5:43 PM

Originally Posted by Noressa

For what its worth, the cycle I find myself most often with is 3xLB, 3xRegrow, 2x Rejuv.

Wow, that's a lot of haste. I guess you mean you are doing a 6-step 5-GCD cycle like:

LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 1, RG 1
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 2, RG 2
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 1, RG 3
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 2, RG 1
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 1, RG 2
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 2, RG 3

and repeating? How much haste rating and latency do you do this with out of curiosity?

• Arawethion · 04/11/08, 5:50 PM

Originally Posted by Tiranar

@ Noressa, Lee or any others.

Would you mind posting a screenshot of your UI? I would love to have a reference point.

Here's what I heal with (attached).

I wasn't really doing much while this was going on, but if you take a look a Rioht's Grid square:
The green dot at the bottom center means that I have a 3-stack of Lifebloom on him
The green dot on the left is an incoming cast-time heal from somebody (the magnitude of the heal is represented by a faded part of his HP bar, but you can't see it here because it's more HP than he has).
The red dot in the top-left shows that he's currently targeted by a mob.

In the gap between Grid and the HoT timer bars is the GCD spark--which isn't visible because it had just expired as I pressed this.

◊ Noressa · 04/11/08, 6:16 PM

Originally Posted by giansm

Wow, that's a lot of haste. I guess you mean you are doing a 6-step 5-GCD cycle like:

LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 1, RG 1
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 2, RG 2
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 1, RG 3
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 2, RG 1
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 1, RG 2
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 2, RG 3

and repeating? How much haste rating and latency do you do this with out of curiosity?

Currently I'm running with a 250 haste outfit, latency ranges in the 120~ range, though Quartz makes that an almost non-factor. This gives me what feels like standard breathing room. I actually do more like this:

LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RG 1
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RG 2
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RG 3
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 1, RJ 2
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, R3

Then refresh/recycle. Rejuvs will always fall off one before I refresh the third, but once regrow comes off, I refresh that, then add rejuv back in.

lairpie · 04/11/08, 6:31 PM

well, you can do all of that other than the 3rd rejuv with no haste if you're really careful, or with ~50 easily. 250 haste seems like a lot to stack to get 1 extra rejuv.

◊ Noressa · 04/11/08, 8:14 PM

I never was able to manage it without haste, to be honest. 2 tanks with full hots only netted me a few free global cooldowns.
LB 1, LB 2, RG 1
LB 1, LB 2, RG 2
LB 1, LB 2, RJ1, RJ 2
Free global cooldowns until refresh

Adding a third tank with full HOT's wasn't working for me without haste. The extra 15% off the cast time gives plenty of time.

• giansm · 04/11/08, 8:57 PM

Originally Posted by Noressa

Currently I'm running with a 250 haste outfit, latency ranges in the 120~ range, though Quartz makes that an almost non-factor. This gives me what feels like standard breathing room. I actually do more like this:

LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RG 1
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RG 2
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RG 3
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, RJ 1, RJ 2
LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, R3

Then refresh/recycle. Rejuvs will always fall off one before I refresh the third, but once regrow comes off, I refresh that, then add rejuv back in.

Am I reading this right, it looks like Rejuvenation is only up about 42% of the time (cycle time is 28.5s if chain-casted, only one rejuvenation cast per cycle)?

weigrafBDF · 04/11/08, 9:47 PM

I have been doing some thinking lately.. I was curious if u guyz think that with the changes in 2.4 if u could pull off a hybrid build. something like 24/0/37. WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Druid -> Talent Calculator

I was thinking the other day how such a burden being in tree form is with movement speed reduction,and that im constantly having to change out of form to move or dodge something and the hit my MP takes from it. the fact that im never in the tanks group so my aura is poop. and on top of that whats 20% mana reduction when u pot chug with alchy stone and an spriest in your group,and to top it off I find that once I hit t6 lv gear that my mp5 was always an overkill specially with the new int/spirit buff (usually around 843/520 mp5 ish raid buffed. I also get to use my own innervates). so why not try a less mana efficient spec to gain some + healing, and be able to put out more burst healing if needed. plus if there is no room for a boomkin in your raid comp u can weasel insect swarm into your raid comp still. and u dont lose ur swiftmend as u would being dreamstate. my main question is do u think a hybrid spec could be viable again since 2.4 your hots tick for more this spec. not unbuffed. but in a raid setting your +healing scales with the raid buffs. personally my druids +healing went from being around 2250ish raid buffed to just over 2500. thoughts?

SyZ · 04/11/08, 11:37 PM

Originally Posted by grutak

Loot Rank

That'd probably be a good place to start. I'm not terribly familiar with lootrank, so I'm sure you can tweak the search string to find what you want.

And as a piece of advice, this thread is not about showing you lists. Its about educating you on how to find out for your self. I'd suggest you make time to read the thread. I started by reading it backwords, since the newest posts are the most relevant.

I checked out that site, I just wanted to see if there was a profile set up to see what final stat values would be with the gear. :0

Currylaksa · 04/12/08, 1:53 AM

Originally Posted by weigrafBDF

I have been doing some thinking lately.. I was curious if u guyz think that with the changes in 2.4 if u could pull off a hybrid build. something like 24/0/37. WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Druid -> Talent Calculator

I was thinking the other day how such a burden being in tree form is with movement speed reduction,and that im constantly having to change out of form to move or dodge something and the hit my MP takes from it. the fact that im never in the tanks group so my aura is poop. and on top of that whats 20% mana reduction when u pot chug with alchy stone and an spriest in your group,and to top it off I find that once I hit t6 lv gear that my mp5 was always an overkill specially with the new int/spirit buff (usually around 843/520 mp5 ish raid buffed. I also get to use my own innervates). so why not try a less mana efficient spec to gain some + healing, and be able to put out more burst healing if needed. I actually out healed our main resto shammy on illidian this spec by over a percent and he has 4 piece. plus if there is no room for a boomkin in your raid comp u can weasel insect swarm into your raid comp still. and u dont lose ur swiftmend as u would being dreamstate. my main question is do u think a hybrid spec could be viable again since 2.4 your hots tick for more this spec. not unbuffed. but in a raid setting your +healing scales with the raid buffs. personally my druids +healing went from being around 2250ish raid buffed to just over 2500. thoughts?

Unfortunately, even if you go out of your way to stack a lot of INT, 2/5 ER 3/3 LG will not mathematically outperform 5/5 ER for BT-level itemization and above.

weigrafBDF · 04/12/08, 2:17 AM

Originally Posted by Currylaksa

Unfortunately, even if you go out of your way to stack a lot of INT, 2/5 ER 3/3 LG will not mathematically outperform 5/5 ER for BT-level itemization and above.

but heres another question then.. I tested this out as a ToL 1/0/60 and my LB ticked for 758 unbuffed.. then with my same gear spec'd 3/3LG 2/5ER my LB ticked for 730. so this was all unbuffed. now in a raid atmospheare where u gain another 250+ healing just from being buffed ur saying that it wont make up for 28 extra + healing? and even if it worked out to be the same, would it not be more viable in a raid being that one of ur healers would have insect swarm, specially if u dont have a oomkin? and the fact that ur able more effectively cast regrowth between ur hot cycles. as well as ur regrowth hitting harder. also Is there not more room for you +healing to scale with this spec.. better the gear/stats more u gain from it.

lairpie · 04/12/08, 3:23 AM

Originally Posted by weigrafBDF

but heres another question then.. I tested this out as a ToL 1/0/60 and my LB ticked for 758 unbuffed.. then with my same gear spec'd 3/3LG 2/5ER my LB ticked for 730. so this was all unbuffed. now in a raid atmospheare where u gain another 250+ healing just from being buffed ur saying that it wont make up for 28 extra + healing? and even if it worked out to be the same, would it not be more viable in a raid being that one of ur healers would have insect swarm, specially if u dont have a oomkin? and the fact that ur able more effectively cast regrowth between ur hot cycles. as well as ur regrowth hitting harder. also Is there not more room for you +healing to scale with this spec.. better the gear/stats more u gain from it.

The better your stats and gear, the more you gain form empowered rejuv, the less you gain from LG. When i first hit 70 i had maybe 1000 healing and 9 k mana buffed. Now i have a bit over 2500 healing, and 11k mana. +healing is scaling far better than intellect.

Speccing for lunar guidance is just like speccing tree form, and just not using it, except your heals heal for a little bit less. If you really don't need your innervate at all, you could always innervate someone else. If you really want to keep insect swarm up, just spec insect swarm. There's plenty of free points to go like 13-0-48 or something like that. That's basically identical to 23-0-38 except your heals heal for more and you have tree form when you want it. And you can actually get all the borderline useful talents with 48 in resto. 38 is at least sorta sacrificing.

Benita · 04/12/08, 5:18 AM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

In the gap between Grid and the HoT timer bars is the GCD spark--which isn't visible because it had just expired as I pressed this.

There was a hack somewhere in the addon forums about gcd spark showing on the cursor for quartz, which might save you some space.

Also instead of that green dot i'd suggest getting GridStatusLifebloom. It shows as center text 1/2/3 what your Lifebloom duration left is on that target and colour codes it to show how many stacks that is. That on priority 99 and then on lower priority GridStatusHots which shows as a number how many total hots are on that target already if theres no LB up. It also shows counters for your regrowth or rejuv if its on the target (like 4-17 meaning 4 total hots and 17 seconds left on your regrowth).

It's a bit more info on grid and might be confusing at first, but helps alot on getting an overview on whos actually in need of a hot and whos not. It also made me get rid off my duration bar addon for healing completely.

Norfair · 04/12/08, 5:31 AM

Originally Posted by giansm

Am I reading this right, it looks like Rejuvenation is only up about 42% of the time (cycle time is 28.5s if chain-casted, only one rejuvenation cast per cycle)?

He's using 250 haste, which makes it possible for 5 casts, so I guess he's casting both Rejuvenations.

About the spec: afaik you can't use Insect Swarm in ToL and since its really short duration you would need to stay out of ToL all the time if you'd want to keep it up (and also basically have to refresh it every other cycle). I don't think doing that is worth the 2% miss chance on a tank, since your own healing will go down by a lot and if you're in the tank group, your aura will be sacrificed as well. Speccing Balance for LG or any other Balance talent which might be useful is all not worth the 20+ talent points you need to give up for it in Resto imo.

Edit: btw, I read somewhere in a previous page here that someone was in need of a "boss mod" add-on for Grid which would show all the important debuffs. You can do this manually if you want (I only have it for Council / Illidan / Brutallus), by adding a new debuff (they're a subset of "auras" in Grid), and add the exact name for it. Then you can just let it show wherever you want (I use the center-icon for it) and it will show whenever someone has that debuff.

• DigitalDemon · 04/12/08, 12:15 PM

There is also GridStatusRaidDebuff, which adds many of the debuffs by default, as well as supports showing stack counts. I've been using it for a while and it works out well. I don't know how well supported Sunwell debuffs are though, if you need that.