lairpie

Does anyone else get the feeling sometimes that nearly every guild other than your own runs with 2 prot warriors, a prot paly, 2 feral druids, 1 coh priest, 1 iDS priest, 2 shadow priests, 2 holy paladins, 1 ret paly, 1-2 enhancement shaman, an elemental shaman, 3 resto shaman, 2 resto druids, 1 balance druid, 4 rogues, 2 dps warriors, 3 hunters, 3 warlocks, 3 mages?

I know for our guild we usually have 1 mage, sometimes 2. We have people playing mage alts to do sunwell trash then swapping to their mains and use roots to supplement our somewhat lacking CC. Fortunately we have a nearly infinite supply of part-time resto druids as between feral druids that are resto for pvp, and resto druid pvp alts we could (and have at times) fielded raids with 5-6 resto druids (and 1 balance and 1 feral druid still). Let me assure you archimonde is an incredibly easy fight when you don't need any direct heals at all on the tank because he is getting several thousand hps in lifebloom alone, not to mention rejuvs, renews, regrowths, and 7 people can decurse, only 1 of them a mage.

Ah, here, this was our smoothest Archimonde kill ever I think. 1 normally specced resto druid main (me), 1 pvp specced DS/resto druid alt, 2 feral druids specced pvp-resto, 1 balance druid alt, 1 feral druid, and 1 mage.

 

malthrin

I know how you feel - we've only had one mage for the longest time. Doing Kalec or Archimonde with 3 decursers is fairly normal. Two paladins (occasionally a third), two hunters. Zillions of Shamans, though! Lusting both your melee and caster groups on Brutallus 3 times each is pretty silly.

 

Lerastes

I've been working on a Resto Druid spreadsheet/calculator and have it about 99% finished. You can read about it here.

WoW Forums -> Tree Druid spreadsheet!

 

Candlelight

I am a long-time reader, though this is my first post. A nod of thanks to all who take time to contribute to the resto druid class discussion.

I recently "rediscovered" the temporary chest enchant "Greater Rune of Warding," which provides a 25% chance to absorb 400 physical damage. The enchant lasts 1 hour and has a 90 second internal cooldown. Using the item does not overwrite a preexisting, permanent chest enchant. Blacksmiths can make one of these consumables from 1 Khorium Bar, and they stack in lots of 20.

Greater Rune of Warding
Plans: Greater Rune of Warding

I suspect this item was not listed in the initial post since the enchant is not strictly a healing consumable. That said, it has been moderately helpful in fights where, as a healer, I know I may take a few whacks, such as the third boss in Magisters' Terrace or during Gorefiend if someone lets a construct get into the raid. Since there are no healing consumable enchants for the chest (that I know of), I have been using this one for extra insurance.

 

Kalaghan

So, for the record (in case anyone wanted to be silly like me), a [Flask of Supreme Power] does not affect plus healing. I was pretty sure of this anyway, but after finding out that [Superior Wizard Oil] affected healing despite the misleading tooltip, I thought I'd give it a shot (I also couldn't find any comments conclusively saying it does not work on wowhead or the like).

I know, I probably should've just asked here first. I figured I may as well give it a shot since I have nothing else with a [Mark of the Illidari] (aside from sell it or give it to a guildy, but I was impatiently curious), because Blizz refuses to give us a useful flask. Bah!

 

lairpie

Destruction potions also do not, much to my disappointment.

 

Clockwise

Speaking of, can anyone confirm that Reckless Pyrestone would provide 6 healing in addition to 6 damage and 5 haste?

 

ppilatee

Yes, it does. Increase Spell Dam 6 - Spells - World of Warcraft

 

Tetz

The Reckless Pyrestone looks like a good choice to complete the 2 yellow requirements for the restore mana meta vs the 11 healing and 5 int pyrestone.

 

Bigtoy

Nor [Flask of Blinding Light] despite the word nature right there teasing you.

 

Cube

For innervate weapons, it might be a good idea to add the [Rod of the Blazing Light].

Socketed with 3 [Sparkling Empyrean Sapphire], it's 9 more +spirit than [Ethereum Life-Staff], and even with [Sparkling Star of Elune], it's still 3 more Spirit.

While that's not much in the long run, the fact that the rod is much easier to get now than the Life-Staff makes it worth mentioning. Plus, socketed with epic gems, it's the highest spirit weapon in the game currently.

 

Kalaghan

With the 2.4 changes a high spirit innervate weapon no longer makes sense. Any druid should see his mana bar filled by an innervate these days. There can however be an argument made for a high int weapon, since this is now the limiting factor on gains from innervate. The catch is, you would have to keep this weapon equipped for a little bit after the innervate until your mana level has returned to it's normal maximum in order to realize the gains. This would work in much the same way as starting off a fight with a high int weapon.

The gains of course are not nearly as significant as they used to be with a high spirit weapon (i.e. pre-2.4), and you likely are going to lose some plus healing for 30-40 seconds. Personally, I don't think it's worth it as a healer. This discussion only applies if you're getting innervated, and frankly with the exception of mana drain fights, if you're getting your own innervate then mana shouldn't be an issue to begin with (so you should opt to just keep your max +healing weapon).

From a weapon swap perspective, the only thing I really use still sometimes is a spell surge weapon combined with Caster Weapon Swapper, since that provides mana return not just for myself but for group members as well (I will only use it if I'm in caster group).

 

Raised

Forgive the nubness, but I'm a PvP druid who's starting to dabble in PvE.

Armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

The s4 gear came out today on the PTR (LINK), and I was trying to decide whether or not I should grab [Grovewalker's Leggings] and [Oakleaf-Spun Handguards] over the Season 4 gear. [Brutal Gladiator's Kodohide Legguards] [Brutal Gladiator's Kodohide Gloves] are the s4 equivalents.

With such low Spirit already (268 unbuffed) and ~500 int, is it worth it for primarly PvP-Druids to start going for +spirit, or should I just be content with the gobs of mp5 on the PvP gear and just keep using weaponswap+Trinket for Innervates.

EDIT: Looks like the s4 is in the database already, so I put in the links.

 

mecra

Ok, this is my first post.

I see that a lot of people seem to like the idea of a TOL being in the MT group, but that the aura can be passed aside for others.

My question is this, since I have over 800 spirit raid buffed and Raven idol for 250 +healing to the MT, is that enough to offset some of the other auras/buffs that the MTs can have from other classes? (Specifically paladin, priest stuff) I'm trying to decide if I want to stay a spirit whore or change out my gear. My guild would *like* to use me in the MT group, but I don't know if we've put together a convincing enough arguement for the RL.

Is 250 +healing aura exceptional or just meh when compared to what else is out there?

 

malthrin

Short answer: Change out your gear.

Long answer: +250 healing is nice, but there are many many situations where you won't be able to count on having all the "tanks" in your group. Furthermore, it simply doesn't make sense to gimp your healing for the sole purpose of boosting tank survivability when tank deaths are rarely a problem.

 

mecra

Now while I do understand what you are saying, if I am mainly healing the MT/OT which are usually in group 1, my healing isn't gimped because I'm benefiting from my own buff. Now the other healers are also receiving it and the high +healing druid that's helping on the MT has his LB hitting even harder.

With fights like Brut, Kale, etc, tank survivability is seriously in question and concern. With all the movement required for Felmyst, wouldn't it be better to make those heals that do get off, hit harder?

 

lairpie

Using those 2 badge things over the s4 gear you gain tons of spirit aura, a decent chunk of + healing, and a small amount of regen. The only advantage at all for the pvp gear is sta. So yeah, they're a good chunk better.

As to balancing spirit and +healing: just for a given fight look at wws, figure out a rough number for how many people are healing your party, and figure out a value for your aura. I usually figure 1 spirit is about the same as 1 +healing + the regen it gives. Figure if myself and 3 other people are healing the tanks in my party, that spirit works back to be 1/4 of a +heal for each of us, so about the same value as 1 +heal.

 

malthrin

This is something that varies from raid group to raid group. If you are consistently the only tree in your raid, and consistently given a slot in the tank group, there may be some merit to enhancing the ToL aura. However, those fights you mention as dangerous to the tank also require high amounts of healing on targets outside the tank group, which you are less-prepared to address due to gimping your +healing. Personally, I never know if I'm going to be in a tank group; our tank group often turns into a surplus melee group or a ranged group, and furthermore we usually have 2-3 trees.

So, I guess you could sum up the answer like this:
1) Does your raid almost always have room for a tree in the tank group?
2) Is that tree almost always going to be you?
3) Does your raid have more problems with tank death than non-tank death?
If the answer to all 3 of those is yes, stacking spirit may be worth consideration. I hope the narrow scope of that situation demonstrates why I would not recommend doing so.

 

Sheshonk

Two high heal druids and other healers will put out more healing on the tank than one high heal druid, one high spirit druid, and other healers. So much in fact, that to make spirit worth stacking comparatively to healing you would need roughly 20 other healers on the tank to put out the same amount of additional healing via ToL aura to compensate for the lack of +heal on the spirit druid. This of course isn't taking into account all the additional regrowths the spirit druid will be able to pump out with his/her ridiculous regen, but thats more of a raid healing benefit, not tank.

Raven idol is a pretty good choice, it only requires 2 additional healers to be better than queen idol.

If a fight has high movement why would you want to buff other healers? This is where a druid really shines: we only lose regrowth while other healing classes lose nearly all functionality.

 

Kalaghan

Where are you getting that number from? Here's a post on spirit I made on my guild's druid forum a little while back that I think summarizes the spirit arguments well (imo):

Okay, so we all know spirit is phenomenal for mana regen in 2.4. There will be absolutely no reason for a druid to go for mp5 gear (if there's a spirit alternative). However, once your mana regen requirements have been met, I want to stress that there's no reason to continue stacking spirit (in my opinion at least). i.e. If it's spirit for your aura vs. +heal, +heal is better:

+1 healing = 0.455 ipoints so 1 ipoint = +2.2 healing
+1 spirit base = +1.265 spirit buffed (kings & living spirit) = 1 ipoint so 1 ipoint ~= +0.32 healing on all heals to the tank

Unless you have an average of 7 healers (7*0.32 = 2.24) focusing exclusively on your group (no such encounter in BC to the best of my knowledge), then +healing is better than spirit from a strict max heal perspective.

This is not meant to be an argument against spirit from a regen perspective, but I just want to point out that the Tree of Life aura is a side benefit. It is not something that should be geared for specifically.

 

lairpie

Saying 1 stat is better than another is just wrong. There's no justification for it. You can say that per item budget +healing is far more effective than spirit in nearly every situation unless you're short on mana. 22 healing gems are better than 10 spirit in nearly every situation. But other than gems, there are many situations where the higher spirit item is decidedly better than the higher +healing item, where you have options like sacrifcing 20 healing to gain 50 spirit. That may sound outlandish, but compare [Grovewalker's Leggings] and [Kilt of Immortal Nature] assuming both are socketed with spinnels. Lose 26 healing from gear to gain 44 spirit while gaining semi useless regen in the process. Now, multiply kings and living spirit in and that's 14 healing on your aura. If you have a 23-38 priest you also get 5.5 healing back from iDS. So, you're in the end losing a whopping 6.5 healing off your heals on your party and 20 off your heals on the rest of the raid to boost everyone else's healing on your party by 14. Unless the rest of your raid is absolutely terrible or you're not in a tank group, that's a very good trade. You gain a decent chunk of extra mana regen as well as 44 spirit > 10 mp5 for regen.

Stacking spirit to the point where it gimps your healing more than it helps other people's is stupid. Ignoring the aura's value is stupid. You just have to look at each piece of gear and decide which is better. Lots of spirit is better than little +heal, lots of +heal is better than little spirit. +heal is better per item value, but until we're custom selecting the stat balances of our gear, that doesn't really matter. If breaking down the values of each stat for each piece of gear isn't how you get through the work day, you can download a mod like item value where you just define a formula and it does it for you.

 

Sheshonk

Heal Coefficient on triple stack lifebloom = 200%
Avg Heal Coefficient of other healers = 80%

200/80 = 2.5
7 healers * 2.5 = 17.5 healers

I realize thats pretty much the worst case, but worth thinking about when comparing spirit to healing.

 

Kalaghan

Ah, that makes more sense. Although I think the LB coeffecient should be more like 186% (62.16% per stack with empowered rejuvenation...I'm trusting wowwiki on that one though, so who knows). And yeah, it's fairly rare that all you're doing is maintaining 3-stacks. Then of course there's the argument that if ticks at max health were counted, our overhealing % would be a lot higher than other classes so while our healing coefficient might be on average much higher, the utility we derive from +heal is arguably comparable to other classes since they might convert a higher percent of that bonus healing into effective healing.

And ya, Lairpie, I agree you absolutely have to look on an item-by-item basis. But I still find the 'ideally itemized' analysis (where you assume ipoint values to be distributed exactly as you like) to be a relevant study or tool. Plus, I've found at least in my guild that people tend to overvalue spirit for a druid (it's taken a long time to convince them that it's not my primary end-all stat), and that discussion around itemization helps. It just shouldn't be your bottom line, you have to know how and when to apply that tool.

 

Sheshonk

I'm including Gift of Nature which puts it around 200%. To go all out you'd also have to take into account that all healers are not healing the tank for the same amount, but that is somewhat overkill for spirit vs healing, since we allready know its not a good idea in the best case scenario. Raven idol while in the tank group on the other hand...

Please take this with a grain of salt since its highly variable, but should give a general idea of which idol to use when. I’m only focusing in on tank healing because thats the assignment in question, any raid healing with this assignment is icing on the cake, but should not be focused on. Common assignments on the tank are myself and 2 Pali’s, but I included Priests since they are the swiss army knives of healers. Some general rotation % as well…

Coefficients (with talents included)…
Druid (85% Triple Stack Lifebloom 10% Rejuv 3.5% Regrowth DH 1.5% Regrowth HoT)
Triple Stack (HoT) = 2.025
Rejuvenation = 1.16
Regrowth (DH) = 0.3188
Regrowth (HoT) = 0.918

Pali (85% FoL 15% HL)
Flash of Light = 0.479
Holy Light = 0.800

Priest (75% Gheal r1 10% Gheal r7 15% Renew)
Greater Heal r7 = 1.114
Greater Heal r1 = 0.811
Renew = 1.25

Shaman (100% Earth Shield)
Earth Shield = 2.178

It’s been established that queen is 67heal (thank you buggy idol) and raven is 44heal. Plug that in to find avg heal bonus and you come out with…

Queen = 115.3
Druid = 115.3
Pali = 0
Priest = 0
Shaman = 0

Raven = 271.98 (using Druid, 2 Pali, Earth Shield)
Druid = 81.49
Pali = 46.08
Priest = 48.58
Shaman = 95.83

At first glance, it seems like a no brainer to go for raven, but take a closer look. Shaman gets the biggest bonus? This isn’t accounting for the actual heal throughput (effective + overheal) on the tank. Another variable that is up in the air is hot overheal, from the tracking I’ve done I value it around 50%. So generally you get something like this breakdown on a tank…

Druid =42%
Pali =28%
Priest = 28%
Shaman = 1%

Account for this you end up with…

Queen = 48.4
Druid = 48.4
Pali = 0
Priest = 0
Shaman = 0

Raven = 60.92 (using Druid, 2 Pali, Earth Shield)
Druid = 34.22
Pali = 12.90
Priest = 13.6
Shaman = 0.96

Please note that if your assignment is the tank and you only have 1 pali/priest you have about the same benefit, so at that point you’d probably want to go with queen to boost raid healing with your extra gcd’s.

 

Ecirp

I haven't had time to read through this entire forum, and my question is probably in there somewhere...but im at 2107 heals unbuffed and am wondering if i should socket straight up healing or mix it up with the new heal/spirit gem coming out and heal/int...basically what im trying to say is, is there a point where +heals aren't as important as spirit/int?