Lothron

Hello, Lothron here.
Been poking around this thread and agreeing with most of it, especially the initial saga/first post, only I deviant a little...
I'm in a guild thoroughly through SSC and TK; we just downed Vashj and have been breezing through the first few bosses in MH. Completely unbuffed (no Mark) I have almost 600 spirit and 500 intell: 217 mp5. Raid buffed with kings and the spirit buff (gotta love priests), I have near 800 spirit and 360 mp5.
Mana obviously isn't an issue for me, and I think that's why I almost always top heal whatever raid I'm in, whatever assignment I'm given. All that being said, I use [Scarab of the Infinite Cycle] and [Redeemer's Alchemist Stone] as my trinkets. The scarab is a cheap alternative to stacking haste to achieve a 5GCD rate, albeit it comes scarcely and randomly.
For all the rest of my gear, if it doesn't have spirit on it it's not touching my burly elvish body. I usually use spirit as my main stat, switching only a little out for a decent amount of mp5. This makes my ring selection very slim, as most are only Intel Stam and mp5, I'm stuck on [Mender's Heart-Ring] and the karazhan ring until I can get my hands on Vashj's toe ring of awesome.
As for my healing style, I honestly couldn't tell you. I know that when healing 2 tanks (ZA ftw) I stack 3 lifeblooms and RJ constantly on both of them with some free time to spare healing the raid. Healing 1 tank bores me. When placed on raid duty I'll usually wind up keeping RJ and ocassional LB's on the MT anyway. Anything else becomes a blur, my brain goes on auto-pilot and heals whoever with whatever spell (usually regrowth + RJ, or a 2 stack of LB). Who said autism doesn't have an upside?
I think that I've got Tree healing down, and I think I'm doing extraordinairily well for the gear/content level that I'm at. Anyone have any suggestions for me? hehe.

 

BocaTB

To be honest, this is the approach to Druid healing that pesters me. The humanoid tank is kept up by our resto shaman who isnt even max rank spamming. All my Lifebloom would do is ramp me up a little bit on meters and raise his overheal margin. This would also take away from my healing on the Sentinel tank which needs all the extra health he can get. Full stack of hots + occasional swiftmend to top is require for Paladin tank.

 

rawrz

It doesn't take away healing from the Sentinel tank, which is the point. Unless you are spamming regrowth, between refreshing lifeblooms, rejuvs, and swiftmending you'll still have an extra GCD in your cycle.

 

BocaTB

Im not just healing the Sentinel tank. Most druids solo heal the Paladin tank while keeping max hots on the Sentinel tank assisting the Sentinel Tanks healer. I keep all 3 hots on both, and occasionally swiftmend the paladin to top him off. I see no point in taking away healing from tank that needs it in order to do nothing but drive up the overheal of the shaman.

 

Ruby Moon

You should improve your +healing. Now that your guild is on T6, will be easier to get nice improvements without gimping your spirit. The [Life-step Belt] and the [Grovewalker's Leggings] are awesome upgrades and are better than most stuff you'll find in T6 content. Also, winterchill drops some sexy leather boots: [Enchanted Leather Sandals] and it drops very often. Seeing you're a spirit lover you should try to get the [Ethereum Life-Staff] from Solarian or just abandon it a bit and get [Voodoo Shaker] along with the [Gavel of Naaru Blessings]; both are badge rewards.

In later content, the ToL Aura ends up being used way less than before, giving you the opportunity of gearing for spirit mostly for regen rather than the aura, and if you need the aura badly, you can just use the [Idol of the Raven Goddess] for boosting it up.

I'm mainly gemming for +healing and a bit of spirit to keep my regen at a desirable point, It's a nice path to go on T6.

 

• Arawethion

Assuming LB on the Paladin and VSent tank, and Rejuv on both, you have one free GCD each cycle. I really doubt that using this for Regrowth, a relatively small HoT, is more valuable than keeping a full LB stack on the door tank.

The strength of the Tree in this fight is buffering all the tanks against spikes and keeping them topped off between big direct heals. Solo-healing the Sentinel tank is near-impossible to impossible for anyone to do without Lifebloom. But with Lifebloom (and Rejuv most of the time), our Priest hasn't let the Sent tank go down in many, many attempts. Solo-healing the Paladin tank is easy, even while maintaining 3 LB's. I don't really see how Regrowth adds much in either of these situations. When you do want a bit of extra HP, there's Swiftmend, and even that I only wind up using maybe once/twice per attempt.

This might depend on the tank you're using, but on for example a Feral tank who has to take 2 Berserkers and the Mage for a short while, a bad double Flurry or a missed interrupt can lead to huge spikes. Lifebloom here helps out the healer a great deal. On the far side where there's no Lifebloom, the healer has to work much harder, and realistically it takes 1.5 healers to be safe.


Maybe I replied because of your comment, "this is the approach to Druid healing that bothers me." It's an "I'm a special teapot" argument. People bring a Tree to M'uru (to almost any fight in fact, but especially to M'uru) to buffer the tanks with HoT's. I'd love to hit all 4 tanks with LB and do nothing else if the positioning allowed, because that would be far and away the best help to the rest of the healing crew that I could provide (in fact, some groups do this).

Answers to Moonkin questions:
0) Read the TTT/use the spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-moonkin_pve_dps/
1) Maintain high DoT uptime. Use WiseEclipse.
2) Nothing beats 2T8.
3) Yes, sometimes you cast many Wraths and no Eclipse procs. Deal with it.

 

BocaTB

Our healing setup:
Melee side Humanoid Group Tank- Shaman A
Caster side Humanour Group Tank- Paladin A
Sent Tank- Priest A + Druid A
Paladin Tank - Druid A
Raid Healing Side 1- Shaman B
Raid Healing Side 2- Shaman C

A regrowth is required to keep the Paladin topped, mostly for the initial heal; this makes it not possible to add a third lifebloom.


Unless your tank healers are really really bad on the sides, they shouldn't need your lifebloom. Our shaman even downranks.

 

• Arawethion

Our healing setup is virtually identical, but the details of course depend on the precise details of your raid setup. Notably, what kind of tanks do you have on the doors, what DPS/CC are available, are you using a Polymorph, etc. A Warrior tank who's Spell Reflecting and getting a Berserker sheeped for him can take quite little damage. A Bear who's at risk of being double-flurried, however, really is easier with a Lifebloom.

I guess I don't know what the Regrowth on the Paladin tank adds. I doubt that I've ever cast one at him. His HP floats around so predictably that he's never in real danger of dying. Sometimes when a Sent spawns on top of him he takes some Pulses and sinks a bit, but again, it doesn't create a serious danger, just causes his HP to sit low. I Swiftmend him next cycle (I guess I could Regrowth him here; it's basically the same) and soon the Lifeblooms overtake the Spawn damage (and he's out of the Pulse) and he hits full HP again. I'm pretty sure he would actually be fine without the Swiftmend (LB would top him off once he was out of Pulse range regardless), but it's insurance against him taking a bunch of extra Pulses for some reason.

I can see how Regrowth on the Sent tank does add something; that healing task is always harrowing and sometimes it's hard to get him topped off. But that Regrowth is incredibly inefficient use of your GCD's--it only needs one GCD every 3 cycles (what do you even do during the other two cycles when you don't need to refresh Regrowth), but you're giving up a whole Lifebloom stack to get it.

Occasionally I am scared by the Sent tank's HP. But the issue isn't total HPS input; it's the danger of him taking another swing and dying before the next GHeal hits. I want his HP to go up now, not 2 seconds from now, so I Swiftmend him.

Answers to Moonkin questions:
0) Read the TTT/use the spreadsheet: http://elitistjerks.com/f47/t66856-moonkin_pve_dps/
1) Maintain high DoT uptime. Use WiseEclipse.
2) Nothing beats 2T8.
3) Yes, sometimes you cast many Wraths and no Eclipse procs. Deal with it.

 

Xantcha

M'uru healing is very dependant on how the fight is approached.

How many mobs are CCed?
How is the group positioning - we run one side very heavy, so raid healing is harder that side.
Which strat do you use to get sents/voids - one after another or concurrently?
How long does it take for you to transition/are you spellstealing/who has shadowpriests?
How fast is your dps on sides, how much "free" time does side tank healers have.

With our strat the paladin tank spends alot of time not taking damage and anything more than a single lifebloom stack is overkill.
Our sidetank on the heavy raid doesnt get as much healing from that raid healer, and can take significant burst. Since druids can't spell reflect fireballs, disarm flurries, stuns resist, spellsteal late.

Running a set rotation for rejuv isn't really optimal on m'uru since sent and paladin tanks have significant time not tanking while moving. Damage on side tanks also vary depending how many adds are up. You need to time your rejuv/regrowths smart so they are healing when healin gis needed and swiftmend is available when the tanks take spikes.

 

Caladia

Just started up a Druid, only level 30 atm. Though I've been reading everything I can on the proper way to heal, what stats and gear to focus on, etc.

I noticed that quite a few people setup 4-5 macros to roll their blooms. What's stopping someone from using a castsequence macro?

 

• giansm

You can't cast on arbitrary targets in a castsequence macro (try it).

 

Caladia

Never tried to use a target function in a castsequence, but thanks for the response.

 

charriu

Actually, you CAN set your cast target in /castsequence, tried it on monday while waiting for people to get back after wipes.

What you can't do is select different targets for each of the casts.

The macro above is not really usable on more than one tank, though. /castsequence seems to not be separated between different macros (so you'll cast Rejuvenation on the second tank instead of Lifebloom the first time you hit the button. Very confusing).

 

BocaTB

So, working with the gear I have now, and figuring out possible upgrades... it looks like optimal gearset endgame is going to give us 2710-ish +healing, with 220haste. This is without giving up virtually any bonus healing... however to push to 250 haste we will have to lose about 100 bonus healing. So, looks like our softcap on haste is 220.

 

rawrz

Won't socketing 3 +10 haste in place of spinels get you 30 haste at a cost of "just" 66 healing?

 

edrialyse

I have tried both Grid and Healbot, and for druids Honestly I don't think Grid is nearly as effective as Healbot. In addition Grid has over 22 "extras" to download and install, which for druids includes packages for lifebloom, hot timers, etc. All of these various 22 "extras" come pre-installed into Healbot, in one, tiny, easy to use, minimalist memory program.

What would make Grid so much better, and why isn't Healbot listed as an optional addon for use by druids?

 

halmmar

Use whatever you want as long as you don't break incoming heals for grid users...

Mystic Chicanery How to annoy all the other healers (without even realizing it)

 

edrialyse

Well thats the thing, incoming heals is one of those "extra packages" you get the joy of downloading for use with Grid. Why would you want to take up all that memory space?

 

halmmar

No, incoming heals are built into Grid. If you use healbot but don't download extra libs, you break the incoming heals for Grid users (but you can see who they are healing).
If you use Grid, you don't really need to download extra libs to do your job (just config it).

 

Rannasha

Why would Grid with separately downloaded packages take up more memory space than Healbot with all the stuff (and possibly things you don't need!) built in. Granted, initial setup is more involved, but in the end, a modular design pays off. Anyway, who cares about the memory consumption of addons these days when most pcs have well over 1GB of RAM?

 

Fieryeel

Got a major question about enchanting my cloak.

Firstly, I know Subtlety is good, but frankly a 2% threat reduction really isn't gonna help out much when I already have 20% threat reduction from talents. If I can pull healing aggro in a raid, usually it simply means my tank sucks.

Secondly, +120 armor isn't of much use too, when most mobs in endgame content can easily 1-shot me.

So it boils down to +15 SR, or +7 Resist All. Could anyone here share with me your opinion about whether +15 SR or +7 Resist All is better? Assuming I do 80% PvE, 20% PvP.

Thanks alot.

 

Sheshonk

You will get more use out of SR than all other resists combined in T6 content.

 

Haase

In BT&MH the SR enchant is better, but later in Sunwell the +7 to all could be better?!

 

halmmar

I disagree. On the fights where you want shadow resist, you just use [Night's End] with +15 shadow resist (you will have it crafted for mother anyway).
On supremus,illidari council and illidan, resist all is a lot more useful.

 

Rossaroni

On fights where you want SR you either put on Night's End with the Medallion of Karabor (Azgalor comes to mind) or you're doing Shahraz. You don't really need SR for any other BT/MH fights, although it helps here and there.