grimtage

I do believe that the thousand and one different fears that encounters (and pvp) offers depend on your Shadow Resistance. So if you're looking for an enchant other than subtlety (which could potentially stop you from grabbing aggro from your initial lifebloom tick whilst a tank goes in) I'd have to suggest Shadow Resistance, based purely on the fact that it might just save your ass from a fear, but probably won't.

 

Arentios

Excluding Archimonde, I can't think of a single fear in boss level encounters at the T6/Sunwell levels. There's definitely some trash that fears, but enchanting based on trash seems like a silly idea unless it's some realllllly obnoxious trash.

Anyway, mentally flipping through Sunwell encounters, for non-shadow resistable abilities of note, and I'm almost certainly missing a few in both the non-shadow and shadow categories, I can think of Arcane Buffet (fully resistable), Burn (fully resistable), and Encapsulate (partially resistable). I cannot confirm/deny the resistability of Fire Blooms once applied (the initial application is non-resistable), but I'm fairly sure that Flame Sears on Twins are not resistable, and the same with Flame Darts.

Compared to only shadow which has Shadowbolts on Kalec, Shadowbolts on KJ, Shadow Nova/Fury on Twins.

 

rawrz

 

Elkoniord

Kil' Jaeden's Legion Lightning is also shadow damage and atm is the primary reason why im using a SR enchant on cloak and Chromatic Wonder flasks. The 2% threat reduction is a minor advantage to trash clearing and only usefull to avoid initial lifebloom aggro from Felmyst's skeletons. But as someone said above if u are enchanting cloak with 2% threat reduction because u have aggro problems it would be a good alternative to enchant yout tanks with skill

 

Xanil

Deleted.

 

• giansm

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. On live, at least, Tranquility's coefficient is next to nothing (a Feral's Tranquility heals for quite a lot even with no bonus healing).

 

Ameyy

I know how you feel, except on council, it's quite easy to top healing if you keep lifebloom x 3 on two tanks (the main tank, and the tank tanking the (priest or rogue, i forget?) you should efficiently be able to stand inbetween them. same goes with the akama main tank and left or right side offtanks.
try and focus on keeping 2 out of the 3 tanks fully hotted with lifebloom and rejuv and one tank just rockin' the lifeblooms.
it really works. ^-^

and target tank macros are beast.

btw, used to play mag, /wave

edit: Lifebloomer is an awesome mod for resto druids. It shows how many lifeblooms you have on the tank(s) and how long it will last, along with a green and purple line showing how long you have left on your regrowth and rejuv. It's pretty much down to the last millisecond. I recommend it for all resto druids.

 

Relinor

I'm running over some old ground here but it came up recently ingame whilst talking about gear-up with one of my trialist Resto Druids.

The issue? Stacking Spirit or +healing?

I read these forums ofc, and my view was that getting as high +healing as possible was the best option - the result is obviously stronger personal heals. The only reason to gem/gear towards Spirit is if you are struggling to retain mana. Personally I have chosen items which provide the most +heal, and then aggressively gemmed 22+ healing. I run with Grid/Clique and aim to be casting a heal every GCD for every encounter and always show high on activity counts. Lifebloom is approximately 70% of my healing output (most of the time, it can be more/less depending on the encounter) and I do not ever have mana issues, I very rarely pot - this is imo because of how cheap LB is - I would ofc struggle if I tried to use Regrowth/Rejuv in situations where I usually use a single LB - IC is an intensive fight for me as I Regrowth everyone who ever gets the Rogues Poison, as well as being an MT healer and finding spare GCD for LBing the raid generally. I sit on 2347+ healing and 527 Spirit (222mp5) unbuffed atm.

My trialists old guild CL said Druids 'must' have +700 spirit unbuffed as a minimum. When I looked their best Druid has +130 less healing than me and +200 spirit more. This specimen has several SWP items I don't have access to yet. I am interested in this difference of opinion because this guild is meant to be a level above mine, and so I would have thought they are doing things in the min/max best way, no grey areas etc.

Is there a point to stacking Spirit so heavily? It must make you a less effective individual healer - if at 500 Spirit you do not need to pot, then anything above that number is wasted in that sense. Pots should be factored in as part of your normal regen imo. I could only think that this is done to be put in the Tank group and provide more +heal from the ToL aura - but since you only gain 25% of spirit, you have to stack an awful lot of spirit for it to make a noticeable difference. 700 unbuffed spirit = Approx. 200+ healing from raid buffed ToL (No Imp. DS). 500 unbuffed spirit - Approx. 150+healing. Its quite a big tradeoff imo.

When I look over NIhilums Druids, they all have around 500 Spirit, despite ofc having some of the best gear available.

Have I missed any angles? Am I correct (or at least following the more 'common' preference) to be telling my Druid team that +Heal is the far better stat to push for and that Spirit is something which just comes along with gear improvements?

 

Univirsul

I can't see any use for a druid needing anywhere near 700 spi, anything you may get from either gemming or just gear in general should be more than enough. Unless you find you are running out of mana an excessive amount gemming for spirit is relatively useless other than a handful of healing that you may give to the people in your group (which most of the time is a shadow priest and probably some other healers or dps that really don't need it) but the amount that you actually receive from that excess of spirit is pretty much useless.

So unless for some strange reason you find yourself running oom all the time I can't see any reason not to go for the aggressive +heal gem style, and if that doesn't work then just replace some of the 22s with 11 heal 5 spi to balance out your mp5.

 

Sheshonk

There is no reason to stack spirit up to 700 (or any set number for that matter).

+Heal vs Spirit ToL Comparison

In a nutshell though, stacking +heal puts out more personal raw healing than the combined bonus of to your entire heal roster by beefing up ToL aura.

There are only two reasons I can think of for a 700 spirit requirement. First, The heal officer is greedy and wants to push his personal heal numbers. Second, nobody has ever ran any numbers on ToL aura and believes because the aura is a defining characteristic that sets druids apart from other healers, that it must be worthwhile to boost.

The only reason to stack spirit is to increase mana regen, boosting ToL aura is just icing on the cake, but by no means something to seek doing. Spirit, of course, is a better method of increasing mana regen than stacking mp5.

 

Lailoken

For my own gear I aknowledge the tree buff, but I treat it more as a bonus than something to stack gear towards. For instance, when presented with the choice, I kept the [Nordrassil Headguard] rather than pick up the [Guise of the Tidal Lurker]. If you don't consciously ignore spirit on your gear and don't consciously stack it you should end up around 500-600 naturally.

With gems the way I pick whether to go for the 11 healing/5 spirit vs. the 22 healing is simply by checking the socket bonus and breaking it down . For instance on the [Thunderheart Helmet] the difference between 11 healing/5 spirit and 22 healing is 2 healing vs. 5 spirit. 5 spirit is obviously worth more than 2 healing is. With most druid healing items the difference tends to favor the 22 healing gems, so I tend to stack those more often than not.

 

Maraili

My guild is going to start doing Bloodboil soon, after a few attempts at him just to see how the fight went. Our plan is to have another resto druid and I focus almost exclusively on the BB soak groups while the other healers concentrate on the tanks/fel enrage. I'm torn though on whether I should use my haste gear, or my regular resto gear for the fight.

Haste gear:
1992+ Healing
237 Haste (15.1% faster cast, ~1.3 s GCD)
161 mp5

Resto gear:
2105 + healing
63 Haste (4.01% faster cast, ~1.44 s GCD)
216 mp5

I'm leaning towards using the haste set despite the lower mp5 (I have the alchemist stone and I'm used to chain potting), but if anyone who is more familiar with the fight has any suggestions or thoughts then I would love to hear them.

 

halmmar

I think it's a bit better to have a CoH priest on the BBoil people. If you only heal the boil people, go for your regular +heal/mp5 set (mine is 113 spell haste). Use almost exclusively regrowth unless your shaman/priest tops the groups, roll a lifebloom on the tank with the highest wound count (helps to be in tank party/channel for this).

What I used to do on him was set him as the focus target and have 4 macros keyed.
Lifebloom tank #1
Lifebloom tank #2
Lifebloom tank #3
Focustarget (/cast [target=focustarget])

Roll 3 lifebloom on tanks, cast a rejuv/regrowth on bboil's current target. With this setup I could easily heal the tanks alone during fel rage (and have RJ/RG on the little clothie in case he needs swiftmend).

--

@tubster: Merciless Gladiator's Kodohide (battlegrounds) is probably the fastest set to attain.
Magister's Terrace has tons of good healing drops (and is very easy to heal as tree), so farm heroic mode for a week or so: [Kharmaa's Ring of Fate] [Eversong Cuffs] [Rod of the Blazing Light] [Vial of the Sunwell] are all good entry-level items

 

Relinor

We run with two Druids dealing with the Bloodboil debuffs. I will Rejuv the effected party from bottom to top, and the other Druid from top to bottom. You can get about 6 casts in per 10s which leaves you with one spare cast to apply to someone from an earlier Bloodboil party who has not yet reached full HP. I use Rejuv over Lifebloom because it is more consistent and lasts 5s longer. The LB tick can overheal the first couple of targets as they haven't yet taken much damage. Using Rejuv a lot is very mana intensive though, so pot as soon as you can, and expect to innervate and possibly pot again if its been a tough attempt.

We also have a Shaman assigned to topping people up just before the AOE at the start of Phase 2, and during Phase 2 the Shamans will channel Chain Heal through the Fel Rage target. The two Bloodboil Druids will make sure to stack LB on the Fel Rage target whilst gradually bringing the rest of the raid back up to full HP.

 

rawrz

What? Why would you have druids on bloodboils when there are priests and shamans that can heal with less effort - with spells actually designed to group heal?

What halmmar suggested in a post above you is a much better ultilization of a druid's spells. There is no other class in the game that can output a steady and sustainable ~900 HPS to up to four targets simultaneously. With two druids, thats 1800hps on each tank. Having two druids stay on the tanks during fel rage allows all non-active bloodboil healers to spam the crap out of the fel rage target.

 

biff

I don't know what your (or our) Tanks are doing, but for me there was never enough to Heal to justify Lifebloomstacks on all of them, most went into Overheal. I rather heal DoTs with HoTs and put my Mana into some use and take the burden from all the strong singletarget Healer. The Lifebloom final Heal is awesome for BB.

But i guess it mostly depends on what other Healers are in the Raid.

 

halmmar

In phase 1, you will always have 1 tank with ~9 stacks of wounds trying to get rid off them, one tanking bloodboil and one with 1-2 stacks on him to get rage.
At 9 stacks, the tank takes 900 damage/second, which justifies a lifebloom stack with ease. The guy tanking bloodboil is easily justified. The third guy will take damage when bloodboil disorients - having a lifebloom already set up makes sure the tank is topped and gives some extra reaction time for the other healers.

If we can agree shaman/priest is better than druid at healing the bloodboil, that leaves druids and paladins for the tanks. And paladins are one-trick ponies, spamming heals on a single target. So that pretty much leaves rolling lifebloom on 3 tanks (since 2 of them will need some heals, and chain heal is likely to bounce onto someone with the bloodboil debuff).

If you actually read up on the fight, you'd know the hardest part is phase 2. In the end of the phase, the tanks have heavy DoTs ticking on them, while the fel rage target will need some strong single-target heals. If you let a druid HoT up the tanks, all single-target heals can be focused on the player that matters the most.

 

Dynalisia

That's right, it basically comes down to considering how to put your healing team to the best use, not how to put yourself to the best use (naturally you are still part of that healing team). If you get an assignment that allows you to be more effective yourself, but the overall effectiveness of the healing team goes down as a result, something went wrong. And yes, sometimes the two line up perfectly, but sometimes they don't and sometimes it doesn't really matter either way.

 

Eilt

I was actually hoping to get some other EJ reading druids opinions on end-game ring choices. First let me say I have read the loot ranks and I am one of the red list followers. I socket everything with 22 heal and take what spirit is on the gear for my Aura.

My big problem is how to weigh procs on items, I am debating on going with 2x [Ring of Harmonic Beauty] Or with one [Ring of Harmonic Beauty] and keeping my exalted Hyjal ring as my second ring [Band of the Eternal Restorer]. What are the other druids out there using at this gear level, and is there a reason you chose one over the other?

 

• giansm

I use my jewelry to get some haste, mostly since I find it's useful in 0- or 1-lifebloom situations for getting Regrowths and Swiftmends in faster, and in 3-lifebloom situations for getting in a Regrowth as the fourth spell in the cycle if necessary. As such I usually use these rings: [Band of Lucent Beams] and [Blessed Band of Karabor]. I don't really like the Hyjal ring, since that buff is only up about 25% of the time and it's not the most reliable thing in the world. I think the best way to go with rings is either spirit or haste, while still getting the highest passive +healing that the ilvl can provide.

Basically in most situations I would suggest using either 2x[Ring of Harmonic Beauty] or 2x[Blessed Band of Karabor], whichever you think will benefit you the most (this depends on whether you are in a tank group, how much healing that tank needs, and what kind of assignment you are doing). Personally, like I said, I almost always go with the haste rings.

 

Eilt

I reserve a haste set for trash to be able to get that swiftmend off just a little quicker, and shorter regrowth etc. etc. but on boss fights I am usually in the MT group so I guess I should go ahead with t 2x [Ring of Harmonic Beauty], it is just going to be hard to get over not seeing a eternal band proc at the same time my essence of the martyr is used.

I know it is silly but at 2400 healing unbuffed in the right group make up seeing the healing go over 3k on procs and a totem is always nice.

So haste rings for trash; 2x [Ring of Harmonic Beauty] for bosses.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Fieryeel

Amusing. The link to your post shows a quote of mine which was a question I asked four months ago. Sure brings back memories.

And now that my gear is better, my experience is much higher, and I have gained much skills, I would just like to thank you again for giving me those advise, because you were right. I ran more numbers, and stacking spirit is definitely not worth it.

Currently to all people asking Spirit or Heals?

My formula is quite simple...look at the item.

For items that has yellow sockets...you can pretty much just throw in full +22 heals. Yellow sockets do not help us at all.

For items with a mix of red and blue sockets, look at the socket bonuses. If the socket bonus is spirit...go for full +22 heal gems. If the socket bonus is heal, start calculating then. Spirit is not that useful, but it is not useless either. If the bonus heal + 5 spirit > +11 heals, then I would go for 11 healing/5 spirit gem.

If that sounds confusing...look at the Life-Step belt. It has a red socket and blue socket and a bonus of +7 healing. I now add 7(healing) + 5(spirit) = 12. That's more than the extra 11 healing if I were to use a teardrop crimson spinel, thus I determine it is indeed worth using 11 heal/5 spirit.

In higher raids, resto druids almost never run oom. If we do run out of mana? Just pot.

PS: And to the earlier question of what enchant for the cloak...after looking at raid bosses of MH/BT/Sunwell, I have determined that +15 SR is definitely the way to go. As impossible as this sounds, I have indeed noticed a slight difference as in I am resisting more spells and silences.

 

rawrz

That's true - I think most fights in the game are forgiving enough to not require a specific class for anything. It also doesn't take into account the composition of your healing team, nor each individual's competence.

But on the other hand, I also don't think "I heal this way because this is my assignment" is a helpful stance. More often than not, druids are misunderstood and underultilized by healing officers, resulting in suboptimal assignments. If you heal your assignments, you'll always be playing below potential. For me, it was worthwhile to take the time to explain to officers what my optimal assignments are.

Healing is not zero-sum - you CAN be more effective without making others less so. In fact, by making yourself more effective in one area, you are freeing up other healers so they can become more effective in their own.

 

Fieryeel

To tell the truth, healing out of your assignment might have a negative effect.

Take my example, even though druid healing isn't optimal for tank healing on Brutallus, it does help to an extent.

When my raid was on Brut, it just so happened that burn victims were a chain of Pallies, Rogues and Mages. Thus there was hardly anyone who needed burn healing, and both of us resto druids went to help with tank healing instead.

This surprisingly turn of luck went on for several attempts as we wiped to enrage. It just so happened on the 4th pull, burn were suddenly intensive, as other classes were hit.

It appeared that the tank healers had gotten complacent, as the job seemed easy(which was in fact, due to both trees helping out), when we suddenly stopped helping to heal the tank, the tanks died.

The problem is, we usually run with the same type of healers in the past, and it was then when I realized that by helping to heal the tanks which was out of our assignment, we had unintentionally created an illusion that tank healing was easier than it seemed.

It is just a thought, but unless it were trash pulls, I wouldn't usually heal out of my assignment as I do not want other healers to get a false impression on the amount of damage their heal targets are getting. I have encountered other healers on vent exclaiming, "Why isn't the tank taking damage?" when there was in fact, double stacks of LB and Rejuv on the tank(as our assigned targets were full on hp, so we "helped"). In a raid, where there could be as many as fifteen buffs on a tank, it's hard to spot the LB ticking.

 

rawrz

My point was to not heal out of assignments, but to help officers make ones that correctly take advantage of a druid's strengths.

Also, since there can be no more than 3 burns up at any one time (unless people spread it), it is entirely possible to keep the current tank inside your lifebloom rotation even if you are on burns.

And really, two stacks of lifeblooms add so much to a tank's survivability that assignments should've been made in such a way as to capitalize on that to begin with.