Righty-o, so while reading through one of the Priest threads here, I come across the little gem that in 2.3.2, Bracing Earthstorm's requirements have changed from "More Yellow than Blue and more Red than Blue" to "More Red than Blue." WowHead Link: Bracing Earthstorm Diamond - Items - World of Warcraft

I didn't see any mention of this in the Druid threads, (my bad if it was) so I'm dropping this here. We no longer need to socket pure Teardrop with a token Luminous to activate this meta.

Did we all just miss this in the midst of the Lifebloom trinket change? Hehe.
Edit: It wasn't in the patch notes, or known issues, so I guess I can see how it was missed.

I have a quick question which I haven't seen answered yet, apologies if it has been.

My guild has 2 raiding tree druids, one of which would be me. I have the impression, however, that the guild leader believes that having more than one tree is superfluous, and so when we're both on only one of us will be taken to 25-mans, usually him because I'm lesser-geared atm. It's cool to bring 4 Holy Pallies, but 2 Tree Druids.. why would you need that? Is this viewpoint widespread? Justified? I'm rather curious.

On the other hand, it's possible that I tend to be left out because I'm still probably the least-geared healer of the group (1300 +heal vs. an average of 1800 for the veteran members), but I'm always in when I'm the only tree available. There aren't strict healing assignments, so I usually try to keep HoTs up on the MT and spot heal where I can, but spot healing is difficult when there's no healing assignments as your heals will get sniped... and I can see why in that case you might not want two tree druids, when our spot healing is limited. That's my impression..

Just wanted to make you aware of a new addon, that maybe should be added to the list.

It's called Lifebloomer and will keep track of players of your choise. You can see their health and keep track of hots in a frame, one for each target you want. you can target them through it and click cast.

Lifebloomer link

Its probably dependent on how he likes to assign healing, and what he(and probably the tanks) feel comfortable with. I prefer 2 trees to 4 paladins in most situations, but perhaps he prefers having those direct heals in the raid. In general however my preference for that extra healers spot is always towards an extra shaman or another COH priest. Are those options for your guild? As generally they would bring more to the table, encounter depending again.

No it wasn't, but I haven't seen any numbers come from it yet. More red then blue definitely means that we can stack +22 healing, but I'm not sure I'm willing to give up my other meta for it. Due to our chain casting, I believe that the meta is still worth 20 mana/5. (21.875 mana/5 for me on our last Illidan kill). Assuming a shadow priest, it's not that big of a deal, but the mana it returns is still pretty substantial. I'll probably keep using it over 26 +heal and reduced threat.



Having 1 is definitely nice, having 2 essentially removes the need to have any more then 1 other healer on the MT for most situations. For our guild, we have both druids stack HOT's on the tank(s). Usually we'll have 1 other healer with us, and between the rolling lifeblooms, swiftmends, NS and regrow HOT's all ticking, there isn't too much that hits the tank that we don't stabilize quickly. If you're just looking to highlight added benefits, 2 swiftmends, 2 more NS heals, 2 innervates, 2 battle rezzes are all good arguments. Figure out your HP/S with your gear and show how much you'd add to strictly maintenance heals (regrow HOT portion, rejuv averaged over 3 seconds, then added to your lifebloom sum.)

A few things you should be doing: Your gear has some definite low notes. You're in MH, don't expect everything to fall down and shower you. Show some effort in getting upgrades while you wait.
(PVE options)
1) Badges. Bracers can be replaced with Gargon's Bracers Peaceful Slumber, cloak with Kharmaa's Shroud of Hope, Natural Life Leggings for your legs, Gnarled Ironwood Pauldrons for your shoulders. Pick up Moon-walkers as well for your boots. Not ideal but a heck of a lot better then what you have now.

2) Mech. While waiting on badges for the boots, grab the pair from the chest with the 2 mini-bosses gems. The Cosmic Lifeband is also a good option (second boss). It's one of the higher +healing rings out there, with good mana/5 still.

3) Enchants. You have next to no enchants at all. 50 armor on your cloak? Nothing on boots, legs, gloves, helm? 7 stamina to bracers? Show some effort in making the best of what you have the best you can. Be serious about your raiding position. Right now I'm seeing a lack of trying with your gear. If I was creating the raid setup, that would definitely influence my decision to bring someone.

(PVP options)
1) Boots/Belt/Bracers - Decent amount of honor here, but all the pieces are great PVE gear, both for PVP stats and healing stats. Even if you don't like arenas, AV grinds should net you these pieces fairly easily.

2) Ring/Neck - Better then what you currently have, again good stats for PVP and PVE.

I've been 70 for about 3 weeks, using all my money atm to level up enchanting and then I'll put those mats towards enchants rather than buying my own (this should have been obvious.) Wasn't looking for a critique of my gear though, I know what I need to work on. I didn't ask what I could do to outgear the other druid.

Gearing all red for the maximum healing is hardly a new concept around raiding tree gear, honestly. The major change here is that is no longer strictly necessary to use ALL red (+1 yellow) instead of using some or mostly Royal gems. This opens it up to people who don't need as much regen as using all Royals AND IED, but needed more regen than all reds + Bracing offered.

The choice between Bracing and Insightful comes down to whether or not the extra regen is needed. The extra "value" of 20 mana/5 is actually 0 if you will not need or use the extra mana generated.

About the 2 druids question. We run with 2trees quite often, and we both do fine on healing. A 4th paladin is superfluous at best, the 4th blessing is rarely of any use, as paladins will usually set it so hybrids have the blessings they need for every spec, such as might salv wisdom kings on druids, feral boomkin or resto alike, and won't rebuff light for the stuff not needed on everyone. I don't blame them, this whole blessing thing is a mess really. Their heals mostly serve the same purpose as druids when on main tanks, aka non stop fol stabilizer+big heal when needed, the additional aura isn't very useful. So really besides their healing, they don't bring anything to a raid, and on most fights a druid can do the same healing job as a paladin, while still providing innervate and combat rez.

Another shaman or another CoH priest(or a spi priest if you don't have one), yea it'd be justified seeing how they bring interesting stuff on their own, but 4paladins instead of 2resto druids, definitely not. Unless the tank takes less than one lifebloom tick to be full hp after every hit on a boss fight, having 2 lifebloom stack is not wasted. It's actually much better, as it smoothes out spikes better than anything barring earthshield and prayer of mending, and those only work once every now and then.

However pointing how your gear is is actually quite related to your situation, if your gear was good/well enchanted and you came prepared, maybe they wouldn't always take a 4th paladin. It'd probably be a better idea to enchant your gear first, then level enchanting and sell the mats to cover what you spent in the first place, because it'd let you be more useful during raids. Oh and I had everything enchanted and gemmed ~4weeks after I hit 70, and I'm still using some of it, or was not long ago. I still have pvp neck/ring, badge cloak and primal mooncloth set, I replaced badge bracers this week, whitemend hood last week, whitemend pants 2weeks ago and living growth gloves(crafted) last week. I've been raiding for almost 2months now.




As for the meta discussion, I'll agree that while the mana regen one is pretty nice, I rarely find myself under 20% mana at the end of any given fight yet(5/5MH and 4/9BT), and I almost never drink pots either, so I'd probably start by doing that instead of getting a meta. However, I use healing spells all night, so 26healing is definitely something that I'd notice. I might even notice 2%threat seeing as how I pull aggro on trash every night with early swiftmends to save the tank life. Then again most of the time I'm way too far on threat for 2% to do anything, or 20% for that matter ^^.

I question why you would say an additional CoH Priest is a greater yield than a Resto Druid however?
Mt. Hyjal I can see no real encounter where the benefit is greater or even equal.
Black Temple you have RoS and perhaps Bloodboil (however Druids tend to be a safer choice due to survivability?).
I guess if you have your raid used to being specifically grouped up to enable the very best possible results it will go well but...

That's assuming I have the cash to enchant my gear and skill up enchanting, which I don't. But I guess I might take your advice and put off the latter. Guess it was pretty selfish of me to get epic flying, but whatever. It may be related to my situation but not my actual question, as I acknowledged in my first post that I was undergeared, and I wasn't asking how to address that.

Plus, I'm usually in the middle of the healing pack on WWS reports anyways, I would think that if it were purely a merit-based approach that that would could for more than my gear level.

About the gemming "dilemma", I have been doing a lot of thinking lately what would be best. The 26 +healing is actually better than you'd think, and here's why. In order to active the IED (mana regen meta), you need at least 2 of each color. The yellow gem is the biggest problem here. As there are almost NO yellow sockets on any of the druid gear, you have to "give up" a +healing 'part' of gem elsewhere. If you are socketing for bonuses, this means that you have to change two blue sockets from 11 +heal and 2 mp5 to 5 int and 2 mp5. So in order to activate the meta, you lose 22 +healing and gain 10 +int - I think we all agree 22 +healing is a lot better. If you are not socketing for bonusses, you still get the same, as instead of 2 "full" red gems, you need to use 2 orange gems, also losing 22 +healing and gaining 10 int.

Now a solution to this problem is socketing pieces with yellow sockets for their socket bonus. But there are only a few items that do have yellow sockets on them: Thunderheart Tunic, the Akama legs and Boots of Divine Light, so in order not to lose too many you would have to socket 2 of these for bonusses, where the boots relatively has the best socket bonus. That said, socketing the chest and the Akama legs with full red gems is really nice, but basically the IED prohibits you from doing so (on both) and therefore using the IED is actually a pretty bad "hit" (gemming either legs or chest for bonusses instead of full red gems will gain you 5 int and 4 mp5, but you'd lose 24 +healing).

Eventually, I chose to go for the "middle" way and did socket my gems for bonusses mostly, as our guild is rather low on red gems. More importantly, I am not socketing my gear for easy mode farm bosses, but for Sunwell, and in that case mana regen is atm a relatively bigger upgrade. (Losing ~40 mp5 for 118 +healing if I'd socket mostly red gems.)

Edit: forgot to post this list, it's:

[slot]: ([red gems gain vs socket bonus gain)]
[sockets]
[socket bonus]

head: (2 +heal vs 2 mp5)
blue
meta
9 +heal

shoulders: (15 +heal vs 4 mp5)
blue
blue
7 +heal

chest: (24 +heal vs 4 mp5, 5 int)
yellow
blue
blue
9 +heal

bracers: (7 +heal vs 2 mp5)
blue
4 +heal

gloves: (7 +heal vs 2 mp5)
blue
4 +heal

belt: (4 +heal vs 2 mp5)
red
blue
7 +heal

pants: (24 +heal vs 4 mp5, 5 int)
blue
blue
yellow
9 +heal

boots: (15 +heal vs 2 mp5, 5 int)
blue
yellow
7 +heal

So on boots f.e., if you'd socket it all red you'd gain 15 +healing. If you socket it for bonus you gain 2 mp5 and 5 int.

This is btw for 4x tier6 + Akama legs + Boots of Divine Light + Rejuvenating Bracers + Lifestep Belt and considering epic gems. Might come in handy if you want to check for yourself what gems would be best.

If you ever consdier gems with mp5 because you need the mana, then the insightful is worth it even in worst-case scenario with the requirements (as in, you simply trade 11X4 healing for 4 mp5 and 10 int, or 9X4 healing for 4 mp5 and 8 int which is actually a better trade). The insightful's mana gain VS healing lost is a much better trade than any other gem trading you could do even if you have to screw some other gems over.
Of course, if you don't need mana at all, you socket full 22/18 healing (and 1 heal/int) with a 26 healing gem as most seem to do. However the requirements for the insightful aren't nearly as bad if you actually need the mana due to the huge amounts it returns.

If you want a way to do the numbers for insightful for your own, assuming the data I've been seeing around (which seems to match my experience, although it's not enough to safely prove or disprove it) 5% proc rate per cast with no cooldown means you get 300/20=15 mana back every cast. Check what's your spell use ratio, see how many more you can cast (for example if your average spell cost is 400 mana, you can cast 300/285=5.26% more), how much mana you have (with everything you get in a raid taken into account, counting mana from mana pots, gear regen, and any other form of regen if applicible to your normal fight. See how much extra mana that percentage is and divide by fight length to get mana/sec (multiply by 5 for mp5). For example with the given average spell cost, if you had 50,000 mana on a 10 min fight the gem would've been effectively ~22 mp5. At the lost of 26 healing (or even 70) it would've been a good trade. Of course these are just example numbers I made up to show how the math is done and may be compeltely unrelated to your actual play, so do the math yourself.

Note that WWS is completely irrelevent for checking how much mana you actually gain from the meta (it can work to determine proc rate but not actual benefit) as if you didn't use all your mana you did not get the full mana returns from the meta and didn't really need mana in the firstplace and the meta was just useless anyway. WWS could only be relevent for determining this meta's value (beyond just finding if the proc rate is true) if you actually used all your mana in that fight and had your normal full consumeable use.

I've been running either without a meta or with Bracing the entirety of my career as a tree. Even in Hyjal and BT (We are 5/5 and 7/9 now) Mana is rarely if ever a concern for me. Mother Shahraz where I am having to do much heavier spike healing on the MT, and not in Tree form is the first time I can remember aggressively using consumables for mana in a very long time. (Outside of Kazrogal before we had SR craftables on healers).

If you don't chain pot, if you don't need an spriest group, and if you don't need your own innervate, but you're using IED, it's worth considering if you could pot instead and have more +heal for throughput where you need it.

There's other alternatives for the fights where mana is a little tighter other than 'permanently" gemming your stuff Royal/IED. I can swap from a static +heal trinket to Bangle if I want a little more mana on a certain fight, and with 11 sockets on my current gear out, lose less healing than If I had socketed IED or more/mostly Royals, but gain the flexibility to bangle for regen, or push higher +heal. I typically use bangle for Hyjal waves where I'm rolling on 4 tanks, and may not get the chance to drink between waves, or choose to keep healing people for those topping people off/last MCed necro moments if that allows the other healers to drink.

Now, if you actually need the regen from IED, by all means.

Greetings,

I'd like to request a little feedback from the Tree community with what may seem like a couple very minor gear choices, but the decision has been perplexing me lately.

Briefly, my gear situation/availability: I've recently started playing my Druid after spending most of my WoW career as a Protection Warrior. My guild is fairly casual, so for the purposes of feedback, please assume no 25-man loot is available (meaning I can get all 5/10-man loot, Badge gear, PVP/Arena gear, etc.).

As with the recent thread posts, my question revolves around the Insightful Earthstorm Diamond and the T4 2-piece set bonus, and the tradeoffs that would be made for one or both.

For T4, the only pieces I have access to are the Helm and Gloves. Along with other 10-man/Badge gear, I've narrowed down my choices for the Head and Hand slots to these four items: [Crown of Malorne] vs [Helm of Natural Regeneration] & [Handguards of Malorne] vs. [Light-Blessed Bonds].

Due to our progression and my general preferences, my socketing style tends to match sets where +7 or +9 healing bonuses are involved, and otherwise stick with red +heal only. Therefore, assume the socket requirements are a non-issue for IED. Also, for these purposes assume agro is a non-issue and therefore the AC from Light-Blessed Bonds is acceptable.

With sockets/enchants, I've calculated each of those items at the following stats. (Note: These values do not include either the IED or 2-piece set bonus procs, they are hard values. Also, the MP5 While casting is a combination of stats and data I've gathered, including returns on INT, Spirit given an average fight length and my common Innervate use, so ignore that if you wish.)

[Crown of Malorne]
STA: 28
INT: 43
SPI: 25
MP5: 17
Heal: 121
MP5 While Casting: 33.096

[Helm of Natural Regeneration]
STA: 33
INT: 43
SPI: 30
MP5: 9
Heal: 166
MP5 While Casting: 26.836

[Handguards of Malorne]
STA: 22
INT: 25
SPI: 24
MP5: 7
Heal: 97
MP5 While Casting: 19.652

[Light-Blessed Bonds]
STA: 21
INT: 26
SPI: 25
MP5: 2
Heal: 135
MP5 While Casting: 15.172

As you can see, the loss of +heal is fairly large by opting for the Malorne set pieces, hence my reasoning for this post. However, my initial calculations for the MP5 return on IED gives some interesting info.

Assuming a 2% proc chance (which is the value indicated by most sources I've found both in-game and out, save a post just above me ><), casting a simple two-tank rotation of Lifebloom, Rejuv, and a Regrowth or Swiftmend every 10ish seconds, I calculate I cast about once every 2.325 seconds, which comes to 12.93 mp5. However, in a spamming situation using nearly every GCD, I calculate a return of about 20 mp5.

That covers the IED basics for my setup, but unfortunately I can't find any strong data on the Malorne 2-piece bonus proc rate, but my initial inclination is to assume it's fairly weak at only 120 mana. Can anyone provide any insight into the proc rate and any internal cooldown?

At any rate, if anyone can provide any feedback or commentary on this dilemma, I'd appreciate it. One other possibility which I'm loathe to throw into the mix, but warrants mentioning, is that my Druid is an Alchemist and will soon have access to an [Alchemist's Stone], which I could swap in for one of my standard trinkets (a combination of one of: [Tome of Diabolic Remedy], [Essence of the Martyr], or [Battlemaster's Perseverance].) I find any fight where mana is an issue for me, I'm almost always chain potting, so the Stone would be worth ~30+ mp5, but of course I'd lose a huge chunk of +heal or static mp5 in the process.

Finally, obviously at some point I'll have access to all the items mentioned above and can swap in and out where necessary, but for now it's a choice that may last me a while.

Thoughts? Thanks much for your time.

Depends on your playstyle I guess. I wouldn't bother with T4, it's weak in my opinion, the set bonus doesn't save it. Even if you need mana, it'd still probably better to gear with the badge stuff, and drink more potions, especially if you're an alchy and can make your own. Also, the whole cloth thing, do use cloth whenever you can if it's better for that slot. There's not a single reason to use leather over cloth in pve. When I think I might pull aggro on trash or whatever, I use pvp gear(crit reduction, higher base armor, high stam), but for everything else I use mostly cloth.

So yea I'd go for the badge stuff, if you do ZA there's plenty of good cloth healing gear too.

Kulldam - you're thinking about [Light-Blessed Bonds], so I guess that you don't have anything against wearing cloth. Not long ago, I was comparing the same list of helms as you did plus [Cowl of Nature's Breath] (Grull) and [Hood of the Third Eye] (ZA), the last beeing in your reach. My conclusion was that [Hood of the Third Eye] is one of the best helms for a long time for someone in my/your level of progression.
To make it easier I will covert Hood's stats to your format:



[Hood of the Third Eye] (3x18Healing gems)

STA: 36
INT: 40
MP5: 13
Heal: 144

It's just like [Helm of Natural Regeneration] but with 13 MP5 instead of 30 spirit.
And 13 MP5 > 30 spirit for me.

At first it may seems that [Crown of Malorne] with set bonus would be better, but when you consider changing [Light-Blessed Bonds] to [Handguards of Malorne], you lose to much to justify it.

Bangle of Endless Blessings and Alchemist's Stone combo for most fights except RoS. +heal is not something I would over-prioritize, our standard raid gears have enough +heal by themselves. Bangle gives more mana than the ZA Tome, and the Tome's on-use is not too great with the lifebloom trinket nerf. As for mana issues, you could study your own rotation. Are you renewing lifebloom/rejuvenations too early (possibly compensating for latency/boss abilities) or too late, do you use regrowth (the less the better), do you pot very early and every cooldown, do you activate the bangle on meditation, etc.

IED in all my WWS is pretty much 300mana per minute, or 25mp5. It's not like you have a better option as bracing is pretty underwhelming.

First off, this is my first post ever, and while I have read the rules, I am certain there is a possibility of me overlooking one of them.

Second off, in regards to the meta gem options... I did not notice anyone mentioning the threat reduction on Bracing Earthstorm Diamond (+26 healing/2% threat reduction meta). How does the threat reduction work when stacking with talents and blessing of salvation? Would it be additive (.7x.7-.02)? Or multiplicative (.7x.7x.98)?

If it is additive, then it would be a relative decrease of almost 10% if used in conjunction with the subtlety enchant.

Threat reduction is always multiplicative. So it's 2%, regardless of how your are skilled, buffed or which other items you use.

I think your post contradicts itself. Always multiplicative, to me at least, would mean that if you have the meta and a Blessing of Salvation, your threat (T) would look like: T x .98 x .7 = T x .686
This would be a reduction in threat of 31.4% meaning the meta only contributed a 1.4% threat reduction because of the Blessing. To say that it always gives a 2% reduction would mean that the reductions are additive, so meta and Salv looks like: T x (.7-.02) = T x .68

I don't know which case is true, but I do know that healers should rarely (if ever) have to worry about their threat. Get new tanks if 2% threat reduction is influencing your decision of how to gem your gear.

What he means is that putting on the meta always reduces your threat by 2% relative to what it would be if you didn't have the meta. (i.e. 0.686 is 2% less than 0.7). If it were additive, then at the Salvation-only level (0.7 threat modifier) the meta would reduce your relative threat by 2.9%.

No, socketing the gem or enchanting Sublety results in 2% less threat than you produced before socketing/enchanting. Always. Same goes for all the other multiplicative buffs and skills.

The Talent Sublety reduces your threat by 20%, no matter if you have any enchants, gems or buffs. It is always 20% less than without the talent.

The additive behaviour could not be expressed with simple percentages, you would have to add an "up to" or "of your base threat" to the tooltip.

Regardless, the last point is correct, 2% more or less threat do not make any difference for a healer. It is just a bonus to a 26 +heal meta-gem. In those cases where you are likely to grab aggro (e.g. Morogrim's Murlocs), 2% are not enough to save you.