I did not raid in beta, I can't really say which talent is mandatory or not (Naturalist ? Really ?). But the maths I've seen popping here and on the beta forums all say this: Nourish sucks. You're better off spamming Regrowth. My build looks like this, I find yours very odd: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
A really sincere question: is Healing Touch good now ?
I did not raid in beta, I can't really say which talent is mandatory or not (Naturalist ? Really ?). But the maths I've seen popping here and on the beta forums all say this: Nourish sucks. You're better off spamming Regrowth. My build looks like this, I find yours very odd: Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
A really sincere question: is Healing Touch good now ?
Your build is exactly the same one I posted for a DS build. A mistake? And like I said, I just took Naturalist as a filler.
Well, my point is that in your build for example, you don't have improved ToL, making Lunar Guidance not really a "benefit" (in fact, it's worse). So basically you get 3% haste and 60 mp5 (40 in your build). You miss out on WG and GotEM at least, and gimp your HT/Nourish with it also. Making it ONLY better for heavy Regrowth spam. Therefore, I won't even consider speccing into it as I rather have all my spells being optimal than getting 3% haste and 40 mp5.
Assuming HT is worth using, I'll go with this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Otherwise, subtlety and replenish or celestial focus.
Skipping tranquil spirit doesn't really conflict with a DS build since it's only a discount of the direct heals, which aren't looking too bright at the moment.
Also I noticed you skipped Master Shapeshifter, 5 talent points for 4% healing might be a bit low but it's either that, subtlety (naturalist) or tranquil spirit.
Assuming HT is worth using, I'll go with this Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
Otherwise, subtlety and replenish or celestial focus.
Skipping tranquil spirit doesn't really conflict with a DS build since it's only a discount of the direct heals, which aren't looking too bright at the moment.
Also I noticed you skipped Master Shapeshifter, 5 talent points for 4% healing might be a bit low but it's either that, subtlety (naturalist) or tranquil spirit.
Yeah, all of those talents are pretty poor and I just took one a "direct healer" would take. HT might be useful though, with some haste and new base 3.0 sec cast, you can get close to a 2.0 sec cast which is also putting out high numbers. You can't downrank it anymore though, but 19% mana reduction might make it usable.
I agree that switching out living seed may not make that much sense when you're spamming regrowth, but in a sense it's not that much of a spam, because you can't. Right now on Murmur (with bad regen gear, I think if I had full heroic gear it'd be like 200+ spirit and 100+ int more) I took this build and it plays pretty similarly to how healing at 70 does although I'm trying to game OOC procs to stay out of the 5SR which is a little hard with hots refreshes, plus OOC likes proccing right when I'm about to cast a lifebloom or something lame, when I'd like to use it on regrowth every single time. If I had WG, I might use it on that.
Honestly it reminds me a little bit of early BC where I had to spec into an odd spec I didn't really like (healing touch at the time) because my throughput wasn't good enough for heroics and some 5 mans. However it's not like I'm losing out on a ton of abilities I'd be using or even miss that much (replenish is nice, not sure how much living seed actually contributes to my healing since I haven't checked it).
I don't use nourish (regrowth is better, even with glyph nerf, as discussed at length) and my HT heals generally consist of NS+HT when someone's hurting. I don't miss wild growth because I hardly used it anyway, and if I do get time out of 5sr, I find I can last a good while. Any fight that requires large throughput passed 3x lifebloom rejuv regrowth swiftmend will drain my mana pretty quickly. That said, we had a wonky Satharion kill where some people died and while I innervated myself with the first innervate, my second innervate went to a priest because I was ok with mana.
And healing touch is fine, I tried speccing for it and it kept up with a lot of tank damage better than a HOT build, but at the time my tank was taking so much damage that I couldn't last the whole fight in either spec, HT spec just delayed the inevitable. I agree that with a lot of haste it could be strong.
Last edited by Arcite : 10/01/08 at 3:52 PM.
Reason: elaborating HT comments
We are going to "run the numbers" again on Wild Growth and Nourish. What I mean by that is we'll do some tests and compare them to similar heals and to other druid spells.
Wild Growth was nerfed pretty hard and I have some confidence that we can bring it up, though probably not as high as it was before. We'll have to see about Nourish.
We don't want to mess with Regrowth much more since it is now a button that seems worth pushing. We're standing by our Lifebloom changes for now. It just felt like the solution to every healing situation that druids encountered. I suspect druids will still use it in its current form, but we'll see.
Sorry I can't offer anything more concrete than that. Making promises until I actually see the changes made can be pretty dangerous and just ends up frustrating the community in those situations where we can't deliver.
Improvements to wild growth are definitely welcomed.
No changes to lifebloom which is a bit disappointing but I'll live.
Also a good post on the beta boards comparing the efficiency of our heals:
I'm wondering what other people think about the accuracy of the statement "just felt like the solution to every healing situation that druids encountered." I've seen devs say similar things before, and it always struck me as strange since I don't really use it consistently for much aside from rolling on tanks. I only use it for spot healing every once in a while, mostly because it has no sizable direct heal and can't be swiftmended.
I'm wondering what other people think about the accuracy of the statement "just felt like the solution to every healing situation that druids encountered." I've seen devs say similar things before, and it always struck me as strange since I don't really use it consistently for much aside from rolling on tanks. I only use it for spot healing every once in a while, mostly because it has no sizable direct heal and can't be swiftmended.
It's largely accurate only in terms of Blizzard's wide audience and the resto-druid community as a whole. These changes are also being made for Johnny Walmart who does a couple Heroics everyday and wishes he could get into a Gruul run. Blizzard probably likes the idea of giving those folks "choices" rather than having an acceptably-effective and highly mana-efficient standout. As for people on this forum and reading this thread? Not as much. But I know a few good resto druids who spot-cast LB for raid heals simply out of laziness rather than using RJ or RG. It's less potent but does the job. It's analogous to a Holy Pally spamming Flash of Lights around. Currently, there's nothing else much better to do...
LB isn't optimal but it's arguably our quickest "flash" or "immediate" heal. The healing happens almost instantly and there's some immediate return on pressing that button. Some people respond to that. LB is so mana efficient that you can virtually chain cast it whereas you Might run out by chain-casting RJ or RG. You can pretty much get away with using it to the exclusion of our other spells in almost every level of content.
I like the idea of LB being changed into somewhat of a "background" heal rather than the flagship of our spec. It was the new healing spell at lvl 70, changed the paradigm, and now it's (hopefully) going to be replaced by something else. I just wish that something else wasn't RG.
Here are the changes we're making next patch. See how they feel.
Wild Growth: Coefficient and healing increased. Mana cost decreased. Cost should be about the same as Circle of Healing. It doesn't heal instantly, but will heal for about double what CoH does over its duration.
Nourish: Reduced mana cost by somewhere between 15 and 20%. This is supposed to be your Flash Heal, but we recognize that it doesn't have the same versatility -- you can't just drop one on a wounded rogue or something since you need the hot up first. Hence the lower price.
Druids have quite an arsenal of healing spells now, and it can be tricky to find niches for all of them.
I'm reasonably happy with the sound of these but I still think that WG is inherently flawed as concept and that nourish doesn't really fill in a role that needs filling, at least not for resto druids in tree of life form. Nourish will be considerably cheaper than regrowth outside of ToL, though.
If a rogue has lost such a small amount that Nourish is enough (about 25% of HP pool) then he's *probably* not in danger of dying and a much more efficient rejuvenation can be used (at least assuming proper healer communication where other healers pay basic attention to hots). If the target's lost significantly more than what nourish can heal it's probably still better to use regrowth unless it's almost certain that *all* future ticks of regrowth would be wasted. Getting even 1-2 ticks out of regrowth would still put it ahead of Nourish, not to mention that the target can then be swiftmended.
I'm reasonably happy with the sound of these but I still think that WG is inherently flawed as concept and that nourish doesn't really fill in a role that needs filling, at least not for resto druids in tree of life form. Nourish will be considerably cheaper than regrowth outside of ToL, though.
If a rogue has lost such a small amount that Nourish is enough (about 25% of HP pool) then he's *probably* not in danger of dying and a much more efficient rejuvenation can be used (at least assuming proper healer communication where other healers pay basic attention to hots). If the target's lost significantly more than what nourish can heal it's probably still better to use regrowth unless it's almost certain that *all* future ticks of regrowth would be wasted. Getting even 1-2 ticks out of regrowth would still put it ahead of Nourish, not to mention that the target can then be swiftmended.
Maybe in mana efficiency it is. But Nourish is faster and in dangerous situations you will want to heal people asap. Then again, a RJ+SM combo might be better, especially with GotEM. Also, given Regrowth's high crit chance a Living Seed 'buff' is also highly desirable in these situations. I hope they find some good use for Nourish/Healing Touch, otherwise our healing style will be very similar as in TBC, which I'm not sure I want for another 1.5 years.
I was reasonably happy to read both blue posts from GC last night and this morning, but I'm going to have to see Wild Growth for myself before I decide to spec into it. Before this announcement I had been planning to take a Nature's Splendor build at 70 and possibly a Dreamstate-Tree build at 80.
However, I still think they need to take another look at Lifebloom. It's a rotation-defining spell because of the need to refresh it in order to avoid massive mana waste. In the global scheme of things, 10 seconds is not actually much longer than 7. I'm expecting endgame boss fights to last 10+ minutes like they do now, and based on the numbers in the beta forum, it becomes crucial now to avoid letting needed stacks of Lifebloom fall off. On live, I probably refresh my stacks too early sometimes--it will now become important to wait to the last second to get the maximum HPM out of Lifebloom.
Right now, I'm planning on using Lifebloom post 3.0 as an MT-only buffer, and Nourish as primarily a tank topper-offer. For the most part, Regrowth is still better, but if a player has a HoT on anyway, Nourish becomes an option, particularly if I need to sneak something in before I have to recast Lifebloom. I'm not quite sure what to do now in a fight like Illidari Council, where my previous assignment had been to roll LB on all three tanks and then use my one free GCD for whatever. I guess that strategy is no longer viable!
How are the rest of you planning on using Lifebloom?
Nourish would be good if emergencies are highly isolated incidents, I agree.
However if people are constantly taking dangerous damage it's probably just better to pick them up with regrowth. When you bring someone from, say, 1k to 5k (7k with crit) and leave a 5k hot which brings them to 11k HP (over 27 seconds) that's a whole lot better than only picking them up to 25% and stopping there to heal someone else (of course if 5 other healers do this the target will go to 100%).
I suppose Nourish would have most merit when regrowth is already on the target and would thus override the previous hot. Ironically enough, the regrowth glyph is good for just that exact same situation. Nourish is good in the situations where flash heal is used which isn't all that often for priests even (who don't have regrowth competing for the spot).
EDIT: Lifebloom for me come 3.0 looks like a tool for healing people who take significant amounts of reasonably predictable damage over extended periods of time. It's efficient for tank healing and might be efficient to heal certain long duration debuffs. However, getting lifebloom to 3 stacks is quite expensive in terms of HPM so for most reasons having multiple druids use rejuvenation and/or paladin(s) just use beacon / flash heal would probably better for such situations (shamans can use riptide & bounce chain off that target and priests got renew & prom & the works).
I'm reasonably happy with the sound of these but I still think that WG is inherently flawed as concept and that nourish doesn't really fill in a role that needs filling, at least not for resto druids in tree of life form. Nourish will be considerably cheaper than regrowth outside of ToL, though.
If a rogue has lost such a small amount that Nourish is enough (about 25% of HP pool) then he's *probably* not in danger of dying and a much more efficient rejuvenation can be used (at least assuming proper healer communication where other healers pay basic attention to hots). If the target's lost significantly more than what nourish can heal it's probably still better to use regrowth unless it's almost certain that *all* future ticks of regrowth would be wasted. Getting even 1-2 ticks out of regrowth would still put it ahead of Nourish, not to mention that the target can then be swiftmended.
I tend to agree on Nourish. I can't come up with a scenario where I would choose to use it. If it is efficient enough, maybe it can be our Flash of Light - an efficient, small pseudo-hot on the tanks. If there's spiky random raid damage, however, I'd really rather use Regrowth - between Living Seed, the glyph bonus to future Regrowths on that target, the option for Swiftmend, and the bigger, more efficient heal, Regrowth wins on everything but cast time. If I don't have 2 seconds to cast a Regrowth before the target is going to die, I'd rather do a Rejuv + Swiftmend, which will be faster and much bigger than Nourish.
Regrowth just beats the pants off Nourish as a Flash Heal (reactive, fast non-tank heal). Nourish should probably be reworked into a better tank heal - maybe going back to the idea of increasing it for each hot on the target.
edit re:Lifebloom: one thing to keep in mind about rolling Lifeblooms - with talent + glyph, we'll be able to sneak in some time out of the 5 second rule between refreshes.
Very exciting news there ^ Wild Growth improvements and Nourish mana cost reduction.
Whether or not that will make Nourish something worth casting still remains to be seen. As far as healing touch being good or not, I think it's good. I didn't choose to Glyph it, and I don't think I will on live either. Considering it's such a great healing blast in "oh sh*t" situations, and we have many other options to fill the quick heal gap, I don't see the value in choosing that Glyph over the other very useful ones available.
I've been running with Glyphs of: Regrowth, Lifebloom, Swiftmend. I find the Swiftmend one extremely valuable. On live I will have 4 Major Glyph slots since my druid will be a scribe, but I didn't choose to level any tradeskills on Murmur.
With a 70-80% crit rate on regrowth, most of the time it will be just as fast as if you were casting nourish from nature's grace procs. Sure, if I have NG up my nourish will be super fast, but probably won't crit, meaning my second heal doesn't come any sooner than it would have if i had done 2 regrowths. Essentially for chain casting, regrowth only ends up being 1/4 of a second slower than nourish, on average, because it will proc nature's grace more.
Nourish's niche looks to be mana efficiency. With a 15-20% reduction it will cost approximately 18% base mana (without Tranquil Spirit) versus Regrowth's 21% (ToL + Moonglow).
Basically, it'll be used whenever more healing isn't necessary. Regrowth has a lot of bells and whistles but if they aren't needed then they aren't worth considering. This seems like a very small niche, but I think it's sufficient. Priests have plenty of heals which have purely situational uses (Binding Heal, for example) but are very useful in those situations. Mana efficiency will also be more import in Wrath.
A Nourish Glyph could change everything, or simply solidify its position.
EDIT: Fixed mana value for Nourish.
Last edited by Montegomery : 10/02/08 at 8:40 PM.
What I lack in intelligence I make up for in verbosity.
If nourish were included in the talent (Or this was added to a different talent) that gives regrowth its' 50% additional crit chance it would compare much more favorably. You could have regrowth up on the tank and use nourish as a mana efficient patch up heal while your hots are ticking, that also procs lots of small living seeds to increase the buffer that being a maintenence healer is meant to provide. It makes it better in situations without a hot on the target, because of the potential for living seed and a NG proc. I feel regrowth would still have its place because of the higher throughput with the glyph and the 26 second mild hot, while healing touch would maintain its position as extremely high throughput.
I only threw this out here, because the high crit rate is what seems to make regrowth better in all situations as opposed to some.
In high burst damage cases (dark barrage for one) there have been times when three hots ticking wasn't enough. BB is another example. Nourish gives us something to cast there that is mana efficient. Not the best niche but still something. In BC I would just refresh LB or cast a slow RG.
I'm not sure Tranquil Spirit should ever be factored in. The somewhat mandatory 11 points in Balance means you probably won't have the 5 points to spare for it.
I'm wondering what other people think about the accuracy of the statement "just felt like the solution to every healing situation that druids encountered." I've seen devs say similar things before, and it always struck me as strange since I don't really use it consistently for much aside from rolling on tanks. I only use it for spot healing every once in a while, mostly because it has no sizable direct heal and can't be swiftmended.
That. Regrowth IS already worth pressing on live, as the devs like to say. The mana reduction in 2.4 (2.3?) along with the spirit changes made it the heal of choice for raidhealing. Yes, lifebloom tends to be higher on healing done - about 65% to regrowth's 25% in my experience in SWP - but that's mostly because damage on tanks is very consistent and generates less overheal, along with 1sec ticks. If anything needs help, it's rejuv which loses unless you're facing very predicable, fixed paced damage (felmyst aura, fireblooms). GoTEM along with the LB nerf might have enough to promote its use, and it benefits from moonglow like RG.
I wouldn't count on 80% critrate on regrowth. Talented and with no crit gear it sits at ~60%, and gaining 20% crit is expensive (and wasteful in my opinion). Still, 60% crit-rate is nothing to scoff at and it makes nature's grace extremely attractive.
Scribes don't actually get another glyph slot anymore from what I understand. I think they get better shoulder enchants instead.
The nourish change should make it good enough to feel like a good heal to use on a tank that isn't being kept alive by your hots.
Ah! Very disappointing on the Glyph slot change. Shoulder enchants are all well and good but I was *really* looking forward to a 4th glyph.
I agree with suggestions of adding Nourish to Improved Regrowth (in fact I wrote an entire thread about it on the beta forum). I think that one simple thing would add a lot of desirability to it.
The mana efficiency increase is definitely welcome, but not quite enough.
10/01/08, 2:49 PM
Shoulder enchants are all well and good but I was *really* looking forward to a 4th glyph. 
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