On a Tank and spank, how much up time should rip have?

As far as I can gather from other posts, you shouldn't be doing 4 point rips if you can avoid it. The only time I am doing less than 5 point rips is if there is about to be a transition change, boss going to die soon, etc.

doing 5 point savage roar and 5 point rip eventually gets you into trouble with collisions. I try to maintain a 2-3 pt savage roar and 5 point rip rotation.

It should be up a lot of the time. The only issue is that you should prioritize savage roar over rip and it's more DPS to shred at 5 cp and wait to refresh rip than it is to rip prematurely. Sometimes you will have SR and rip coming up at the same time. I would shoot for at least a 90% uptime.

I am starting to play my druid again after not having played her since TBC. I am a feral kitty, and looking for info on just general leveling/grinding. What's a good dps priority / "rotation" to use? Rawr says I should use Savage Roar etc, but I obviously don't have that ability at level 70.

A fellow druid said to just FFF + mangle spam at this point, but not sure if that's really the best use of energy. Ideas?

(More specifically, Rawr said -> Keep 1cp Savage Roar up. Keep Rake up. Keep 5cp Rip up. Keep Mangle up. Shred for combo points.)

Hi, I'm relatively new to being a Druid and this particular section of the forums so if this is in the wrong place or something please be gentle with me.
My guild has found ourselves short on healers due to people choosing other specs and/or quitting WoW, so I decided to level up my druid to help out with the healer deficit. I've religiously played my rogue for years and never leveled another class above 20 until my druid, and now, as I come within a week of 80, I'm having a bit of trouble finding "beginner" resources for this class.

I was hoping for something equivalent to Vulajin's Rogue PVE DPS guide.

I spent a long time "doing it wrong" as a rogue and being referred to his guide and subsequently these forums changed the way i played my class and the game.
So I'm just trying to get off on the right foot with my Druid but most everything I'm finding is a little above my knowledge level on this class. I'm just looking for the bare-bones yes's and no's of the class so i can feel a bit more like i know what everyone is talking about when i read the other resources here.

Is there any preexisting article like this that anyone knows of?

All the time you spend finding out the best rotation for cat leveling you would have spent leveling Just whing it. I usually either pull, charge in or walk, mangle spam (an early rake is nice too) and finish with FB.
One thing I do (nearly fully naxx geared at this point) to solo at 80 is mangle, rake (mangle till 3rd CP if not already there) and finish with Rip. Move on to the next mob while the current one still hits you. Let him. He's dead anyway. He just doesn't know it yet. It saves time you have to run back to loot it and you don't loose all energy as you would using FB. Meaning you can kill faster. You get some more damage, but hey... just use the mana you got from crits to throw yourself a heal once in a while.

None that I know of, though you could glean most of what you need from separate sources. I'll link some useful threads and try to fill in the gaps.
Resto pre-raid gear Equipment from quests, heroics etc that will get you a great start.
Restoration Glyphs Glyph choices (I'd recommend Lifebloom, Swiftmend and Regrowth)
Raid Rx: Unkicking butt (a Grid story) - WoW Insider This should help you set up Grid, an absolutely essential addon.
Resto UI Discussion For any additional UI issues, especially if you can't get something working with Grid.
Druid Gem Compilation Gems to choose from. Go with Runed Scarlet, Luminous Monarch, Royal Twilight (or Purified Twilight if available on your server). Meta should -always- be Insightful Earthsiege Diamond, the mana proc is amazing.

First of all, being a Resto Druid isn't as cut-and-dry as dps, as there isn't really a practical way to measure success other than "nobody died" (don't pay much attention to healing meters). There is rarely a "best" way of doing anything. You'll find lots of conflicting opinions, and lots of different options to choose from. I'll steer you in a direction that will at least make sure you're being effective; there's will be room for improvement. I'm sure somebody will come in and say I'm wrong about X or Y. They will probably be right, since this post looks like I'm recommending a best method, when in reality it's more of a beginner's guide.

-=- Spells -=-
Descriptions assume you have the related talents/glyphs.
Rejuvenation An 18-second HoT. Extremely efficient not only for healing missing damage, but pre-healing damage you know will come in the future. Always keep one on the tanks, and I'd recommend using it to heal any periodic raid damage.
Lifebloom A stacking HoT which lasts 10 seconds and ticks every second. When the HoT expires, it "blooms" for a decent heal. You'll see druids use the verb "roll" which means to make sure a 3-stack lifebloom doesn't expire from the target. You only want to use this spell in that fashion: keep a 3-stack on a target who will be taking frequent damage (a tank). Sometimes you might need to use it as an extra HoT on somebody when Rejuvenation isn't healing enough, but those situations are infrequent.
Regrowth Direct heal with a very high crit chance. Leaves behind a 27 second HoT. This is your #1 go-to heal when somebody needs health now.
Nourish A quick, direct heal. Generally overshadowed by Regrowth, but it may find occasional use.
Wild Growth A 6-second HoT which gets applied to 5 people. It picks the targets with the least health that are in range of your target. 6-second cooldown. This is a great use of mana and time when a group of people are missing health.
Healing Touch This doesn't have much use outside of a big emergency heal in combination with Nature's Swiftness.
Swiftmend Another emergency heal that requires Rejuvenation or Regrowth HoT on the target, with a cooldown of only 15 seconds. Don't be afraid to use the cooldown on this, it's better to be cautious. If it looks like a person has even a small chance of dying before you can get a Regrowth off, use this. Grid will tell you if the target has the required HoT on them, but chances are very high they do.


-=- Equipment -=-
You can read about the effects of each stat here: Restoration Itemization
-feel free to wear cloth or leather.
-Spellpower, Int and Stamina will come on everything. You generally don't need to worry about it or count how much is on the item. Higher level items will have more of it.
-The "extra" stats that come on gear are Spirit, Haste, Crit and Mp5. No gear will come with all 4 of those extra stats. Stuff from quests and Heroics may have just 1, while stuff from raids will have more. Spirit is the best of the four, no question. Mp5 is next, followed by Haste and then Crit.
-Unlike a rogue, our global cooldown (GCD) is 1.5 seconds. Haste will decrease this to a minimum of 1 second. Having enough Haste to reduce the GCD to 1 second is important, and will eventually come with gear.

So basically just shoot for high level gear that has Spirit. After that it gets a little more nuanced, but no item will be a waste. The numbers game isn't as important as a healer. Once you're having to decide between different pieces of ilvl 213 or 226 raid gear, go for Spirit+Mp5 first, Spirit+Haste second, Spirit+Crit third. At that point you will have enough haste to reach 1s GCD.

-=- Talent Spec -=-
Here are the core talents everybody (should) take: 11-0-51 Restoration
(I added 1 point in Living Seed to be able to get to the bottom of the tree. You should have 10 points left, not 9.)
Here are your effective options for the extra 10 points:
Nature's Grace .5 cast speed increase after crit.
Celestial Focus Increased haste.
Living Seed A small on-hit heal buff after a crit.
Natural Perfection 3% crit.
Replenish A chance for extra mana/energy/rage/runic on Rejuvenation heals.

Which talents you go with depend on your healing style. Heavy Regrowth users will probably benefit most from Living Seed and Nature's Grace. Heavy Lifebloom/Rejuvenation users will benefit more from Celestial Focus and Replenish. Using any direct heal often (Regrowth, Nourish) will benefit from Natural Perfection.

Replenish is seen as not very effective unless you're a -very- heavy Rejuvenation user. Almost everybody takes Nature's Grace. You can check other Druids' specs by clicking on their character's name on this forum to get an idea of what other people use.

-=- Which spells to cast -=-
Everybody seems to have a different style of healing. Most work fine. Which spells you use depends on your healing assignment and the fight mechanics. The only one to stay away from is Healing Touch spec. That one would spec into Naturalist, Empowered Touch (and maybe some points in Tranquil Spirit) and use the Healing Touch glyph. That glyph makes HT like a flash heal. I'd recommend maybe toying with that just to feel it out, but don't seriously consider it for raiding. It's less effective than other styles.

Direct heal: Regrowth vs Nourish
You can probably find some good posts comparing these abilities. Essentially Regrowth is more efficient on average, but Nourish is a quicker heal and more consistent. It's up to you which to use, though most people go with Regrowth. Either way, you don't have to make this choice until you have access to 4pc tier7. Without that set bonus, Regrowth wins hands down.

Tank healing: always have Rejuvenation and Lifebloom x3 on the tank. Those spells are extremely effective and efficient. If you're assigned specifically to heal a tank, you'll want to supplement those with either Regrowth or Nourish.

Raid healing: Rejuvenation and occasional Wild Growth. Rejuvenation makes the perfect raid heal; it's extremely efficient and only takes 1 second to apply. It shines for periodic damage, but if somebody takes a sudden 10k hit from a whirlwind or something, go for Regrowth instead (or swiftmend).

It's difficult to know what heals to use and when by reading a post. You really have to get a feel for it, so you can look ahead and know what will be most effective in any given situation. With Grid set up and the right spec/equipment, you will do OK as long as you pay attention.

Spells get partially resisted - This is nothing new.
On average you loose like 3.5-4% to it.

Is it possible to re-use the old style powershifting macros, to cast tiger's fury when energy is lower than 40?
http://elitistjerks.com/745827-post3632.html

I had a brief go with it, and couldn't get it to even work like it used to, with it set to cast either mangle or cat form depending on my energy. I suspect they changed something so its not possible to use this style of thing any more.

Well, I couldnt remember any article for a druid, that is for the WotLK basics, but I will try to help out with what I can tell you about druid healing:

So as you are a beginner here is what I would say is the most important thing to know: Your strength are HoTs (Heal of Time).

Look at your skills: rejuvenation, lifebloom, regrwoth, wild growth. all you depend on is HoTs. Now one might argue wether Glyphed HT could make you a good direct healer, like flash healing priest, but you wanna know basics.

So well, since you make no specific questions I will assume you want to go raiding or instances, so heres the basics:

You have to keep your HoTs rolling. Which one is what you have to decide. Since WotLK the druid got a larger flexibility than ever and perhaps than any healing class.

Keeping HoTs rolling means, if they run out, renew them or refresh them before running out, depending on the HoT.

So heres how I heal: I prefer Regrwoth, it's my main heal, so when a fight starts, I wll most likely start casting so that it arrives when the first hits did land. And heres a general rule for precise healing: Dont wait for the damage: Where you can expect it, time it. Cast a large heal when you know the damage comes. Or time the ticks of a HoT. Back to my strategy: When Regwroth is up, I get a Rejuv(enation) on the tank, and depending on damage and experience, give a Lifebloom (or some stacks) to get more incoming heal.

Other healing tactics rely on Lifebloom stacking, not letting it run out, but this was made less efficient compared to TBC.

Well so for equipment: You may wear cloth but leather items are definitley not hard to find, so I prefer to not wear cloth.

Your main stats are spirit, spell power, some int and a bit haste.

I would say SP > Spi > Int > Haste
But only up to some limit. Spirit round 1k is just fine, i normally dont need innervate myself. Haste is jsut good up to some factor. Dont remember the values, depend on Auras and so on. Just keep in mind its not useless but neither extremly important.

For the Glyph you should do some Forum Research, but it clearly depends on your playstyle, there is no must have healing Setup.

Well thats the basics for druids.

Since I am a healer from preBC, feral BC, heal WotLK again, I may miss some basics to explain, since they seem obvious to me.

Hope I could provide a bit help to you.

Najtrok

The only reason why is worked is because you could (can?) cancel buffs dependent on your energy/rage value. So the macro canceled cat form then recast it when you weren't in cat form.