The old druid thread had a section on healing rotations. :o Definitely need an updated version.

As far as gear, the ideal gear seems to be something that has Stamina, Intel, Spirit, Spellpower, and nothing else. You will horde these like a squirrel hording acorns. If you must give one of those stats up, stamina is first, ha ha. But since we're not that lucky, will probably lose spirit for either crit or haste. It comes down to preference I suppose. But crit seems more useful as it will make Regrowth/Nourish/Swiftmend that much better. There is also the impending "dual-specs", under which high-crit transitions to Moonkin all that easier. Haste almost seems to fall in your lap, especially with GotEM and raid buffs. So I wouldn't really worry about that stat at all.

Most raid gear has stamina, int, SP and 2 of : spirit, mp5, haste and crit. So giving up stamina isn't really an option. Mp5 is generally inferior to spirit - that is, per budget point, you get more regen from spirit than from mp5. If going for maximum throughput, items with haste and crit (and without regen) are the best, but they are also desired by the DPS casters and are probably better used in their hands.
I wouldn't ignore haste on gear at all; It won't fall into your lap if you pick up the spi/crit gear which is quite prevalent. I'd say reaching the soft haste cap and then going all out on SP is the way to go, shifting out points from GotEM as you gain gear.
Scaling at higher gear levels is a concern, but blizzard have quite clearly stated that they don't consider scaling off a limited number of stats a problem. Our scaling with SP is excellent due to high coefficients and it's possible to scale based just on that. That is, the extra crit and haste on the T8 gear will not give us much, but we'll gain more from the SP leap compared to other healers.
Slightly related question - does celestial focus stack multiplicatively with other haste effects? I was thinking of shifting some points from GotEM into it and was wondering about the needed amount of haste on gear.

The problem is, we can hit a soft cap on Haste with Naxx gear (not even looking for Haste, it's just that prevalent on most gear), and very few items exist with just Stam/Int/Spirit/SP. For an iLevel budget, only using four stats increases the cost of each stat by a decent amount, and therefore we suffer from not splitting the budget into a fifth point. However, since we don't scale with either Haste or Crit (and mp5 is such a budget eater), splitting points into them isn't ideal either. I'm not sure how Blizz can say that scaling off few stats isn't a problem - Afflic Locks and SPriests scaled poorly towards the end of BC because they didn't scale from anything but Spell Power. Regardless, if the current itemization trend continues into t8/t9, we'll likely see Resto Druids fall behind in output compared to other healers.

Shifting points out of Gift of the Earthmother seems like a good idea, until you put it into practice. Where would you put those points? As it stands, a 14/0/53+4 talent build is fairly standard, and those four points can easily be thrown into 1 Nature's Reach/3 Celestial Focus, giving you all the talents involving Haste before you remove points from GotEM. I'm unsure of how Celestial Focus stacks, but I'm seriously considering 18/0/53 as my build rather than 14/0/57.

The cost of ditching points out of GoTEM is so expensive compred to keeping it and taking the rating on crit or something though.

I would rather get more crit from gear and have GoTEM + the softcap on haste than need an extra 350 haste to re-reach the softcap while only gaining two talent points (to spend on what?).

You are rarely 'forced' to take haste on your gear, you could probably justify 4/5 at some point but..

Hey, 4/5 is one more point in Brambles!

Never posted before on these forums but I am an experienced resto druid killed KJ pre-3.0 patch and I have cleared all the current content.

What I have seen so far is first and foremost is that healing is very easy currently so no matter what you do you'll probably be fine.

1. Spell power is still the best stat.
2. Spirit is not very valuable until you get stronger gear, the spirit -> mp5 conversion got nerfed pretty stongly so until your intellect increases it is of little value. In my opinion spell power/mp5 gems are better for those with weaker gear ([Royal Twilight Opal]). Much more MP5 and the Imp ToL extra healing is negligible even when raid buffed. I don't have issues getting a full mana bar from innervate and get a substantial amount even when I use it on someone else because of the glyph of innervate. Replenishment aura starts to have a huge imapct as your mana pool increases.
3. Crit seems to be better than haste given the choice between them. I am specced for Nature's Grace and I have the regrowth glyph so I've found myself making use of that spell much much more. Half a second off your next cast is very valuable, and with a decent amount of using regrowth and nourish living seed can be very useful.

Totally unbuffed stats (In tree form but no mark):
HP:16357
Mana: 16671
Bonus healing: 2124
MP5 while casting: 318 (you should never find yourself in a spot where you aren't casting, I never find myself with mana issues and cast for an entire fight)
Haste: 283 (8.63%)
Crit: 296 (16.68%)

Hope this helps some people!
-Gyn

Edited for clarity of the spirit being bad at lesser gear quality. As gear improves so does spirit.

My point was that the [Royal Twilight Opal] is better than purified twilight opal.

I have come up with a simplified way to calculate the spirit regen given from individual item pieces.

I have based this off the formula: Value of spirit equal to 1 mana/5 = 119.5 * INT^(-0.5)

On a single item is it calculated as follows:
(Living spirit: 1.15, kings 1.1 - remove these if you don't have those buffs).
mana/5 from spirit on an item = (SPI(1.1)(1.15))/(119.5*(INT^(-0.5)))

e.g. if I have living spirit only and 843 intellect then the value of the regen from Talisman of Troll Divinity (73 spirit) is:
(73*(1.15))/(119.5*(843^(-0.5))) = 20.39

Round down to 20 and for an intellect value of 842 it is a 20 mana/5 while casting trinket (verified in game)

limitations: if the item you are looking at changes your max intellect then the result will be a good estimation but not precise, the larger the difference the larger the error. you can always adjust your int value to compensate but generally 40 int either way will only put you out 1 mana/5 at the most.

Sometimes I like to know this stuff without having to bid/buy the item to look at my character screen in order to find out.

So far it has been correct for items I have tried but if there are any glaring errors or if I am over looking something please correct me :)


ecit: on the topic of gems... in order to get 3 mana/5 from 8 spirit (8 spirit = 10.12 spirit with kings/living spirit) you need around 1290 intellect for the 8 spirit gem to be on par with the 3 mana/5 after that point the spirit gem gives you more regen. i guess the point to make there though is once your gear is that good you should have no reason to gem for anything but spell power.

also does anyone have any insight into how/where/when blizzard works with rounding?

I should have noted that my comment was taking the MP5 perspective, and as gear improves the purified twilight opal will become better.

A purified twilight opal would give me 10.5 healing and 2.8MP5 (raidbuffed).

Well, I've learned a few things (I think) about how they do some things. Blizzard tends to floor numbers instead of rounding them. A gem I picked up after a couple hours of being frustrated is that when blizzard calculates your spirit with living spirit, they do it strangely. Here's what I think they're doing:


Without LS=

Spirit on gear + Base spirit = total spirit as displayed on sheet

With LS=

FLOOR( Spirit on gear * 1.15) + FLOOR( Base spirit * 1.15) = total spirit as displayed on sheet

I don't know if this has been found already, but it has been accurate for me thus far. Before, when I would do what you think would be right ( (Gear + Base) * 1.15 and then floored)), I would either be right or off by 1-2, and I would always be giving a high prediction.

I've found that they floor mana costs, all stats after modifiers, MP5, etc. I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced this.

Okay, 3 differing stats on gems and we will assume they are rare quality (9 Spell Power + [8]Int, [3.2]MP5 or [9]Spi) and include Living Spirit.

(Please note EU servers are down and its late, rounding happened but changing it only makes MP5 fare worse)

I tested some stat brackets (800/1000, 900/1100, 1000/1200) and they didn't change dramatically so assume:
MP5 = 3.2 MP5
Int = 1.2 MP5 (Intensity)
Spi = 2.2 MP5 (Intensity)

8 Int also gives two additional attributes:
1) Replenishment = 1.5 MP5
2) 120 bonus mana (double result to include Innervating yourself):
*3 min fight = 3.33 MP5
*5 min fight = 2 MP5
*7 min fight = 1.4 MP5


As you can see, even on a 7 min fight where you don't Innervate yourself or spend any time OO5SR (...) 8 Int will give you (1.4+1.5+1.2) 4.2 MP5 and it only gets higher as the fight gets shorter.

Spirit will walk over MP5 when you Innervate yourself or spend a small amount of time OO5SR.

I cannot even justify MP5 for trash mobs sadly so gem it at your own risk, but it does eventually come out equal on a 20 min fight assuming no Innervate or OO5SR.

I was getting .35 mp5 per spirit tonight fully raid buffed (wearing top notch geat for right now). Assuming a rare quality 9 spell power 8 spirit gem that's 2.8mp5. At lower gear levels this will be even less not to mention the fact there is no 9 spell power 8 spirit gem in the game yet. Thus, for people ust starting raiding 9 spell power 3 mp5 is not a bad gem choice.

I also believe if you're not casting you're doing something wrong. There is no reason for anyone to have down time, I never run out of mana even without innervate.

The thing is, the haste cap is indeed a soft one, that is your cast-time spells still benefit from haste once you're over the cap. Hence, it's not like you're spending 350 haste to just gain 2 talent points, but rather that the extra haste boosts regrowth/HT/nourish and has the side benefit of those extra talents. The open question is whether haste or crit is better for these spells, which is still in the air and is mostly down to personal preference.

Someone else mentioned it earlier, but there will always be times when you're not casting. Because of being stunned, silenced, pushed back, webbed, feared. Maybe you're just moving away from an AOE, running from adds, or away from fire. :p There's also the time it takes to target, and possible latency. Also with 10-sec lifeblooms, and 1 sec global cooldowns, you just have a lot of time :o All these little things add up, and one can easily find themselves not casting for several ticks.

Gearing around RG/NR/HT will depend on your spell-style though, if one of them is your #2 spell on the majority of fights (or perhaps #3 and its something like 33/30/27% split) then sure you could probably get away with it - the choice rarely comes into play yet though because no sane person will reduce SP to get these stats and thats the only stat which boosts your HoTs :P

Kel'T, Sapphiron, Thaddius, Malygos (P1, transition to P2, running/general time in P2 with no lords up), even Sarth+3 is not going to be without some small periods of being able to just roll LB/RJ on a tank or two and sneak 5-7sec of regeneration time before refreshing.

I believe there is still that fuBar plugin to check your time spent OO5SR if you are unsure aswell - I highly doubt on any serious/long encounter there will be 100% casting time where you magically have no mana issues either.

Besides that, if you "never" run out of mana, why gem sp/mp5 anyway? Just gem straight spellpower or take sp/spirit as it hurts your mana regeneration only a tiny bit (in case of 100% in FSR), but will give you some more spellpower instead through imp ToL.

If you time LB/Abolish correctly then you have no reason to refresh either until LB is about to expire when fighting Maexxna which is a good 7-8 seconds.
When moving on Thaddius you do not have to spam instants or usually even instantly WG when Chain Lightning hits, so you can wait after casting LB and refreshing it for its full period - another 7-8 seconds.
Kel'Thuzad there is very little to heal usually until P3.. Tomb / FBV / Tank - after a FBV you refresh your tank HoTs and get another 7-8 seconds.

Honestly, you do not have to be forcably unable to cast to actually not cast you know - and because you can throw a WG/RJ/RG out does not mean you need to all the time either

We are not at the levels of Priests who tend to use HC/IF and CC GHeal in order to maximize their FSR regeneration but we are hardly the GCD monsters that some people are acting as.
This isn't a competition of who has the bigger epeen by being able to stupidly spam every single GCD for the longest without mana concerns or something - being able to manage your HoTs and GCDs in order to maximize your FSR will eventually make you a better player than someone who facerolls over their WG/LB buttons for any period of time.


4 man healing Naxx-25 might require you to do this on some fights, but usually there is another healer that is perfectly capable of managing things by themselves for a couple of seconds to allow you to regenerate (this does cost precious healing-meter points though ).

I'm sorry but this is just wrong. Like previously said, mp5 is overbudget and does not benefit from our talents or buffs a la Intensity, ToL aura, Blessing of Kings, etc. We pretty much should never use spell power / mp5. Ever.

First post here I go.

I beg to differ in the thought that if you stop casting you are doing something wrong. You should not stop casting if you are single healing Naxx.

I am one of the 2 healers in my guild's Naxx 10 run, and I do stop casting as and when the fight allows. My philosophy is simple, I am not the only healers. We should share the load. Yes I can be a champ, hotting everyone and throwing that regrowth/nourish and tank - but what would that do? It will means the other healer might be contributing to the overheal meter?

I think one should strike a balance. I am not a healing meter person. I don't need to top every heal chart to feel good. I think it is always prudent to conserve mana.

I think most people chain pull in Naxx 10, we do the same. And there are times, where that chain pull, pulled 2 groups + 1 group of pats. To heal through that fight, I might need my full mana bar blowing regrowth non-stop, swiftmend, etc. Say for example just 3 pulls before this horridly wrong pull, I non-stop cast and my mana bar was only half bar? I think you'll know what happen next.

The whole idea of having more than 1 healers in raid is just to share the load, and ensure that the raid have a healer when you need one. And not some super hero lifebloomer that think they can save the world with the raid wide hots. Sorry I don't buy that.

AND lastly, maybe its gear issues, I do run out of OOM in intensive fights, even for thrash. I am currently 9xxspirit 286mp5 15k mana 1555 +healing unbuff in tree form.

I also value Spirit, way much more than MP5. I gem +16 spirit blue gem where I have a chance.

Red gem = +16SP (cuz the +19SP just too freaking expensive in my server cuz I am broke)
Blue gem = +16Spi (ditto)

Feel free to armory me, Oncelot on Frostmourne - any constructive comments is welcome. I am still relatively newbie in healing in Tree. Switching from feral.

Thanks for the rejuvenation tip on Sapphiron. It accounted for over 80% of the heals between myself and another druid:

WWS Loading...

Rejuving the raid made the fight much easier than the first time we tried him.

I'm using the loot rank I posted earlier and so far it seems to be working out well for myself and the other resto druid in the guild.

Thank you once again for all the calculations on the first post, they definitely helped me get an idea for how useful intellect and spirit are.

I also disagree on the mp5 > sprit discussion, even atm without the gem. and I also disagree on the "If you're not casting 24/7 you're doing something wrong" like
I want to make clear that this is not the case because you HAVE to in order to reg, but you CAN because theres simply nothing you can heal atm, as everyone who will receive dmg in near future has his hot already running. We do run 6 healers in 25 straight, you could maybe argue that with 5 healers only that would be a tighter situation.

I also cleared everything but 3 ads up (2 twice, 3 most likely tonight) so far, and, apart from patchwerk, I regulary geht o5sr in every single fight for a reasonable amount of time (inclluding sarth 3up), not to mention trash. I also top the healing meter most of the time, "losing" only to the CoH spam in respective fights. raidbuffed sartha 10 man spi trinket stacked (180 spi) I run 1550 spirit raidbuffed, and using the innervate glyphe I can always donate it to someone else (mostly holy/shadow/warlock), as the 20s o5sr while casting brings back enough.
I do admit I enchanted spirit most of the time, and used the perfect purified almost exclusively, so there could be more spellpower, which only slighly gets above 2k in tree/raidbuffed.

I am curious about Ulduar in terms of the intensity of the fights though, but I doubt again that you'll be using every single gcd for 7+ minutes straight.
And, to get back to that point, I am also very concerned about the scaling in near future already. I do use regrowth a lot, so haste and crit are not entirely wasted, but of course I would prefer at least a choice of plain stats+spell items, compared to now as all the choice you get is whether you like your [insert item here] with crit or haste. There has been a blue post already aknowledging the resto druid scaling at "~3k spell" as he put it, so I am curious what the solution might be, give that the problem is known. we'll see soon (tm).

ps: as for rejuv > wg at saph and similar.. wg needs more skill in using it than rejuv, and it also needs some certain positioning by the raid, as the radius is significantly smaller than CoH. But used wisely it is definitely worth the gcd, and as you can't spam it efficiently anyway (except caster/meleecamp), there's still plenty of room for rejuv.

There's really no reason to be casting 100% of the time. As druids, the strength of our healing comes from HOTs, which heal when we're not casting.

When you don't have time to breath (have to cast all the time), it's usually a sign something's wrong. (tank is undergeared, people aren't positioned correctly, other healers aren't doing their share, you're spellpower is too low) Chain-casting indefinitely is acceptable only if you outgear the encounter. (in which case efficiency doesn't matter). Or if the fight is just going to be short. (PvP, trash) Other than those situations, you should have time to regenerate. It is not just regeneration time, but time to enough to check HOTs and see how far they've ticked.

Back to the main topic... ;o

Which is better: 16 intel, 16 crit rating, or 16 haste rating. Asking because we seem to have so much intel already. Actually in most situations you will take spellpower over all these :o But if you had to choose between just these, how would it be.