Master Shapeshifter increases healing done by 4% for 5 talent points.
Living Seed gives 2-3% healing for 3 talent points.
Celestial Focus wastes 1 talent point and does not really improve your healing right now because you have no viable alternative for haste from gear.

Just because Living Seed is actually noticable on a WWS report and others aren't doesn't mean it is somehow worse or should be treated differently.
There are issues with the talent but that is for other reasons than just "it only gives around 1% healing per point". For example I am of the belief that Living Seed does not technically give you an extra 2-3% healing because that would of been done by HoTs after a couple of seconds regardless.

If you take Celestial Focus you generally ditch 1-3~ points in Gift of the Earthmother too because you don't actually need that much unless you go out of your way to avoid haste on gear. Wanting a raid spec while purposefully 'wasting' talent points in something you stated was for Heroics and 5 mans.. well that just doesn't sit right and you need to decide what you actually want.

Why Nature's reach? Why not Brambles instead? I'm sure the extra (albeit minute) threat gain on the tank is much more useful than reduced threat/increased range.

Celestial focus is great, but in all honesty, how much is an increase in 3% haste for your GCD? Also, I believe that it's not noticeable enough by itself for me to want it if I'm spamming Nourish. With no other reason for haste, why not get something that increases healing? In those terms, to me, it boils down to how you want to gear, + spell or +haste.

That being said, my playstayle revolves around having me refresh regrowth if mana permits and I trust my HoTs/other healers in raid enough to hope that they won't die for the extra cast time required me to cast RG instead of nourish. Living seed may seem to only do 2-3% but it varies with how much you use your regrowth. I find that if you time it right on fights like Loatheb or Malygos' breath, it's an additional 2k healing after a lot of burst damage. It may seem like it's a situational talent (and it is, also only shines if it hits all of the crit) for but for those times when I do need it, I find it invaluable.

Looking on my Naxx clear logs, they've only provided me with 1-2% healing (I'm usually raid healing after LB/RJ are on tanks) and they're proccing for about ~2000. It may be underwhelming, but at only 35 casts of RG, it's a lot more healing than 3% haste would've provided me I believe.

I thought about this for awhile. Brambles being a better choice aside in my opinion as it is a filler point, here's what I see as the problem:

3/3 Celestial Focus is a good talent choice. It increases healing done overall for every single spell you use, whether it's a casted spell or a hot, assuming you are not haste maxed. However, your choice of moving out the Living Seed points is, in my opinion, not the best choice.

Now, this goes to playstyle, but both 3/3 Nature's Grasp and 3/3 Living Seed work off the exact mechanic: Proc on spell crit. So it would make sense that if you had one, you should have the other, because why are you choosing one over the other? In this case, you're choosing Nature's Grasp instead of LS - but why?

Whether you should choose them as a package would also go towards playstyle - I personally specced out of Nature's Grasp because I don't use casted spells very much. And I have my 4/4 set bonus, so when I am casting spells, more often I'm using Nourish. At <15% crit, the benefit I get from either of those is minimal.

I would say that 3/3 Celestial Focus would be a good talent choice for a druid who plans on using a lot of casted spells and who stacks crit, only for the fact that if you do not, then you're basically plopping 4 filler points into the balance tree instead of just 1.

I suppose I'm planning too far ahead. Right now content can be done with any spec. I'm thinking when encounters get harder, how do you want to approach them. Do you want to elevate your strengths and push them even further to the max? Or should you try to shore up some of your weaknesses? I suppose it's a matter of preference.

I figure that we're already pretty strong raid healing wise. Just toss RJ on everyone, WG on cooldown, Swiftmend if needed and Nourish to spot.

Our hots are strong in keeping a buffer for the tanks so that other healers can top off.

I'm thinking our biggest weakness (if you can even call it that - druid healing is strong these days) is single target healing a tank who is getting the snot kicked outta them. Think undergeared tanks for Patch. Another scenario would be only having 3-4 seconds to top off a tank singlehandedly from below 25%. Think Loatheb type encounters.

In those cases, our long hots won't count for much and you're almost stuck spamming either RG or Nourish at full speed. It is in this situation I was contemplating if Living Seed or if Celestial Focus would be better. Living Seed "effectively" only works on RG whereas CF works on both.

I guess my main question was is the haste wasted since I'm at a haste soft-cap already? I currently have 325 Haste Rating. Has anyone here ever been in that situation and was wishing that they got an extra RG or Nourish off?

Of all the classes to be locked down into chaincasting direct heals on the tank we would (as generally seen on Patchwerk, but not to imply Druids have not been used for this role) be the ones assigned to do it last due to our strength of multi tank healing which is only eclipsed in a 2 tank encounter with Beacon of Light.

Celestial Focus will be more 'interesting' when we are required to spend far more of our time using direct heals rather than HoTs and when we have the gear to go down to 3/5 GoTEM~ and remain at the haste softcap.

The problem of having us locked down into near constant tank healing (as stated in your case) would be that we're unable to support it due to mana constraints. As a result of this we would need to adjust our gear for more regeneration which would cost us haste, retain 5/5 GoTEM due to the loss of haste and the necessity to keep our HoT GCD at 1.0 and spend 5 talent points on Tranquil Spirit for the efficiency. Oh and lets not forget that Living Seed would be more useful here because of the huge amounts of healing we would have to do on one target which is the main area where Living Seed shines.

With that in mind you get nearly the same results in terms of itembudget for ditching crit rating on gear in favour of haste and picking up Natural Perfection which does not incurr the wasted talent point and will get you the same net result because crit rating would be viable considering you are focusing on direct heals.


All in all there is very little reason to pick up Celestial Focus right now and hopefully there will be even less reason in 3.1 (Ulduar) where Replenish and hopefully other talents will get a little nudge toward being better giving you even less options to waste more than 14 points in Balance over actual Resto talents.

I disagree with you completely on this point. I think single-target healing is one of our strong points and only becomes stronger when we can heal the same multiple targets at the same time. Nourish is a wonderful filler and so is glyphed Regrowth. With all 3 hots up and Swiftmend on cd, Nourish is the perfect spell to use for cases where the tank keeps getting pummeled. I've never had a properly geared tank who is playing his class properly drop due to insufficient heals on my part.

In fact, I hate raid healing, but enjoy the forced role on some boss encounters in this expansion. I get out of my comfort zone long enough to learn new skills, but still have the option for most of the encounters to choose my healing targets.

There should never be a time where you are "topping off a tank from ~25%" and you do not have hots on the tank.

Assuming ~2000 SP, My hots tick for about 1200/sec 1800/3sec 600/sec and I have no idea what regrowth ticks for 8) Lets say about 800/tick ? that's a grand total of 1200 + 600 + 600 + 400 = 2800 HPS.

If a priest is spamming greater heal and it hits for ~ 10 000, that's 4000 HPS. Spamming Flash heal/nourish yeilds about the same.

2800 HPS on the tank + nourish whenever required means that we probably have the highest single target healing output of any class, save for a paladin's Holy Light.

On two tanks, two full sets of hots is hardly a strain, and increases our HPS to about 5400 HPS. This greatly assists healers in keeping the tanks topped off.

Personally I think our real strength is still multi-tank and raid healing, but our single target HPS is nothing to bawk at.

Also I'd like to reiterate an idea that I read a long time ago: Having hots hitting the tank every one, two and three seconds means that the tank will receive SOME healing between boss hits. This effectively raises his "effective health" in a way, making him less likely to be gibbed on a fight that requires heavy tank healing.

the glyph also increases the HoT of regrowth as well. 20% extra on a HoT that had the potential healing of ~9000 at ~2000 spellpower isn't something to sneeze at.

I'm gonna set the issue of Living Seed aside and focus on a more raid centric discussion for now.

If I'm reading you correctly Playered, we're debating between these two specs:

3/3 Celestial Focus and 1/5 Tranquil Spirit
WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Druid -> Talent Calculator

No Celestial Focus and 5/5 Tranquil Spirit
WorldofWarcraft.com -> Info -> Classes -> Druid -> Talent Calculator

So the question becomes 3% spell haste or 8% more mana efficiency on Nourish.

With 5/5 GotEm, you would need 655 haste rating to get to the 1.0 GCD.

Celestial Focus gives you 98 more.
Imp Moonkin Aura gives you 98 more.
Wrath of Air Totem gives you 163 more.
+ However much haste you have from gear.

Two questions come out of this:

1) Are you already near a 1.0 GCD in that Celestial Focus would put you over (given a raid setup)? But then again spell haste is useful for the casting part of the direct heals anyway.

2) If you had to keep two hots on the target and spam Nourish non-stop, how long would you last mana wise?

I believe the answer to these two questions will determine which spec you'll lean more towards. It becomes a question of more output vs more stamina.

Okay, WWS is being brought up a lot. I have to ask..

Are you guys using the macro that increases your combat log to 200 yards instead of the default 40 yards? And do you find it lags your connection at all?

The *one* night I have had brutal lag was when I tried this out. While horrible lag isn't unheard of on tuesdays, this was the worst I've ever had. So I've been to scared to try it again.

I'm really interested in using WWS, but not at the cost of not being able to heal properly.

Enkoopa, I record my logs with the full 100yd range. This does not cause any "lag" or performance issues for me. I suggest you try again, and if it continues to slow down game performance you should ask others in your raid to also try it. Assuming you rule out the server being the problem, look to upgrading your computer.

The bonus damage that Brambles gives to Thorns applies only to Thorns on you. It is only more threat for the tank if you are the tank.

Can anyone confirm this? I'm going to live test it right now.

Try testing on druids and non-druids. A couple times I've tested it seemed that druid tanks didn't get the effect of my thorns but their own, but other classes got my thorns.

What's that fourth HoT there? Wild Growth? 600 seems like a pretty big tick for WG.

[quote=Sioned;1074562]


With 5/5 GotEm, you would need 655 haste rating to get to the 1.0 GCD.

Celestial Focus gives you 98 more.
Imp Moonkin Aura gives you 98 more.
Wrath of Air Totem gives you 163 more.
+ However much haste you have from gear.

[quote]

Was wondering where you got your numbers?
"32.79 haste rating increases your haste by 1%. If you have Gift of the Earthmother, you need 15.38% haste to get to a 1 second global cooldown, or 505 haste rating. Wrath of Air totem provides 5% haste and improved Moonkin aura provides 3% haste."
http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t37578-restoration_itemization/

Was a bit confused with that, and I spec'd into Cel. Focus yesterday and it took .03 seconds off which seems a little low for 98 haste.

Was wondering if anyone had the forumla figured:
32.79 haste rating increases your haste by 1% which equals .0X seconds off of a cast.

Any imput will be appreciated!

If you aren't healing with glyphed Regrowth (talented 5/5) exclusively as your main heal, Living Seed is worthless. You lose 50% crit rating every single time you cast Nourish. The math isn't all the complicated. The more you cast Nourish, the less effective Living Seed as a talent is for you personally. To be honest, it's not a great talent and you will always get more mileage out of CF instead.

I can not imagine 3% haste making much difference, ever. Yes, technically it would be 3% throughput if you were chain-casting the whole time, but that's a damn rare case. Even so, the times when 3% throughput are going to save the day are rare, to say the least.

OTOH, times when you absolutely need to bust throughput as fast as possible -- Patch or Maexxna enrages, for instance -- LS is amazing with spammed glyphed Imp Regrowth. Yeah it's inefficient, and yeah it's not something you do often. But in my experience, having the option to do so is worth far more than a passive 3% haste could ever aspire to be.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that CF is an awful talent or that 3% haste is a useless thing to have. LS, however, is another tool in our toolbox. As a healer, I'd rather take that than a trivial passive boost.

Couple of things here:

First off, the poster you are quoting has incorrect information. You cannot think of CF, Moonkin Aura, or Wrath of Air Totem as having Haste Rating Values. These values will change based upon what buffs and talents you have. Unlike your gear, CF and Buffs are mutiplicative NOT additive. This can be somewhat confusing at first.

Say for example you have 12% Haste from your gear and you spec 3/3 CF equaling an additional 3% Haste. At first you would think this equals 15% Haste... WRONG. It actually equals 15.36% Haste (assuming no other buffs or talents).

Base Cast Time / (Haste%Gear*Talent*Buff*Buff*etc) = New Cast Time
Base Cast Time / (112%*103%) = New Cast Time
Base Cast Time / (1.12*1.03) = New Cast Time
Base Cast Time / (1.1536) = New Cast Time

Assume 2 sec Regrowth / 1.1536 = ~1.73 sec New Cast Time... So each 1% (cumulative... NOT Haste rating alone) shaves off ~.0175 off a 2 sec cast. May seem like a little but it adds up quickly.

This scales with each cast length and buff/talent.

Edit: changed term from Talents to CF for clarification not to include GotEM as a mutiplicative action.

Wow, thank you. That was an amazing post. Zoltair is the man

To the person that said 3 points in CF wasn't worth it over having 3 points in living seed, the way I actually spec'd was 3/5 GotEM since I'm well over the 1.0 GCD timer and then put only 1 point into Living Seed. The way I think of it, if it has 33% chance to proc (which is only with that one point in it) per crit. It last 15 seconds. In 15 seconds with the haste provided, I can cast at most 10 Regrowths (spamming which is rare), so lets drop the number to 6. I have a 50% chance to crit, so drop the number to 3. I have three chances to proc living seed which is (3 chances at a 33% proc rate) close to having one up for most of the time. Perhaps I'm just looking at it wrong, but I thought it made sense.

Why not spec both? 18/0/53 can easily accommodate LS. Until they fix tranquil spirit, crit scaling and/or replenish, there is little reason not to pick both of them.

@vazu: do you really prefer 2 points in brambles over emp touch? I think emp touch is getting such a bad rep and I'm not sure why. Yes, we don't cast HT often, but if we do we want it to hit big. According to wowiki, it bumps the coefficient of HT from 1.6 to 2.2 (I felt like I was getting a higher coefficient in my short sample). With end-game gear, this is at least 1.5k boost. I'd say that's worth it over some thorns damage at least

It only lasts 15 seconds if your target doesn't actually get it by anything. If your tank can dodge for 15 seconds straight, consider yourself pretty lucky.
Yes, LS does have diminishing returns on points 2 and 3 if you spam it. But if you're regrowth spamming, you probably want every bit of healing you can get.