I've really always thought of subtlety as more of a 5man talent than a raiding talent. Raid tanks just produce so much more threat that I'm only taking agro if the tanks are going down or an add spawns/comes in from my side of the fight. In these situations I'd be taking agro with or without the talent. That said, there's nothing else worth taking at that level so I have it.

Finally, a druid making a post I can agree with. All this GHT and nourish talk seems to be talk from inexperience.

Here's my WMO from a couple raids:

XT Hardmode Kill: WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay in Engrish (Ranked me #5 in the world for EHPS)
XT Hardmode attempt: WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay in Engrish (Was on pace for #1 in the world)

I understand XT is raid healing intensive.. but all my fights look exactly like this trend. There's nothing a nourish or GHT will do that 2 ticks of a rejuv (including the 4 piece insta-tick) will not.

If your guild is honestly relying on your druids to use big spells, it sounds like they're doing it wrong.

Edit: My healing rotation consists of spamming rejuv until WG is up. Really tough right?

It's pretty obvious that Rejuv and Wild Growth have the highest healing per cast time out of our spells, so if you use them exclusively you will maximize your HPS. HPS isn't everything, though. If you have a choice between having higher HPS and letting someone die, what will you do?

That's absolutely true, but like someone said before "we don't raid in vacuum". How you heal and how much you heal for is dictated what 5-7 other healers do, and in general overall behavior of 25 people (yes, that includes you).

So while in ideal world we could probably just do raid healing and roll our hots and all be on pace for #1 in the world, nobody else really gives a damn how you do it so long the raid accomplishes their objectives. Your stats posted have Lifebloom, Swiftmend, Nourish, and even Tranquility - so apparently you felt like some of those are actually necessary now and then. Did your raid "rely" on you casting them? Since you actually used them, I suppose the answer is: absolutely.

When I get asked to heal the offtank - what am I going to do? Say: "no no - that's not my job"? Or if someone dies after they get spiked for 20k then finished off by some aura or even pitiful add that didn't quite get picked up yet, that's when you wish that you had a nice good heal for that. I could simply say: "you guys suck" but that's not really constructive, is it?

As you've said, this is exactly true.

If you're asked to heal the offtank, yes, you should say "no no - that's not my job" assuming there's a paladin or disc priest, or resto shaman available. Obviously if you're the only choice, then yes you should do it (obviously this happens quite a bit more in 10 mans), but if your raid leadership is assigning a resto druid to tank heal over any of those three choices, you have organizational issues. To turn things around, what would you do/think if your guild said 'Ok, paladins heal the raid, resto druids, you're on maintank healing'.

How we heal and who we heal is dependent on the 3-5 other healers in the raid. If they're not being used optimally, you need to take a step back and fix that problem before going forward.

Swiftmend is also a powerful tool for those spikes, and is conveniently usable on anyone with a rejuvenation on them.

You are assuming I even cast gHT/Nourish on XT at all. I just checked last night's parse, I didn't cast either even once. I'm not sure how using a fight like this as an example makes sense.

Essentially people are splitting hairs over which tool to use. If I follow your suggestion, it's neither. I guess I could glyph WG/RJ/SM and call it a day. I'd top more charts, but that would cripple me in emergency situations. Your bias comes from your BiS gear and Hard Mode raid guild. My guild isn't doing heroic hard modes yet.

Oh and why did you cast Nourish 12 times? Also, why did your Shaman die? I mean it could be for some other reason, but is it possible one more big heal would have saved him?

At any given moment there is a finite amount of healing to do. Meters often simply reflect who's heals landed first, just as much as who heals the best. On paper there is no problem with this. But you seriously want me to just spamming my RJ/WG while I see 3 people sitting at 20% health?

Doing what is best in theory, is not always best in practice. It assumes too much. You are assuming my other healers are fast enough, you are a assuming the raid has a good balance of classes/gear/skill, you are assuming my raiders are taking minimal aoe damage, you are assuming that I can't pop one or two gHT and continue hotting up the raid, etc etc etc.

I will switch in emergency situations, but it usually means a wipe is incoming already. It's much more vital to the raid's health that there's 15-17 rejuvs active on all raid members at all times, unelss it's a fight where there is simply no way for it to enhance the situation.

This is not a false choice, it is a fundamental tradeoff in healing between 'spike' and 'pressure.' Blizzard is well aware of this tradeoff and designs their spells accordingly. Pressure heals: efficient, slow, spammable, low hps in isolation. Spike heals: inefficient, fast, tend to have cooldowns, high burst hps.

Knowing when to respond to spikes and when to respond to pressure is a fundamental healer skill, and comes from experience. To be honest, I don't think there is 'the right way' to make this tradeoff. As others said, it depends on encounter, healing lineup, the skill and latency of other healers in your guild, etc. Druids are very strong pressure healers, but sometimes we need to help with spikes too, just as other healers sometimes need to help us with pressure healing.

Or you could just faceroll Rejuv/WG all day. That works too, I guess.

Your emergency tools are swiftmend and NS. Almost always a well timed nourish will do just as well as a glyphed HT, but you're not wasting other tools to get it.

You don't need to full heal a non-tank...you just need to get them out of the danger zone so the rejuvs, chains, and CoH can get them back to full. You're trying to do too many roles with your character, when there are 5 other healers that can support you.

They don't bring me because I heal like a paladin. They bring me because I level off raid and tank dmg and heal like a druid. If my guild needs a Flash heal spammer they can bring a priest or pally.

Seriously though, in our guild we have 4 trees, 1 shaman, 1 paladin, and 1.5 holy priests. I'm doing what I can.



Okay, let's change gears.

I see some "pro" druids place a point into Improved Tranquility. Can someone explain why? I don't even have it on my bar anymore.

I mean in the time you channel the spell, couldn't you RJ/WG etc your whole party just as well? And why would you wanna focus on your whole party only, are trees getting put in melee groups or something?

Am I missing something?

I'd say it's more of a utility option. Where else are you going to put that last point in? 2% mana on Nourish, 20% boost to your NS/HT, 10% reduced threat? All the options are lack luster, so I guess it comes down to a personal preference.