4T9 is a set bonus and not the same thing as making hots able to crit in general.

"I did not say your hots will just start critting in the next patch. I said we had the technology to do that if we think it is necessary. We would certainly have to nerf Resto in other ways to compensate for those higher healing numbers. "
- I couldn't find the other quote I was remembering yet but this one will suffice.

On a rejuv heavy fight like ICU: Steelbreaker, the t8 tick usually accounts for about 13% of my healing. On other fights where I still use Rejuv but perhaps wild growth is also viable (heartbreaker, mimiron, etc), its closer to 8%. I see this in other top druid parses as well. That's a pretty hefty chunk. Assume the spell coefficient of rejuv is untouched (per Playered's quote), if Rejuv is 60% of your healing and you're carrying about 25% crit, you should expect those rejuv crits boost healing by 7.5%. Lets say crit stacking becomes possible from raid gear and you reach 30% crit. Now you're looking at a 9% increase in healing. Would the 273 spellpower make up the other difference? Probably.

The problem is the nature of the instant tick on rejuv application... it becomes really important in practice. It's reliable, saves lives, and is rarely overhealing. I can't say I'm crazy about the nourish 5% crit either. This seems kind of moot since you'll be using crit rating anyway with the other set bonus. Did any of you try it with the rejuv glyph? Another long shot I know.

It will be tough leaving the 4pc t8 behind, and I don't imagine I will until I have all four pieces of 245/258, at which point the challenging content is pretty moot. Funny how that works out?

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. The 2 piece T9 is so horrible and the 4pT8 so good, that I can't imagine anyone will wear the T9 until they get the 4 piece bonus. When Ulduar came out my goal was to get 4pT8 asap, next patch I guess I will just get everything else first. I wonder if the new weapons, rings etc. would increase our healing more than our new T9-Sigh.

Well, to be fair we got a pretty amazing t8 bonus. None of the other healer t9 bonuses (or t8) are really all that good.

I suspect that by 3.3 / icecrown we will have either hot crits (on regrowth and WG too) as a baseline talent, or rejuv will get its instant heal back. Blizzard likes to test the waters with set bonuses to see what might make good permanent class changes. They have to address the issue of gear scaling /itemization, because after t9 what are we going to do with crit, or even haste after the softcap? At that point a supergreen of spell power becomes BIS resto. I don't see them reaching into their bag of tricks to come up with some other use for crit, like extended hots or shields/buffs/gain procs. They'll most likely go the lazy/simple route that they've been traversing for the past year and nerf the spellpower coefficients and make them all "crit." Brace yourselves.

Additionally, I feel we need some sort of armor buff similar to inspiration/ancestral fortitude. While I don't consider myself the best main tank healer, it cripples me even more knowing that I can not provide this very useful buff. This is probably overstretching our reach, but it seems like as bosses hit more or faster(Algalon) this sort of talent becomes critical.

It's always hard to compare abilities from class to class and very easy to say "we don't have this, therefore we're gimped." Even though we don't have that tank mitigation, we do have living seed which acts as a buffer and absorbing damage. It's not the same thing as an armor buff, but it serves a similar purpose: it reduces the total damage taken by the tank.

But to reiterate, it's hard to compare abilities when our main tank healing style is different than a shaman or priest.

I don't really feel we need more "saving" abilities as far as tank healing goes. We have our NS+HT, but usually we can use our swiftmend which provides use with enough buffer to cast a nourish. And, I really don't feel that druids get benched for boss fights, we're amazing raid healers and we can provide some serious single target HPS.

Just to throw out ideas more than anything, what about something more finesse than just armor which is a lot like other classes, or shields... what about something like a dodge boost? Or some sort of avoidance burst if you are main tank healing on a boss?

Feline something or other - tank gets a 12 second dodge boost, or something of that nature that may fit into the "style" that is us druids.

That is just brain storming of course, it popped in my head so thought I would share it.

I really like this idea. It would add much needed diversity to RJ spam. Instead of just going down a list and starting over every 15/18 seconds, we could watch each individual timer to increase our efficiency and throughput (possibly distinguishing "skill" among Resto Druids?). Also, longer HoTs would give more opportunities to use the spells Blizzard wants us to use (Nourish/RG).

Since we're in a creative mood: Resto Druids need more to do. They are so painfully boring to play in 25mans (except Algalon), I only do it because it is so powerful. We could use a cooldown like Avenging Wrath ("meta ToL" GC suggested could do this) and a damage reduction cooldown. Possibly add it into Improved Barkskin: Allows the Druid to cast Barkskin on other players. I'm hoping for something along the lines of: chance on RG ticks to erase current cooldown on Swiftmend. A bit of RNG in our steady healing will be fun. But, let me be clear, I do not want HoTs to crit, that is not fun RNG. Like the others above me have said: HoTs are meant to be reliable heals. Crit is not reliable.

Good point I did not remember that.

I agree about revitalize however the name then wouldnt be revitalize (just a play on words).

How about an "armor over time".

Starts off with a small chunk of armor boost and progresses OR starts off with a big chunk of armor and then "falls off".

4% -> 3% -> 2% -> 1%

Thoughts?

Edit: I realize this might be in the wrong forum or thread to post this sorry if it is.

On an interesting side note: If you gain a clearcasting proc from Omen of Clarity, and use set proc on a life bloom, you will get mana back from the bloom. In other words, if you get a clearcasting proc and then cast life bloom, you will gain mana as if you had spent the full mana cost.

To sum up, if given 2 GCD's, you can get double the worth out of your clearcasting by casting lifebloom and then rejuvenation, because the mana you gain from the lifebloom will cover the cost of the rejuvenation. (Assuming you would have used the clearcasting on a rejuvenation)

This is of course taking up 2 GCD's instead of only one, but on fights that are innately slow, or where casting a lifebloom instead of a rejuvenation wouldn't cause you to fall behind on keeping the raid topped off (or the tank, depending on your assignment), this can be another tool that you can utilize to net a couple thousand mana on most lengthy fights.

Along these same lines recently I have been doing something a little different (at least for me) with raid damage on slower fights, you mentioned this and made me think of it... I use rejuv + 1 lifebloom on raid wide targets and dont use regrowth as often.

Reason being if there is an unusual spike, or a player goof, the bloom will help with that spike and the rejuv will do what it normally does anyway.

I am sure others do this but I am still learning "spell weaving" the interesting dance we do on various fights weaving our various spells around.