No, Lifebloom is still cheaper. Currently Lifebloom is 14% of base mana before talents, and Regrowth is 33%. Moonglow is the only talent that affects Regrowth and not Lifebloom, and that brings Regrowth down to just over 30% before other talents. Doubling Lifebloom makes it 28%, which is still less than 30%. 2T7 (which we won't have forever obviously, but at least for now) brings it down to 26.6%. This is mostly irrelevant, because mana cost per spell doesn't tell you anything about HPS, HPM, or the actual practical use of a healing spell, but since you mentioned it, I wanted to clarify.

Even if Lifebloom suddenly became terrible HPS and HPM (note that the HPS is not being changed, only HPM on an already insanely efficient spell, and then only on tank healing), Lifebloom's job is totally different than, say, Regrowth. A 3-stack of Lifebloom's ability to smooth a tank's health is well worth the mana cost to me, even costing double what it does now.

That's mana cost out of tree form. In ToL it's actually 366 more mana, so a 183 mp5 nerf. I also have a holy paladin alt and I have to say keeping mana with her is a lot harder than with my druid (even considering gear differences). I think a mana increase was needed, but we are already getting a hit with Innervate and I think doubling the mana cost on our bread-and-butter spell is a bit too much. We'll see for sure after some testing on the PTR tonight/tomorrow though.

I am sorry, I am probably just confused, but doesn't wowhead list Regrowth as 29% of base mana before talents? (This doesn't really affect your reasoning much). I guess even in the current state a triple stack of lifebloom compares reasonably favorably with paladin FoL spam.

Regrowth's wowhead entry: Regrowth - Spell - World of Warcraft
Unless we're looking at two different versions of the site, it's listing 33%. It's possible that's outdated, and since that's what I'm basing my numbers on, I could be wrong. But yeah, minor point--either way they're going to be comparable mana cost (1-3% base mana difference) for a completely different effect.

[edit] Also, I hadn't thought of this in terms of new content and the effective "Innervate nerf" coming in the form of reduced gains from spirit OO5SR. In current content, I use innervate maybe once or twice a week, usually on a moonkin or mage, and don't have it glyphed, but I imagine that's very likely to change in Ulduar. It does seem a little much that they're throwing two mana "nerfs" at us at once, but presumably their testing indicates it's not too much. Hopefully it just means needing to be smarter with healing, not that mana management is going to become harder than actually keeping people alive. We'll see.

That is Rank 7, lower ranks have higher base mana costs.

Regrowth - Spell - World of Warcraft

This nerf, along with the regen nerf, is more or less equivalent to removing innervate completely when you roll on 1 tank. Add more targets and it gets a lot worse.
On 2 tanks you lose 366 mp5 under optimal conditions. No gearing change in the world can overcome this.
Sorry for the "sky-is-falling" post, but I don't remember such a big hit in a long-long time.

I find this change strange. They're stacking an efficiency nerf on one of our main spells while simultaneously hitting regen. I'm glad that we got the pvp buff, but it comes at a heavy cost. Personally, I think Blizzard is over-estimating the value of lifebloom in that we are constantly clipping the spell off when we refresh it. Even if we watch the timers to the exclusion of all else to ensure perfect lifebloom rolling, we are still clipping at least one tick off. I'm not sure how others play, but it often happens that if a bunch of people other than the tank are taking damage, I refresh lifebloom regardless of where it's at timer-wise to patch people up and to ensure the stack doesn't fall off in the meantime. Added on to that, the stacking mechanic ensures it doesn't reach the theoretical efficiency, either. I won't say lifebloom is broken/useless yet, but this is pretty crippling to the spell designed to be cheap heals.

Well I was thinking about keeping regrowth glyphed over nourish for multiple tank healing like I'm usually doing on 3 drakes, because I'm sure I do more healing with regrowth than with nourish. But now that I see the lifebloom nerf I'm not really sure what I'll do.

My opinion of the regrowth and nourish glyphs though is that they definitely step on each others toes. And they both can be quite situational. My most common use for nourish is in situations where I need that 1.5 second heal now, and I don't care if they have a hot on them or not. Regrowth I use a lot for the hot, but the glyph means for the hot to be best I have to use it twice, wasting the direct heal twice. Or to not waste it twice, let regrowth tick for less.

Lifebloom is the most efficient healing spell on paper but once you factor in overheals and clipping it is not as amazing as it initially looks (but it is still excellent).

The problem is that as mana becomes a problem we would tend to over-use Lifebloom a tad more due to its strengths as we are not able to afford to throw around RG/Nourish as often as normal. Rolling 3-4x LB was pretty much a "you win" on the healing meter provided those 4 targets actually took steady damage and it was pretty sustainable, reverting to that again would of had bad consequences.

Take for example Patchwerk.
The MT should have RJ/LB/RG on them as he takes sustained damage.
The OTs should have RJ and perhaps RG on them with Nourish use to counter the spike damage they take.

Currently I believe most will just do RJ/LB/RG on all 2/3 because it is easier and more efficient and such.


For what it's worth GC clarified that the mana restore is based around the real base mana cost before Tree of Life reductions are accounted for, so using it as a disposable raid heal is slightly more efficient than now.

[e] removed Moonglow, sleep deprivation is never good.

Yeah, that is some consolation. Unfortunately, it isn't worth much because WG would be better in 99% of raid damage situations and using LB as a raid heal would likely only be effective when you can time it to bloom when you know the target will take damage. That'll severely limit its usefulness.

It should be interesting to math out, though.

It's nice except Moonglow doesn't affect LB
A buff to Tranquil Spirit to include it and dull out this nerf a bit would be most welcome.

FYI - I was not posting drunk when I said I was seeing triple. I was up late trying to run the numbers (which for me takes a lot of effort as math and I are sworn enemies) and I was woken up early for work.

Sorry if it appears that I was drunk, I just wanted to understand something I was curious about, won't make that mistake again.

This change is just baffling. Its as if blizzard has completely given up on class-balance and instead decided to make them all the same. Its really the same thing they did with the priest racials.... instead of trying to balance them individually they just removed them. They are trying to make all the healers essentially the same with very small changes. Its incredibly lackluster on their part. They are trying to force us into being direct healers with hots that supplement our heals... Instead of being HoTers that supplement their hots with direct heals.

I think I can live with the Regrowth nerf. Regrowth has always been quite clunky when it used as a direct heal, and I don't mind making the mental switch to Nourish for those situations in which I would previously cast Regrowth for its direct heal.

I do not understand the nerf to LB. I'm a little dumbfounded actually. First of all the I'm discounting all returns of mana from the stack falling off since practically its counter intuitive. Lifebloom is rolled for its hot, not for its ending bloom. This means when I cast LB I intend my LB to never bloom or fall off; when it goes up there, it stays up there until the fight is over. So my best spell costs twice as much, which will in turn allow me to cast it half as much. Up keeping Lifebloom, Rejuvenation and Regrowth on 3 tanks will not be a sustainable approach anymore.

So what am I left with? If these changes go live I'll have to tone it down, and not roll so many LB's on tanks. So my niche effectively leaves the building, I'm no longer a strong multi-tank healer since I cant roll my most effective HPS heal on multiple targets. I suppose I can roll LB on 3 tanks, but that's about all of what I can do. So on the one hand you have 1 tank you can roll all hots on and nourish/Swiftmend the spikes and the on the other hand you have 3 stacks of LB, both of which mutually exclude each other.

I enjoy and seek in this game the chance to reward skill through complexity of up keeping multiple spells. What I do not enjoy is one button homogenization and simple basic play. By taking away my multiple tank healing niche, you're limiting my classes chances for reward though high level play. In short it's going to be a lot more boring as a druid if I'm not going to be allowed the opportunities to multi-tank heal through rolling multiple hots.

So here's my suggestion for LB, since GC make it so clear that it needs to be nerfed. If its really OP then I'd be much happier with an overall coefficient nerf, rather than a mana cost nerf. I'll still have the complex rotations and the multi-tank healer niche, it'll just be toned down in effectiveness. In other words please leave the opportunity for complexity within multi-tank healing alone, and find some other way to scale down LB rather than potentially taking it out of our rotation.

Well, we can still roll lifeblooms on multiple tanks at the same level of mana efficiency, BUT the average bloom stack will be at 2, rather than 3. What you do is refresh the lifebloom before it is about to expire, BUT only up to 3 stacks, then let it bloom and start again. The mana cost refund is multiplied by stacks, so if you put up 9 lifeblooms (3 stacks) and then let them expire, you will have paid 9 x current mana cost. To compensate for the fact that the average stack lost 33% throughput, we get the big bloom at the end (or the option to let the bloom expire early if there is a spike). This actually makes druids pay more attention and make choices about whether to let the bloom expire every 9 seconds, or build it up to 3 stacks and let it expire for a normal mana efficient rotation, or keep it at 3 stacks for a high throughput low efficiency rotation.

edit: After thinking about this, this was a very smart nerf:

(a) Single tank healing is unaffected (HPS stays the same, and I dare any druid to run themselves dry if they are assigned to heal 1 tank even with this change.)

(b) Raid healing unaffected (no one rolls blooms on the raid).

(c) Multiple tank lifebloom stacks are still possible, but either you pay twice the mana cost for the ridiculous HPS, or you lose 33% HPS (a little less due to blooms not overhealing sometimes) and pay the same mana cost as now.

(d) Slight buff to pvp, and spike handling (though sadly we can't control the bloom to respond to spikes, 3 stack blooms are now a respectable 8-9k heal).

edit 2: In fact, in terms of expected value, this isn't even an HPS nerf. Assume the boss is below maximum hp 30% of the time. That means a lifebloom stack now has 70% overheal. A lifebloom stack + final bloom regime in 3.1 would have the stack overheal 70% of the time, and the final bloom would heal for full value 30% (*) of the time and overheal 70% of the time. Since the final bloom is about the same heal value as a single stack at full duration, and since 3.1 bloom is multiplied by current stack size this means the 33% loss of the stacks in 3.1 at the above regime is about equal to the final bloom value the above regime gains -- and this final bloom has about the same overheal as the stacks (although higher variance).

(*) This assumes that when the tank is not full, the bloom wouldn't overheal. This isn't technically true, but I am ignoring that as a first order approximation of what's going on.

Conclusion: refreshing your lifebloom up to 3 stacks, then letting it bloom at 3 stacks in 3.1 will have the same mana expenditure as now, and about the same HPS as now (but with higher variance and less tank stability).

A coefficient nerf would be a much better alternative than effectively doubling the mana cost per cast. It is still very early in the PTR, so hopefully this proposed changed will be reverted or if Blizzard is still insisting on nerfing Lifebloom, toning down the severity of the nerf. If however the change does go through, it appears that Nourish will take the spot of Lifebloom for it is more efficient and frees up GCDs every 9 seconds. Personally, I will still use Lifebloom if the nerf stays, and change my healing style to just using 1 application of the spell and letting it bloom. It will help bolster Nourish as well making it an even more appealing alternative than it already it.

Ghostcrawler is at least continuing to communicate about the change and it seems the actual numbers are not set in stone yet. He seems to want some better theorycraft and PTR testing in order to give some informed adjustments to the changes, a reduction in the cost boost to 75-80% instead of 100% was mentioned (or lower) and he might have said a suggestion to move some of the weight of the spell from the bloom into the hot which would enhance the ticks and weaken the bloom, time will tell.


I do not understand Revitalize though. If it was so bad before then the addition of WG (6 sec cooldown) alone is not going to suddenly make it a great talent unless the proc chance on WG is very strong (which is bad as it forces you to use it on cooldown). More needs to be done on that talent and the easiest options are to raise the general proc chance and/or to add Regrowth and possibly Lifebloom to the list of spells which trigger it.

Ideally having RG/RJ having say a 20% proc chance and LB/WG having a 10% chance. If what we have on the PTR is a 5% chance on WG then it is just too low but I am not quite sure what it is on this PTR version as the tooltip is broken.

As a single atomic change I don't consider the LB mana increase reasonable. Forcing resto druids to gear for more mana regeneration stats is fine and a healthy change. However, it's not like we are HPS power houses even when completely stacked for pure SP. Unless blizzard sees druids too strong in pure healing throughput (/boggle) then there needs to be a commensurate buff somewhere that increases our HPS (to balance for the loss in SP).

I find it very strange that a class that has so much synergy with spirit (15% bonus, innervate, meditation, 15% SPI->SP conversion and OoC to get out of 5SR) is tuned such that gearing for spirit is rarely beneficial.

The logical thing to do (and expressed by others) is to provide a way for haste and crit to benefit HoTs in some manner. This allows for an increased HPS and better scaling from our gear which in turn allows for gemming/gearing towards more regen to match the increased mana expenditure.

-Are druids intended to continue to roll lifeblooms in PvE and just consume mana faster, or is there an intention to change druid healing style away from LB rolling?

So it's not meant to change our Mechanics.

Sorry. I explained Wrong. The current tooltip is bugged. It says 15% mana and I tested it changing pieces of gear to have less and more Int (Mana). The Mana return was different, so it's just a Tooltip error. IT is still Max Mana, I can confirm it.

In the end, Blizzard will have other ways beside influencing the usage of a spell besides tinkering with mana cost and efficiency. While i do disagree with the actual PTR implementation of Lifebloom (i do see the need of fixing the bloom for PvP, but PvE do need to get a small countermeasure for the increased cost; Ghostcrawler mentiond already, that they ponder about how to balance this spell before it will go live), some points in Blizzard evaluation of the spell are valid.

I don't think it is to efficient (not in a HPS way of measurement, numbers are not everything), in the end, a triple stack will put out about 1.5K/s with my gear, on a 40K tank. This is not more than a buffer, but that's ok, we are somewhat of that kind of healer. But on the other hand, yes, it is too cheap, which shows in fights where are more than 1 or 2 tanks taking damage, and i still can keep it rolling on everyone without having to skip a GCD to get out of 5sR.

So, one solution (even if it was an unlikely one) could be to limit on how many target we can put this spell. Or designing encounters in way that we are physically not able to support all tanks, or punishing us when we try to do so. The main drawback right now, which counters some of GC argument (let it bloom if you need a heal), is the fact that we can not influence the time of the bloom (besides enemys abilities we know exactly when they will happen, but besides Loatheb and some lower scale AE attacks i could not name one). Maybe even that would be a valid way to balance the spell more than now.

Claiming that the HPS of a LB that's left to bloom on an OT is the same as a stack is just not a realistic model, especially since the bloom is going to be bigger. Also, having variable stack sizes at different time points isn't very smooth either.
It's pretty simple : druid mana regen is being cut by 100mp5 (innervate) plus 200mp5 for each tank in the raid. All of this while the regen of other classes hasn't changed at all. Yesterday I healed on my pally alt in a mix of 25 and 10 man epics on PW with 1 OT, so it was non-stop HL spam. I ended it at about 50% mana. This regen discrepancy must be communicated on the PTR boards.
edit: Another question: and what will happen when we all have uldular epics? Another mana increase to LB? What about the start of the next expansion when you're undergeared and mana-starved as it is without this artificial inflation?