ithecho84

Yes most druids don't get CF but there are some out there that get caught up on trying to attain levels of haste to reach a GotEM GCD cap with their current gear. Although I suppose it is a choice between CF and Natural Perfection/Living Seed/Revitalize. Personally, I am of the opinion that the .09 seconds shaved off of a Nourish after a Nature's Grace proc won't help you much if you don't have the reflexes in the first place.

 

captinwv

Ok ill say first that i DID NOT read all 51 pages of quotes so this might have been said already, but how as a druid do any of u have mana problems? If u are running out of mana fast enough that innervate and a mana pot doesnt finish the fight, then drop some of that crit,sp gear for some more spirit gear. As a druid i do like to MT heal every now and then and even have specs ( plural ) worked out for doing so depending on what glyphs i use, but I find healing as a druid to be both optimumly mana efficent and highest overall HPS is hot specced and doing nothing but rolling rejuve-WG every 6 sec on the raid mainly bc of the heavy raid dmg in Ulduar. This was not the case in Naxx and having gone back to naxx, if i use my Ulduar healing style in Naxx ill be outhealed by 3-5% on most fights, so b4 u crucify me for giving false information, let me say that those are 2 different instances with different strats to go along with them.

Saying your raiding in Ulduar ( getting back to the mana issue ), hopefully that means that all of your gear has a raiting of at least 200 item levle or u shouldnt be there in the first place. If that is not the case, then the remedy for your mana problems is do the raids prior to Ulduar and get the gear required to raid the higher lvl raid instance. My druid has just over 19.3k mana with MotW and about 22.6k full 25 man buffed, all my gear is at least 213 with a little under half being at least 219 and i have to say i have yet to run out of mana in Ulduar. The guild that i am in, although yet to clear general or yogg, only raids 3 hours a night and 3-4 nights a week and still have gotten almost 25% of the heroic achievments. Yes i know thats far below most of the top tier guilds out there but again were not the guild that spent the first 40 hours of Ulduars release in the instance.

But with that said i have experimented with several glyph-spec combinations and the best i have found for druid healing in Ulduar is let the pallys do the MT healing and roll hots on everyone u can, especially during the big aoe fights. No im not sayiing ignore the tank, but if its up to the druid in the raid to not only keep the raid up through the 10 swipes and the tantrums that deconstructor likes to throw at u, but to make sure the MT doesnt die too, then u should probably recruit another pally. Druids have tons of hots and direct healing spells that leav a hot, i think their trying to tell us something. And BTW, if u cast a LB or 3 on the MT and DONT let it tick off, thats 15k+ healz u just wasted not to mention the 1k+ mana u would have gotten back, but thats just me. Cant wait to see what u guys have to say.

 

khel

You can begin every encounter in Ulduar (afaik) with 3 LB's on the tank and full mana. It's definitely worthwhile to keep the 3stack rolling as the cost of one lifebloom at full mana cost is less than the mana cost of restacking 3. Even if you could use the bloom and let it fall off, you would waste 3 seconds of time having to restack that could be spent in better ways. The major point of keeping LB's on the tank anyway is to provide a safety net for your big healers (paladins, disc priests) and prevent the tank from getting blown up faster than they can land their heals.

For heavy, consistent raid damage combined with huge spikes of tank damage, I keep a 3stack of LB's on the tank, 15ish people rejuv'd, and use the extra 2 GCD's on either WG or tank healing as needed. If tank healing isn't required, then the highest hps is a 5rejuv, 1WG rotation keeping 15 targets rejuv'd, and 6 targets WG'd constantly.

 

Bhalu

Hi guys,

two days ago the question came up which meta gem to use, the one with +21int/chance to restore mana or yet the +25sp/2%int gem:

Clearing Ulduar-25 easy mode means you will not have any trouble with your mana wearing nearly best pre3.1 gear (including the mp5 trinket from Malygos that also provides an instant heal every minute). So you might focus on spell power if you want, but could also go for whatever stats you'd prefer.

If you prepare for some hardmodes, things go a little different. The "Iron Council" choosing "Steelbreaker" as last will require smart healers. If you are healing the MT, you could either keep RJ up and use RG followed by Nourish for all punches or let a 3 stack LB bloom. Whatever way you go, there should always be the possibility to reg. mana (five sec. rule) until p3. Both gems make sense, I use the sp meta gem ("Je'Tze's Bell" and "Spark of Hope" as trinkets).

"General Vezax" hardmode will not allow mana reg. from most sources. Go for sp gear (maybe even some more int might help), "Idol of Awakening" as well as above mentioned "Spark of Hope" is a must-have. At this point, the fact of pre-hotting the MT (that's what khel has written) is very important. All druids should do this, not only stacking LB but adding RG and RJ, and reg. ooc before Vezax will be engaged.
--> best spec for Vezax hardmode I guess

 

• uliko

You'd be stupid to not use the insightful meta since it's around 40 mp5 worst case and can spike to nearly a 100 mp5 with some luck but generally it lands at around 60 mp5. Converting the 60 mp5 into spellpower would gain you around 180 some spellpower. Using the sp/int meta and gearing/gemming/enchanting for regen is stupid since you're basically just throwing away 150 spellpower.

Why hit food is bad
"You have to spend 10 seconds to apply it, you have to fish it and you cant use the feast."

 

Bhalu

I got the best sp enchants as well as most of my gems are the 19sp ones. Three blue sockets are gemmed with 32sp jewels, two yellow sockets with sp/int. As I have absolutely no problem regarding mana, why should I not use the sp gem?
The only problematic encounter is Vezax hardmode where this great insightful meta gem does nothing but adding some int.

 

Harmankaya

So, the 4-set bonus.
Finally both me and the other tree in our raids has gotten the 4-set, and tonight we had our first real go with it at a "real raid". A raid setting with 5 healers (2 palas, 2 trees, 1 holy priest).

We did FL2, Raz, Ignis, Kolo, Auri, Freya1, Thorim, and finished off the night by wiping to Hodir hard. A raid with a few new people, not the best geared troopers, quite a few wipes - just an average raid.

The logs show his (Timmi) 4-set @ 13% healing done, and mine @ 11%. Could this really be correct?

Here is the log: World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Edit: and the rejuv-glyph failed in every possible way. It will be swapped back to Nourish.

 

• uliko

Yes, the set bonus really is that godly, it's a 15-20% healing increase depending on how much you rejuvenate.

13%/87%=15% healing increase for Timmi.

Why hit food is bad
"You have to spend 10 seconds to apply it, you have to fish it and you cant use the feast."

 

cuddlekin

Celestial Focus is better than Revitalize or Natural Perfection. That is why many take it. You can get both Living Seed and CF in the same build.

 

cuddlekin

You have this backwards, it costs MORE mana to roll a stack of 3 lifeblooms than to let them bloom and reapply. The cost of each lifebloom if rolling is 782, while by letting them bloom they cost 293 each.

 

Sitar

I agree, and this might not be obvious at first, so let's explain a bit.

Letting bloom and rolling again cost: 293 x 3 = 879 mana while not letting bloom costs 782. This might seems like it is obvious to refresh but you need to take into account the cost of the 3 first lifebloom applied. Not letting bloom wins over the course of time, but for it to be a real winner to cover the costs of the first 3 lifeblooms, you would need to refresh the lifebloom 782*3 = 2346 / (879 - 782) = 24.18 times which is very unrealistic, thus slow rolling is a winner.

 

Fallenangel

If your purpose is to win some math game, then slow rolling might be better. If you prefer to actually provide consistent healing to the tank, then blooming is a bad idea. Also, as was mentioned above, you can start most fights with a 3XLB on the tank and a full mana bar, so the initial cost doesn't really matter.

 

Rijndael

Playing games with lifebloom effiency becomes important on fights like general, or hard mode fights, or fights where some dps die. It's not just a math game, it's part of good druid gameplay. Another spec that plays games with DPM is the arcane mage.

 

khel

You seriously think that it's unrealistic to keep lifebloom on the tank for 2 minutes? You start the fight with full mana and 3 lifeblooms on the tank, so no, you don't need to cover the costs of the first 3 in most cases. The only time you should ever "slow roll" the way you describe is when you are extremely tight on mana AND the damage on the tank is trivial to heal.

"Slow stacking" makes sense if you know the damage is going to ramp up, and you NEED the mana more than the HPS at that moment. But letting a 3stack of lifebloom bloom is a waste of both mana and thoroughput.

 

Sitar

Please delete this post.

 

Bhalu

Most (hardmode) encounters have huge damage spikes either to the raid or the MT. Both ways keeping a LB stack up isn't the best choice as it will heal nearly nothing without that spikes.
Spamming RJ, especially having that great 4-set bonus, and using WG or supply a single target with RG/Nourish fits better into a druid's healing manner.

Nevertheless there is a "trick" with LB. Use an addon like "Power Auras" to let you know about a clearcast! I agree if you'd argue that spamming heals won't give you any time to have a look at a clearcast, but...
--> For General Vezax you will have groups of healers. While another group is healing the MT you will have nothing to do but melee hitting Vezax to gain a clearcast. Once you got it, put a LB on your MT and be happy about regaining mana without destroying a saronite cloud.

 

khel

For really hard hitting bosses, lifebloom is amazing for keeping tanks alive. When they are swinging every 1.3-1.5 seconds for 22,000 damage and your tank has 44,000 hp, and then more random raid damage that can also hit the tank, this buffer of consistent healing is extremely valuable. Other hots aren't ticking every second like lifebloom, but with hots from multiple healers you can usually rely on having a 4,000+ hp buffer and go from a boss 2 shotting your tank to reliably and predictably keeping the tank alive. It's effect is very similar to a disc priest's Divine Aegis, artificially inflating the tank's health in order to keep him alive long enough for the holy lights to land.

The benefit of a 3stack of lifebloom on a tank is even larger when the encounter requires your tank healers to move. Other than Mimiron Phase 2, I can't think of an encounter in Ulduar where a druid wouldn't want to keep 3 lifeblooms on the MT constantly.

 

red

This 22k swing / 44k health scenario is the absolute best case for rolling Lifebloom. As a counter-example, imagine a 21k / 44k fight; rolling lifebloom is suddenly FAR less effective.

There are some fights where I try to keep a 3-stack of lifebloom rolling, like thorim hardmode. However, on the majority of fights I feel like my mana and especially GCD is better spent elsewhere. A 1k buffer is simply not as useful as landing a nourish after fusion punch or keeping the raid up while the tank healers worry about the tank. Simply put, there isn't only 1 right way to heal anymore. You can neglect lifebloom entirely and still be an equally effective healer.

 

Norfair

Even on Thorim hardmode I don't bother with Lifebloom as the tanks are constantly switching and keeping it on 2 tanks all the time just isn't worth the hassle.

Looking for guild with healthy raidtimes for Icecrown.

 

Rijndael

Not if you are healing the tank. You will need at least one stack full time to power up Nourish. (Of course if you are always putting up the one stack there is no reason not to slow stack because it's the same mana efficiency and more HPS). Arguably for most raid healing assignments you still have time to hot up tanks.

 

Drkwood

My guild will be trying 10man Hard mode for the first time on many bosses this weekend, and I don't have much of the gear from Ulduar yet, but I have almost all the gear I wanted out of Naxx 25 & OS 25, so I figure I'm in pretty good shape.

I have not noticed a discernible difference in my mana regen as it affects my playstyle post-3.1, although it was so incredibly high pre-3.1 I never even noticed my mana drop unless I was constantly spamming heals. At current time with buffs available in our typical 10-man group (but no shammy usually), my mp5 currently sits at 850+.

I have just reserved my healing duties to Raid and OT healing, with a discipline priest casting PW:S on anyone that takes a discernible damage spike, and otherwise healing the OT/MT and throwing Prayer of Mending when available; a third healer is responsible for the MT primarily. We have not had any problems up to this point. I am still usually on the top of the healing list, and am almost always on top when it comes to any 25s we run.

What I have noticed, and it is somewhat more prevalent with 3.1 now that you cannot constantly stack LB and it is difficult to heal a damage spike that cannot be anticipated 10+ seconds before-hand (so you can time your casts and 'bloom' accordingly), is that a druid is not a viable MT healer unless specd/glyphd for Healing Touch because we cannot handle damage spikes in any meaningful way other than Swiftmend/Nourish AND be mana-efficient at the same time. My nourish only heals for 7k or so, although more when it crits, but I am geared for haste to reduce the GCD more than crit, so I cannot count on that extra boost.

I use my dual-spec for Moonkin so I can quest faster and easier, and I am currently working on going back to Outland and the Old World to finish the Loremaster achievements because of this. So at current time, if I want to be a MT healer, I'd have to re-spec and re-glyph my primary spec, which just doesn't seem very cost-effective in the long run. So unless they come out with triple or quad spec, I won't be using Healing Touch anytime soon.

Just wondering other people's thoughts, and how they heal a MT when not specd/glyphd for Healing Touch.

 

PhoenixAP

In Phase 2 of Mimiron (and Phase 4) there is a significant amount of raid damage being dealt. Between Rapid Bursts and Heat Wave quite a bit of the raid is taking some regular damage. Rapid Burst is a little more single targeted, but Heat Wave spreads out the damage pretty well.

My raid leader and I got into a friendly argument about the most efficient way to heal this encounter and it centered on single target casts versus multiple target hot healing. I believe that keeping rejuv maintained on a large number of people and using wild growth on every cool down while maintaining a few cool downs for switmend and the occasional nourish seems to be very effective - Rejuv/WG spam seems to keep up with Heat Wave and helps to maintain people randomly targeted by the Rapid Fire. He believes that it would be far better for me to nourish spam the raid. My method definitely 'pads the healing meter' but the crux of the question is that healing the most effective healing? We can kill Mimiron either way - but it tends to be a bit messy (though I think most of the deaths involved are to mines/rocket strike).

Is there a way to definitively answer this?

 

Jurik

I think you'd be hard pressed to find a resto druid that honestly felt Nourish spam was better than blanketing the raid in HoTs for massive, consistent raid damage such as Mimiron P2. There's a lot of damage flying around that ultimately has to be healed somehow, and HoTs are by far and away more mana and gcd-efficient than any other tool in our arsenal.

If your raid is losing people due to the focus-fire, perhaps your raid leader should be examining whether single-target specialists (Holy Pally and Disc) are healing effectively, and whether the raid itself is positioned in a way to ease healing.

Personally, I like using Heroism/Bloodlust to help out in phase 2, because the healing is extremely intense to the point of being almost unsustainable. The rest of the phases are very sustainable once people stop being stupid.

 

Rijndael

Refer your raid leader to the EJ threads on shadow priests and warlocks where the concept of damage per cast time is discussed. For example, the optimal affliction warlock priority system always casts the highest damage per cast time dot which isn't already on target. It is only when there are no further dots to apply do affliction warlocks resort to shadow bolt (or drain soul if the target is low).

Rejuvenation and Wild Growth have much higher healing per cast time compared to Nourish. If a lot of raid is staying under full hp for considerable lengths of time, like in Mimiron phase 2, you will always be able to cast another hot without it being wasted. Now, unlike warlocks us druids do have to worry about people dying, and so it might occasionally be prudent to forego the highest healing per cast time spell in order to save someone with a burst heal like Swiftmend. On Mimiron phase 2 though, all direct healers are on the raid as well, and should be able to snipe low hp raid members.

 

Merendel

As someone else stated all the direct healers are on raid duty during that phase and should be covering the bursts that we would normally cover with nourish. Nourish while a wonderful spell on a hoted target is rather garbage when you just spam the raid with it while not maintaining hots. GHT would be more effective for that role although getting your local pally to do that role would be even better.

That phase has 2 damage components, the spike damage to a few people and the constant damage to the whole raid. While druids can cover spike damage as your raid leader seems to want there are no heals in the game more effective at covering steady moderate damage to the whole raid more effective than RJ. Chain heals are good for dealing with focus fire, you don't know where that will land and it will bounce to the people hit. our hots are not so good at randomly applied raid damage unless there is no rush to heal it. However just like Saph's frost aura the healing from a RJ will almost always be effective unless someone topped that person off between the last damage tick and the next hot tic.

A tree is much more effective in that fight countering the predictable steady damage of heatwave and leaving the spikes to the other healers unless most of your healers are trees. It keeps the raid as a whole from getting down into the critical low HP stage and lets the direct healers focus on countering spike damage instead of having to repeatedly patch each person in turn from the heatwave. Playing smart does not mean your padding your own numbers, it means your operating at your most effective and leaving the others to their most effective roles.