How does LB compare now, as a heal? Provided you don't let it bloom, it's effectively cut its Heal/mana capacity in half, right? Seriously, unless you need to be pumping out all the healing you can possibly pump out, is it even a good idea to keep it going ever?

I agree that so far keeping it on the tanks is the best bet. My tank healing rotation hasn't changed except in between refreshing HoTs I will Nourish the tank, obviously this is dependent on whether the raid is taking damage or if Nourish spamming the tank is required.

For tank healing I've actually switched out my Regrowth glyph for a Innervate glyph till I can get a proper feel for mana consumption and regen during extensive and intensive fights. I'm curious what other druids are currently using Glyph wise and also spec wise. I am torn between wanting to try Living Seed and Revitalize again but do not want to lose the haste from Celestial Focus. Has anyone seriously tried various specs and found specific ones effective?


In terms of raid healing. So far I've been trying to avoid LBing the raid. I've found so far that my LBs are getting overridden almost every time. With the high cost of LB now, I feel I can't justify wasting the 800-900 mana just to have the LB do nothing and only getting half of it back on the bloom.

I might be a bit biased so far in terms of raid heals. I've been giving Nourish a very serious shot on the meters and have changed out my Maly shoulders and Haste helm to have 4piece T7 bonus to increase my nourish output. Unfortunately I have not found a Nourish glyph to stack with this bonus and determine how effective it could be.

So far my results have been mediocre. Normally speaking I have a high HPS and have topped charts by a respectable amount (approx 10-15% more healing than 2nd place). Currently I am only pulling about 5% ahead of second place. Currently I am trying to pull in other WWS reports from respectable druids on my server to see their rotations and healing output to determine what would be the most effective as of this patch.

Living Seed is a far greater benefit than the 3% haste CF gives, assuming you aren't doing just pure instants.

Also, be careful about comparing your performance to the second place healer. You can't assume that everyone else is going to be a stationary benchmark to which you can compare yourself to every fight when they could just as easily be trying different playstyles as you are. Remember, as well, that if you're comparing your 15% lead, which I assume you mean to be prepatch, to the buffing/nerfing of classes after the patch, it will change positions on the meters independent of your playstyle.

Hmm, I know my first night I worked with living seed but the WWS my guild had was glitchy and didn't record it well. Since the talent refund yesterday I went back to my original spec using the 3% haste. It seems that my original spec (when I dinged 80) is the most commonly used currently since the patch release. I will try going back to this tonight and see how it changes my healing. BTW, no I am not exclusively using HoTs. I am giving Nourish a very solid attempt to shine and seeing how useful it is before I solidify an ideal rotation.

I do realize I shouldn't base my decisions on my placement in charts. I'm using that as a general overview of how the classes have changed and whether the norm that I have seen with out healing second place is similar or at least consistent with other druids performance thus far.

My decisions on how to play come off on statistics in HPS, effective healing etc... Basing whether I'm playing right by comparing myself to another healer (Especially of a different class) would be very naive.

Good. Your post implied that you were judging your performance to be mediocre because you had slipped down on the charts. I just wanted to correct the fallacy that chart position is ever any kind of definitive measure of performance for those that read these forums.

I somewhat agree. I don't feel LB at current is an effective raid heal. Pre-Patch it was useful because it was cheap and you got a second maybe 2 seconds of ticks off which was enough of a buffer on any DoT dmg or immediate threat of someone getting smashed in the face.

Currently, like I said before, I cannot justify spending that much mana with such minimal effectiveness and half returns. Preferably I would use a WG so that at least many targets can gain the benefits of 1-2 tickets at least before being topped off via Chain heals. With a large health deficit I am currently using Nourish as the acclaimed "flash heal" to provide a short cast 6-9k heal.


edit:

Yes sometimes I have a bad habit of starting a point off without a proper introduction cause some confusion.

If your reasoning of LB being decent prepatch as a raid heal is this, then it has only improved. Single casts have actually become cheaper due to the way the half mana return is calculated alongside of the fact that the HoT healing has not been nerfed. That said, LB is now and always has been a poor raid heal because of the low HPCT. Rejuv has always been the go-to heal for HoT raid healing, especially with the new tier bonus.

Last night we raided 25 Uldaman with 2 trees and near identical specs. Except, I have 3 points in Revitalize and the other has 3 in Living Seed. We have one Death Knight tank and he loves the runic power from Revitalize. I was watching it proc from just Rejuv before a fight and i can see why.

The tree with Living Seed seemed to get a decent amount of healing out of it. Hard to tell how useful any of that was but the numbers looked nice. IMO if Living Seed could proc from LB crits it would make the 3 talent points worth it, as well as make LB more useful as a raid heal.

For now, I'll stick with Revitalize and keep my DK tank smiling. Just curious... is anyone loving Living Seed?

The same could be said for LB. It might tick for 3 secs but those ticks are a fraction of what its total healing is. RJ stays on for 18 secs... you have to look past just that single moment in time. If they take more damage in the next 15 seconds, your hot will almost certainly heal them before a raid healer. Moreover, you can instantly Swiftmend that person should they take any more damage in that period of time. RJ has great utility. The Tier bonus only adds to that utility. LB is just poor.

You're thinking in terms of beating other healers. It's generally more effective to think in terms of keeping people alive. If your only concern is topping a person off, and you know someone else will do it, then I'd focus your heals elsewhere or anticipate another source of damage.

Last night we downed Razorscale and had good tries on XT-002. During these fights, I was spamming Rejuvenation and Nourish non-stop, and was unable to really get lower than 50% mana and didn't need Innervate (which I even glyphed in anticipation of mana problems) or a mana potion. Anybody else had this experience? Will this change on later bosses (Vezax obviously)?

As a sidenote, Revitalize is horribad. I regret taking it, since I now need to respec out of it...

I can find all sorts of situations in Ulduar where lifebloom is a good raid heal.

Example 1: X2 deconstructor gravity bombs. Lifebloom blooms soon after damage happens.
Example 2: Hodir. More HPS on top of Rejuv while being able to move.