Anaram

If you could avoid people dying by speccing moonkin why wouldn't you do that? Most of the time you can't, though. I fail to see how this argument really pertains to what I'm saying.

I think paladins, at minimum, equal druids in their ability to save people. Between holy shock and holy light they've got a very solid foundation.

Saving people as a general idea is not bad. Still, I think it's a very problematic situation when healers think that them *personally* saving someone is better than providing a solid healing foundation where those people don't to be saved in the first place. Now if you know someone is going to die without your heal, then you are almost always correct in saving them. Most of the time this isn't the reality at all but you are instead just sniping others, with 4-6 other healers in the raid there should plenty of people capable of bringing someone back up. This is a problem since when too many people are occupying themselves too much with saving people the raid might start folding simply because there isn't enough effort to make sure people don't dip low in the first place.

 

Ezarg

In farm situation - that's precisely correct.

But this is exactly not how progression works, at least in my experience. First kill means that this is the first time where you (and the rest of your group) execute the fight with approximately correct approach. This is also the first time where as a healer you get the full picture of the damage taken profile on the fight. While you could work out mathematically what you should be casting when, the problem with that is that there are too many variables on most "first kill" fights to make this really effective - people are not going to follow the strat 100% correctly, and you are not going to have the luxury of being able to provide 100% "solid healing foundation" because by definition you can only define what "solid healing foundation" is for given fight after your first kill. You can call those variable factors "poor play" but unless you got 24 bots running around with you, you're pretty-much guaranteed to have to make life-saving casts on your progression fights and you're bound to miss some, too. Out of curiosity, how many people were saved by Hodir on your first Yogg kill? Would you call your first Yogg kill "poor play"? Usually, any first kill is great execution and hard work of quite a few people, no matter whether it's 22 people dead and 3 healers finally finishing off the boss 10 seconds after the enrage timer, or nobody ever dying - counts all the same and you get the same loot.

As to sniping, obviously this plays out different in 10 and 25. But even in 25, if everyone goes by the same idea that sniping people who are low is bad, then nobody does it and your raid is dead very quickly. If my job is to heal the raid, then it includes getting people who are low up as fast as possible (unless the leader tells me specifically otherwise). I have incoming heals indicator to avoid overhealing people who are low by 100% - if I see someone nearly at 0, I can decide whether they can wait for that 1.5 second cast from someone else or whether maybe I should swiftmend them. And the other healer(s) can decide whether to complete their 1.5 second cast or cancel it. And I can see people's debuffs and aggro indication so I can tell whether they are under some sustained damage or not.

 

Anaram

I think we have differing interpretations on what a solid healing foundation is. When I used the expression I'm really only referring to a situation where the number of people (tanks or otherwise) dropping into danger zone is reasonable (and progressing through mostly manageable into eventually reliable).

This can also happen because too many people are trying to do too many saves. I think I made it pretty clear I'm not saying people shouldn't be saved but rather that healers shouldn't indiscriminately save people over managing the raid's HP as a whole. On a similar note I think people shouldn't only think of saving spells in terms of it's lowest possible effect but also account for the fact that it can help in avoiding further risky situations (nourish crits, for example).

Hots are superb in a wide range of situations in helping manage the overall raid HP. Swiftmend is an excellent saver but past that you are very fast sacrificing your efficiency. Sometimes you can afford to sacrifice efficiency but that's just not always true.

 

Selendis

In the same line of thought as this save people or max hpsc debate...

I found varying the raid healers strengths works well. There are two resto druids in our raid every night (one of them is me). The other druid uses 4pt8 and I use assorted high stat Ulduar gear with a regrowth glyph. Both of us are of very equal skill, and are almost exactly equal on charts for fights where we perform the same role. On a stand still fight, such as Iron Council hard mode, we both heal the raid intensely, and with his 4pt8 he restricts himself to wg and rj, and with my regrowth glyph I consider myself the spot healer for those that dip low, while still using wg on every cooldown and rj when no one requires big heals.

I've never actually used 4pt8 so I don't know if it is blatantly better than my assorted gear with regrowth glyph. Has anyone else played around with 4pt8 vs regrowth glyph and found one to be a clear favorite? Please elaborate.

 

Sagus

Regrowth is obviously going to be a better spot heal, but that's not really druid's best role. The way I play at least (using 4pt8) is it's my job to keep the raid's hp steadily increasing while shamans pick up people dropping low. You are basically taking the place of the shaman, while that other druid is playing my role. Both are important jobs but druid is more suited to the HoT rolling.

 

Fieryeel

Hi all, just to check a couple of things(ok maybe more than a couple).

1) Revitalize vs Celestial Focus - I am still in a dilema. I took Celestial Focus over Revitalize, as I can throw more heals around. However, many restos in my guild have pointed out to me that Revita gives more dps to raid as a whole, and killing boss faster = less need to heal

2) Upcoming 3.2 - With the change to Empowered Touch, would it now be worthy to take that talent for the 20% bonus to Nourish?

3) Addon - Still on a hunt for an addon that shows the status, debuffs, value of hp/mana, and whatever hots you got on your raid. X-Perl atm is awesome looking, but it doesn't show me which of my own hots r on the target.

4) Wild Growth - It's CD is 6 secs while it heals over 7 sec. Do I run a risk of clipping my own WG if i spam it?

5) Innervate - Yet again, still a contest of whether when calculating if my mana is enough for me, should I put innervate into it. I 've had ppl telling me trees got more than enuff regen, and innervate shld be given to other classes, others tell me I should factor it into my own regen.

6) Haste proc trinkets - Are trinkets like Egg and Embrace of Spider worth using, or should I just go with [Titan-Forged Rune of Audacity]. I can see the movement free being useful for healing.

7) Lifebloom - Is it still any useful as a single thrown hot(not refreshing) on the tank along with Regrowth and Rejuv, or is it so useless now that it isn't even worth that?

8) Does ToL aura still stack like BC?

Thanks.

 

magirocker

Okay, so as a Resto Druid who healed pre-wrath, I can see how much worse lifebloom is now. However... what are the alternatives for healing 5mans (heroics, specifically). I've basically been doing pretty much the same thing as before, that is, rolling lifebloom, Rejuv (and swiftmending at end of cycle if appropriate) and Regrowth sometimes. WG too.

Basically, I can see how for raids, if you're not healing a MT, how Rejuv/other spells would be great, but isn't LB kinda what you have to do for 5mans?

 

Cathiecj

My opinion is as follows:

4. I've noticed that my WG do not clip. They simply go to whoever needs the healing. I believe it is acting as a smart heal now.

5. I save my innervate for myself. However, now that my regen is getting better I don't seem to be useing it often. My advice is to tell the ppl that say it should be going to others to stuff it. But, when you get your regen up, then you can spread the love.

7. Lifebloom is useless unless you are assigned to heal only 1 or 2 ppl. I seem to get best results with rejuv, regrowth, swiftmend and WG. I do try to keep at least a rejuv on the tanks, and a regrowth if possible. You will waste more time keeping LB up on tanks than you would by spreading Rej and regrowth.

I do still use LB on the tank in 5 mans. You get 1/2 your mana back so it isn't more costly.

Keep in mind this is MY opinion and YOUR mileage may vary.

 

Ploppy

I dont use lifebloom a lot either, well not anymore. But there are still situations where I apreciate having it. In general I use rejuvs WGs and RG like people suggest. However during a fight unless its a real bugger of a a fight you rarely need every bloody GCD you have available. Thus, if I have some room timewise I often chuck a lifebloom towards people taking a lot of damage. Also if Im not very pressed for GCDs I generally try to spend clearcast procs on lifeblooms. But when Im really working i just ignore clearcasts, focusing on the GCD rythym and what heal the raid needs the most.

Also theres sometimes cases where you can anticipate a time where you want a chunk of health returned tothe tank but you are likely to be unable to cast it then or there will be other parameters. Since its before my first cup o coffe I can´t think of any really good examples of the top o me head but a very basic example is the curse from spider trash in naxx. Since they spam apply the curse such a lot its hard to time casts with the tank not having it. So back when this was somewhat challenging content I had a procedure of lifeblooming tanks up and then decursing them jsut as the LBs were about to bloom to reliably land a big heal on them.

But like stated above its not a really important spell anymore, I just like making the most of my tools.

 

Illyria

mimiron hardmode plasma blast would probably be a better example

 

Kalaya

It's a lot more costly. I don't ever let it bloom unless the tank could actually use the health. While a bloom does indeed give you 1500 mana back, you're also spending another 3k mana to get it back to a 3-stack, basically meaning you just spent 1500 mana to refresh your stack. At the same time you could've refreshed the 3 stack for 1000 mana by not letting it bloom. Note that these aren't the exact numbers, but just an indication that lifebloom has definitely gotten a lot more costly and that the mana return mechanic is gimmicky at best, it's not efficient at all to let it bloom unless the tank needs the healing. The only benefit of the lifebloom change is that it hits hard now when it does expire. Though that'll be nerfed as well next patch.

 

Cathiecj

This doesn't make sense to me. You are refreshing your LB for (using your figures) 1000 mana to roll LB. Each time you refresh, 1 x every 9-10 secs, vs letting it bloom and getting the mana back (500 x 3). Off the top of my head that sure seems to be a lot of mana loss. By letting it bloom the actual cost of a full stack of my LB is 1500 vs your 3000 + 1000 ever refresh. Can you explain to me how rolling LB is mana efficient. I can see if how if you roll it is very costly.

Also, keep in mind I usually only use LB for 5 mans.

 

Sagus

Sure, refreshing that 3 stack is cheaper for that single cast than slow stacking, but of course 1 cast of LB is going to be less mana than 3. What Kalaya isn't taking into account is he needs to compare 3 casts of rolling LB to slow stacking, not 1. While you have to wait a little while for the mana, blooming costs the 500 every ~9 seconds, rolling costs 1k every ~9 seconds.

 

goodolarchie

1- Think of celestial focus being worth about 100 haste rating. Revitalize has no equal in rating terms. If your raid has several rogues, feral druids, DPS dk's and warriors, it can be a substantial DPS boost. Its also very handy for healer mana, and it scales nicely.

2- Yes

3- Grid

4- Yes, but that final 7th tick is only about 3/5 the initial tick. If the same target was low health and received the smart-heal, you'd want the full initial tick anyway, in this case clipping is good.

5- It's ~13.5k mana back in a fight. If you're trying to gear yourself around never needing it, then sure, but isn't that a little silly? Innervate will be less clutch next patch, when its only 3 minutes. I could see it being viable to throw one to a priest early in a fight, then using the next for yourself.

6- Why would you suddenly need 400 haste? Assuming your haste capped on hots, the best you could do with this is throw some really fast regrowths around, which is both mana intensive and generally unnecessary. Stick with throughput (spellpower), or a regen trinket.

7 - Its worth stacking on fights where a tank takes a lot of damage if you have the spare mana and GCD. If there's heavy raid damage, don't jeopardize the raid by keeping it up, let the assigned tank healers worry about that.

8 - No

 

Kalaya

Sure, if you're slowstacking it, than yes, it only costs 500 mana every 9 seconds, but that way you're also losing part of the healing output of the spell. I compared refreshing the lifebloom versus letting it bloom and immediately building it back up to 3 stacks. The reason I use it in the first place is for a nice stable healing buffer on the tank and for that I don't want a one stack rolling at all, I want maximum hps which slowstacking doesn't give me. So yes, lifebloom is more costly for me. And with slowstacking it isn't more costly, but than it's hps is nerfed substantially. Though for 5 mans I guess you could do without the max hps. Either way lifebloom has either become more costly or lost a lot of it's hps, depending on which way you use the spell.

 

SkagasmAddict

It doesn't do much good to make meaningless comparisons. Making 3-stacks and letting them bloom immediately is, generally speaking, the least wise use of Lifebloom. It may provide the greatest theoretical HPS from LB alone, but you're tying an absurd amount of GCDs to LB that can be spent in a much wiser way.

-
LB cost unmodified: 978 cost - 489 mana return = 489 net cost
LB w/ToL:782 cost - 489 mana return = 293 net cost
LB w/ToL and Spark of Hope: 748 cost - 489 mana return = 259 net cost

Because of the way the mana return mechanic works letting it bloom is actually more generous than those 500/1000 numbers may indicate. Slow-stacking and letting it bloom, without Spark of Hope, is ~37% of the cost of rolling LB as opposed to 50%. I'm not suggesting you should always slow-stack. I'm just suggesting that if we're going to talk about spell mechanics let's talk about them accurately.

 

Kalaya

Which is exactly why I hardly ever let it bloom, unless the tank needs the health of the bloom and I'm unsure whether other heals are incoming or not. What I said was that I prefer to have the continuous hps of a 3-stack, rather than slowstacking and having a much lower hot rolling on my tank for the most part. I have yet to find an encounter where mana is an issue, so for me there's no reason for using mana efficient slowstacking over keeping lifebloom rolling.

 

Carebare

Generally I don't worry about tank healing/rolling as much as I did during TBC. There are 3 other healing classes that are better tank healers than druids because they bring something more to the table (whether it be an armor proc or unlimited sustainability of high direct target HPS). I find myself more in a role of raid healing, which I think is true for most of us. I will always ensure there is a rejuv on anyone tanking but aside from that I tend to use any spare globals (when the raid isn't taking damage), to put a single bloom on the tanks. I don't understand the seeming hesitancy to do this. Let it tick and bloom, for whatever minimal healing it may give during it's duration/bloom. You get the mana back, it provides some extra HPS. Really, there is nothing lost with this.

If the tank is in trouble, we have plenty of tools to assist tank healers that do not come with the mana intensity (and time off of raid healing) of rolling a triple bloom (mend/NSHT and for slow drops: nourish and/or regrowth if you are looking to put out another HoT with some up front healing).

That said, I rarely (if ever) use my innervate while resto. With Mana Tide/Replen and then glyphed Innervate and maybe in severe situations a mana pot, I am usually 100% fine.

Edit: Obviously everyone finds themselves in a different role given the composition of their raid/strength of the healers they work with, etc. I just feel like a lot of the time this forum goes in circles when there is really no right or wrong answer (unless someone is just doing something ridiculous like only casting WG and never anything else, etc.)

[23:57:22][W:From] [Kadrok]: I switched my DI button with the RPG-GG from Wintergrasp, apparently. I tried to shoot you with a rocket
[00:50:23] [R] [80:Chocula]: druids are literally the best class
[14:05:01] <Nite_Moogle> i miss raiding with carebare :< she makes me feel like i am not the only person that hates everyone
[21:50:15] [R] [80:Werebeef]: q: what do you tell a shaman who's been nerfed twice a: nothing you already totem twice

 

goodolarchie

I'm pretty much in agreement with your post. Going into 3.1 there was a lot of discourse and concern about lifebloom-stacking strategy. I'm not saying its a bad thing or a waste of time to discuss it now, but the nerf was just fractionally as detrimental as people thought it would be (at least on the WoW healing forum). I spent most of PTR weaning myself off it and implementing nourish more reactively. Turns out there were only a few bosses (that come to mind) where lifebloom strategy was important/relevant - Steelbreaker (last), Mimiron p1 FF, General hard, and Algalon.

General was simple, just use it on clearcast procs when you don't need refresh regrowth soon or WG the idiots that stood by faceless. The other fights its pretty simple too, if you have the mana and spare GCD, cast it. If you can keep it rolling, do it. Even with a sizable deficit, the bloom will most likely just end up sniping a holy light, LHW, penance, etc. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it might lure the MT healers into a false sense of security/rhythm. Some of you are lucky enough to have a legendary mace by now so the bloom for you is important.

 

Bidule

I have some questions for 10man mimiron hardmode; it is mainly second and third phase we are dealing with atm.

I am usually just throwing rejuv and WG on the raid and when i have time some nourish on the low people. This however doesnt seem to be enough and people do still drop. This being 10man i wonder if i should try other things to make the healing go smoother.

I have been toying with the idea of the following glyphs and spec: WG/Swiftmend/Healing Touch - spec

I dont loose awful much with this spec that i use. I hardly ever use nourish and regrowth, so the extra crit wont be missed much; the less powerful NS I can deal with aswell. What i am afraid of is that it from a HPS is a really bad move to start spamming HT into low HP people, I have been trying out the rejuv glyph but it doesnt seem to be doing much of a difference.

 

Jezz

Are you trying to solo heal it? I have no idea how Rejuv/WG/Nourish wouldn't be enough to keep the raid up assuming someone else is helping you, especially after the nerf. Either that or there is something terribly wrong with your raid's positioning.

 

Feralkin

I think that perhaps you should look into what you partner healer(s) are bringing to the table. Basically your best bet is to hit a rotation and let the other healers deal with the dump heals to handle burst dmg. In 10 man its much easier to manage than 25.
You need to make sure that you are at full mana and then about 14 seconds before the phase starts, start stacking regrowth on people for the hot. It lasts a while and helps with the initial shock of the phase starting. Then the rotation is this.
5xRej, 1xWG, 5xRejuv, 1xWG, 5x LB, 1xWG.
5 sec, 6 sec, 11 sec, 12 sec, 17 sec, 18 sec.

Rejuv should be an 18second hot anyway. So first rejuv is falling off as last WG is cast.
Ignore Nourish and Regrowth in P2, you other healers should be handling the burst and this is by far the best HPS rotation that you can get in a 10 man constant raid dmg situation. It also keeps a hot on every target so that you can swiftmend in a pinch. SM is the only dump spell you use in P2. Anything with a casting time is a no-no. If you use swiftmend then reduce the amount of LB's you use by the same amount on the next 5x LB rotation. Usually going to be 1 but could be 2 from time to time.

As long as your GCD is rolling constantly, then people dying is not really your fault and the other healers need to figure out how to complement your healing rotation. Like you can always LB group 1 while a holy priest always PoH's group 2 to counter balance the burst.

With replenishment, BoW, spirit buff and whatnot You might need to use your pot here in P2. Try to save Innervate for P4, P2 is the only other phase where you may need to use a mana return ability so rather use the pot here.

 

Funkychicken

I would be willing to bet that the issue is with strategy, other healers failing, or people standing in fires rather than your personal failure. RJ x5 -> WG -> Occasional swiftmend should be enough for p2 even with only two healers.

Glyphed healing touch is nowhere near as good as a HoT focused build with 4pct8.

E: @Feralkin - I don't understand why you suggest Lifebloom as a raid heal in p2? Rejuv will pretty much always be better HPM and with a competent healing partner you shouldn't need the bloom to be effective healing.

 

Omen

You can only have 10 RJ's up at a time which means in an 18s rotation you will have 5s where any additional RJs you cast will be overwriting old ones. There's no reason not to cast something else such as said Lifeblooms in those 5 seconds.

 

Feralkin

Ye what Omen said, you have about 5 or 6 seconds of waiting time before you should start refreshing Rejuv because they are still on the targets. So i prefer the LB approach because it is a decent amount of healing and still instant cast. Although if you do not trust your other healers as much, go for a nourish spam, you could get off about 4 in that time. With my healer setup however, I find that leaving the dump healing to a Holy priest is better. Nourish spamming will just cause lots of unnecessary overhealing for both you and the priest at about 520 mana a shot. Whereas LB filling costs less after the mana return and helps to build on the foundation of what a druid raid healing is for. Dampening the incoming dmg.