Hello guys !

Long time since I last posted here. I wanted to present my spec for a long time but couldn't find the time to do so (I'm a sort of excentric casual... well) I'm asking for feedback about this, I think you will be more efficient than me to find what has to be found about this. Maybe this build was already discussed.

Let's begin with my armory : The World of Warcraft Armory
(don't mind the balance 2nd spec, I didn't even try to look at the talents)
If you click on my talent tree : The World of Warcraft Armory

This is a healing PvE spec, but not really a FFA one. (though FFA is pretty good on some fight with this : faction champions for example) The idea is to spam nourrish on a tank, refreshing only regrowth. Sometimes a rejuvenation won't hurt, if you feel like there's no need to hurry. But basically it is regrowth + nourrish.

The build is based on three talents :
- Nature's Bounty : +25% crit on regrowth and nourrish
- Nature's Grace : +20% haste after a crit for 3 seconds
- Living Seed : plant a seed procing on the next hit healing for 30% of the amount healed or overhealed.

Spamming nourrish (with 2p T9 and critrate and lot of intel and buffs I'm ~70% crit on nourrish) makes Nature's Bounty always up, so Nourrish is always a 1-sec cast (sometimes less, I'm actually haste-overcapped) ; you proc more than 2 living seed every 3 seconds so basically every attack make this proc.

The quickness and effectiveness of the heal (it's like two or three never-ending penance) and the living seeds make this build the best heal build possible to avoid windows of damage. The potential HPS on the tank is great (basically 12k+ HPS with the seeds).

The mana burnrate is not a big deal as long as you are prepared to equip mana regen trinkets (algalon 10 omg + kologarn 10) and give up the tree form (which is ugly so who cares ? ;-) ) and take dreamstate. With two mana-regen talents + a good itemization and mp5 consumables, you'll have the mana regen to handle it.


After using this for a long time (monthes), I feel like this build has a real place in the heal builds. It's not just "good", it gives new tools and has specific look (caster look *_*), talents, itemization, ... It allows effective and selective FFA though it's not optimized (I am 99% of times first heal on faction champions normal and heroic, 10 and 25) as well as very powerfull tank healing. Though the healmeter doesn't mean a lot, it's sometimes funny to see the overall healing or the healing done to the tank with this spec.

But I'm a casual player (as you can see in my achievments) and I haven't try the best content of the game, so I would be happy to hear your feedbacks about this.

Your builds stated base is pretty much standard. You can armory almost each resto druid and he'll have it. I would suggest to use as base Dreamstate, Lunar Guidance and Celestial Focus.
I'll use your stats, as they are in armory.
Dreamstate gives 134.6 mp5. Not bad
Lunar Guidance gives 161.5 sp. Skipped Improved Tree of Live talent would give 146.4 sp. I dunno if i should multiply it by 1.15 because of Living Spirit (in that case it's 168.36 sp).
Celestial Focus gives 3% haste. Nice.
Now come missed multipliers.
Master Shapeshifter 1.04, Gift of the Nature 1.1 instead of 1.08, assuming no trees/prot palas 1.06.
Empowered Rejuvenation won't give the buff for your Regrowth.
Of course, it's not the build which uses a style of playing, but the player which uses build.
P.S. Didn't you want to play priest?

I guess my only feedback would be, why?

What is it that this spec provides that is so much greater than using multiple HoTs on the tank and spamming nourish? What do you gain that will outweigh a Shammy or Pally single target healer? Why would anyone in a raid want to take this version of a druid over the HoT rolling one?

Sure, if your guild has no single target healers you may need to do this, but I would argue that even at that point going more along the lines of going mainly down the resto tree to pick up the regrowth/nourish talents along with swiftmend ToL and empowered rejuv, while only going far enough in balance to get Lunar Guidance would allow you to single target heal just as well while still giving you more HoT versatility. If this is just for fun then I apologize, but as far as seriously considering this to become common in raiding I don't see it catching on, you lose too many great talents for our HoTs and don't gain enough to warrant bringing in a druid over the pally/shammy who will single target heal just as well and have CDs/Other talents (Earthshield, Ancestral Spirit) that the druid can not bring.

Its DPS is substantially better than a conventional Resto build. Its HPS really isn't close to being competitive unless all of your heals are reactive (but don't need Swiftmend or NS+HT) and there is a significant reason to not be in ToL (probably meaning you're doing DPS, CC, or are afraid of being Banished).

Even if the point is to stay out of ToL and show off your body (or avoid messing up your Halloween costume), your healing will be much stronger if you can keep your HoTs strong and use them effectively.

I could see making those tradeoffs in very small groups (Solo to 3-man), although I'd almost always prefer even more Balance talents for a much larger DPS potential. With 10 or more people, your DPS contribution would very rarely make a difference, considering the risk associated with a gimped healing build.

Can you describe a fight, and give a reason, where you think this build shines?

I wanted to play a druid. A night elf. I never wanted to play an ugly animal or... a tree. ;-) Lack of pretty forms or caster form in the gameplay (or lack of a good gameplay using form... ?) made me want to play healkin for the beginning. I am healkin since the release of BC. By the way, I like the gameplay of the tree. I just don't like the tree itself. And I'm pretty concerned about tanking problems so I like the idea of a class able to solve a lot of these problems. (typically, windows effects)

I agree with your comments, though I don't understand exactly what's your conclusion.

(Well actually there's a style of playing better than others for each build. Spam nourish with a tree looks pretty non-optimized for me, as most of your top-tier talents will go to waste on your main spell, where you could take a talent - dreamstate - that precisely give your main spell the thing it lacks most : durability.)


Why not using a druid spamming HoTs and Nourrish ? For single target healing, this is clearly way less efficient. You lose a lot of haste from Elune's Grace, you plant less seeds because of fewer cast and fewer critical chances. In the end, your HPS output on the tank is way lower. If you think I'm wrong about it, I would be glad to see the numbers or the demonstration, but it seems to me that the tree is just totally unable to have the sufficient healing output on a tank to make the job done with HoTs.

In the end, the most optimized cycle appears to be a rolling nourrish with elune's grace always up and lots of living seeds. For this, taking dreamstate is more efficient, because your first concern will be mana regen, not heal power. (top-tier resto talent aren't really efficient for mana regen, and not that efficient for heal power)

Compared to a Pally or a Chamy, it depends. Your 2 selling points are :
- Quickness. 10k every second with less than 3 or 4 "blank second" per minute seems more secure. Most of the time, Pally or Chamy aren't able to sustain this rythm. (except double-Pally with double bacon) Quickness is great for security and easily visible on a healmeter. (I've never seen a Pally making more effective heal on a tank than me. In fact, I often make more heal on TWO tanks than him with his bacon. And I don't always play with bad pallies. Though often. I am always first effective healer on a tank. By far.) Quickness is good for fights like champions HM for example.
- Seeds. Two seeds every 3 seconds is really great. It gives 3k to 3k5 virtual max HP to the tank. In a game where the max health pool seems to be the first priority (though I don't totally agree with it as an old avoidance follower), this is a pretty huge selling point. Plus, you can refresh it fairly efficiently on two tanks.

In terms of HPS, I didn't look for HL stats so I don't know the Pally and Chamy realities, but 12k HPS on one target seems pretty good for me, with a ~235 optimized gear. Maybe I'm wrong, but I did some tests with equaly-geared and skilled pally and they weren't able to do that on one target. (on one target = without the bacon and the "glyph of free raid healing") Once again, I may be wrong on that and need your feedback. If this is true, then every fight where there is mainly one tank taking damage will prefer a healkin to a paladin. (or at least hesitate) This is the case for a lot of fights.

I would say that Healkin is a "complementary heal tank" for a raid. Where a tank A takes 15 and a B takes 35, you put your pally on A (healing for 15) with bacon on B and your healkin on B (healing for 20). Beasts HM for example. Better than two paladins overhealing A and taking the risk of losing B. On a single target heal (IC HM P3 for example), you will be glad to have the healkin buffing for 3k5 HP and healing more than the paladin. The healkin is quick and switch more easily from a tank to another, he can look after three tanks at the same time and modulate his heal between them. He can buff two, maybe three tanks with seeds, without losing its haste effect of course.

I've never seen a resto druid able to keep a tank alive on a hard fight, most of the time they just aren't half efficient as I am with this spec. Maybe it's because I've always played with bad players. (I admit I don't play with the best players of the world... Euphemism)

It's hard to say if the spec itself is really good for HL raiding, as I'm probably a way better healer than all of my little friends, so it explains maybe why I'm always first HPS on raid or on tanks without using any other spell than nourish and sometimes regrowth. (and with big HPS differences)

This is the kind of post that doesn't do well here. Once in a blue moon does someone suddenly arrive with a "special flower" spec that's actually useful for anything, and this doesn't strike me as one of them. If your whole purpose is to do the most healing possible without Tree form, then good luck with that, but sadly, nobody else cares. This forum is for figuring out the most effective ways to play, independently of people's idiosyncratic self-imposed restrictions.