Tree Healing Guide (IN PROGRESS) - Page 2

Krag · 12/30/09, 8:16 PM

Originally Posted by intrepidos

[Idol of the Black Willow] will probably be the last badge item i get. the ramp up time alone is very unattractive.

Even though I don't plan on buying mine for a while (mostly because I have other bigger upgrades to get) I don't really see the ramp up time to be any kind of issue. There will be very few fights ever where you don't have any rejuv ticks in a 15 second period and you can easily get it stacked before any important encounters start.

Erdluf · 12/30/09, 9:44 PM

Originally Posted by Kirbie44

1. Thorns damage is only you. It is "your" thorns. If you put it on a tank, it doesn't increase that thorns damage.

Do you have a source for that? I haven't specced Brambles since the coefficient was nerfed back in May, but at that time Brambles was increasing the tank's thorn damage.

Deku · 12/31/09, 5:17 AM

Originally Posted by Erdluf

Do you have a source for that? I haven't specced Brambles since the coefficient was nerfed back in May, but at that time Brambles was increasing the tank's thorn damage.

I also have tested this some time ago with a pvp spec I had and iirc it does effect everyone who you buff thorns on not just yourself.

MegaVolt · 12/31/09, 5:35 AM

I'm not really sold on the new cookie cutter build.

Living Seed usually does about 2% to 3% of my overall healing when using Regrowth more often. This is pretty significant and I don't think Revitalize is competetive there.
Nourish is still more effective however and especially easier on the mana pool. When using Regrowth more often I basically OOM every fight.

The whole idea of dropping Nourish simply because we "have to" spec NG and Regrowth happens to be the only spell that benefits from it strikes me as stranger. Either I commit to something or I don't. Meaning: If I'm taking a build that mainly buffs Regrowth then that spell better be significant for my healing.

I'd go with:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (18/0/83)
For a Regrowth based build. Since the RG HoT is applied all the time we don't need the Swiftmend glyph. Innervate to make up for the insane mana cost RG has. RG and Rejuv will both be used often, RG when the direct heal is useful, Rejuv for blanketing if everyone is almost topped off and WG as always on cooldown. Glyphed RG makes sure we have some significant healing power on single targets if needed (e.g. Saurfang marks).

Still, all this Regrowth boosting hardly seems worth it. Rejuv+Nourish will basically do the same thing and they are way easier on the mana pool.
As new "cookie cutter" spec (if you want to point one out instead of just leaving all 3 viable builds as equal) I'd suggest this one:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (11/0/58+2)
Yes, no CF ... but are those 121 haste really worth the huge sacrifice we'd have to make to get them? 2%-3% healing done from Living Seed or the raid buff that Revitalize brings should more than make up for the spellpower loss due to gemming a bit of haste. Nourish heals for as much as Regrowth and doesn't need a NG proc to be fast.

I also don't see much harm in going
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft (14/0/57)
A good middle road which leaves RG as a viable spell and doesn't cripple Nourish.

I'd say all three builds are perfectly viable for raid healing and in the end it comes down to personal preference.

Btw a small story about why I like the flexible build

I'm running with that last one, 14/0/57, right now. Just yesterday in our ICC 10 run we decided to just dual heal the whole thing instead of triple healing since the first two weeks we just blasted through there without any problems anyway. So with only 2 healers we engage Marrowgar ... and then our holy Paladin discs about 5 seconds into the fight. Lost of Regrowth and Nourish spam later and with Marrowgar at about 30% health the Paladin gets back into the game and we finish the fight. Solo healing that would have been quite a lot harder with one of the other two builds.
I know the hybrid build isn't really min/maxing for a given raid composition. But it is perfect if something unexpected happens. At least while we are getting new content on a regular basis with only a few weeks to experiment with the fights I think it certainly has its place.

• Hamlet · 12/31/09, 10:19 AM

This (and other) talent debates are the main reason I hadn't written a guide yet. I think that our response to the 3.3 changes isn't totally clear (see my long posts about talents up in the Resto thread).

I have no problem with someone else trying to put up something else of their own, of course. But this post, which is largely based on my own previously written content puts me in a potentially weird place, where I feel pre-empted out of using my own content to write a guide soon because it will look largely the same as this one. You did credit me in the opening, but it's still a stretch to get your own thread going where more than half the post is a C&P from my posts on EJ and elsewhere (e.g. What’s up with 3.3 Resto druids? Changes explained | Restokin ).

I think the best solution, if you want to keep this thread going and have a class guide megathread of your own, is to add a substantial amount of your own content very soon. Otherwise I might ask you to leave the task of compiling a compendium of my posts to me (which I'd do sooner rather than later, despite above reservation, if people think it's really important to have a thread like this soon).

Kirbie44 · 12/31/09, 10:40 AM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

I think the best solution, if you want to keep this thread going and have a class guide megathread of your own, is to add a substantial amount of your own content very soon. Otherwise I might ask you to leave the task of compiling a compendium of my posts to me (which I'd do sooner rather than later, despite above reservation, if people think it's really important to have a thread like this soon).

And this is the big thing I was worried about. But what you say in a lot of you posts and threads are worded better than what I could. I can change a lot of it, or even let you post yours, and make mine inactive/delete. People were just asking, and I figured I would throw this out there for now. A lot of changes will come in this thread shortly, as it was just put up. I'll send you a PM.

• Hamlet · 12/31/09, 11:07 AM

Originally Posted by Kirbie44

And this is the big thing I was worried about. But what you say in a lot of you posts and threads are worded better than what I could. I can change a lot of it, or even let you post yours, and make mine inactive/delete. People were just asking, and I figured I would throw this out there for now. A lot of changes will come in this thread shortly, as it was just put up. I'll send you a PM.

If you are just keeping a compendium of my posts until I (or you or anyone) actually write a full guide, that's fine. I don't want to make too big a deal about it, I just don't want it to remain in this state indefinitely.

Kirbie44 · 12/31/09, 11:24 AM

Originally Posted by MegaVolt

The whole idea of dropping Nourish simply because we "have to" spec NG and Regrowth happens to be the only spell that benefits from it strikes me as stranger. Either I commit to something or I don't.

This spec isn't about to buff Regrowth. It is about full powered Wild Growth/Rejuvenation. Leaving us with Nourish/Regrowth (same as pre 3.3) for direct heals. Nourish will still hit harder, but Regrowth leaves a long HoT buffer. The difference is, Haste (which we not have plenty of) has more benifit to Regrowth, especially past the soft cap.

Maybe I should change that wording quite a bit, because this is a Rejuve/WG build, not a Nourish or Regrowth or anything else build.

Titanstrider · 12/31/09, 12:46 PM

I had started to compile a resto druid guide for the Think Tank just prior to 3.3 coming out, but honestly having seen the amount of effort Arawethion has put into the forums on the subject, I've not tried to reinvent that wheel until everything has settled as I would pretty much be copying and pasting much of his work which didn't feel right. It's reaching that point now where we know the effective mechanics of 3.3, and I think it would be fair to let Hamlet compile his work into a definitive guide, but it's great that you made an effort to get things going Kirbie.

Some of the beaten to death horses like revitalize versus LS shouldn't be brought up yet again here. Just because recount doesn't pad the druid's effective healing meter, revitalize is considered sub-par. It is in fact one of the best raids buffs in the game, as many parses posted in these forums have shown. Hamlet's aware of these issues, and I think would be best suited for explaining the common pros-cons of the options we have.

MegaVolt · 12/31/09, 7:16 PM

Originally Posted by Titanstrider

Some of the beaten to death horses like revitalize versus LS shouldn't be brought up yet again here. Just because recount doesn't pad the druid's effective healing meter, revitalize is considered sub-par. It is in fact one of the best raids buffs in the game, as many parses posted in these forums have shown. Hamlet's aware of these issues, and I think would be best suited for explaining the common pros-cons of the options we have.

I know about the Revitalize issue and I know of a lot of theorycrafting behind it (which I don't find really convincing since in the end only Rogues, feral Druids and to a limited extend DKs have an actual benefit from it, mana and rage users don't tend to care at all) but I am not aware of an analysis of combat parses that shows Revitalize to be a major raid dps contribution. Could you please point me in the right direction there?
Having such a link in a resto guide would also be very beneficial imo.

Generally I feel the most important part in a finished 3.3 tree guide will probably be the talent discussion. As Arawethion pointed out there still is much unclear and as I see it now there won't be any clear cookie cutter spec, no real "must have" build and a lot of room for personal preference. Having detailed information about all those optional talents (like Revitalize) and their impact on the raid is vital.

Oh and a minor thing: Isn't the haste cap with CF 735 instead of 736?

Another thing I'd improve is the badge section. The problem we face right now is that we won't upgrade from 4t9 until at least 4t10 (if it turns out to be good ... and if it doesn't turn out to be good enough then blizz will either buff it or nerf t9 jus like they did when we didn't want to upgrade from 4t8 to 4t9). Buying the emblem or a trinket or anything will delay your 4t10 purchase, there is just no way around it. There should be a line in there somewhere mentioning the very solid option to just sit on your emblems, collect trophies if possible and get the ilvl 264 4t10 instantly once enough emblems have been collected. That's what I'm planning to do at least, I don't want to delay the t10 purchase for a week or two just to get an insignificant idol upgrade that's irrelevant right now anyway since there are no challening hard modes available yet. Generally with the way content is released and the lack of any kind of challenging encounters (no hard modes) I think "sit back, relax and wait" is the best advice in terms of gear right now.

Originally Posted by Kirbie44

This spec isn't about to buff Regrowth. It is about full powered Wild Growth/Rejuvenation. Leaving us with Nourish/Regrowth (same as pre 3.3) for direct heals. Nourish will still hit harder, but Regrowth leaves a long HoT buffer. The difference is, Haste (which we not have plenty of) has more benifit to Regrowth, especially past the soft cap.

I don't think using a Rejuv/WG healing style and just replacing Nourish with RG for spot healing is really all that viable.
The problem is that RG will only be a good replacement for Nourish if the NG proc is active. Without NG it casts way too slow so that even an untalented Nourish would be better. So for RG to be a good replacement for Nourish we have to make sure NG is active most of the time - which means we have to use RG quite often. It has to become our new main spell or at least one of our main spells, cast about as often as Rejuv to get an acceptable NG uptime. This is fine since RG and Rejuv have quite similar base HPS (if you take Living Seed into account which can't be skipped for that reason).
If you just use RG occasionally you end up completely wasting those 3 points in NG. It will just never be up, never do anything. So in the end getting CF costs you 7 talent points without any other beneficial effects, sacrificing your awesome 1s spot heal in order to gain a weaker 1.4s spot heal with a small HoT on it and that uneasy tension between Revitalize and Living Seed.
If you start using RG a lot you gain a front loaded heal (which actually is pretty awesome and very useful in ICC for me so far) but lose out on Revitalize (RG doesn't proc it) and you get serious mana issues.

One thing to think about when chosing a RG centered build is that it will benefit from haste far over the cap, meaning that it would be possible to ignore 4t10 and take 3 off pieces with haste on them (and ofc the 2 haste set pieces). Disregarding the mana issues for a moment it might just be that the better RG scaling with haste past the gcd cap makes up for the loss of the Rejuv set bonus (e.g. if it happens to consume the initial Rejuv on the jump).

Without really going all out RG I don't thing that spell is a valid replacement for Nourish. 1s or 1.4s cast time is a huge difference and the harder hitting Nourish might just make the difference in spot healing. The CF build is a good one if you never ever cast any spell besides Rejuv and WG but let's be honest ... do you really do that? Do you never have to help out on the tank for a few seconds during guild progression or pick that dude up that was standing in the fire a bit too long? 7 talent points only to get 121 haste seems a bit much when we have to sacrifice so much versatility for it.
Having a RG centered healing style on the other hand doesn't really have to be that bad. Losing Revitalize hurts, mana is an issue but front loaded spells are easy to handle and usually quite efficient. It might turn out to be viable in full 264 gear (so that we can go past the gcd haste cap quite a bit and get enough spirit/int to be able to sustain RG).

jula · 12/31/09, 9:30 PM

Originally Posted by MegaVolt

but I am not aware of an analysis of combat parses that shows Revitalize to be a major raid dps contribution. Could you please point me in the right direction there?

I can give you a link to a WOL parse showing the gains from Revitalize over a full fight.
I think an almost ideal case (for demonstrating the potential of Revitalize's) is Twins in ToGC25, in which we had 2 resto druids simply spamming rejuv/WG none stop without moving (97% of the healing done by both druids was done by rejuv + WG).

here you can see that Replenish provided the raid with a total of 176k mana during the fight (3:59 min).
In that same fight Revitalize (by 2x trees) gave the raid 119k mana, 576 runic power,632 energy, and 84 rage combined.

How much extra damage was caused by that extra runic, energy and rage i can't say, maybe someone else wants to give a lower bound or estimation. However what is very clear is Revitalize was at least 67% as good as replenish, if you only count the mana gained. This would make each single druid's 3/3 Revitalize equal to at least 33.8% the mana regen of replenish (and remember a single player doesn't provide the entire 25man raid with replenish, you need a couple of replenish providers), assuming a rejuv/WG spamming healing style.

Another interesting thing in this log is that Revitalize gave roughly 100k mana to healers, arcane mages, and a warlock. The remaining 19k mana went to other mana users (rets, prot palas, hunters, enhac shamans etc). Now arcane mages and warlocks gaining more mana means more dps, since locks need to tap less and mages can afford to skip evocation or use higher dps rotations. Its obviously good for your healers to have more mana. So claims of the extra mana being useless are far from true, at least in my opinion.

Seeing these logs, I consider Revitalize a must have talent for a raiding resto druid.

bdx · 01/01/10, 7:24 AM

Can you tell me why did you choose crit head and shoulders enchat instead of mana regen?

e: Oh nevermind, I did not see a small note above. Delete post, please.

MegaVolt · 01/05/10, 6:16 AM

Thanks jula. I payed a little more attention to my own raid logs (actually I wasn't aware that WoL lists Revitalize like that, thanks!) and it seems yours is more favorable towards Revitalize than mine. We also run with 2 resto Druids and being one of them I usually gain 20% (e.g. our last Jaraxxus HC kill) to 30% (our last Iron Council HC kill, 5x1 style fight) of Replenishment mana from Revitalize. That puts each Druids Revitalize at about 15% of Replenishment as opposed to your 30%.
The difference can be explained by the fact that you only had 2 sources of Replenishment in the raid so I guess you hardly had 100% uptime on everyone. We had 5, giving it basically a 100% uptime.

Still, 15% worth of Replenishment (for mana users alone - plus the effect on RP, rage and energy) is pretty awesome. I, too, consider it a mandatory talent now

Kirbie44 · 01/05/10, 9:53 AM

Originally Posted by MegaVolt

Still, 15% worth of Replenishment (for mana users alone - plus the effect on RP, rage and energy) is pretty awesome. I, too, consider it a mandatory talent now

If only the rest of the community were as "open" as you

For standard talents, I think I am going to keep what I have, maybe open up the area for more discussion/opinions. I'll make a link to Jula's post with the combat parse in the talent section.

735/736 Haste with CF, I recall 736, but I'll have to search and redo the math to see if it is 735.

• Hamlet · 01/05/10, 9:56 AM

Originally Posted by Kirbie44

If only the rest of the community were as "open" as you

For standard talents, I think I am going to keep what I have, maybe open up the area for more discussion/opinions. I'll make a link to Jula's post with the combat parse in the talent section.

735/736 Haste with CF, I recall 735, but I'll have to search and redo the math to see if it is 736.

It's 734.99. TreeCalcs will spit out your exact cap in any combination of buffs as well.