ii. Roles and Spells
iii. Talents and Builds
iv. Comparative Druid Stats
v. Gearing for Raids
vi. Glyphs, Gems, and Enchants
vii. Meters and You
viii. Consumables
ix. Recommended Addons
Introduction – FHQ ("Frequently Heard QQs")
QQ: Resto druids can’t heal tanks!
AA: You’d be surprised. One of the nice things about resto and its synergy with the balance tree is that you can spec/gear/glyph to fill whatever role you like, or design a spec that does everything pretty well. Resto druids have a very respectable arsenal for dealing with tank damage, which will be covered later on. It depends on playstyle and what the druid is comfortable with, but we’re definitely not gimped in this respect.
QQ: Resto is not good at end game content!
AA: That may have seemed the case in TBC, with the lack of a smart group heal, but it is certainly not the case now. As mentioned before, druids are extremely versatile and people are starting to recognize this. I’ve personally been involved in Naxx 25s sporting an entire forest of trees, and my very first Malygos-10 kill had a healing team comprised of three resto druids. It may just be that resto is a popular class to play right now. There’s even talk of them being overpowered.
QQ: Resto druids are overpowered!
AA: Maybe a bit – but you have to remember that a class that relies so much on delayed payback of benefit received will have to work a lot harder to make sure that the player did indeed receive the benefit of the heal, especially when the other healers in your raid will be quick to overwrite your HoTs. I’m always top on the activity meters, even ahead of pally tanks and other GCD-heavy classes. Maybe the general feeling that the current content is not terribly challenging for healers is helping to add to this (mis)conception.
QQ: Nourish is useless!
AA: That depends on how you’re using it. Are you using it to try to out-spam a pally? In that case, it probably is. Are you using it to augment the healing done by Wild Growth after you have applied WG on 5 targets? If so, you might appreciate it a lot more.
QQ: Wild Growth is useless!
AA: I’m surprised that I hear this, but I do. It may seem this way if you are part of a very proactive healing team, in which case, it may just be a matter of timing. Once you learn the encounters better, you may find the throughput of this spell increasing. Also, remember that the use of WG is not limited to its raid heal capacity but also to buff your next Nourish on the affected targets – think of it as a self-buff to Nourish.
ii. Roles and Spells
Druid healing is unique in a number of ways. The reliance of HoTs is the obvious example, but Blizzard has been actively designing spells to allow us to utilize “heal combos,” which is a very interactive and engaging healing method. Not everyone likes it, but I personally do.
I don’t want to go through every spell and explain what it does – I imagine you can read a tooltip. What I want to do in this section is go over some scenarios and evaluate what spells are good for certain occasions, and why.
Main Tank Healing
- Lifebloom x3, rolling
- Rejuvenate, refreshing
- (Glyphed) Regrowth
- Living Seed proccing on Regrowth crits, which if you have Improved Regrowth, will be often even with low crit. This is a passive effect that provides a bit of a health buffer against incoming damage, like the priest’s Prayer of Mending, except that it doesn’t jump. It does help. Just because you don’t notice it doesn’t mean it’s not doing anything.
- Swiftmend
- Nature’s Swiftness + (Unglyphed) Healing Touch
- Nourish
Glyphed Regrowth spam with the proper gear (this requires a fair amount of haste and spellpower) and talents (Nature’s Grace, Improved Regrowth, Nature’s Majesty) is extremely powerful. Each regrowth you apply is essentially buffing itself, as well as probably critting, applying Living Seed, and decreasing the cast time of the next one. This makes it an extremely good tank-healing spam spell.
The best use of Nature’s Swiftness is clearly with the unglyphed Healing Touch, since the glyph will halve its healing output.
Do not let the Lifebloom stacks fall off. Druid healing output depends on HoT uptime.
Nourish is low on the list because although it will get the benefit from all the HoTs already up, most of the time Regrowth will still outperform it.
Main Tank Healing (post 3.1)
Several things are different now. Both Nourish and Regrowth have the 25% crit (down from 50% on just Regrowth). Nourish, Swiftmend, and Regrowth will now proc Living Seed. This is a good thing! With the new Nourish glyph set to outperform the current Regrowth glyph as a MT healing glyph, and the increased mana cost to Lifebloom, you may want to alter your tank healing style.
- Lifebloom - the new Lifebloom strategy to maximize your mana is to apply it slowly (don't cast 3 stacks upfront, but cast the next stack only when the first is about to expire). Let it bloom out, and reapply slowly. In between you have time to cast other HoTs, such as:
- Regrowth - no longer as good as a main-tank spam heal because of the changes to Nourish, but it is still useful for applying the HoT, and for the Living Seed bonus.
- Rejuvenation -- apply for its HoT
- Nourish. Glyphed and with the T7 bonus, this will be your main tank spam heal now. It heals for an additional 11% per HoT on the target, crits more, and procs Living Seed. It's also quite mana efficient. Spam until one of the above HoTs needs to be refreshed.
- Swiftmend and Nature's Swiftness as usual.
Raid Healing (e.g. Malygos)
- Wild Growth
- Nourish
- (Glyphed) Healing Touch
- Rejuvenation/Lifebloom
- Swiftmend
- Tranquility
- Regrowth
Use Wild Growth whenever the cooldown is up, then quickly Nourish the people it hits. Target the tank to get the melee group. Target yourself and run into the caster group. Get creative with how you control who it hits.
Throw HoTs around, liberally – but make sure you follow up, because even if you don’t have to worry about someone else overwriting your HoT, chances are the damage might come too quickly for slow healing to keep up. Rejuv, LB, and WG are now designed to be used in conjunction with Nourish.
Some druids really like glyphed Healing Touch (keep in mind that if you do this, you will have to find some other spell to use with Nature’s Swiftness). With the glyph and 5/5 Naturalist, cast time is down to 1 second, which basically turns it into a Flash Heal. I personally think Nourish is better, but I can see a good case made for glyphed HT, especially if you know you’ll always be raid healing. It’s also nice for leveling, since it’s the only “fast” heal you’ll have until you get Nourish.
I usually use Rejuv in conjunction with Swiftmend when I need to instantly heal someone – when nothing else is fast enough.
Don’t “forget” to use Tranquility (I do this a lot).
Tank and Raid Healing
- Everything you have :)
iii. PVE Talents and builds
Here is an example of a “raid healing” build without glyphed Healing Touch:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0xG0zZZf0IufugiuVhst
This build picks up all the talents from resto that improves your HoTs and a few talents that help with Regrowth. It also picks up Genesis from the Balance tree and a few other talents to get to Nature’s Splendor, increasing Lifebloom’s duration to 9 seconds. Add the Lifebloom glyph to get 10 seconds. This build is for raid healing with HoTs, and assuming you’ll never use Healing Touch except with Nature’s Swiftness.
Here is an example of a “raid healing” build with glyphed Healing Touch:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0VG0zZZfVhuVuxiuVhst
The key here is 5/5 Naturalist, which in conjunction with the glyph will cause Healing Touch to have a 1-second cast time. Since you’ll be using Regrowth with Nature’s Swiftness instead, it picks up talents that buff Regrowth also.
Here is an example of a “Dreamstate” build.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?tal=55320031003300300000000000000000000000000000000000000000023003331203150053105001200
Dreamstate is a talent in the Balance tree that regens 10% of your mana while casting. It used to be fairly popular back in the day before druids got Tree of Life form, as mana management was very much an issue for healers in Vanilla WoW. It has since fallen out of vogue, but I hear of it every now and then in Wrath, and with the coming nerfs to mana regen, some may find it interesting again. I’ve heard reports that it is quite effective in Wrath as long as you don’t mind not having Wild Growth. Since druids didn’t have a group heal until the end of TBC, this isn’t giving up that much for some druids.
The idea with this spec is to delve a little deeper into the Balance tree to pick up Lunar Guidance and Dreamstate. In return, you lose a little of the healing bonus to Tree of Life, your GCD on your HoTs is back to where it was pre-Wrath (1.5), and you lose Wild Growth. This spec will tend to favor Intellect a little more heavily than other builds. It will also benefit from haste, since as you get up into the realm of 500+ haste, your GCD on Lifebloom and Rejuv will start to approach what it would be with GotEM.
Here is an example of a Regrowth-glyph build:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?tal=05320131003000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000023003331203150053105301351
This build uses Nature’s Grace to supplement Regrowth criticals (which, remember, is going to be very often) with a reduction in cast time of the next spell, and picks up Celestial Focus for some extra haste. Coupled with the Regrowth glyph, this makes for very powerful Regrowth-spamming. With this build, you would still use Healing Touch with Nature’s Swiftness, but you don’t have a 4-minute Tranquility. It’s still a very powerful raid healing build that doesn’t sacrifice any of the utility of Wild Growth or Lifebloom.
There are infinite more variations. You could design your own Dreamstate/glyphed Healing Touch spec and try to out-spam pallies. Anything is possible.
QQ: Why do none of these builds include Replenish (soon to be renamed Revitalize because for some reason it confuses people)?
AA: This is going to be complicated, because they are changing Revitalize to work with Wild Growth, which makes it ten times as useful as it previously was. The mana/rage/runic power gained is a minimal increase for most of the targets you cast this on when using rejuv, but Wild Growth ticks more often, affects more targets, and is used more often in general. It's certainly not a bad spell, but it may gain in popularity when it works with Wild Growth.
QQ: What’s the deal with Gift of the Earthmother (GotEM)? Why do most restos swear by it?
AA: GotEM increases the base global cooldown of your instant cast heals by 20%. That means that your Rejuv, WG, and most importantly, Lifebloom can be applied at a 1.2 GCD, instead of 1.5. You will need 655 haste rating at level 80, and 5 points in this talent, to get your HoTs on a 1-second global cooldown. This was actually nerfed in 3.0.8; previously, it scaled better with hsate because the bonus wasn't applied in any particular order, so you only needed 505 haste to reach a 1.0-second GCD. Nevertheless, most restos consider points spent in this talent to be well worth it – anything that allows you to apply HoTs faster just frees up that much time for other things, even if it’s just to compensate for lag effects.
iv. Comparative Resto Druid stats
Generally: Spellpower>Spirit/MP5/Intellect>Haste>Crit
A word about regen: The upcoming nerf to spirit-based mana regen means that although your in-combat regen will remain about the same, your OOC5SR (out of combat five-second rule regen) will take a hit. When I'm healing, I'm not out of the 5SR that often, except in certain fights (Heigan), and because of Clearcasting. Clearcasting is being changed also, so in general, Spirit will be devalued. What this may mean in practice is that you may aim to get your Intellect to Spirit ratio a little closer to 1:1 than it was previously. In other words, you may have to gem for Intellect. MP5 remains a secondary mana regen stat, but it might become a little more useful than it previously was.
Spellpower is fairly self-explanatory. Haste is still very good for restos, and a fair amount of leather healing gear comes with haste, even the tier pieces. You shouldn’t ever really need to gear for crit, in the same way that you never need to gear for Stamina. The amount that comes default on your usual gear is more than enough. Do try to replace all your old epics as you level to 80, even if you think the other stats are good enough to keep, the lack of scaling on stamina and intellect alone makes replacing those level 70 epics necessary.
As a healer, you should also be mindful of the overall pace of your guild when determining how best to outfit yourself. If you’re still in the progression phase, it might be a good idea to value mana regen slightly more, since fights will most likely last longer when you are just learning fights and the dps has not had a chance to gear up yet. Later on, when things are on farm, fights will be shorter, and tanks will have more health, so it might be more useful to drop some regen for spellpower.
v. Gearing for Raids
Don’t be afraid to equip cloth to start out with, the stats will be more in line with what you need until you’re doing Naxx. Heroic instances drop a lot of moonkin gear (crit gear) – don’t use it. There’s a couple of really good standout pieces that are easy to get for resto:
Helm: Helm of Anomalus (Heroic Nexus). Far better than anything else you can equip in this slot until Naxx.
Neck: Dragon Prow Amulet (trash drop from Heroic UK), Necromancer’s Amulet (Heroic CoS).
Chest: T7 piece (80 Emblems of Heroism)
Bracer: Handler’s Arm Strap (Heroic Drak’tharon)
Gloves: Grotto Mist Gloves (Heroic Azjol-Nerub), T7 piece (60 EoH)
Belt: Elegant Temple Garden's Girdle (40 EoH). Massively better than the leather version for resto, despite the armor downgrade.
Legs: Earthgiving Legs (leatherworking BOE)
Feet: Earthgiving Boots (leatherworking BOE)
Trinket: Talisman of Troll Divinity (Heroic Drak’tharon)
Weapon: War Mace of Unrequited Love (Heroic Nexus)
Offhand: Handbook of Obscure Remedies (EoH)
Idol: Idol of Lush Moss (EoH)
vi. Glyphs, Gems, and Enchants
Gems:
Runed Scarlet Ruby and Sparkling Sky Sapphire for spellpower and spirit, respectively.
Purified Twilight Opal and Royal Twilight Opal are good choices for a purple gem, Luminous Monarch Topaz may be the gem of choice for regen (spellpower and intellect), and Reckless Monarch Topaz is an okay choice for orange. Gem to enhance the strengths of a piece, not to hide its weaknesses.
Enchants:
Head: Arcanum of Blissful Mending
Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Crag
Robe: Powerful Stats
Cloak: Greater Speed or Wisdom.
Bracers: Major Spirit
Gloves: Exceptional Spellpower
Legs: Brilliant Spellthread
Boots: Greater Spirit
Weapon: Exceptional Spirit, Mighty Spellpower
Glyphs:
Major glyphs:
Glyph of Swiftmend for sure. Probably one of the most OP glyphs in the game.
Other good choices:
Glyph of Regrowth for more tank healing oomph. Glyph of Nourish will be better once 3.1 hits. Glyph of Lifebloom is also useful. Glyph of Innervate is also nice, but you probably won’t need the benefit to yourself since you should have enough spirit to regen your entire bar anyway. It’s good if you never really need an Innervate and use yours on other people a lot.
Come 3.1 I'm going to be rolling with Nourish, Swiftmend, and Lifebloom.
Minor glyphs:
Not a lot of good choices until they finally make the druid form glyphs, which will probably be never. Glyph of Rebirth is pretty nice, saving you from having to restock a reagent.
vii. Meters and You
When crap hits fan, all healers basically heal the same way – find the button labeled “Heal” and push it.
Druids have the most unique healing style of any healer in the game, due to the necessity of using HoTs, most of which buff or enhance other heals the druid has. Because of this, keeping HoT uptime at the maximum will greatly contribute to your effective healing output more than anything else you can do.
You will never outspam a pally, or be as good at mitigation as a disc priest, but you are very well equipped to handle most situations just as well as, or better, than other healers. If you know your heals and which situations in which to best apply them, topping meters is very easy for a resto.
What do Healing Meters Actually Mean?
Generally, not a whole hell of a lot. How much healing you’re actually doing is something only you and the other healers can feel out. Meters can supplement this information, but it’s only a metric, nothing more. In healing, as in dps, there are usually one or two individuals that set the pace; everyone else works around them. In dps, you time your rotation to the rotation of the highest dps. In healing, you heal to pick up the slack of the highest healer. But that really depends on who you’re healing and what classes of healers are present. If you are a discipline priest, for example, your job is to help mitigate damage, so if you’re doing your job or until they allow shield mitigated damage to count as a heal on meters, your healing output will be low. If you happen to be a group healer, or a pally with the glyph, just throwing out random group heals at opportune times will push the meter up.
There are a lot of other reasons why healing meters are deceiving. Your raw healing output is going to depend on who your healing assignment is, for example. An overgeared group will require less overall healing because fights will be shorter, which will lower everyone’s healing output. For a druid, your overhealing is going to be low, and that is good. Whereas for a priest, for example, a certain amount of overhealing might not be a bad thing because they get mana back from it.
Meters are not all bad. They can reveal your miss/hit/crit rate, your rotation, your incoming damage, your deaths and the causes thereof. And they can be used to help diagnose problems if you find yourself running into trouble. But they should always be read with a grain of salt. Don’t assume that just because someone is low on the meters, that they are not doing their job. Conversely, don’t assume that just because you’re topping meters (which is easier for certain classes than for others) that you’re more useful or more important. It’s nice to be competitive, but healers, more than anyone else except maybe tanks, must work together -- or everyone dies.
viii. Consumables:
Tender Shoveltusk Steak for spellpower, Mighty Rhino Dogs for Mp5. A bunch of haste/crit food, which usually doesn’t work as well.
Spellpower elixirs for more spellpower, and Elixir of Mighty Mageblood or Elixir of Spirit for regen.
Flask of the Frost Wyrm is a great choice for more spellpower, for heavier progression some may prefer Flask of Pure Mojo for regen.
ix. Addons
It is highly recommended that you get some kind of Hot-tracking addon, so you can see who has your HoTs and their duration. DoTimer works pretty well. As a healer, the two package deals are Grid/Clique and Healbot. I use Clique/Pitbull myself because you can set up Pitbull to display your HoTs with their duration on the side of the target’s unitframe. Since downranking is out of the game, I have about 8 key-and-click binds set up with Clique to the different combos of my most used heals.
Make sure that whatever unitframe addon you are using can support showing party/raid pets (and that you know how to turn that functionality on and off, so you don’t have to stare at 25 player frames and 2 kitties, 4 ghouls, and a felhunter if you don’t want to). Not that you’re ever going to be healing hunter pets, mind you, but certain fights require healing dragon mounts (the Oculus, Malygos), which count as pets to the UI.
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