Restoration Druid is getting a new look and new features.

Stay tuned for updates!

Now that Cataclysm is here, how much haste do I need as a Resto Druid??

I’m afraid there is no easy answer, only a set of goals you can strive for… the numbers below assume a 5% haste buff from someone in your raid since even most 10 mans have this now.

Below you can see how much haste is needed to add an additional tick to each of our HoTs.  Some of these numbers aren’t very achievable at the moment.  My current goal (which I have not yet met) is 2004 haste to buff my wildgrowth.  You can set your own goals based on the information below.  The number in the (parenthesis) assumes you have Dark Intent.

Rejuvenation:
4 ticks by default
5 ticks — 12.5%  = 915 haste (516)
6 ticks — 37.5% = 3964 haste (3476)

Wild Growth:
7 ticks by default
8 ticks 7.1%  = 262 haste
9 ticks 21.4%  = 2004 haste (1573)
10 ticks 35.7%  = 3746 haste (3264)

Regrowth:
3 ticks by default
4 ticks 16.6%  = 1423 haste (1009)

Lifebloom:
10 ticks by default
11 ticks 5% = 0 haste
12 ticks 15%  = 1220 haste (812)
13 ticks 25% = 2440 haste (1996)
14 ticks 35% = 3659 haste (3180)

(numbers from naperken, thanks)

Sorry I haven’t posted lately, between leveling and being quite ill I just haven’t had the chance.  But I have had A LOT of people asking me about mana issues, and I wanted to give you a reply

1.) Don’t blanket the raid.  Yeah, it seems to go against years of brain programming, but don’t!

2.) Use nourish, all the time, all the freaking time.  Nourish is cheap as hell and it refreshes lifebloom on the tank (or whomever.)  Yeah it’s small, and slow, but it’s sadly our new bread and butter spell.

3.) Did I mention not to blanket the raid, this is really importaint

4.) Intellect, Spirit….. haste….. and then spell power.

5.) And finally, last but not least, don’t blanket the raid!  I’m serious, you’ll be OOM in no time if you do

Also, I know your DPS doesn’t wanna hear it, but they need to be responsible for their own health.  Health stones, bandages, and most importantly being very raid aware of incoming damage and avoiding everything you can.  The old “it’s not that much damage” attitude won’t cut it, it all adds up!

Also, did I mention, don’t blanket the raid?

You know, I’m just not happy with being a druid anymore  Now that I want to change to something else, I just hate how homogenized things are.  I liked HoTs, and healing on the run, and being different from the other classes.  I know they had their reasons… but I don’t like it.  I want druid healers to be druid healers… not a slightly modified priest.

Ah well… if I don’t post again, Merry Christmas!

I have collector’s for Burning Crusade and for Wrath of the Lich King… but somehow I got busy this year and it slipped my mind, so when I found out Gamestop had stopped letting you pre-order collectors I was pretty upset.  Not that I don’t love the idea of just getting the download and not having to go anywhere, but… I like all the extra stuff you get in that fancy box!

Anyway good news!  You can still get collector’s at Best Buy! The down side is you have to pay for it all upfront, but the up-side is that most Best Buys are doing midnight release.  You’ll have to call your specific store to know for sure.  So basically, buy it online, choose in-store pickup, show up at midnight (or the next morning) and you’re good to go

The elemental invasion has begin!  Unfortunately I was only able to defend Stormwind… Ironforge is bugged on my server (as of the time I’m posting this.)  But I’m sure it will be fixed by tomorrow… and I’ll post the other two bosses then it then  So here it is… Kai’ju Gahz’rilla (Zul’Farrak)  and Prince Sarsarun (AQ20):

I have updated my post about druid talents, it can still be found here.

Ok, let’s start off with a bit of a nerf, cuz hey, that’s always fun.  They are nerfing revitalize

Revitalize is now a 2 Ranks talent, down from 3 Ranks. Now has a 20% chance to proc at all ranks, now regenerates 1/2% of your total mana (down from 3%) and cannot occur more than once every 12 sec (up from 6 sec).

So, I guess we’ll get an extra talent click to burn somewhere but, that’s significantly less mana return… 3% per 6 seconds as opposed to 2% per 12 seconds.  It saddens me

Here is the skin for our PVP set if you’re interested:

They also released a lot of Cataclysm loot, which I’ll be combing through and posting about later in the week.  I’m getting pretty excited for Cataclysm!

Brez me!

Yeah, that got sorta… I guess nerfed.  You can read the blue posts for yourself here.  Basically, you can use one battle resurrection or soul stone per fight on ten man, and three on 25 man.  So having 2 druids and a lock in 10 man doesn’t give you three screw-ups.  I don’t like it but I’m sure we’ll all cope

RAF?

So, as one of the things to pass the time between now and cataclysm, I recruited-a-friend two of my guildies for some super fast leveling fun.  Holy crap is it fast, and in turn fun!  The 300% experience is amazing, and for ever 60 we do, between the two of them, they can grant me another level 60.  Here is us doing a trio of druids:

Now that I’ve had a few days to reflect on my choices and really go over the tree, I’m giving some serious thought to adding Furor to my spec.  Basically, it increases your maximum mana by 15%.  But it’s not just the fact that you’d be getting a larger mana pool.  Since replenishment returns mana based on a percentage of your mana, and not based on a set number, then having a larger mana pool in turn means gaining more from replenishment (not to mention Revitalize).

This of course means I wont be able to tap into 3/3 Moonglow which saddens me a little.  I like making my spells cheeper

I haven’t made any changes just yet, since mana really isn’t an issue at 80.  But as we look towards 85, you may see me making this adjustment

This post is out of date!  Please see:

http://restorationdruid.com/2011/01/24/haste-in-cataclysm/

for updated information!!

Haste:

In WotLK haste didn’t effect our heal over time spells (HoTs), unless you glyphed to have it work on your rejuvenation.  If you made this choice (which I didn’t) it would make your heals tick faster, but they would in turn be shorter as a consequence.  Now however, they don’t necessarily get shorter.  At certain haste points your HoT is ticking fast enough to actually get another tick added on.  This determines what haste we are aiming for.

The haste points at which we gain another tick on Rejuvenation are 12.5%, 37.5% and 62.5% haste (see reference).  With Regrowth it’s 16.66%, 50%, and 83.33%, and with Lifebloom it’s 5%, 15%, 25%, 35%, 45%, 55%, 65%, 75%, 85% and 95%.  Since we want as many ticks as possible we should be aiming for as many of these benchmarks as possible.

So What do I need?? So, if you were to set a goal for haste, 1016 haste with raid buffs gives you that 37.5% you need for the extra tick of Rejuvenation.  With Nourish being so slow, Healing Touch being viable, and Lifebloom adding ticks so quickly, if you can go above this haste point it’s not a bad thing, but defiantly try to hit it as a minimum.

Critical Strike

Prior to 4.0.1 a druid’s HoTs were unable to crit, with the exception of rejuvenation if you were using your tier nine 4-piece bonus.  That is no longer the case, now every tick of every HoT has the ability to crit.

My Thoughts on this: I feel like crit is a far better stat for a DPS than it is for us.  On a boss, every time you crit and deal extra damage, its simply that, extra damage.  As a healer, when you crit there is always a good chance that it goes to overheal.  Plus, I don’t like relying on a “chance” to crit.  That being said, of course crit isn’t bad for us, and sure it’s nice when things do crit.  I just think that it’s still not going to be a stat I focus on, rather it will be a stat that tags along on my gear that is no longer worthless.

As you’ve probably noticed Healing touch is no longer that skill that just sits in your spellbook and never gets used.  Instead of Healing Touch being unbearably slow and Nourish being super fast… they now have the same cast time, with Nourish being a smaller more mana efficient heal and Healing Touch being a big-ass mana spendy heal.  So, if you haven’t already… it’s time to work Healing Touch back into the rotation.  Yes, if feels dirty, but you’ll get useto it

No more rebirthing every attempt, unless you run back reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllllllllllyyyyyyyy slow, the CD is back up to 30 mins.  That’s a shame, I liked it at 10.

MOTW is now the same spell as Blessing of Kings.  It doesn’t take a reagent, so you can keep buffing over the paladin a minimal cost to yourself  Also GOTW is gone, it’s the same spell now.

Resto Deeeeeeeps

I made my off-spec a Resto-DPS spec!  Fury of Stormrage is just tooooo fun to not play with, even if I don’t see it as part of a regular raiding build.  I even use some DPS glyphs in this spec.  Played around with it last night and when procs were good and I kept up Moonfire and Insect Swarm I was hitting 4k DPS unbuffed on a dummy, and that spikes up when I go into tree form.  Ok, so I’m not “real” dps, but it’s still fun!  But tree form to DPS not only looks weird but feels weird.  I’m sure we’ll get useto it!

New Tree Form:

Is it just me or does the face of that tree look very Taunka like?  And is that a soul patch?  I’m sorry but this is a BOY tree, give me a GIRL tree form please.  I’ve heard there we’ll be a minor glyph to retain the old tree form.

Reforging

I reforged my crit into haste  I like it, its kinda neet.  Since it only reforges 40% of the stat it’s still better to get the stat you want initially if you can, but when you just can’t… this helps!

Palidruid?

With all my spell power going into intellect my mana pool is HUGE!  Anyone else feel like a paladin?

Wowtal.com is bugging for me this morning but I’ll try to update my spec post when I get home from work today

Last updated: 1/24/11

Before we get started, wowtal.com has a nifty little tool that lets you import your talents from their website right into WoW!  I have the script below for you to import these talents if you choose to start with my spec as your basis.

Restoration Tree:

Blessing of the Grove 2/2 – A straight 4% increase to rejuvenation seems like a good thing to me And we need clicks up here to get to lower stuff

Natural Shapeshifter 0/2- I skip this… I see it’s usefulness for PVP, and I also see the value of the skill below it (Master Shapeshifter) but I think my 3 talent points could be better spent, and get me things more valuable.

Naturalist 2/2 – Now that we cast nourish so much, this is a must have!

Heart of the Wild 3/3 – Intellect is spell power and mana pool, yes please

Perseverance 0/3- Seems liek a PVP talent, skipped it

Master Shapeshifter 0/1- I understand why a person would spend 3 clicks on unlocking this, I don’t think it’s a bad choose, but I wanted to spend my points elsewhere

Improved Rejuvenation 3/3- I use swiftmend pretty much every CD… so improving rejuve and swiftmend is a no-brainer

Living Seed 3/3 –  Living Seed is okay, but really I’m taking this to get Efflorescence

Revitalize 2/2 – Regen for me personally, as well as raid replenishment if needed

Nature’s Swiftness 1/1 – If I was going to move a talent it would probably be this one, cuz honestly I don’t use it very much… but I like having an oh f*^k button, and this macroed to healing touch is mine.  

Fury of Stormrage 0/2 – I have it in my resto-DPS spec… but nope, not in my main raid healing spec

Nature’s Bounty 3/3 – Regrowth is expensive, if I’m gonna cast it I want it to crit.

Empowered Touch 2/2 –  Sadly resto-druiding has come to a lot of nourish spamming… the 10% is nice, but refreshing my lifebloom on the tank is even nicer!!

Malfurion’s Gift 2/2-  Mana return, obviously

Effloresence 3/3 – It’s not as nice as the blue circles and gold circles other healers have, but I still like to make people group up in my little green circles of healing

Wild Growth 1/1 – Must have for healing the raid

Nature’s Cure 1/1 – My guildies would kill me if I didn’t pickup cleanse magic… especially important if you’re running 10 mans IMO

Nature’s Ward 0/2 – Seems pretty PVPish

Gift of the Earth Mother 3/3 – Okay, the extra healing from lifebloom is nice, but the main reason I wanted this was that 15% instant on rejuvenation.  God I loved that t-8 set bonus, and this is very reminiscent of that

Swift Rejuvenation 0/1 – I don’t blanket the raid anymore… so the 1 sec GCD isn’t necessary.  It’s a good talent situationally (think Chimaeron with 2 healers) but generally it’s not needed

Tree of Life 0/1 – It doesn’t thrill me… I posted about it here if you wanna read.

Balance Tree

Nature’s Majesty 2/2 – 4% to crit, our HoTs can crit now… I don’t rely on crit, but it’s still nice to have

Nature’s Grace 0/3 – See Starlight Wrath

Starlight Wrath 3/3 – I choose this to spend 3 clicks in to get me to the second tier of talents, but Nature’s Grace would also do the trick.

Moonglow 2/3 -  As an aggressive healer, I really value the mana reduction.  I am defiantly pleased with my choice to spec down to this  Especially when you do a lot of 2-healing and can’t afford to have “downtime”

Genesis 0/3 – I choose not to get it, but maybe someday when mana isn’t an issue it’ll seam appealing.

Feral Tree

Furor 3/3 - Mana pool, seems obvious

Import my skills to your WoW talent preview

/run t,p,a={3,12,32,43,73,83,92,101,123,132,142,153,161,171,193,1,23,32,52,2,23,}SetPreviewPrimaryTalentTree(t[1],GetActiveTalentGroup())for i=1,#t do a=t[i]if a<9 then p=a else AddPreviewTalentPoints(p,floor(a/10),a%10)end end

Different people have different healing styles, guild types, group comps, and levels of content that they tackle.  There can be more than one “right” spec, depending on the person.  Use my talents as a jumping point and tailor them to suit your needs! This is a very mana conscious spec to allow for extremely aggressive healing  If that is not your style, adjust according!