Notes From a Resto Druid

Yesmina

Yesmina

New Member
Ive heard tale that some druids might go restoration once they hit 70

I thought maybe if you had questions about anything I could answer this might be a good place for it :)) Im not the Queen of Restos, but I think I can hold my own pretty well. Ive been Resto the entire time Ive been playing and I know my Druid well.

This is an accumulation of what Ive read and my experiences.. it should answer quite a few questions!

Gearing Up

Some people think im a little nutty for getting +heal and +mana per 5, but let me tell you why I do it.

+Healing:

+Healing improves your healing to mana ratio (ie: it lets you heal more for the same amount of mana).

Lower ranked Healing spells: it lets you use lower rank healing spells, which uses less mana and less time to cast.. youre able to heal for the same as using the higher ranked ones (of course, the less time a spell takes to cast, the less % of +heal youll use on that cast, but thats another thread).

HoT (heal over time) : Over Time spells apply healing or damage over a period of time (rejuvenation) in ticks. Most spells have 2 second ticks, but Druid HoTs have 3 second ones.The bonus for spells that have both a standard and an over time component (regrowth) is divided between them.

The formulas can be found HERE.

Man per 5 :

Mana per 5 seconds lets you regenerate mana, and it doesnt care if you are casting or not (unlike the ever fickle spirit)! Very useful in long fights where you want to regen fast even without using innervate.

Ok, druids dont have an enormous mana pool like priests.

That being said, you cant just have a little of those stats. +50 heal is going to do you no good if your tank has 11k hp and getting hit like a pepsi can by a gorilla. Sure, we have innervate and mana pots, but we still need to think 'whats going to help me last longer on these fights so I can keep my peeps alive?'

Currently Yesmina has about +850 heal and 47 mp5 and its on the rise. I also use potions/food that bring me closer to 1k. The one thing I will caution: big heals bring big hate. So get your points in Subtlety to lower threat and ask your pallies to buff you with salvation if you think youll be using your biggest heals (a necessity in shattered halls etc). If youre using lower ranked heals theres not as much hate to worry about unless you use regrowth which has a high chance to crit (I barely ever use regrowth, unless im stacking it with rejuv).. lower threat means you can ask the pally for wisdom (mp5 buff).

But dont Druids need intellect?

To a degree. If you are mana conserving, however, low int is ok (low being relative). If you focus solely on intellect youll be in trouble. Youre not going to be very effiecient imo. Again, Yesmina doesnt have a ton of int because she has alot of these other stats. She rarely needs more than 4 drinks in any instance (depending on the group/situation), and often can regen full mana just by sitting down between pulls. Although you may find your self sacrificing int for heal/mp5, alot of the new gear has all three of these stats (sweet!).

What about Spirit?

*** see my post below thanks!! ***

Using Healing Touch

I use alot of my HoTs in places (rejuv is a great HP topper and you can hit multiple targets fast), but for longer fights Healing touch is the way to go. It is mana efficient (rather than spamming rejuv).. but make sure you KNOW how long it takes to cast. Ive got points to lower the casting time and cost but it still takes 3 seconds (Nature's Grasp makes it an instant cast, which is nice, but it has a cooldown on it). The best thing to do if you arent sure is to hit them with a rejuvenation and then use healing touch.. you dont want that person to die, and in an emergency you can zip off Swiftmend to use the entire HoT at once. Healing Touch is not always necessary and not always the best spell to use, with practice you can learn the right situations and also how long it takes to cast.

We were in Shattered Halls the other night and I hadnt been there so I was mostly using my HoTs. Well, it worked great to start but then these fights get long. Andrew kindly pointed that out to me and I started using my Healing Touch which worked out really well along with a minor change in strategy. I do tend to get nervous about pulling aggro, but with a good tank you should be able to even overheal a little bit and not have to worry.


In Closing

It’s impossible in some situations to keep everyone alive, and sometimes people will die. If you did your best thats all you can do. I hate when it happens and almost always apologize, but you are the one who has to decide the priorities. Im always going to get my tank first and at least one dps. You cant always get everyone. Some people like to blame the healer, but if they are a truly experienced player they know that there are many more factors that go into it. With a good healer it will be extremely rare that it is all their fault (same goes for all classes).

The most important part of being a healer is knowing the needs of your party members. It's anticipating who will take damage when, and how early to start healing. Sometimes it takes a minute to figure out if you are with a new group. You should always be doing something. Druids don't have shield, fade, or flash heal, so we have to be more inventive with what we have.

With practice, Resto Druids can easily outheal other classes in the game (no flaming please! :) )
 
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Very good post on druid healing :D

Though I am feral, I work on trying to be a decent healer, too. I think that all hybrid classes should maximize all aspects of their class regardless of spec.

Only thing I disagree on is spirit. Spirit is a misunderstood stat, especially for mana users, healers in particular. 2 spirit = 1/mp5. An item with 10 spirit is just like an item with 5/mp5. Being feral, I have to deal with a greater inefficiency in my heals and thus rely on mana regen to keep me healing, and spirit plays a big part in the gear I choose.

What is nice about the resto tree, is that the bottom half actually helps a feral build. Imp Mark of the Wild, Naturalist, Intensity and Omen of Clarity are all a fantastic DPS boosts to a feral build while also aiding in being a decent healer when the need calls for it. Azolas is 42 feral and 19 resto.
 
I AM CONVERTING TO RESTO RIGHT THIS SECOND! actually that was nicely written...and after Ive played 70 for a little while I might consider going back to resto..specially when scott gets higher..
 
thanks for the replies :)

I suppose my point about spirit should have been that (for druids) it is less effective during casting than +mana regen. For Druids, 1 mana per 5 sec is equivalent to 2 (noncasting) spirit or 4 (casting) spirit. +mana regen is not affected by the 5 second rule and regenerates mana at a constant rate.

I should have clarified.. most healing leather pieces come with spirit, if I recall correctly, its just that I dont pay much mind to it. I will always sacrifice spirit to get mp5 especially since most mp5 pieces now come with 6-11mp5 (20 (casting) spi = 5 mp5 if Im calcualting correctly). Yesmina does have a good base of Spirit though.

In order to compensate for her 47 mp5 while casting, I would need 188 more spirit if those numbers are correct (although I did read that the tick came down to 4.5 from 5 in BC, but only in caster form). That would mean at least +20 Spirit on each of 9 items she has.

Spirit has to play by rules whereas mp5 doesnt, thats why I prefer the latter :)
 
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hi chris :)

If you click the links you will find out more on these spells like what talent points each one can benefit from.

Healing Spells

Healing Touch is the Druid's basic healing spell. It is a single target spell. It's also the longest casting spell, but you can get talents to bring it down from 3.5 (rank 5 and up) to 3 sec. Rank 13 (lvl 69) heals for 2707 to 3197. No Cooldown.

Rejuvenation is the Druid heal over time (HoT) spell. It is a single target spell. It is an Instant Cast. Rank 13 (lvl 69) heals for 1060 over 12 sec. No Cooldown.

Regrowth is the Druid combination of healing and HoT. It is a single target spell. It's casting time is 2 sec. Rank 10 (lvl 65) heals for 1215 to 1355 and another 1274 over 21 sec. No Cooldown.

Lifebloom is the reverse spell from Regrowth. It is a single target spell. It is an instant cast. There is only one rank (lvl 65) and it heals the target for 273 over 7 sec. When Lifebloom completes its duration or is dispelled, the target is instantly healed for 600. This effect can stack up to 3 times on the same target. No Cooldown. I love this spell.

Tranquility is the Druid's group heal. It is an instant cast and also an AoE which generates alot of threat (reduced by talent points). It regenerates all nearby group members for 1518 every 2 seconds for 8 sec. Its amazing and can heal your entire party to full. Cooldown is 10 minutes.

Other useful Restoration Spells

Rebirth is the Druid's basic resurrection spell that uses a reagent, and has a cooldown of 30 minutes. What makes this rez unique is that it allows resurrection during combat. At Rank 5 (lvl 60) rezzes with 2200 health and 2800 mana.

Nature's Swiftness when activated, the Druid's next Nature spell becomes an instant cast spell. All of the Druid's healing spells are in the school of nature, so this pairs nicely with Healing Touch. It is an Instant Cast but has a cooldown of 2 minutes.

Tree of LIfe Transforms the Druid into the Tree of Life Form. While in this form you increase healing received by 25% of your total Spirit for all party members within 45 yards, your movement speed is reduced by 20%, and you can only cast Swiftmend, Innervate and healing over time spells, but the mana cost of these spells is reduced by 20%. Tree of Life is the 41 point talent in the druid's Restoration talent tree. It is first attainable at level 50.


See all of the Druids Spells and Abilities HERE
 
that 2 spi = 1 mp5 is only applicable if you are not casting, Holly. It goes to 4 spi when you are.

Just a heads up.
 
Excellent Post, Renee! :)


The only thing I would caution you resto people is about low-ranked healing spells.

As a tank it has been my experience that lower ranked healing spells generate more threat than higher ranked spells. This is not real math, but the way I think it works is somewhere along the lines of:

((amountHealed + plusHealingFromGear)/spellRankModifier)*talentThreatReduction

I've noticed that a lot more mobs break towards healers who use lower ranked spells than towards those who don't.

I'm not saying "anyone who uses low ranked spells is a crappy healer and shouldn't," because, hecht, I prefer a healer with mana over a healer without mana, but I am saying that you may want to take care about your aggro when choosing to go that route.
 
Let's talk about Threat

"Threat management is about keeping yourself safe. Mana conservation is about keeping yourself useful"

Threat

Threat is generated only by persons the mob is “aware” of (by buffing, debuffing, doing damage or healing), is cumulative against each of those persons, and does not decay.

Each point of healing, when completely unmodified by talents, gives 0.5 threat. That means healing for 1k returns 500 threat to you. Overhealing does not affect this number.

Abilities that put "you gain x mana/life" in the combat log also give 0.5 threat per point gained. Examples would be drinking potions, but not natural regeneration.

* use your HoTs. The bottom line is that the 1 heal = .5 threat and you will keep that threat for the duration of the fight. Let's say my Healing Touch gives 3600 hp - that means I get 1800 hate right off the bat. If i spread my heal out over a number of seconds, Im also doing that to my threat. Hopefully over that time the tank will generate more threat than I have. There are certain cases where you should use HT, but again it all takes practice.

* Dont buff a player that is on the mobs threat list. Don't cast thorns or mark of the wild when they have the hate. It's best to do this before the fight anyways.

* Don't heal immediately after a pull. Your Tank needs at least 5-12 seconds to build Threat, depending on the mobs. When I first started playing I had to teach myself to count 1 mississippi.. 2 mississippi.. up to 5. Silly, I know, but i was only level 10. Now I wait for the sunders.

* Use 2 healers if you have to. Splitting threat among the two of them is a great way to stay alive. Also a Druid's rejuvenation supplements the Priest's Renew quite nicely (rejuvenation also now stacks with a second Druid's cast of the same spell).

:)

Edited to add: If you get the mobs on you, run towards your tank and not away from them, ok?
 
Questions for the Wise

Thanks for the great post about healing, learned a few things I was unaware of, like +mana per5 vs. spirit. I disagree on casting lower lv HT to save time, the HT cast from lv26+ is 3.5sec regardless, though for the sake over healing and wasting mana its a good idea. Im also not sure I agree with your idea that you don't need tons of Int, what else would I use stats wise? I gladly take Int over spir, but I will take +heal, +dmg/hel, and +crit but those usually come along with my int. Isn't having more mana even if your mana conservative a good thing? I have also been a Resto Druid since lv10 and currently use the Mana Save build, I prefer not being a tree and being able to us HT and any other spell I so desire. Please forgive me if I seem to be criticizing, I am just very interested on learning to be a better healer and appreciate the post very much. Any tips you can give and answers to my questions would be greatly appreciated.

Keep on showing up priests my fellow druids
Nathaniel
 
you are not being overly critical :) we are all here to learn!

HT cast from lv26+ is 3.5sec regardless, though for the sake over healing and wasting mana its a good idea
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you are absolutely right! rank 5 takes as much time to cast as rank 13 Healing Touch :) that was a mistake on my part to have written otherwise, thank you for pointing it out.

As far as Intellect goes: Im not always the most clear with my words. When I say low intellect I mean it to be relative. As a matter of fact, now that I have Yesmina's +heal and mp5 in the general range I want it to be, I am working on intellect to raise her mana pool. I just got her the 30 int enchant on her mace too :)

To be honest she has a good base of both Spirit and Intellect, I wouldnt call them 'low', per say. But in relation to say Danny's Paladin, her intellect is low. He has a 10k mana pool (at lvl 67) while Yesmina's is just around 8k (at lvl 69). In order to bridge the gap, Yesmina would need another 133 int (where 1 int = 15 mana). And in order to do that, she would have to sacrfice +heal and mp5 most likely (although as you said, most items now come with all three of these stats).

My feeling is that a large mana pool means nothing once it's gone.. what we want is to be more efficient, regen more during the fight and regen more when you're out of mana.

Then again, it really is about how you play.

My Current Dilemma

The problem I am running into in lvl 70 instances is not that she cant heal. Again she has a good regen so while it may make the group (more than) a bit nervous when she gets low on mana, I have not run into a problem of being unable to heal the group as of yet due to being out of mana (I also have inny/manapots/darkrunes).

I do however have trouble keeping the mobs off of me. Mobs on Yesmina means death for her at this point, which means death for the group. Bear form helps, as does barkskin but both use mana. So, at this point I am working on using lower spells for lower threat.. even two spells down (with the +heal she has they still heal well). I'm also concentrating on running towards my tank, although their intercept/intervene would do nicely for me in many situations and save alot of wipes. I'm not sure why it isnt used more often. {{ Edited to add: I dont run with Danny's warrior often as he is leveling his pally, but I rarely (if ever) ran into problems with him keeping mobs off me. Of course I sit right next to him so I can holler if need be ;) But this may be my time to retrain my thinking when running with other tanks. I believe Danny is truly exceptional at running around and keeping aggro }}

Bring a hybrid. Im finding in 70+ BC instances that a backup healer/tank is a great thing. Hybrids are where it is AT now. Pallies and feral druids can offtank when you need them and heal when its necessary. This divides the threat between two healers in really tough situations and is best to avoid wipes (esp when druids dont have things like fade or bubble). Daire is a prime example of a someone being able to take on a hybrid role when necessary and being good at it - take her with you :) I have had some disagreement on this issue, so test it for yourself and you will see I'm right.

Again, it's not that Yesmina can't heal the group. This is no reflection on my talent nor the talent of any other healers (although people may think Im wrong).

It's just that you cant heal a group when you are dead.
 
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How to mend swiftly?

Thanks for the feed back. I find im having the same problem with you as well in instances, its not running low on mana, its pulling a little to much aggro and getting killed rather quickly. Myself I dont often use lower ranks of HT to try and coutner that, instead I try to use better placed heals, allowing the Tanks health to drop lower than most people are comfortable with and fully using the effect of my higher HT, this works in lower lv instances for TBC at least. The other problem now to is the aggro shedding mobs now that pick a new target every few seconds, and the healer is almost always the target because our aggro isn't focused on one target.

Ok now I have another question though, what does Swiftmend do? I dotn have the spell yet and people have explained it in different ways. Does it take the remaining amount left to heal of an HoT and heal that amount, or does it take whatever the HoT was suppose to heal over its full tick and heal that WHOLE amount (in which it would be best to swiftmend at the end of an HoT for almost double the effect?). Also if I cast Lifebloom and than cast Swiftmend will Lifeblooms ending large heal still proc? Because I think that would be like an extra NS and HT combo.

Nathaniel
 
I try to use better placed heals
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thats exactly what we need to do. Basically the tank has to be hated more by the mob than we are. I think of it like damage meters. The mob has a meter too, but his is a Hate Meter. Whoever is tops on that meter he will go after :)

what does Swiftmend do?
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Swiftmend heals for the total value of the HoT, regardless of how many ticks are left. So yes, it is best to use it at the very end of the spell.

if I cast Lifebloom and than cast Swiftmend will Lifeblooms ending large heal still proc
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yep it sure will. Swiftmend basically checks for Regrowth or Rejuvenation and consumes that. It wont use any other spell.

Even if your target is full on hp, the Lifebloom will still 'bloom' at the end. Lifebloom is awesome, especially seeing as it can stack 3 times. What i love about it is that it heals just a little at the beginning and then by the time it 'blooms' the warrior has generated enough hate that the 'bloom' wont get me killed in the process (unlike regrowth that has a big heal at the start).

allowing the Tanks health to drop lower than most people are comfortable with
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Lifebloom really helps with this too.

You have some great questions, thanks for asking them :)
 
Yesmina said:
I do however have trouble keeping the mobs off of me. Mobs on Yesmina means death for her at this point, which means death for the group. Bear form helps, as does barkskin but both use mana. So, at this point I am working on using lower spells for lower threat.. even two spells down (with the +heal she has they still heal well). I'm also concentrating on running towards my tank, although their intercept/intervene would do nicely for me in many situations and save alot of wipes. I'm not sure why it isnt used more often. {{ Edited to add: I dont run with Danny's warrior often as he is leveling his pally, but I rarely (if ever) ran into problems with him keeping mobs off me. Of course I sit right next to him so I can holler if need be ;) But this may be my time to retrain my thinking when running with other tanks. I believe Danny is truly exceptional at running around and keeping aggro }}

Bring a hybrid. Im finding in 70+ BC instances that a backup healer/tank is a great thing. Hybrids are where it is AT now. Pallies and feral druids can offtank when you need them and heal when its necessary. This divides the threat between two healers in really tough situations and is best to avoid wipes (esp when druids dont have things like fade or bubble). Daire is a prime example of a someone being able to take on a hybrid role when necessary and being good at it - take her with you :) I have had some disagreement on this issue, so test it for yourself and you will see I'm right.


It's just that you cant heal a group when you are dead.
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First of all, danny probably does a great job tanking and keeping stuff off you because he knows he will be in the doghouse if you die lol!!!!!! Third, thanks for the compliment -- I try to fulfill this role seriously without whining if someone asks me to pop up and back up heal, afterall we can do it.
 
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Second, Renee you are a great healer! I am infact very glad you enjoy it so much lol!!! Danny actually is a good tank too....even if hes not fuzzy.
 
I think taking aggro is the biggest reason that I FAR prefer taking Wend into an instance and healing with her than with Jaid (my resto druid). Jaid also has a couple of pts in Balance, theoretically to make it more pleasant to solo (I HATE soloing). It's amazing how differently you heal with a druid than with a priest. I've never been one to kick back to lower level spells, I think that I just choose to wait longer before popping a heal off.

As a priest I can sluff aggro fairly easily with a shield and fade and if all else fails I can scream (maybe if there aren't other mobs around). Wend doesn't usually have much problem with pulling because of heal aggro. I can't say the same for Jaid. I really need to work on this one!! I've run through ramparts and blood furnace a couple of times and done okay but mostly because I've been in with a shadow priest which is lovely!! I enjoyed reading this post as I wouldn't consider myself to be a very good druid healer and I'd like to get better at it.
 
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