Druid Heal!

(update 15th april 2010) See my Cataclysm Compendium for more about Cataclysm!

The cat is out of the bag, we have a new expansion coming. You can read all over the internet what the changes are going to be. I’ll just sum up some things that are going to change for a restoration druid and I think are interesting:

• Spirit is going to be all about mana regen (as it does now), MP5 will not return as an attribute!
• Intellect will give you mana and spellpower. No more spellpower on gear.
• Your spells will now scale with your level, you will only learn new spells at the trainer no new ranks of your already learned spells.
• A new secondary profession: Archeaology
• You will be able to learn new abilities through the Path of the Titans. You will choose a path (like once with leatherworking: Tribal/Elemental) and get to learn Glyphs of the Ancients which will give you new abilities. Archaeology will have a big part.
• We’ll get two new races with the Druid class: Troll (Horde) and Worgen (Alliance).
• We might get new Tree form!
• Things look like getting “less mathy” so that everybody understands what a stat really does. Too bad, the mathy part is a part of the game I actually like….

I’d like to know what your opinion is, leave a comment!

Now we have progressed to a gear level that has enough of our base stats spellpower, spirit and intellect other stats like haste and critical strike chance become more important. I already wrote about Haste, you can read it here, but how does crit work? It is becoming more important, especially now we have the new Tier 9 set bonuses that are all about crit:

- 2 set: + 5% critical strike bonus to Nourish;
- 4 set: Your Rejuvenation ability now has a chance for its healing to be critical strikes.

Critical Strike

Every time you cast a spell you have a chance of getting a bonus on the result. The bonus is 50 – 100% when it is a damage spell (depending on talents) and 50% on a healing spell. The chance to get a critical strike depends on your critical strike chance and of course more critical strike chance means more probability of a critical strike. The formula for calculating your critical strike percentage is:

Critical strike percentage = ((Intellect/166.6667) + 1,85) + (Critical Strike Rating/45,91)

The formula tells us that you get more critical strike by accumulating either Intellect (166,67 intellect = 1% crit) or Critical Strike Rating (45,91 rating = 1%). The easiest way to boost your critical strike chance is getting critical strike rating found on gear. If you are not yet raiding you will get critical strike mostly by accumulating Intellect, critical strike rating is hard to get on pre raid gear. Having said that, critical strike is not important until you become fully raid geared and it starts to make a real difference. It is important to remember that your HoTs can not crit, only direct heals can crit: Healing Touch, Nourish, Regrowth and the Lifebloom bloom.

Next to gear you can boost you critical strike rating by choosing the right talents. The following talents improve your critical strike chance:

1. Nature’s Bounty : 25% extra on Regrowth and Nourish;
2. Natural Perfection: 3% extra on all spells;
3. Nature’s Majesty (Balance tree): 4% extra on Healing Touch and Nourish.

Or summed up by spell:

1. Nourish +29% or + 32%;
2. Regrowth  + 25% or + 28%;
3. Healing Touch +4% or +7%.

An example:

A certain druid has a 1029 intellect and 438 critical strike rating that means he has a critical strike chance of 17,57% on all his spells. The above mentioned spells have a bonus through talents (between brackets with Natural Perfection):

• Nourish : 17,57 + 29 = 46,57% (49,57%);
• Regrowth:17,57 + 25 = 43,57% (46,57%);
• Healing Touch: 17,57 + 4 = 21,57% (24,57%).

As you can see Nourish and Regrowth benefit the most from crit and if you use these spells a lot it is good to pick up a few pieces of gear with critical strike rating.

Tier 9 Set Bonus

Nourish has the potential of getting a bonus to critical strike chance of 34/37% with the 5% of the set bonus, which is a lot! If you use Nourish a lot this is a set bonus for you.

I am not so sure about the 4 set bonus. I assume it will take your normal crit chance into account. The success of this set bonus depends on how much critical strike chance your druid has and how much you actually use Rejuvenation. Since nobody has had the chance to test this set bonus I am sceptical of this bonus. The 4 set bonus of T8 (your Rejuvenation spell also provides an instant heal for your target) is a lot better where you are sure of an extra instant base tick (not benefitting from Genesis, Improved Rejuvenation, or Gift of Nature. It is benefitting from Empowered Rejuvenation, Master Shapeshifter, and Tree of Life).

Next post is all about the Druid guide again, Part 4: attributes.

This is part 3 of my rewritten Resto Druid Guide. This episode is about talents. Play styles can make you decide whether not to take a talent or to take a talent. Remember that there a more roads that lead to Rome and that a talent might work for you. I have not commented to all talents because its not needed because it speaks for itself or you just must have it!

Talents from the restoration tree, the first tier:

- Improved Mark of the Wild (2/2), must have.
- Nature’s Focus (3/3), must have.

You have no use with Furor as a restoration druid. Next up tier 2:

- Subtlety (3/3) : lower your threat, in most builds you see a maximum of two points in this talent (they are needed to get to 10 points). Threat is not much of a problem for a restoration druid (mainly raiding druids).
- Naturalist (5/5) : This talent will lower your Healing Touch spellcast from 3 to 2,5 seconds. If you do not intend to use the glyphed healing touch, don’t use this talent. Spent your points in the shapeshifters talents.
- Natural Shapeshifter (3/3) : the goodies come from the next talent : Master Shapshifter.

Tier 3:
- Master Shapshifter (2/2) : get 4% extra healing while in tree form!
- Intensity (3/3) : Must have period, a druid without a decent amount of mana regen while casting can’t do his job properly!
- Omen of Clarity (1/1) : gives you a mana free spell every once in a while.

Tier 4:
- Improved Rejuvenation (3/3), must have.
- Tranquil Spirit (5/5): If you are going to use Healing Touch (a must for the glyphed Healing Touch users) and Nourish a lot this talent is a good one since it will lower your mana cost of the spells by 10%.  If you have no mana problems, you might consider spending some points in other talents.

Tier 5:
- Nature’s Swiftness (1/1) : If you have glyphed your Healing Touch chances are you won’t be using this spell much. If you don’t glyph you healing touch, get it. In combination with a Healing Touch it is a very powerful tool.
- Gift of Nature (5/5) : Must have, period.

Tier 6:
- Empowered Touch (2/2): Since this talent buffs Healing Touch and Nourish this talent is a must have. If you don’t use these spells a lot, skip it.
- Nature’s Bounty (5/5): improves your crit and thus higher heals, with mana regen in mind higher heals (25% crit is a lot!) are welcome.

Tier 7:
- Swiftmend (1/1), must have.
- Living Spirit (3/3): must have period! (Spirit also buffs your Spellpower in Tree form!)
- Natural Perfection: A few % extra crit for the people that need it. If you look at Nourish it seems to benefit a lot from crit, this talent is worth spending points on when you got some to spare.

Tier 8:
- Empowered Rejuvenation (5/5), must have;
- Living Seed: This is mainly a Main Tank heal, opinions differ about it. I have raided with and without it and I can’t say I missed it.

Tier 9:
- Tree of Life (1/1);
- Improved Tree of Life (3/3);
- Revitalize (3/3) : With patch 3.1 it procs from Wild Growth too making a chance for a proc higher.

Tier 10:
- Gift of the Earthmother (5/5): It will lower your Global Cooldown with 20% for your instant healing spells, which means you can cast more of these spells in the same time;
- Improved Barkskin: this is a pvp talent, not needed for pve.

Tier 11:
- Wild Growth (1/1), needed for raids.

Talents from the balance tree:

- Genesis (5/5): It buffs your healing over time and damage over time spells with 5%;
- Moonglow (3/3): It will reduce the manacost of Moonfire, Starfire, Starfall, Wrath, Healing Touch, Regrowth, Nourish and Rejuvenation spells by 9%. Less mana, more heals;
- Nature’s Majesty (2/2): You need to take this talent to get Nature’s Splendor, crit is not as important on lower levels of raid content but crit is becoming more important as we progress to t9/t10 level content.
- Nature’s Splendor (1/1): This is the real talent you want from the balance tree, an 8 second Lifebloom, 15 second Rejuvenation, 27 second Regrowth. Need I say more? This would mean more rolls on your raid/party and the time to cast other spells like Abolish Poison or Remove Curse.
- Nature’s Grace (3/3): It will grant you with 20% off your cast time and is worth thinking about a lower cast time could mean life or death.

The most common raiding build is  14/0/57 see wowwiki for more builds.

Next episode will be about attributes.

Patch 3.2 is going live today (US) and tomorrow (EU). What are the biggest changes for restoration druids ?

• we finally get new bear and cat forms, now when do we get a new tree form?
• the attribute mp5 on items has been increased by 25%, so check your gear to see if you need to replace stuff (maybe put my calculator to use!);
• Innervate no longer lasts for 20 seconds but 10 seconds, but the cooldown is down to 3 minutes too, so no worries just need to click it once more!
• The bloom on lifebloom has been nerfed! 20% of the base and spellpower coefficient, ouch! I guess letting it bloom will become a lesser option, but the HoT part is still very powerfull;
• The talent empowered touch now also buffs Nourish by 10/20% of your bonus healing effects, this talent will become a must have for druids becuase it makes Nourish a lot better.

There’s more after the break with some more general stuff (noteworthy for resto in bold).

(more…)

This is part 2 of my new resto druid mega guide 3.0: Glyphs.  A druid can improve or change their spells through glyphs, enchants for your spells. Glyphs might change the way you use your spells. You will have three Major Glyph and three Minor Glyph spots at level 80. Restoration druids have access to the following major glyphs:

• Glyph of Swiftmend – Your Swiftmend ability no longer consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect from the target. This means you don’t have to consume a recently casted Regrowth or Rejuvenation on your target and leads to more healing over time and mana efficiency. A druid without this glyph is handicapped, it makes swiftmend a very valuable spell;
• Glyph of Regrowth – Increases the healing of your Regrowth spell by 20% if your Regrowth effect is still active on the target;
• Glyph of Lifebloom – It increases your Lifebloom with one second. In theory you could have a 9 second Lifebloom with the appropriate talent (Nature’s Splendor>) and this glyph;
• Glyph of Rejuvenation – While your rejuvenation targets are below 50% health, you will heal them for an additional 50% health. This glyph is a very good raid healer for encounters with a lot of raid damage like Hodir;
• Glyph of Healing Touch – Your cast time is reduced by 50%, mana cost 25% and healing by 50%. It converts your Healing Touch into a flash type heal like Nourish. In my experience a glyphed Healing Touch has higher heals then Nourish but is also costs more mana. Which one should you use? Do you want a fast panic button (which you already have with Nourish) or do you want to be able to cast 7-10K heals with a non glyphed Healing Touch when nessecary? It is all about preference.
• Glyph of Nourish – It will buff the bonus part of your nourish spell by 6% per HoT on the target. This glyph stacks with the T7 4 set bonus.  The glyph is supposed to replace the T7 4 set bonus after you have replaced your T7 with T8 gear;
• Glyph of Wild Growth – Heal 1 additional target with your Wild Growth, might become handy with the talent Revitalize, 1 more target, 1 more change to proc. Apart from the talent an additional target that get heals is always good especially since the raid has a lot of aoe damage in Ulduar.

Not glyphs for your healing spells but you might like these:

• Glyph of Innervate – With enough spirit on yourself you will not be needing this glyph, but if you cast it on someone else your regeneration of mana will be a 100% for 20 seconds;
• Glyph of Rebirth – Increases the amount of health on a character brought back to life via Rebirth by 100%. Nice but not really needed.

Which Glyph should you use? The plan at first was to provide you with a decision tree but while making it occured to me that some choices are hard to make. Nowadays I easily change my glyph between fights if I feel it is necessary. Some guidlines I use:

1. It depends on your healing style. It would be silly to glyph a spell which you hardly use.
2. What is your role in the raid? Are you raidhealing, tank healing or a bit of both (i.e. normal dungeons or heroics)? Some suggestions (not in this particular order):
   Raidhealing:  Glyph of Rejuvenation, Glyph of Wild Growth;
   Tankhealing: Glyph of Nourish, Glyph of Regrowth, Glyph of Healing Touch.
3. What gear do you have? More importantly which tier set bonuses do you have?

An example: if you have the tier 7 4 set bonus it gives you a 6% bonus to Nourish per HoT you have on the target. You could take  Glyph of Nourish to boost it even more or choose not to glyph Nourish because it heals good enough for your style and choose to glyph Glyph of Wild Growth to boost your raid healing.
Lastly I would like to point out that there are minor glyphs, there’s only one I would recommend:

• Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth – Your Rebirth spell no longer requires a reagent.

Next episode will be about talents!