Podalarius of Draenor has taken Hamlet’s well worn TreeCalcs spreadsheet and turned it into a very nifty online calculator: TreeCalcs.com.

You can import your character at the click of a button, or you can enter your own values manually. The armory import will automatically bring over your talents, which is also a time-saver. Then you can tweak values like your set bonuses, raid buffs, trinkets, idols, and meta gems, to see what your output will be like.

It also tells you the HPS or MP5 value that you get out of your buffs, glyphs, set bonuses, consumables, trinkets, and idols, plus the HPET (healing per execute time) and HPM (healing per mana) of your spells and various rotations. It even warns you if you’re under the haste cap, and tells you how much you need to grab!

Go take a look and have a play with it – very handy. Thanks Poda, for converting Hamlet’s great spreadsheet! www.treecalcs.com.

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Just a quickie: here are my exports for Fiery Combustion and Soul Consumption, the “get debuffed quick or you’ll drop a massive void zone thingy” debuffs. This will allow you to move out of/away from the raid so that you don’t drop the damagey spot under everyone’s feet.

Super simple – fiery combustion puts a red skull over your character, and soul consumption puts a purple one (everyone knows that souls and soul-related abilities are purple).




My code also plays an alarm sound; if you want a sound attached, you can simply save it into your Power Auras / Sounds folder and name it the same as mine – “burglar_alarm_going_off.wav”, or change the Power Auras settings to suit the name of your sound. If you don’t want a sound, you can just leave the code as-is.

Here are the codes:

Fiery Combustion:

Version:st3.0.0E; gcd:bofalse; b:nu0.082352941176471; anim1:nu1; g:nu0.027450980392157; optunitn:bofalse; ignoremaj:botrue; stacksLower:nu0; target:bofalse; icon:st; size:nu0.48999997973442; torsion:nu1; r:nu1; y:nu-30; x:nu0; customname:st; groupany:botrue; isAlive:botrue; timerduration:nu0; unitn:st; bufftype:nu2; stacks:nu0; focus:bofalse; raid:bofalse; texture:nu58; alpha:nu0.75; aurastext:st; symetrie:nu0; owntex:bofalse; isResting:bofalse; duration:nu0; mine:bofalse; multiids:st; inVehicle:bofalse; speed:nu1; anim2:nu1; stacksOperator:st>=; realaura:nu1; threshold:nu50; exact:bofalse; InactiveDueToState:bofalse; textaura:bofalse; spec2:botrue; wowtex:bofalse; groupOrSelf:bofalse; customsound:stburglar_alarm_going_off.wav; combat:nu0; id:nu28; inParty:nu0; HideRequest:bofalse; Active:botrue; aurastextfont:nu1; buffname:stFiery Combustion; inRaid:nu0; tooltipCheck:st; customtex:bofalse; stance:nu10; isSecondary:bofalse; thresholdinvert:bofalse; spec1:botrue; Debug:bofalse; beginSpin:bofalse; Showing:botrue; UseOldAnimations:bofalse; begin:nu0; off:bofalse; party:bofalse; texmode:nu1; inverse:bofalse; ismounted:bofalse; targetfriend:bofalse; randomcolor:bofalse; sound:nu0; finish:nu0

Soul Consumption:

Version:st3.0.0E; gcd:bofalse; b:nu0.23529411764706; anim1:nu1; g:nu0.082352941176471; optunitn:bofalse; ignoremaj:botrue; stacksLower:nu0; target:bofalse; icon:st; size:nu0.48999997973442; torsion:nu1; r:nu0.36078431372549; y:nu-30; x:nu0; customname:st; groupany:botrue; isAlive:botrue; timerduration:nu0; unitn:st; bufftype:nu2; stacks:nu0; focus:bofalse; raid:bofalse; texture:nu58; alpha:nu0.75; aurastext:st; symetrie:nu0; owntex:bofalse; isResting:bofalse; duration:nu0; mine:bofalse; multiids:st; inVehicle:bofalse; speed:nu1; anim2:nu1; stacksOperator:st>=; realaura:nu1; threshold:nu50; exact:bofalse; InactiveDueToState:bofalse; textaura:bofalse; spec2:botrue; wowtex:bofalse; groupOrSelf:bofalse; customsound:stburglar_alarm_going_off.wav; combat:nu0; id:nu29; inParty:nu0; HideRequest:bofalse; Active:bofalse; aurastextfont:nu1; buffname:stSoul Consumption; inRaid:nu0; tooltipCheck:st; customtex:bofalse; stance:nu10; isSecondary:bofalse; thresholdinvert:bofalse; spec1:botrue; Debug:bofalse; beginSpin:bofalse; Showing:bofalse; UseOldAnimations:bofalse; begin:nu0; off:bofalse; party:bofalse; texmode:nu1; inverse:bofalse; ismounted:bofalse; targetfriend:bofalse; randomcolor:bofalse; sound:nu0; finish:nu0

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That’s possibly a dumb question for most of my audience, since most of you are already druids. But! Maybe you’re not a druid, or maybe you are but you have a friend who wants to be a druid in the expansion?

So if you’re an existing druid planning on going Worgen or Troll, or if you have a friend who wants to jump in, here’s a bit of a primer.


Resto, Balance, or Feral?

It’s probably a good idea to decide which path you’re going to take, at the very least until Level 40 when you can grab Dual Talent Specialization. This will depend a lot on your play style and what you enjoy doing while you level:



• If you want to do it solo, and fast, then feral’s the way to go. Balance is also good for soloing, but feral has the least downtime because it is not hindered so much by mana and drinking (not to mention all the stupid mobs out there who interrupt, drain mana, or cause spell pushback). Feral downtime is minimal.
• If you want to solo but also have the ability to heal some dungeons, go balance. You’ll still have good soloing ability, and moderate healing (balance is absolutely fine for healing dungeons as you level). And best of all, you won’t have to worry about changing gear.
• If you want a healing crash course through dungeons on the way to 85, then it’s perfectly viable to go resto from level 1. I suspect that when Cataclysm is released, many people will be levelling existing mains, so that might make it hard to find lowbie dungeons – but remember also that there will be a lot of players who want to level a Worgen or Goblin, PLUS the people who always wanted to play a human hunter, gnome priest, blood elf warrior, night elf mage (and so on). So I think there will be plenty of dungeons to be had.
  
Resto is the poorest spec for soloing, but it’s not awful; however, if you’re going to be doing a fair bit of questing in between dungeons, you might want to consider a balance spec from 1-40, then “learn” resto with your dual spec at 40 onwards.


BOA gear

First of all, when choosing your BOA gear, consider whether you might later like to pass it onto another character. For example, I tend to pick cloth items for my caster druids, because I know that if I choose to create a clothie later, I can recycle my BOA items. I do the same for my melee characters – shaman/hunter/feral druid all have to share each other’s hand-me-downs (so if you see any of my characters without a chest or shoulder item equipped, it’s probably in the mail or on another character). Obviously if you’re swimming in tokens, this won’t be an issue, but it’s something to keep in mind.




Also, I’ll list the resilience items – but remember that you get resilience at the cost of other stats (eg spirit), so only take these items if you can’t afford the PvE equivalent. They still give you 10% experience, so it’s worth grabbing – just prioritise the PvE ones if you can afford them.

By the way – did you know that you can mail your BOA items to your characters on the opposite faction? My gnome rogue is currently using my feral chestpiece. I believe Blizzard have also said they would like to be able to let people mail them across servers, which would be awesome if you rerolled somewhere!

Anyway – here are the items to consider:

For Resto:

Slot	Best choice	Backup
Shoulder	Preened Ironfeather Shoulders Tattered Dreadmist Mantle	Lasting Feralheart Spaulders Exquisite Sunderseer Mantle
Chest	Preened Ironfeather Breastplate Tattered Dreadmist Robe
Weapon	Devout Aurastone Hammer + OH Dignified Headmaster’s Charge	Blessed Hammer of Grace + OH Grand Staff of Jordan
Trinket	Discerning Eye of the Beast x 2


For Balance:

Slot	Best choice	Backup
Shoulder	Preened Ironfeather Shoulders Tattered Dreadmist Mantle	Lasting Feralheart Spaulders Exquisite Sunderseer Mantle
Chest	Preened Ironfeather Breastplate Tattered Dreadmist Robe
Weapon	Grand Staff of Jordan Dignified Headmaster’s Charge	Devout Aurastone Hammer + OH Blessed Hammer of Grace + OH
Trinket	Discerning Eye of the Beast x 2


For Feral:

Slot	Best choice	Backup
Shoulder	Stained Shadowcraft Spaulders	Exceptional Stormshroud Shoulders
Chest	Stained Shadowcraft Tunic
Weapon	Repurposed Lava Dredger (2H)	Venerable Mass of McGowan + OH Balanced Heartseeker +OH (good feral OHs are hard to find, though)
Trinket	Swift Hand of Justice x 2



Guides to help you

Now, our healing may change a bit in Cataclysm once we are given our new talent trees and abilities; but I don’t think that lowbie healing will change very much. Healing Touch will still be our dungeon heal (with HoTs, of course), and I don’t think there will be sweeping changes to how we heal at low levels.

With that in mind, WotLK levelling guides should still be a good reference in Cataclysm, so here are some guides to bookmark for later.



• Tree Bark Jacket – Levelling as Resto – my resto druid guide (currently being revamped to add even more information – watch this space).
• Restokin – Druid Levelling Guide – Lissanna sets out your levelling options, specs, and strategies – including dual spec options.
• Rolling HoTs: Med School – Healing resto at levels 1-80 – a level-by-level explanation of what you should grab, how our spells work, and how you should heal.


Do you have any tips for brand new Cataclysm druids? Or do you know of another guide to levelling druids? I’d love to include them in the next version of my guide!

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Another Twitter Dev chat, and some interesting snippets. Enjoy!


New Tree Form graphic and hints at cooldown effects

Q. Why are Restoration druids the only spec in the game not receiving a new spell?

A. Restoration druids are actually getting a fair bit. For one, Tree of Life is getting a whole new model (think Ancients of War) and will also “morph” some of your spells to do crazy things while in the form, such as cause Regrowth to be instant, or Lifebloom to apply two applications at once. Tranquility will be raid-wide. We’re also touching nearly every Restoration druid spell to make sure each has a niche and feels good. In general, playing a Restoration druid should feel a lot different (better!) in Cataclysm than it does today.

Key points:



• Tranquility raid-wide (more like Divine Hymn?)

• New tree model (like Ancients of War?)
• Cooldown could change spell effects – eg instant Regrowth, double lifeblooms (examples only!)
• Overhaul of all spells to tweak them





Finally, a fix to make Tranquility good in raids. I am very much looking forward to this.

I’m definitely excited to see what the effect of the tree cooldown is – instant Regrowths, double lifeblooms – they’re tossing ideas around and nothing is final, but it gives us a bit of an insight into what they might be thinking. Pretty cool!

I really hope that the reference to Ancients of War is more a passing reference to the cooldown graphic looking large and imposing. I like the ancients, but I don’t want to be one – I don’t want them to rehash a model that we already have in the game. I’m sure they will give us something new and shiny, though (PS – I still don’t want to lose my ability to be a tree at will).


Boosts to our tank healing capabilities?

Q. Is every healer supposed to be able to tank-heal efficiently, or will we still see specs excel in it more than others?

A. Each healer is intended to have a different niche, and different strengths. Such as Restoration druids with HoTs, or paladins at direct healing, Discipline priests at absorption/prevention, etc. That said, each healer should be able to keep up a tank and have some deeper “tank healing gameplay” as they do now.

No specific mention of any mitigation abilities, but I still have my fingers firmly crossed. This answer hints at us getting a little more tank-healing ability; I just hope it doesn’t mean we hit them with Healing Touch all day. I really would love to see us get something that we can use in an emergency (that isn’t just a heal). Something that will help during a few seconds of enrage, or if another healer dies and you need to hold it together for a few seconds, etc.

The ToL cooldown will probably do a lot to help here, depending on the effects they choose – but I still want to see a mitigation ability, it’s something I think we are sorely lacking. Perhaps not so much in a large raid environment, but in smaller raids it would be good to know that we have the cooldowns.

Even so, Tranquility going to a Divine Hymn style spell would be awesome. At the moment, a resto druid’s counter to an enrage or heightened damage phase is just – heal harder. Spam faster. I’d really like to be able to be calling out that I’m doing my awesome cooldown now, to help us get through the crazy phase. I’m terribly jealous of people who can call out “I’ve got the next sac”, “I’m hymning now”, or “I’ve got a BoP on Bob, he’s good for 8 seconds” etc. During crunch times, I want to be able to do more than just heal harder.

So I’m super excited to see the true effect of our ToL cooldown, and just what raid/tank-saving goodies we might end up with, within that ability.


Haste and channeled spells

Q: How will haste affect channeled spells. Will it be similar to DoTs and HoTs?

A: They will channel faster but their duration will remain unchanged. You will get more ticks on the same cast.

This is a pretty simple one – affecting our Tranquility (I assume, depending on how it changes in Cataclysm) and Hurricane. The current effect of high haste is to speed up the ticks, making the duration shorter but the ticks close together, BAM BAM BAM, quick healing or damage.

In Cataclysm, the duration will be (back to) normal, but inside that normal duration you will have more ticks, faster.

So for example:



• Base spell XYZ:
  Ticks for 3000 every 3 secs
  Lasts 18 seconds
  Total: 6 ticks of 3000 = 18,000. 1000dps/hps

• WotLK, with a tonne of haste:
  Ticks for 3000 every 2 secs (haste makes it tick faster)
  Lasts 12 seconds (haste shortens the duration)
  Total: 6 ticks of 3000 = 18,000. 1500dps/hps

• Cataclysm, with a tonne of haste:
  Ticks for 3000 every 2 secs (haste makes it tick faster)
  Lasts 18 seconds (haste no longer shortens the duration)
  Total: 9 ticks of 3000 = 27,000. 1500dps/hps


So it lasts just as long as “normal” but packs in more ticks as your haste increases, which means more healing/dps for your cast, which is obviously more mana efficient. And, obviously, the closer your ticks, the faster you heal or damage your target – which is very nice.


Idol overhaul

Q: When you say you’re going to make relics class agnostic, does it include druids’ idols as well?

A: Druid, shaman, paladin and death knight. It’s possible we will still keep some that are very specific to certain classes and specs. Overall though we’re not happy with the current design where an ability procs a buff on you. If it’s an ability you don’t use often, then the item is terrible, so they end up feeling really passive already. At the same time, the fact that we have to offer so many prevents us from ever giving you the choice of which one to use. So we make the Resto druid or Enhance shaman version every new tier. It would be a more interesting decision if there was a crit + Intellect relic and a haste + Intellect relic, and you can choose which one to use.

By “agnostic”, they mean that they will be interchangeable between classes. Rather than relating directly to our specific spells, like Rejuvenation or Lifebloom, they might be +healing, or +crit, so that a druid and a paladin could use the same idol. Or, more importantly, you could share an idol between two specs (eg resto/balance). With the current system, every tier of gear you have to spend badges on two idols; agnostic idols would mean that we wouldn’t necessarily have to.


That’s it for now. I really can’t wait to see our next lot of sneak peaks – mostly I’d like to know more about our ToL cooldown, and how they’ve pruned and changed the talent trees. I have high hopes!

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At the risk of starting to sound a bit like a broken record, I’d like to talk about the Cataclysm preview again. Yay! Just for something new and different

I wanted to go back and give more thought to the changes, past my initial reactions. Initially I was very disappointed; I didn’t want another healing spell, but I had my heart set on a tank mitigation ability, something I felt we were missing compared to the other classes. I had hoped this would be the time that they gave us one to bring us in line – but no luck. Plus, I was selfishly disappointed that we didn’t get a “new toy”, like all the other classes – pretty lame, a new expansion and no new ability. And, obviously, removal of tree form was very upsetting.

But there’s more to the preview than just new toys and graphics, and I want to expand on my thoughts.



On flavour and art

First, a quick word about the concept of “flavor”.

GC is right when he says that tree form, these days, is basically all art and little function. But implying that it’s “just” art, or “just” flavor – that’s just wrong.

Our tree form is not “just art”. For many of us, it’s our identity. (For those people saying “you’re not losing tree form, it’s just on a cooldown” – well, then it’s no longer our identity. I don’t believe I would be a “tree druid” if that tree was only able to come out every 3/5/10 minutes.)

Think of all the things in this game that are just art or just flavor. Even further – think about the additions and improvements made to the game that are purely art or flavor. Anytime there is an updated graphic, a new mount, a new hunter pet, hair styles, toys, and gimmicks – with the exception of mounts (which contribute to achievements) they add nothing to our gameplay or progress. It’s all for fun, for flavor.

I know this is a bit of a stretch of the imagination, but imagine saying to hunters:

We’ve decided to consolidate hunter pets into one class of hybrid pets, rather than having various pets with different roles. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a hunter to give up his choice of animal because it isn’t in the pet family that he needs; so instead, all pets will have the same basic stats and function. Also, we have decided to allow hunters to only tame wolves, cats, and bears, as our design goals for exotic pet types haven’t worked out over the last few years, and we now realise that all other exotic pet types add nothing to the hunter class except for art. All pet abilities from the former classes will be available in their basic forms, but will be renamed appropriately.

We knew this would be a controversial change, and I’m sorry if taming a purple spotted chazwazza was what drew you to the hunter class.

Ok, so it’s a stretch – I doubt Blizzard would ever do that – but the point is – in the past, Blizzard have opened up MORE options for hunters to tame different looking pets. Some have had new abilities, but many are just the same types of pets with new skins, or the same kind of abilities, but retooled to suit that family of animal. Why? It adds no function or performance – it’s purely art. It’s just to keep hunters happy by introducing some new and different skins. Hunters love their pink tallstriders, or matching their pet according to their race or RP style.

Same goes for giving races a bunch of hairstyles from the other races. It’s flavor. Hairstyles may seem trivial, but they make a difference. Look at the time spent updating the feral druid forms. Time, money, and artist/developer time poured into creating things that add nothing to the game, “just flavor”.


I can tell you right now that I have thrown characters out PURELY because of aesthetics. I can’t stand the way human females run, so I abandoned playing them. I’m not kidding. It’s not petty to hate the way a character looks and to refuse to play it for those reasons. Now, I’m not going to toss my druids out because of the tree form change – but the point is that aesthetics ARE important to people. I wish Blizzard would see just how important this is to us.


But, honestly – ToL on cooldown will be a BUFF to our class

First – let’s get something straight:

I like the idea of the cooldown, I just don’t like my appearance being put on cooldown with it.

That’s it. It’s really that simple (don’t let the walls of text fool you!)

Some druids are confused over the changes. I took for granted (bad habit) that everyone would assume, as I did, that all of our current ToL perks would not be lost, but rather woven into our resto talent tree and given to us in “caster form”. Currently, Blizzard balances all of our healing around being in tree form, meaning we are on par with other healers while in tree, but when we shift out to caster form, we are below average.

It wasn’t meant to be like that; Tree was meant to be an occasional buff – you’d jump in to cast some HoTs and conserve some mana, but back out again to use Healing Touch (…*snicker). But what happened was that over time, it simply became mandatory for healers to be in tree form for maximum output. So we got “stuck” in a form that wasn’t really amazing.

The changes aim to fix this problem – to balance around caster form, so that we are even with other healers, and not forced into a form full-time in order to be competitive.

This, I wholeheartedly agree with.

We shouldn’t have a weak healing form and a normal healing form, because it forces us into that form to do as well as the other healers. Note: yes, cats and bears are forced into their forms so they can imitate rogues and warriors, but that is another issue entirely, as these forms grant them new abilities not available in caster form. Resto druids shift into tree form and gain no new abilities – just some weak aura bonuses, basically.

This is the crux of Blizzard’s design change: they can’t make us uber in tree form, it would be unfair to other healers. But if tree form healing is balanced with the other classes, then our caster form is weak, meaning that we are locked into that form just to be on par with the other healers, and this is unfair.

Of course, many druids don’t mind that. It certainly never bothered me before – but it’s hard to deny that it’s a bit unbalanced to have a form that doesn’t make us great, it just makes us – even.

Many people’s reaction is to say, “Then make tree better.” The problem is that there’s not much you can do to fix it. If you make ToL stronger, then the classes are unbalanced. Short of giving tree a whole set of new abilities when you shift in (which would be a bit nuts), I can’t see a way that tree form can be “fixed”.

Originally we could only cast certain spells – but over time Blizzard has given us the ability to cast HT, Rebirth, Innervate, Thorns… more and more we are creeping towards being able to do everything in tree form, which makes the tree graphic even more of a purely cosmetic buff, rather than a functional one. If we can cast everything in tree form – then we’re just a caster druid in a tree suit. The auras and other buffs can be easily worked into other talents.




Basically – and obviously it hurts to say it – tree just didn’t work out. They had a vision for it – and it didn’t work out.

So they want to take it back, and give us something more useful. You’d be silly to fault them for that.



What we lose/keep/gain:

As I said before – when they take tree away, we’re not going to lose those tree perks. Blizzard will stitch them into the resto talent tree innately or change our talents to make sure we don’t lose out. I’m confident that our talent tree will be reworked quite a bit in order to facilitate this.

Here’s what I assume we will lose/gain:



• LOSE: Polymorph “immunity”. I’m torn about this. On one hand, I don’t care a whit about PvP. But on the other hand, I think it’s a bit unfair that resto will be the only spec that can be polymorphed. Of course, we can shift to cat or bear to get back out, but I can’t help feeling slighted that we will be the only spec vulnerable to poly in the first place. However, it’s only returning to the way it was before tree.
  
Armor bonuses – I have no idea what they’ll do here. Perhaps we’ll have an armor talent, but it seems a bit alien to be running around as a humanoid with a whole bunch of armor. But if priests have Inner Fire, a druid armor talent probably isn’t too far-fetched. The problem though is this – how many of us would take a talent that was purely devoted to armor? On some fights, it’s highly valuable, but on many fights where we don’t get hit, it would be useless. Would we bother taking it for PvE? Hopefully they will work our armor back into something else, because I doubt I would take an armor talent unless I had spare points.
  
And to be honest, I like having a reason to shift to cat or bear, as a resto druid – it reminds me of our versatility, and it always give me a buzz to do it. Running back in travel form on Archimonde, sprinting away from oozes on Putricide.. I even remember shifting to bear back in AQ days! I enjoy using my other forms, despite being a healer. So I don’t mind much about poly immunity. PvP restos may disagree.

• KEEP: All existing aura effects and bonuses. As above – these will either become innate bonuses, or will be reworked into the tree accordingly. Once upon a time our tree form gave us discounted healing, to the point where popping out of tree and healing for a short period of time would put a real strain on your mana. Blizzard felt this was unfair (see above – we shouldn’t be stuck in a form to be as good as other healers), and made it so that as long as you had the tree talents, you could have the mana discount anytime.
  
This is basically what I see happening to our current tree perks – they will end up part of other talents, or “if you spec deep enough to get XYZ, you will gain these innate bonuses.” There’s really no need to worry that we will lose our tree auras etc. Blizzard will balance us.

• GAIN: Here’s the exciting part. We didn’t get any new spells, but the ToL “cooldown” has great potential. We don’t know what it will be yet – but I’m hoping that it isn’t just a flat spellpower buff (ie: 500 extra spellpower for 15 seconds), but a raid or tank-saving ability. GC has hinted at Tranquility becoming more like Divine Hymn; I think I would be quite pleased if the ToL “cooldown” gave us access to a Divine Hymn-like ability. Something that has the potential to save the raid.
  
Who knows – but it’s exciting to wait and see what it ends up being. We didn’t get a new spell, but this cooldown has the potential to be our “shiny new toy” for Cataclysm.


We don’t need more healing spells. We have enough. My hope for Cataclysm was a castable Barkskin or other tank cooldown; maybe they are yet to give us that – inside the new cooldown. We’ll have to wait and see what they come up with – I really hope it’s worth the wait.

Also, I think it’s worth mentioning that some people are complaining that healer cooldowns suck, and we shouldn’t have to hit a button every few minutes to maximise our throughput. I’m hoping that our cooldown isn’t that kind of cooldown – like a proc that gives you 500 spellpower every few minutes. I’m hoping that it will give us something unique that will save the raid – not just “for a few seconds, you do more healing.” That would be boring.

Of course, the length of the cooldown will determine the strength of the buff; a raid-saving ability like Divine Hymn has an 8 minute cooldown (a shorter cooldown would mean a weaker bonus and less chance of it being awesome). I could handle the ToL cooldown being long if they reworked Tranquility like Hymn. Particularly if they kept Imp Tranquility; it would become fairly desirable for raiding (for a change).

TLDR: I doubt our cooldown will simply be “you do X more healing for Y seconds”. I’m hoping for something more specific and interesting.

So, while I was disappointed at first at the lack of new spells, the “OK” tweaks and mastery bonuses, and the removal of tree form to a cooldown, overall I am actually excited to see how things pan out.



On healers being able to DPS

Generally speaking, I don’t give a crap about DPSing as a resto druid, pardon my language. I know that many druids out there feel the same. But, let’s face it, there have been times that we’ve needed to, and people have scoffed. I’ll never forget going to Leo and being told “you’ll probably die to your inner demons.” For the record, I was specced 11 into balance (which, at the time, got you to Insect Swarm, and was not cookie-cutter) and I pwned my demons, much to the surprise of the raid.

I LOVED being able to spec partly into a few DPS talents, without losing too much in resto. I was so sad when they rearranged the balance tree and I had to give up my insect swarm! Ultimately, I would love to be able to go back to one of those part balance specs, without feeling guilty about giving up points in the resto tree. I’m excited to see our tree reworks so that I can see how much I’ll be able to spec into balance. This is something I’m REALLY looking forward to.

Now – do I want or expect to DPS in raids? Rarely. Only if we outgear, usually. Or in the dying seconds of an enrage timer fight, like Blood Queen, when I make the judgment call to switch to DPS. Or if the raid leader calls for “all DoTs”, and I know that I can stand there and keep Moonfire up on the boss in between weaving heals.

I don’t want to DPS in raids – but I absolutely ADORE being a utility class. Keeping a debuff on the boss without making my HoTs X% weaker or wasting GCDs to swap in and out – or having people around me think I’m a bad healer for being “out of form” – that’s pretty exciting for me.

And, of course, there are obvious PvP implications for druids to be able to CC and DPS without sacrificing the strength of their healing.



Face facts: It’s too late to save our current TOL

I believe it’s too late to “save the tree” in its current, clunky form – and that the cooldown-style buff is inevitable. This change WILL go ahead. There’s just too much about tree form that doesn’t work. So, bring on the cooldown buff, let’s hear it. Let’s see how you fix up our talent tree to compensate. I’m excited to know how it’s all going to change.



• I agree that we shouldn’t be “stuck” in tree form, where tree form only just brings us level with other healing classes, rather than setting us apart.

• It will be good to not feel stupid or “bad” if I realise I’ve been healing out of form by accident.
• It will be good to be able to debuff a boss or use CC without wasting GCDs to get back into healing form.
• I know that overall, this will be a buff to my class. This could be the raid-saving cooldown I’ve been hoping for.
• I agree that we shouldn’t waste talent points to pick up a form that is mostly cosmetic.
• I’m excited to see how they make the new tree form look.
• And yes, it will be refreshing to be able to be a caster occasionally.


Overall, it’s a buff to our class and its mechanics. I just don’t want to lose my ability to look like a tree at will. I don’t want to lose my ability to “be a tree”. That’s all I ask. Let me be a tree when I’m standing around in Dalaran. Let my raid leader say “stack on the tree” in raids. Let me keep my tree slap, tree dance, and hilarious tree-cower. Let me run around with my little sproutling twin. Let me keep my tree-flavored legacy.

I really hope that Blizzard considers a toggle to fill the void left by removing tree to a cooldown. Bears, cats, moonkins – and trees – we should all have our identifying forms.

Let us keep our beloved tree, even if it is only a cosmetic shell paying homage to its former (messy, unbalanced, clunky) glory.


OK, that’s it, I guess. I really hope that cooldown is awesome, and I really hope they consider the toggle. *crosses fingers and waits*

Possibly Related Posts:

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• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees

The Druid class preview has been announced! Click here for the full announcement.

Here’s a rundown of what’s been announced so far – remember this is just a taste of what is to come, not a full rundown of all druid changes. My (very preliminary) thoughts are at the end.





There are no new Restoration abilities.



• Feral: Thrash (Level 81): Thrash deals damage and causes all targets within 10 yards to bleed every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. The intent here is to give bears another button to hit while tanking. Talents will affect the bleed, such as causing Swipe to deal more damage to bleeding targets. 5-second cooldown. 25 Rage.

• Feral: Stampeding Roar (Level 83): The druid roars, increasing the movement of all allies within 10 yards by 40% for 8 seconds. Stampeding Roar can be used in cat or bear form, but bears might have a talent to drop the cooldown. The goal of this ability is to give both bears and cats a little more situational group utility. 3-minute cooldown. No cost.
• Balance: Wild Mushroom (Level 85): Grows a magical mushroom at the target location. After 4 seconds the mushroom becomes invisible. Enemies who cross the mushroom detonate it, causing it to deal area-of-effect damage, though its damage component will remain very effective against single targets. The druid can also choose to detonate the mushroom ahead of time. This is primarily a tool for the Balance druid, and there will be talents that play off of it. No cooldown. 40-yard range. Instant cast.








• Tree of Life is changing from a passive talent to a cooldown-based talent, similar to Metamorphosis. Mechanically, it feels unfair for a druid to have to give up so much offense and utility in order to be just as good at healing as the other classes who are not asked to make that trade. We are exploring the exact benefit the druid gets from Tree of Life. It could strictly be better healing, or it could be that each heal behaves slightly different. You also will not be able to be banished in Tree of Life form (this will probably be true of Metamorphosis as well). Additionally, we would like to update the Tree of Life model so that it feels more exciting when you do decide to go into that form. Our feeling is that druids rarely actually get to show off their armor, so it would be nice to have at least one spec that looked like a night elf or tauren (and soon troll or worgen) for most of the time.

• Restoration druids will have a new talent called Efflorescence, which causes a bed of healing flora to sprout beneath targets that are critically healed by Regrowth.
• We want to make the Feral cat damage rotation slightly more forgiving. We do not want to remove what druids like about their gameplay, but we do want to make it less punishing to miss, say, a Savage Roar or Rake. The changes here will be on par with increasing the duration of Mangle like we did for patch 3.3.3.
• Balance druids will have a new talent ability called Nature’s Torrent, which strikes for either Nature or Arcane damage depending on which will do the most damage (or possibly both), and moves the Eclipse meter more (details below). The improved version of Nature’s Torrent also reduces the target’s movement speed. 10-second cooldown.
• We plan on giving Feral cats and bears a Kick/Pummel equivalent — an interrupt that is off the global cooldown and does no damage. We feel like they need this utility to be able to fill the melee role in a dungeon or raid group, and to give them more PvP utility.
• We want to make sure Feral and Balance druids feel like good options for an Arena team. They need the tools to where you might consider a Feral druid over an Arms warrior, or a Balance druid over a mage or warlock. Remember that the PvP landscape will probably look pretty different for Cataclysm with a focus on rated, competitive Battlegrounds.








• All heal-over-time spells (HoTs) will benefit from crit and haste innately in Cataclysm. Hasted HoTs do not reduce their duration, but instead add additional HoT ticks. Haste will also benefit Energy generation while in cat form.

• Unlike the other healers, Restoration druids will not be receiving any new spells. They have plenty to work with already, and our challenge instead is to make sure all of them have a well-defined niche. A druid should be able to tank-heal with stacks of Lifebloom, spot-heal a group with Nourish and Regrowth, and top off lightly wounded targets with Rejuvenation.
• Druids will lose Abolish Poison with the dispel mechanics change, but Restoration druids will gain Dispel Magic (on friendly targets) as a talent. All druids can still remove poisons with Cure Poison and remove curses with Remove Curse.
• We want to add tools to cat form and depth to bear form. If a Feral cat is going to fill a very similar niche to that of a rogue, warrior or Enhancement shaman, it needs a few more tools — primarily a reliable interrupt. Bears need to be pushing a few more buttons just so the contrast between tanking and damage-dealing is not so steep.
• Barkskin will be innately undispellable.
• We will be buffing the damage of Mangle (cat) significantly so that when cat druids cannot Shred, they are not at such a damage-dealing loss.








• Restoration – Healing
  Meditation
  HoT Scale Healing
• Balance – Spell Damage
  Spell Haste
  Eclipse

• Feral (cat) – Melee Damage
  Melee Critical Damage
  Bleed Damage

• Feral (bear) – Damage Reduction
  Vengeance
  Savage Defense


HoT Scale Healing: HoTs will do increased healing on more wounded targets. The mechanic is similar to that of the Restoration shaman, but with HoTs instead of direct heals. In Cataclysm, we anticipate druids using a greater variety of their spells so there is a distinction between healing and HoT healing.


My preliminary thoughts

My first thoughts: Extremely underwhelming. No new ability? That’s pretty unfair. We should get a new toy, too. A whole new expansion and no new ability? Yeah, we get a new talent – which is nice – but where’s our cooldown mitigation type ability? Where’s my cast-on-others Barkskin, or some other “save the day” ability?

I agree that we don’t need another healing spell, but you guys could have given us something else for our toolbox. Giving other classes something new to play with and not us is kinda crappy.

HoT scaling is nice – like a built-in glyph of Rejuv kinda deal. A little extra free healing on Regrowth crits is nice too, but without seeing the numbers it’s hard to say whether it will sway people towards using Regrowth more in raid healing (I always did, though) or whether it will just be a small freebie. Innate haste and crit benefits to HoTs – well, we saw that one coming. It’s tasty, definitely.

As for ToL going to a cooldown – well, at the moment I’m pretty upset. Things may change, maybe I’ll enjoy healing as a cow, seeing my gear more. But I like ToL, it’s hard to have something core to your class made into a cooldown. Imagine if bears were only bears every few minutes? Call me sentimental, but I want the choice to look like a tree or not – if I want to look like a tree all the time, I should be able to do that. No other forms are forced to be on a cooldown. But, unfortunately, there are many people who disagree, and want to heal in “caster form”. The masses have spoken. I just wish we had the choice – let us look like trees if we want to, but only use the cooldown “buff” every few minutes. PLEASE! Let us choose!

Update from Blizzard:

We knew changing Tree of Life to a cooldown was going to be controversial. There was just no way a change this big would be unanimously accepted. My apologies if being a tree was what really drew you to the class.

We didn’t add new rotational spells to Restoration or Feral cat because, good lord, you have enough buttons already. We tried hard with Cataclysm to not add new spells just because. The specs that got new spells were ones we think had big holes in their rotation. You’ll still get new talents and mechanics so I expect there will be a lot to learn when the big game-changing patch rolls around.


Overall, the small changes are nice, but the lack of a new resto ability and making our ToL a cooldown is extremely disappointing.

My vote: nice minor tweaks, but ruined by the disappointing lack of new abilities; very, very sad about ToL being the only iconic druid form that will be on a cooldown.

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Just a heads-up for those of you who raid with 2 or more resto druids in your raids.

There is currently a bug with the 4-piece Tier 10 bonus, whereby the procced Rejuvenations can be overwritten by another druid’s cast Rejuvenation.


For example:



• Keeva cycles her Rejuvs through the tanks/melee.

• Bob cycles his Rejuvs through the ranged/healers.
• Keeva’s 4pc set procs a new Rejuv on one of the healers.
• Bob continues to cycle Rejuvs, and casts one on the healer that just received Keeva’s proc Rejuv.
• Bob’s cast Rejuv REMOVES Keeva’s procced Rejuv.


Obviously, this is bad, and severely cripples the usefulness of the set bonus in 25man raiding.

If you run with only a single druid in the raid – it won’t matter. But if you have multiple druids, they’re going to be removing each other’s Rejuvs all the time.

Waiting on news of it being fixed.

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• Cataclysm talent update, armor specialisation
• Blizz dev chat on Twitter – druid question roundup
• Cataclysm: the brand spankin’ new 31pt talent trees



I’ll break this one into my druid tips, and some placement tips.

Normally I don’t post strats because various other sites do a great job of them; but I spent the time creating the placement diagrams for my guild and though I would share them. It’s not a full strat, just some ideas for placement that might help you. You’ll need to check out a full strat to understand all of Sindragosa’s abilities and phases entirely.

As usual, this is mostly aimed towards 25man raids, but some tips will carry through to 10man raids also.


Quick tips

Talents

Use a raid healing spec for this fight, and make sure you’re at the haste soft cap – because other than when you have the Unchained Magic debuff, you’ll be casting something pretty much every GCD.

I highly recommend Imp Barkskin if you have room for it; it has saved me a couple of times when hit by Blistering Cold. If you think you might not make it out in time, hit Barkskin to be safe. I lagged once and didn’t quite get far enough away from the boss. I got hit for 27,000 with a 2k overkill; if I had used my Barkskin, I would have lived. If you’re playing with moderately high latency, Barkskin is your friend.

Even if you can’t fit Imp Barkskin into your spec, Barkskin should still save you – it might just be closer. If you have high latency, face yourself with your back to the dragon, so that when you get pulled in, you don’t have to turn – you can just run straight ahead and save a second or two.


Glyphs

I go with Wild Growth, Swiftmend, and Rapid Rejuvenation. WG is a must, mostly because melee will continue to DoT themselves throughout the course of the fight, and hitting 6 of them at a time is very handy.

If you run with another druid, go RR; if not, you may prefer greater raid coverage. If you don’t take RR, perhaps take Nourish (for helping to top up the tank/s in P3) or regular Rejuv, for anyone who can’t control their debuffs very well. We found that tank deaths were a major cause of our wipes in P3, not raid damage (if people learn to control their debuffs), so I value RR here for its ability to tick faster on the tanks.

Rotation

Generally a standard 5×1 (five Rejuvs, Wild Growth, repeat) rotation. In P3 the tank damage can be heavy, so try to keep HoTs on the tanks, especially during a transition, or when you know the tank healers are moving and not able to heal.


Special note: Unchained Magic

Unchained Magic is a debuff that Sindragosa places on random people. While the debuff is on you, anytime you cast any spell, it will add one stack of another debuff, called Instability. After 8 seconds of not casting anything, Instability will expire and do 2000 damage per stack. So if you cast 5 spells and then stopped, after 8 seconds, you would be hit for 10,000 damage. If you cast something again before the 8 seconds is up, the stack will go up by one, and the timer will start over from 8 seconds.

So what I usually do when I get UM (in P1) is to refresh Rejuv on the tank (when it runs out), and toss a WG through melee, to help with their Chilled to the Bone DoT (you should be at 2 stacks now). Refresh WG on cooldown and RJ on the tank. I try not to go past 5 or 6 stacks (10-12k damage); if I get that high, I wait 8 seconds for the stack to reset, then I go back to RJ on the tank, WG on the melee, to maintain a little healing.

Also, if your stacks got a bit high, hit Barkskin and wait your 8 seconds. This is also why I like having Imp Barkskin, because it gives you more wiggle room with those Instability stacks. You can also make Lifebloom your last cast on yourself, since it will bloom conveniently right after the 8 second stack expires; but you need to weigh up whether it’s worth doing that, or whether adding another stack of the debuff (by casting Lifebloom) might endanger you.

IMPORTANT: In P3, Unchained Magic will do more damage according to the number of Mystic Buffet stacks you have; so don’t go racking up as many stacks of Instability in this phase. You might get away with it in P1, but in P3 it could kill you. Keep HoTs on the tank, but don’t kill yourself!


Setting up Power Auras for Unchained Magic and Instability

The problem with Unchained Magic is that you can easily miss it if you’re busy watching health bars.

I set up Power Auras to put a big, fat, DANGER sign right across my character – but also to play a really annoying siren noise. This immediately tells me that I have the Unchained Magic debuff, and to be careful with the spells I cast for the next 30 seconds.

Plus, I set up Power Auras to show me the number of stacks of Instability, and the seconds left until that stack expires:




If you’d like to copy this PA setup, here’s the import code. Note: you’ll need to set up one code for the Unchained Magic debuff, and a separate one for Instability:

Unchained Magic

Version:st3.0.0E; gcd:bofalse; b:nu0.16470588235294; anim1:nu1; g:nu0.027450980392157; optunitn:bofalse; ignoremaj:botrue; stacksLower:nu0; target:bofalse; icon:stInterface\Icons\Spell_Arcane_FocusedPower; size:nu0.75; torsion:nu1; r:nu1; y:nu-139; x:nu-8; customname:st; groupany:botrue; isAlive:botrue; timerduration:nu0; unitn:st; bufftype:nu2; stacks:nu0; focus:bofalse; raid:bofalse; texture:nu43; alpha:nu0.75; aurastext:st; symetrie:nu0; owntex:bofalse; isResting:bofalse; duration:nu0; mine:bofalse; multiids:st; inVehicle:bofalse; speed:nu1; anim2:nu1; buffname:stUnchained Magic; spec2:botrue; stacksOperator:st>=; realaura:nu1; InactiveDueToState:bofalse; threshold:nu50; exact:bofalse; textaura:bofalse; sound:nu0; wowtex:bofalse; groupOrSelf:bofalse; customsound:stburglar_alarm_going_off.wav; combat:nu0; id:nu16; inParty:nu0; HideRequest:bofalse; Active:bofalse; aurastextfont:nu1; inRaid:nu0; tooltipCheck:st; customtex:bofalse; stance:nu10; isSecondary:bofalse; thresholdinvert:bofalse; spec1:botrue; Debug:bofalse; beginSpin:bofalse; Showing:bofalse; UseOldAnimations:bofalse; begin:nu0; off:bofalse; party:bofalse; texmode:nu1; inverse:bofalse; ismounted:bofalse; targetfriend:bofalse; randomcolor:bofalse; finish:nu0


Note: you’ll need to choose your own sound effect and change the file name. I recommend finding a really annoying danger/alarm/siren noise.

Honestly, I really can’t recommend more highly the use of hideously annoying siren noises for debuffs like this, because even if you are terrible for tunnel-visioning your raid frames, you can’t miss a debuff screaming “AWOOOOOGA AWOOOOOOGA DON’T CAST” at you.


Instability

Version:st3.0.0E; gcd:bofalse; b:nu0; anim1:nu1; g:nu0.34117647058824; optunitn:bofalse; ignoremaj:botrue; stacksLower:nu0; target:bofalse; icon:stInterface\Icons\Spell_Arcane_ArcaneTorrent; size:nu0.76999998092651; torsion:nu1; r:nu1; y:nu-139; x:nu-8; customname:st; groupany:botrue; isAlive:botrue; timerduration:nu0; unitn:st; bufftype:nu2; stacks:nu0; focus:bofalse; raid:bofalse; texture:nu43; alpha:nu0.75; aurastext:st; symetrie:nu0; owntex:bofalse; isResting:bofalse; duration:nu0; mine:bofalse; multiids:st; inVehicle:bofalse; speed:nu1; anim2:nu1; buffname:stInstability; spec2:botrue; stacksOperator:st>=; realaura:nu1; InactiveDueToState:bofalse; threshold:nu50; exact:bofalse; textaura:bofalse; sound:nu0; wowtex:bofalse; groupOrSelf:bofalse; customsound:st; combat:nu0; id:nu17; inParty:nu0; HideRequest:bofalse; Active:bofalse; aurastextfont:nu1; inRaid:nu0; tooltipCheck:st; customtex:bofalse; stance:nu10; isSecondary:bofalse; thresholdinvert:bofalse; spec1:botrue; Debug:bofalse; beginSpin:bofalse; Showing:bofalse; UseOldAnimations:bofalse; begin:nu0; off:bofalse; party:bofalse; texmode:nu1; inverse:bofalse; ismounted:bofalse; targetfriend:bofalse; randomcolor:bofalse; finish:nu0; timer.InvertAuraBelow:nu0; timer.dual:bofalse; timer.HideLeadingZeros:bofalse; timer.h:nu1.4500000476837; timer.ShowOnAuraHide:bofalse; timer.UpdatePing:bofalse; timer.Texture:stDefault; timer.enabled:botrue; timer.Showing:bofalse; timer.lastShownLarge:nu1; timer.HideRequest:botrue; timer.lastShownSmall:nu30; timer.y:nu-101; timer.x:nu-122; timer.CustomDuration:nu0; timer.Transparent:bofalse; timer.a:nu1; timer.DurationInfo:nu111933.698; timer.id:nu17; timer.cents:botrue; stacks.a:nu1; stacks.Showing:bofalse; stacks.HideLeadingZeros:bofalse; stacks.enabled:botrue; stacks.y:nu-103; stacks.h:nu2; stacks.id:nu17; stacks.Transparent:bofalse; stacks.UpdatePing:bofalse; stacks.lastShownValue:nu7; stacks.x:nu89; stacks.Texture:stDefault




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Positioning tips

Here’s how we position Sindragosa. This isn’t a full strat – just some tips for how to position her and the raid. Click images to enlarge.

Phase 1 (ground phase)

We tank her on the floor, with her head facing the stairs. Other strats have her in the middle of the room, but by doing that you have to run further for the air phase.

Phase 2 (air phase)

Sindragosa will emote, “Your incursion ends HERE…” and then she will fly up into the air. When she does there, there won’t be any damage going out except for debuffs ticking (ie, no tank healing), so you can safely move to your next position as soon as she takes off.

Gather at the bottom of the stairs, wait for marks.




When marks go out, they assemble; everyone else runs to the top to avoid extra iceblocks.

Make sure you have the mark debuff (Frost Beacon) on your raid frames, so that you can Rejuv the people who get marked up so they are healed while they are inside (2 people in 10 man, 5 people in 25man – you have time to Rejuv them).

We have a set position for our marks:




DPS the back ones down fast.




Then we DPS the front blocks from right to left, so everyone knows which ones will die first.




Remember you have to LOS the bombs, but LOS doesn’t just mean standing directly behind them. You have to look at where the bomb is going to land (look for the white swirly) and put the ice block between you and the bomb spot.




Throw a regrowth & rejuv on the tank as she lands and runs back over to him, so he gets heals while everyone is getting into position.


Phase 3 (combo phase)

These ones basically speak for themselves – we tank her out have two designated ice block spots. Our second tank will run and put green flares down in these spots at the start of P3 (since he’s not doing much else at that point!) and it really helps people to get the positioning down.




The important thing is that as a healer, you should still have LOS on your tank, even when you’re standing behind the ice blocks to drop your debuffs.

The people marked for ice blocks alternate between the left and right positions, and the raid stands behind them each time to drop their stacks.


Your strat may vary – but hopefully these tips help a little. I definitely recommend Power Auras with an annoying siren for Unchained Magic – it could save you from killing yourself. Good luck!

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Attention druids: The following statement is false:

“Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation is bad for raid healing.”


As you were.



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Let me explain. In the last few days, I’ve seen a number of people state that the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation (hereafter referred to as “RR”) is bad for 25man raid healing. I believe that this is a very short-sighted view of the glyph, and many people are stuck in what I call “Ulduar mode”, and immediately write the glyph off as being a Bad Idea(tm).

Not so, good druids, not so!

If you’ll allow me to elaborate…


The usefulness of this glyph depends, like a lot of things, on the usual list of variables. Your raid size, the raid composition, the number and class of healers, their assignments, whether you’re teamed up with another druid, your gear, your raid’s gear, your raid’s level of spatial and self awareness, and of course, your style of play. So as always, try to keep in mind that your mileage may vary.

There is no real right and wrong with this glyph, generally speaking, because there are so many things that will influence its usefulness, person to person. But the purpose of this article isn’t to tell you whether the glyph is good or bad. I’ve written it purely to explain why “RR is bad for raid healing”, as a blanket statement, is untrue.

Note: I will approach this from the point of view of a 25man raider, since Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation (RR) is generally considered to be quite good for 10 mans, due to the smaller size and our ability to still cover the whole raid with Rejuv.



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Misconception: to be most effective, we must always cover 18 targets at once

Druids strive for a 1second GCD in order to cast as often as possible – and in many cases, when we are assigned to raid healing, this equates to being able to heal the maximum number of targets possible. In aura fights (fights where the entire raid takes predictable damage at once), it’s extremely important that we cover many people. In Ulduar, raids came to really value resto druids, as they provided a great buffer on fights with constant or predictable raid damage. Blanketing the raid with Rejuvs, or the “5×1 rotation” of casting five Rejuvs and a Wild Growth became our norm – because it was so efficient and effective.

So, it’s understandable that many people extend this thinking when considering the RR, and many decide that since it will mean you can’t cover as many people at once, it must automatically be a poor choice. Or, worse, it could even be extremely detrimental to your healing. Many simply write it off and say “this glyph is great for tank healing, but bad for raid healing.”

This is not necessarily the case.The encounters in ICC are different to those in Ulduar, and it’s important to consider individual fights (and the factors listed above) before you write this glyph off as bad.


First, it’s important to understand what the glyph does to your healing and HPS.

From a raid-wide perspective, your healing output and HPS won’t change if you equip this glyph.

For ease of calculations, lets say that your Rejuvs tick for 3000 and you have enough haste that RR makes them tick every 2 seconds exactly. Nice round numbers to work with. For the purpose of this example, you’re also working in a vacuum here, casting Rejuvs only, nobody ever needs a Swiftmend or Nourish, your latency is low, and you never have to deviate from your rotation. You’re a well-oiled, Rejuv-casting machine. You also don’t have 4pc T10, so ignore that for now.

Without RR, you can cover 18 people, ticking for 3000/3secs – or 1000hps (3000/3) on 18 people, for a total of 18000hps on the raid.

With RR, you can cover 12 people, ticking for 3000/2secs – or 1500hps (3000/2) on 12 people, for a total of 18000hps on the raid.


So, as you can see, your total healing is unchanged – you’re still doing the same amount of healing (assuming no overheal, good latency, etc) across the raid. So we can stamp out the idea that fewer targets must mean less healing. In a vacuum, remember.

The difference with RR though is that it gives you higher individual hps. Instead of 1000hps on 18 people, you’re doing 1500hps on 12 people.


But what does this mean to us?

Very simply:

With Rapid Rejuvenation, you can top people up faster, but the trade-off is that you heal fewer at a time.


So – faster but fewer, or slower but more targets? You have to weigh things up for yourself, and decide what is more valuable on this particular encounter – is the damage coming in fast and heavy, making it more important to top half the raid up fast before they die? Or is the damage slow and steady, making it more valuable for you to provide a nice steady buffer on 18 people?

Does the raid need a slow-but-steady buffer to counter slow/light damage, or fast healing to counter fast/heavy damage?


Examples of when to use RR (and when not to use it)

Healing is a personal thing, and everyone has their own style, and what they consider works best. Rather than just saying “RR is good, you should always use it”, or “RR is bad for raid healing, don’t use it”, I think it’s probably best to give some examples and reasoning, so that you can make up your own mind. If nothing else, my goal here is to encourage you to keep an open mind when considering your glyphs, and not pigeonhole them as “good” or “bad”.

I’ll just cover TOC/ICC as current content. Again, this will vary depending on the usual variables.


Encounters to consider RR

Northrend Beasts – Gormokk: Brilliant on this fight. Generally speaking, the only people taking damage will be the tanks, the melee (when he stomps), and anyone standing in fire. The tanks obviously benefit from faster Rejuvs. People in fires need to be topped up FAST. Melee should be pre-hotted prior to the stomp, then hasted rejuv ticks plus a WG means they are topped up super fast. Here’s my strategy: Roll rejuvs through the tanks and melee, spot-heal fire victims with Rejuv/Swiftmend, then on the stomp timer, hit WG. Repeat. HOWEVER: If your raid group relies on you to do a chunk of the tank healing, then you may find it difficult to have spare GCDs while healing the melee too. Consider this when you choose.

Northrend Beasts – Acidmaw/Dreadscale: Fast ticking on tanks, and great spot-healing for anyone who takes incidental damage.

Jaraxxus: Fast ticking on tanks, on anyone who stands in fire, and again – roll through the melee (that’s all the blanketing necessary).

Faction Champs: Depends entirely on your style here, but I play part proactive and part reactive here. I never roll rejuvs on maximum people here, it’s usually more about spot healing ASAP while people are getting gang-ganked, so I think RR is excellent here.

Anub: Fast ticking on tanks, quick spot healing for Penetrating Cold (but probably not in heroic P3). No blanketing here, so there’s no need to cover maximum targets. P3 will depend heavily on your strat and who is usually assigned to raid healing (and how).

Marrowgar: Fast ticking on tanks being hit hard; fast top-up of people in bone spikes, and fast top-up of people in fire. Again, no blanketing here (if your raid is good enough at not standing in fire), so there’s no need for max targets.

Deathwhisper: This is another reactive fight, so fast ticking on tanks or people who need top-ups.

Gunship: lol. Seriously though – fast ticking on tanks (who do still take pretty high damage), and incidental top-ups.

Saurfang: No blanketing here. Fast ticking for tanks, but most importantly: fast ticking for MARK. Why do 1000hps on mark targets (who are taking heavy damage) when you can do 1500? RR is a clear winner here, hands-down. I would go with Swiftmend, RR, and Nourish OR Rejuv, depending on whether you tend to concentrate on one or two marks, or whether you spread yourself out and roll HoTs across all of them.

Rotface: No blanketing here. Fast ticking on tank, on the ooze kiter, and on the person as they get marked. No need for max Rejuv targets; faster ticks are more valuable.

Putricide: This was a tough one, but I’m putting it into the “good” section. Fast ticking rejuvs on the tanks is huge, especially in P3 where a tank death will mean a wipe. Fast ticks on people targetted by oozes, who get hit by bombs or goos, is also useful. Fast ticking on the raid in P3 is also good, because topping people up fast is very important. However – you won’t be able to cover as many people in P3, so you need to consider that. Also, I like to pre-hot people just before the green ooze blows up and knocks everyone away – and you won’t be able to cover as many people here, either. For me though, the pros are bigger than the cons, but use your judgment.

Blood Princes: Heavy tank damage makes RR valuable for this fight; raid damage is mostly reactive apart from empowered shock vortex damage, which people should be spreading for so they take limited damage. This is another one where I consider the benefits of RR to outweigh the limitations.

Queen Lanathel: This is another fight that I *DO* use RR on, but I believe many people don’t, because they want to cover more people. However, since her aura ticks every 2 seconds, the glyph allows our Rejuv ticks to line up perfectly with the damage and top people up fast. Again, it will depend on your other raid healers. Pros: Ticks match the damage ticks excellently; fast ticking on the tanks, plus spot healing on people with debuffs. Cons: Can’t cover as many people at once, and can’t pre-HoT as many going into the air phase. Remember though, you’ll need to heal fewer people as time goes on, as vampires will be healing themselves quite a lot – so it’s only in the first couple of phases that you’ll be straining to cover maximum targets. Weigh it up for yourself.

Dreamwalker: RR is mandatory for healing the dragon. Raid healing is quite reactive and spotty, no blanketing. Tanks can take heavy damage at times, so RR is good here.

Sindragosa: Another “use your judgment” boss, but one that I love RR on. I cycle rejuvs through the tank and melee, plus WG. In the first phase the damage on the raid is not very heavy, so unglyphed Rejuv would be good; but in the later phase, people need to be topped up fast, and I favour RR. Many people will want to ditch RR for this boss, but it does have its merits. Most of our wipes were due to tank deaths, not raid deaths, and a faster-ticking Rejuv is so valuable, particularly if your tank healers are on the move or out of LOS. Damage ranks up in P3 on the raid, also, so that’s where your 2 second ticks are going to start saving lives. It’s a close call – you’ll have to decide what works best for you.

Lich King: More massive tank damage. Hard to decide on the raid; there were times when I wanted to drop RR to cover more people for Infest. But working with other healers, I cover melee and my druid friend covers casters, so there’s no need for me to Rejuv 18 people, it would be a waste. For those who don’t know, Infest ticks harder the longer it is on the target, and is removed when the target is above 90% hp – so you just need to quickly top them off and your work is done – one tick should be enough. Both of us covering half the raid and ticking every 2 seconds is better than covering more people ticking every 3 seconds. Plus, remember that melee will be doing some self-healing with Light and LotP if you have it, and won’t need as much healing to reach 90%. So at first it may seem better to cover as many people as you can, but most of those people are going to be overwritten anyway – better to top up 12 people super fast than to HoT up 18 people and have most of them stomped on, especially if you have high latency (don’t I know it). Again, will depend on your healer makeup.


Situations where RR isn’t so great

Northrend Beasts – Icehowl: Fast ticking on tanks, but if you prefer to blanket as many people as possible before the charge, then obviously RR will cover fewer. But, on the other hand, it will top them up faster. Use your judgment here.

Twins: I love RR on this fight, but most people will probably disagree, so I’ll put it in the “not so great” category. Personally, I run with another druid – I opt to cover melee (I have Revitalize), he covers casters, and we overlap on the middle group, and we find it is an excellent way to raid heal. If you were running by yourself, it would probably be better to cover more targets.

Festergut: Like Twins, I believe most people prefer to blanket as many people as possible. Again, I run with another druid and we split the raid, but if I were to run it alone, I *might* prefer no RR. But then – as the tank healing gets heavier, RR is valuable for them. You’ll need to decide based on your other healers and what kind of raid healing coverage you have.


Summary

So, as you can see, elements of many fights make RR quite valuable. In my experience, it is valuable in most fights, which is contrary to what a lot of people may tell you.

Of course, there are still fights where it will be better not to use the glyph, particularly if you are a lone druid, or if you have fewer raid healers. On fights where the DPS of the raid damage is lower than the HPS of hasted Rejuv (ie, light damage across the raid), then you’re definitely better without RR, because most of your ticks will end up as overheal. There may also be parts of fights that benefit from RR, and other parts of the same fight that you don’t want hasted Rejuv for – in which case you’ll have to weigh up which way to go.

But, overall, in many fights, Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation can be an asset, and is not the hindrance that many people see it as.

There really is no “best set” of glyphs for most situations; I reglyph often. I recommend keeping stacks of glyphs with you, so that you can reglyph as you see fit. This is not terribly expensive if you can source herbs for around 15g per stack.


I’m certainly not going to tell you that you must use this glyph – there are other things to consider, of course – all of the factors listed above, the T10 bonus, Revitalize and what have you. You’re not ONLY going to be casting Rejuv, you need GCDs for other spells. It’s not cut-and-dried. As always, use your own judgment.


I just hope that I have opened your eyes a little, and shown you that saying “Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation is bad for raid healing” is untrue – that it is extremely valuable on many bosses – and you should never write it off as only good for tank healing.

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I really have to say that I am unimpressed by yet another holiday achievement demonstrating a lack of foresight on the part of the developers.

I’m referring to “Charming” which requires you to acquire Lovely Charms and turn them into a Lovely Charm Bracelet (10 charms are then made into one bracelet). You can get the charms by killing any green+ mob. So you can collect them by grinding, doing quests, or doing dungeons – anything that will have you killing green+ mobs.

BUT – you need to land the killing blow to receive the charm.

This is obviously not an issue when you’re soloing, since you’ll be dealing all the killing blows*, but it means that healers either miss out while in groups, or they have to spam AOE to try to steal kills – because we don’t do the killing in dungeons.

(*Note: since it goes off killing blows and NOT who tagged the mob, if you are grinding mobs out in the world, someone else can steal your charms by finishing off your kill before you get a chance to. This is a double blow for healers who don’t have a DPS spec, since we can’t burst mobs down like a DPSer can, leaving us vulnerable to having our kill stolen. I had people steal several of my kills yesterday.)

Of course, when someone points out the inequality here, the typical responses are things like:



• “Just go to Ulduar and use the seige engines for 1000 charms a minute!”

• “QQ, just go do some daily quests, stop whining.”
• “It’s always going to be harder for a non-DPS class to DPS mobs, durr” (wow..)
• “You have an AOE spell, try using it.”
• “Don’t you have a dual spec? Go DPS and quit crying.”
• “onoez, you have to do some WORK to get an achievement? Boohoo” (whoooooooosh, there goes the issue at hand, sailing right over the top of your head…)


Yes – there are ways for you to go out there and use vehicles for 5 billion charms a minute – that’s so awesome! I’m so happy you enjoy doing it that way! But it doesn’t change the fact that during everyday, normal play, a DPS class will receive more charms than a healing class – without even trying. Charms will simply drop into their bags while they do anything – BGs, dungeons, raids, daily quests, grinding. But the healers don’t get any from BGs, dungeons or raids (unless they are DPSing at the same time).

The imbalance is obvious.

Quoting poster Proxima from the forums, who hit the issue right on the nose:

This argument is so stupid it’s mind boggling.

DPS: Do what you always do, get lots of holiday items.

Tank: Do what you always do, get some holiday items.

Healer: Do what you always do, get jack squat. Instead find some way to game the system and listen to idiots on the forums claim this is somehow logical and balanced, not to mention “Working as intended”.

Christ, it’s not like the imbalance isn’t ludicrously obvious.

(my emphasis)

And Carmelita:

If i were a DPS by the end of the two weeks I would have all i needed by doing what I normally do, but being a healer means I have to go out of my way to do dailies that are boring to me and grind mobs that take twice as long for me to kill as compared to a DPS. It truly is the principle of the matter for me.

Spot on.

It’s not that we can’t get charms. It’s that other people will get all the charms they need (and more) without deviating a single tiny bit from their normal daily routine – while healers have to go out and farm for them, either by grinding mobs, doing dailies in overpopulated areas, or by going into Ulduar and killing Flame Leviathan trash. DPSers can do this achievement passively, but healers (and to a lesser extent, tanks) will have to go out and spend extra time farming for the items for the achievement.

Is it a big deal? Not in the grand scheme of things. Does it cripple my ability to get an achievement? No (in fact I already had the achievement, retroactively). But even if I already had the achievement, that doesn’t stop me from feeling annoyed that Blizzard can’t seem to see achievements that are skewed. I don’t like it when things are unfair.

It’s a matter of principle.

YES, I could go quest. Or grind. Or zoom around in Ulduar vehicles, blowing up dwarves for great justice. I’m not unable to get charms. I’m not unable to do this achievement through my own means.

But DPS classes are getting charms fall into their bags as they go about their daily business (dungeons). When I do the same, I get nothing – UNLESS I spend the run doing whatever I can do AOE down mobs OR I go and do vehicle quests or lolfarm the Flame Leviathan trash.

If it’s still not clear that it is unfair – then here’s another example. Your guild does their usual clear of ICC. Trash galore. Charms drop, but ONLY go to the DPS classes – none of the healers get any. How is this fair?

A DPS friend runs a heroic with me. For running the heroic, he is rewarded with 2 Emblems of Frost and 13 Lovely Charms. I did the same heroic, but only get 2 Emblems of Frost. Fair?

Let’s go even further and put it into monetary terms. Bracelets (=10 charms) are selling for about 20g. So for every 10 charms you collect, you make a 19g profit. For running that heroic, my DPS friend received 2 Emblems of Frost and (the equivalent of) ~25g. I get 2 Emblems of Frost.

See?


Once again – yes, I could go do dailies, or grind, or farm Ulduar for my charms. But that is not the issue. The issue is that DPS classes will have the charms fall in their bags during normal, everyday instances that they would have done anyway – while healers have to go out of their way to go get them. The ease of acquiring them is NOT the issue – it’s not hard to go “farm” them – the issue is that it is blatantly unfair that some people are awarded these items almost passively, while others don’t – despite having contributed equally to the kill.

I really truly do not understand how Blizzard can’t see that this is unfair and unbalanced. This is not a “wah wah, life is so unfair, why do you hate healers so much” post. It’s just a simple statement of fact – this achievement is skewed, and it is unfair to healers.

Attaching a quest item to a killing blow shows incredible lack of foresight on Blizzard’s part. And when it’s brought to their attention, frustratingly, they tell us it’s working as intended.


Big deal? No. Disappointing? Very.

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