Resto Druid 3.1 Healing Guide

[brett0560]

Hello fellow druids, here is a guide that i read and truly love. For past few weeks i have been worrying about how im gonna heal in 3.1 and keep my mana up in uluduar, (I did not write this guide all credit goes too lissanna , Warning this is a wall of text only suggest reading if you play a druid.)here is a guide:


1. Tank healing – Nourish supported by HOTs

About Nourish: Nourish (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=50464 ) is a spell with a 1.5 base cast time. This was designed to be our flash-heal ability (heal for a moderate amount in a short amount of time).

The effect heals for 20% more (before glyphs & set bonuses) if you have a Heal over time effect (HOT) on your target. The druids have 4 HOT spells that will increase the healing effect: Regrowth, Rejuvination, lifebloom, and Wild Growth. The Tier 7 set bonus and the Nourish glyph increase the amount healed by nourish by 5% and 6% (respectively). With both bonuses, and 3 HOTs, nourish is a really incredible healing spell.

About your other healing spells for tank healing:
Regrowth: 2 second cast direct heal, with long HOT component. In 3.1, the primary use of this is to have a long lasting HOT on your tank. You are welcome to cast this HOT on more than one tank without too many side-effects if you want. No longer recommended as a direct healing spell. Let the HOT run out and then re-cast
Rejuvination: Instant cast HOT that lasts a moderate amount of time. Use this to buff nourish healing.
Lifebloom: Instant cast HOT (with a large heal “bloom” at the end). Lasts short amount of time. See lifebloom page on options for how to use it.
Swiftmend: instant-cast direct heal. Nice if you need some instant burst healing on tank.
Nature’s Swiftness + Healing Touch: large instant burst. Don’t cast Healing Touch without using Nature’s Swiftness.

Tank Healing with Nourish strategy 1: Using nourish with Tier 7 bonus and Glyph combo
-Cast three HOTs: regrowth, rejuvenation, and lifebloom (I prefer this order). Then, cast nourish until a HOT spell needs to be re-cast (see page 2 on lifebloom strategies). You want to maintain all three HOTs because you gain 11% healing for each HOT you have on the target. With 3 HOTs, that’s a lot of extra healing your nourish will do.

NOTE: Obviously, you don’t want to use wild growth as a tank heal, unless your tank is in range for 4 other people to benefit from it, since wild growth costs more mana than you want to spend on one target. However, if you are tank healing and raid healing at the same time, and have the mana to use it, wild growth will buff the amount of healing done by nourish with T7 bonus & glyph

Tank Healing with Nourish strategy 2: Using nourish with only T7 bonus or glyph:
Without both bonuses, you only gain either 5% or 6% extra healing, instead of the full 11%. In that case, you have the option of dropping lifebloom entirely from the rotation – or keeping it. At a 5 to 6% bonus to tank healing, a single lifebloom by it’s self isn’t that great.

Tank Healing with Nourish strategy 3: Neither T7 bonus or Glyph:
You probably shouldn’t be tank healing with nourish at all as a primary healing strategy. Any HOT after your first one isn’t increasing your healing done, so maintaining HOTs should be based entirely on whether casting a bunch of HOTs is helping you or not. Using at least the glyph is recommended for tank healing. You may also be able to get away with regrowth + regrowth glyph – however, you’re still better off switching out the regrowth glyph for the nourish glyph.

2. Tank healing – Lifebloom strategies

For PvE healing, you will no longer be able to “roll” triple-stacks of lifebloom on more than one target, because you will spam yourself OOM without doing enough HPS to be worthwhile to your raid. So, these lifebloom strategies are intended for one tank target, in addition to using regrowth, your other HOTs & nourish on a tank. See section 3 for raid AOE healing strategies.

Strategy A: Traditional rolling lifebloom triple-stacks:
This is the strategy most healers have been using lifebloom for. What you do is get three lifeblooms on the target, and then refresh it before it falls off the target. If you have enough mana to do this, you will get the maximum healing out of lifebloom. However, at 800 mana for lifebloom, it costs 800x3 = 2400 mana to get the first three stacks up, and then an additional 800 mana every 9 or 10 seconds to maintain it. Over the course of one minute (~6 refreshes), this strategy will cost you: 2400 mana (initial stacking) + 4800 mana (6 refreshes) = 7,200 mana. This is only the mana cost associated with rolling the lifebloom. It doesn’t factor in ANY of the other spells you will cast during that minute (and doesn’t factor in the regen you gain over that minute), but 7200 mana is a LOT of mana just to maintain lifebloom stacks. You are also completely out of luck if the lifebloom falls off, since you get back less mana than it will cost you to get the stacks back up. Do not use this strategy if you are running OOM too early in the fight.

Strategy B: Slow applying the triple-stack rolling lifebloom:
Instead of immediately stacking lifeblooms at the beginning of the pull, you slowly stack it (ie. cast 1st, 9 seconds later cast 2nd, 9 seconds later cast 3rd). Then, you can maintain that stack over the course of the fight. If lifebloom costs 800 mana, this saves you 1600 mana up front compared to strategy one. Still costs 5600 mana over the course of a minute. If you’re still running OOM, then use my current favorite strategy:

Strategy C: Slow rolling & let it fall off at 3
This is my recommended strategy if you have the T7 bonus and glyph of nourish (that people now refer to as “slow rolling lifeblooms”). It doesn’t have the more constant healing that A & B have, but it maximizes the mana regen while doing the most HOT healing. How it works: Slowly stack it like strategy B (cast 1st before it falls off, refresh 2nd, before it falls off refresh 3rd). Once it has 3 stacks, let it bloom and return mana to you. Then, slowly stack it over time again, let it fall off after third application. Rinse and repeat. You also have the downside of it always having a huge triple bloom at times you can’t control that will likely mostly go to overhealing, as you aren’t timing that big bloom. Remember that you let it fall off for mana regen purposes, not because you get a bloom. If lifebloom costs 800 mana, one minute of casting costs only 2400 mana.

Strategy D: Cast it once and let it bloom.
Don’t bother maintaining stacks at all. Just wait for it to fall off and bloom, then cast it again. Wait for it to bloom. Cast it again. You get a lot of little blooms across the course of the raid, the full benefit of the mana return, it buffs your nourish, but never does very much healing on it’s own. I only recommend doing this if you have BOTH the T7 bonus and the glyph. Otherwise, use one of the other strategies. At 800 mana per lifebloom, this costs roughly the same 2400 mana that strategy C costs.

Strategy E: Forget lifebloom.
If you aren’t using the glyph and T7 bonus combo for nourish, and rolling triple stacks makes you OOM, then just don’t use lifebloom at all for tank healing, and just stick to using your other tools.

The Nicomacchus strategy:
Nic’s method is: “pretty much change nothing except realize the bloom is now a viable spike heal, and let it bloom at the refresh point if the tank needs it. ”

3. AOE raid healing – Wild growth and other HOTs

About your HOTs (and other spells) for raid healing:

Wild Growth: Your primary raid healing tool. Will heal 5 to 6 targets (15 yards from eachother) for a moderate amount over 6 to 7 seconds.

Rejuvination: Instant cast HOT that lasts a moderate amount of time. This is one of your primary raid heals. With the Tier 8 four piece bonus, you gain an instant tick at the beginning of the rejuv heal, which will make it your second best raid healing tool (after wild growth). With the rejuv idol, it’s your most mana efficient HOT in 3.1. Without either the idol or set bonus, it’s still a great HOT because it’s cheap and you can swiftmend it.

Lifebloom: Instant cast HOT (with a large heal “bloom” at the end). Lasts short amount of time. Not recommended as a primary raid healing tool, however there are situations were it will be useful, so use sparingly and use your best judgement on this one. The bloom will almost always be overheal in some situations. Some people like to use it, and you will get the mana return, but I don’t really recommend throwing around single lifeblooms as a primary raid heal strategy at the exclusion of other HOTs. It may be possible to maintain a lifebloom stack on tank while raid healing. It may be possible for single lifeblooms to do a fair amount of healing on the raid if they are taking consistent enough damage that you are pretty sure the bloom won't be all overheal.

Swiftmend: Instant-cast heal that requires a rejuv or regrowth on the target. Good for getting some fast burst healing on someone that already has a HOT (regrowth or rejuv) on them.

Regrowth: 2 second cast direct heal, with long HOT component. You can put this on the tanks while you are raid healing, and you can use it sparingly as a raid heal. There may be some fights with constant, or more heavy, raid damage where the long lasting HOT is powerful (ie. Saph’s frost aura in Naxx). However, please don’t spam yourself OOM by using it too much.

Nourish: Makes a great tank heal, however it doesn’t heal enough without HOTs on the target to be a primary raid heal spell. Only use nourish as raid heal if your raid healing target has HOTs on them, or really needs a direct heal to be topped off quick and regrowth or rejuv + swiftmend isn’t an option.

Primary raid healing strategy (especially with 4-piece tier 8 bonus):
Cast Wild growth every time the cooldown is up, if your targets are close enough for it to bounce to at least 3 people. Then, cast rejuvenations on anyone else taking damage. Mix in other spells using your best judgment. Just don’t spam yourself OOM using heals besides wild growth & rejuv.

When your targets are too far spread out: Just do the best you can, and avoid casting wild growth if it won’t heal enough people at the same time. You may ask to be assigned to tank healing for any fight where wild growth can’t heal enough people.

4. Possible talent specs –
There is some degree of flexibility in what specs people think are “best.” It’s really up to you (in the end) to pick a spec that YOU think will be best. Here are a couple different options I’d like to highlight.

Nourish-focused tank healing build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0VG0uZZf0fuiuxVuVhst
What it misses is more AOE focused talents (replenish & imp tranquility). It contains Nature’s Grace and full tranquil spirit to benefit Nourish with HOT healing the most. I actually think my final build will be something closer to this.

The “raid healer” build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0VG0zZZf0IurugVuVIst
Contains more AOE healing bonus talents. Skips Nature’s Grace and a couple points out of tranquil spirit, since you won’t be using as much direct healing, and replenish will benefit you a lot. You could also drop living seed and pick up Nature's grace instead.

The Compromise build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0VG0uZZf0furuxVuVIst
Keeps both nature’s grace and replenish at the expense of tranquil spirit & improved tranquility. (If you drop out replenish from this one, you end up with something like the tank healing build I posted first, or you can pick up something like natural perfection instead of replenish).

Talents some people don't like from the above builds:
Some people don't like the the replenish effect and that talent drops out of their builds.
Some people don't like Living seed and/or Nature's Grace.

Talents I don’t put in my PvE healing builds:
Imp barkskin – I consider to be PvP talent, and not useful for PvE
Empowered touch & naturalist - aren’t that helpful for raid end-game builds (assuming you only use HT with Nature's Swiftness) and make better talents for intro-healing before you are level 80.
Furor - is a balance/feral talent that happens to be in the resto tree.

But I really want to be a restokin: (Not recommended for raid healing builds, but in a blog called restokin, I have to at least give it a nod – Though it doesn’t go all the way to moonkin form). Restokin specs are mostly outdated, and were mainly used during BC for PvP or 5-mans, and never really for end-game healing. It could look something like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0VGsu0IohZZf0IubuxVuV0R
Once again, something resembling one of the first three builds will do a lot more for you, in terms of raid healing.

5. Glyphs for raid & tank healing.

All “major” healing glyph analysis:
Glyph of nourish: Nourish heals for 6% for each additional HOT on the target. If you are doing any MT healing at all, you will use this glyph for the benefits outlined in section 1 of this guide.
Glyph of Lifebloom – Increases duration of lifebloom slightly. Good if you are planning to roll lifeblooms on your target, to reduce the amount of mana it costs you.
Glyph of Regrowth – Increases healing done by regrowth if your target already has the regrowth HOT on them. This used to be my MT healing glyph. However, I’m replacing it in 3.1 with the Nourish glyph
Glyph of Healing Touch – Only okay to use if you don’t have nourish yet, in which case most of this guide doesn’t apply to you in the first place.
Glyph of rejuvenation – Requires target to be below 50%, so it’s mostly useless for now.
Glyph of swiftmend – Swiftmend doesn’t consume your HOT when you cast it. Nice to have if you’ve gotten the 2-piece set bonus that increases swiftmend’s healing done and/or you are using swiftmend a lot.
Glyph of Wild Growth – Increases the # of people healed by wild growth by 1 additional target. Great for healing a group of melee, assuming you have 6 people that this would heal at one time.
Glyph of Innervate – Increases the effectiveness of your innervate spell. Use this glyph if you are having mana problems.

Recommended glyphs to choose from for healing:
Nourish
Lifebloom
Swiftmend
Innervate
Wild growth

Recommended glyph trio for MT healing (probably wearing T7 gear):
Nourish
Lifebloom (or innervate if you are having mana problems)
Swiftmend

Recommended glyph trio for raid/AOE healing (wearing T8 gear):
Wild Growth
Swiftmend
Innervate

Recommended glyph trio for overall healing (wearing T8 gear):
Nourish
Wild Growth
Swiftmend

Minor glyphs to use:
Unburdened rebirth
Glyph of the Wild
3rd – whatever you want.

(Once again i did not write this guide, i am just sharing because i found it really helpful and i hope you all do too. All i did in this guide was add color, and hyperlinks to make it easy to follow and simple to read. If you found this post helpful then please follow the link to original creator and bump his/her thread, im sure he/she would appreciate it) Thx for reading.

[superizm]

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> How to Heal in 3.1: PVE/raid healing
since you didn't add the link

[brett0560]

World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> How to Heal in 3.1: PVE/raid healing
since you didn't add the link

Yeah i did. If you look at top i said the persons name and when you click it it takes to you the page.

Edit: Although its kind of hard to see. Thx for bringing that to my attention, i underlined it to make it more noticable that its a link.