Resto Druid Healing 10/25 mans-Omnitron Defense System

[Mistapanda]

Hello,

I'm a resto druid on Gorgonnash (US) (in game name "Mistapanda"). I am in full 346 gear except for my bracers which are 333. My mana pool is approximately 93,000 with buffs and I have 3 talents in moonglow.

Currently, we are attempting the omnitron defense system in our 25 man (and we tried the 10 man version shortly after). Our healing comp for 25 man is 3 holy pallies, 1 resto druid, 1 resto shaman, and 1 discipline priest. Our 10 man Healing comp is 2 holy pallies and a resto druid.

Everthing appears to be ok until the flame golem activates. As you are aware, raid damage from the flame golem is extensive. That is when player start dying to either the chain lightning from the electric golem or arcane shots from the arcane golem (when somebody fails to interrupt) or from the flame golem's targeting mechanic.

My healing usually starts off as follows:

1 rejuv on Pally Tank (starting the pull) followed by 3 stacks of lifebloom constantly refreshing with nourish.

Any clearcasting proc is used by regrowth on the tank or any raid member that is under 90% health.

If 3 or more raid members are under 90%, I use Wild Growth.

If there is a raid member under 50%, I put a rejuv on and use swiftmend if the tank is stabilized. If swiftmend is on CD, I just put a rejuv on.

When Second Golem is activated, I use my Tree of life macro which activates my 2 trinkets (Sea Star and Corrupted Egg Shell). I then usually have used up enough mana to need to cast innervate.

When Tree of life is active, I put 3 stacks of lifebloom on both tanks (Pally and DK tank) and try to make sure to refresh both stacks with nourish (or healing touch if they are too low) as much as I possibly can. I use Nourish when they are 50% or higher HP and Healing Touch if they are lower than 50%.
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By the time the bosses are at 60% health, I find myself using wild growth every time it's off of CD (because of the number of raid members in need of healing) as well as performing a balancing act of putting Rejuv on raid members under 30% and refreshing the tank's lifebloom stacks with nourish (although healing touch is used a lot more at this point because their health is always incredibly low) as well as trying to make sure they don't die.

Doing all of this leads me to go out of mana by about 50% into the fight. At the end of the day, my question to the restoration druids of <Paragon> is as follows: What is the job of the level 85 Cataclysm Raiding Restoration Druid? What am I doing wrong? What is the difference in my role as a healer in a 10 man raid as opposed to a 25 man raid?

Here is my armory link http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/gorgonnash/mistapanda/simple

I appreciate any and all feedback and eagerly await your response.

Sincerely,
Nick (Mistapanda)

P.S. Good luck on heroics!

[Mistapanda]

Just Killed them on 10 man but I would still like your input on healing in cata raids.

[arx]

I'm sorry I haven't gotten around to reading and answering the forum posts until now. Been somewhat devoted to raiding :P

I wrote a long-ish post and some replies about the position (or the lack thereof) of restoration druids in the heroic modes in 25-man that also touch some of your questions: http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1302895318. Might be a bit too much on the sky-is-falling side, but some of the content should be relevant for this.

You mostly have the right idea on what you should be doing, but you might be a bit too focused on the tank healing side since you're talking of 25-mans. There's quite a lot of free healing going around, especially as you have paladins, and I feel that stuff like Tree of Life are better served as a raid healing / mana cooldown by abusing unlimited Lifeblooms and free Regrowths that follow. In 10-mans you probably have to put more focus on the tank.

If you don't have Mana Tide, managing mana is essentially a juggle between Innervates and Tree of Life, with trinkets providing small upward bursts more often. In a long fight like Omnotron you should make sure you're staying somewhat sustainable with the amount of Rejuvs you're throwing around. Since I took so bloody long to answer, you're probably also feeling the love from more gear; our longevity scales really well with gear, and you shouldn't be running oom that easily anymore.

To briefly comment on what the role of a resto druid in raids is right now, we are very good at healing damage up slowly and efficiently. If you need to heal people up fast, we are at a disadvantage. Druids also provide free tank healing and good dedicated tank healing capabilities, which might or might not be useful depending on the encounter and your healing setup.