Could this work for resto?

[Apos]

Hello everyone and happy new year.

Since 4.3 we all know that this tier is not the best for druids,our healing doesn't cut it well enough for the damage archetypes, zero utility, the WG nerf,etc.

Now,I was wondering if there would be a way of going around all of these problems and find ways of a druid becoming actually useful and having a way to give strong heals once again.

Sadly,my own maths fail me,and no matter how many speccs I tried,I couldn't come up with any that would give a viable solution as of yet.

http://www.wowhead.com/talent#0hfZZrfzhbcrukuo

Currently I'm using this,mostly because I feel comfortable with my mana pool. but I'm fairly certain it will change as soon as I say goobye to my 2/4 T12 set bonus.

Edit: Forget Nature's Ward,it doesn't procc from raid spell damage,also fixed some values.

Anyway,specc is not the important matter here. The important part is beyond this point of the thread.

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What I want to discuss is haste.

All breakpoints taken from here:
http://theincbear.com/math/resto-haste-breakpoints

Now,so far the 2005 haste rating was our bread and butter, and 2030 (iirc) with SoW.

I think it's about time we said goodbye to that and get a new bread and start spreading different butter.

To be more precise, our new goals could easily be 2 numbers, 2215 haste rating and 2589.

Why? Thanks to this: http://www.wowhead.com/item=77204#see-also

If the spreadsheet is correct, then with 5493 haste,we reach not our third extra tick on wild growth and efflorescence,but also our fourth! While at the same time achieving what Shard of Woe was supposed to do and getting our second tick on rejuvenation.

Additionally, the trinket duration is 20 seconds so you can have up to 2 wild growths and up to 1 efflo in it.

With the normal version,a druid would need 2589 haste to reach the 3nd breakpoint per procc.
With the heroic version,he/she would need 2215.

Right now,I haven't got the means to test this myself,since I'm away from home and raiding for at least another week. I'd appreciate any feedback on what you think on this matter. Could this give any hope for druids to do competitive healing once again?

[Lestuniem]

Peaking your haste so high would have quite an affect on your normal performance outside the trinket proc, as mastery provides awful lot more healing after 2005 haste breakpoint. I wouldn't really try and build my healing around such. And druid healing is not not competitive. Maybe you don't see them in the first kills in Madness / Spine that much (haven't checked the kill compositions of all guilds so don't know if some or any used restodruids, though), but it doesn't mean that they aren't competitive enough. Druid's still put retarded amount of healing; the only problem they've had is that they do not have damage migitation cooldown, which other classes do, and that is the only reason for Resto Druid not being present in all situations. Having Shaman or Priest just brings so much easier playground, but it doesn't mean that it couldn't be done without them.
I'm pretty sure that someone even now is progressing fairly decently with Restoration Druid, and I can assure that them wiping in an encounter is (hopefully!) not up to that one healer's mischoice of spec.

And speaking of your spec, that's a no-no. Don't really know where you came up with your build, but I'd pretty much look for is this. There are few points which can be aligned as you wish, but talents such as Living Seed and Nature's Bounty aren't really worth it, and Blessing of the Grove is the biggest waste of 2 talent points there is.

No need to start on generalizing that Druid's are in bad shape because of one World First Kill.

p.s. Now that I checked fex Paragon's killshot on Madness Anaram seemed to be Resto in there. Not yet seen their Spine screenshot so can't tell from that, but I'm pretty sure they can clarify it themselves, if they so wish.

Yours,
Lestuniem

[Apos]

Peaking your haste so high would have quite an affect on your normal performance outside the trinket proc, as mastery provides awful lot more healing after 2005 haste breakpoint. I wouldn't really try and build my healing around such. And druid healing is not not competitive. Maybe you don't see them in the first kills in Madness / Spine that much (haven't checked the kill compositions of all guilds so don't know if some or any used restodruids, though), but it doesn't mean that they aren't competitive enough. Druid's still put retarded amount of healing; the only problem they've had is that they do not have damage migitation cooldown, which other classes do, and that is the only reason for Resto Druid not being present in all situations. Having Shaman or Priest just brings so much easier playground, but it doesn't mean that it couldn't be done without them.
I'm pretty sure that someone even now is progressing fairly decently with Restoration Druid, and I can assure that them wiping in an encounter is (hopefully!) not up to that one healer's mischoice of spec.

And speaking of your spec, that's a no-no. Don't really know where you came up with your build, but I'd pretty much look for is this. There are few points which can be aligned as you wish, but talents such as Living Seed and Nature's Bounty aren't really worth it, and Blessing of the Grove is the biggest waste of 2 talent points there is.

No need to start on generalizing that Druid's are in bad shape because of one World First Kill.

p.s. Now that I checked fex Paragon's killshot on Madness Anaram seemed to be Resto in there. Not yet seen their Spine screenshot so can't tell from that, but I'm pretty sure they can clarify it themselves, if they so wish.

Yours,
Lestuniem

Druids might do a lot of total healing,but that doesn't necessarily mean that they bring actual useful healing.

The DS fight mechanics require a lot of triage healing,not a lot of blanketing. A druid is incapable of triage healing,which is why druids fall behind,since that kind of healing is what DS asks for. (on top of not having mitigation cooldowns)

As for your specc...so you call nature's bounty a waste,but not Moonglow,even though someone might be capable of sustaining their mana pool without it? That's a bit ironic if you ask me. Let's say I have managed to live without moonglow. Why should I get it?
Not to mention that you don't even have 1/2 groove...ye,it might not stack the same way other talents do,but that doesn't mean it doesn't increase your output at all.

As for Paragon, if you paid any attention to the wow-europe forums Anaram has mentioned that the only reason they brought one druid is because they had no other alternatives on combat resses. Never did they actually want a druid as a healer.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 798?page=2 <- Reply No.33

I don't know how you came up that most people progress normally with druids,but from my experience druids cause problems from the very first boss of the raid on heroic. Good luck outhealing Morchok's stomps/crystals with rejuvs when WG and SM are on cooldown.

Druids are in a very bad state at the moment.

Stop paying too much attention on meters if you ask me. They prove close to nothing. You could be doing 3K more healing than a shaman and yet you'd still contribute less to the kill. And that's without taking in account their SLT.

We are not in Firelands anymore. Things don't work like they used to be. Use the same builds and you'll fall behind. I personally refuse to fall behind. This "haste cap" is only one of the things I'm calculating at the moment.

[Lestuniem]

And I said that there are few points which can be aligned as you wish, my bad for not pointing out which one's.
I'm not looking into meters, as a sidenote, and I've raided long enough to know better.

Maybe they did not especially wish to have Resto Druid in any encounter. I never said they were the best option. But I still won't say that they're the ultimate last choice there is.

Nor do I know how you came up with this:

"I don't know how you came up that most people progress normally with druids,but from my experience druids cause problems from the very first boss of the raid on heroic. Good luck outhealing Morchok's stomps/crystals with rejuvs when WG and SM are on cooldown."

First of all, yes, I can overheal that. Why? I don't let my SM and WG be on cooldown when those happen. Morchok really is the worst fight to put as an example because it's one of those which my nearly senile grandmother could knock down.

I'm not going to contribute more into this. I brought my point of view into plain sight, now it's those people's choice who read it whether it's worth their while.

[Apos]

First of all, yes, I can overheal that. Why? I don't let my SM and WG be on cooldown when those happen. Morchok really is the worst fight to put as an example because it's one of those which my nearly senile grandmother could knock down.

I'm not going to contribute more into this. I brought my point of view into plain sight, now it's those people's choice who read it whether it's worth their while.

OK. Then


Your swiftmend has 15 second cooldown.
Your wild growth has 8/10 second cooldown.

Stomp->crystal->stomp happen with a time difference of 5-6 seconds each? Repeatively.

Oh please enlighten on how you bend time and your skills cooldown in time.

Having more than 1 druid in Morchok automatically lowers your chances of killing him,by a lot.

In anyway. To counter argument what you said about haste. Getting to those 2 "caps" with DS gear should be more than easy without sacrificing any mastery along the way.

[Taiphon]

Trinket procs are fine for regen, but they're terrible for throughput/burst. You have to be able to maximize your healing on demand, not when your trinket happens to proc.

And when you have to sacrifice mastery to optimize the effect of the proc, you can lose healingpower right when you really need it - which is often outside the proc.

Though I do agree with you that resto druids are in a bad state. Our biggest assets seem to be combat res and replenishment.

[Apos]

Well,an increase is always an increase.

Additionally,on our current state,druids have minimal burst/triage healing anyway.

Having a chance for actual extra blanketing (which is the only thing we can do effectively right now) is not half as bad.

Furthermore,I don't think we would be sacrificing a big amount of mastery in order to reach that number. Especially with the heroic trinket. The 2589 point might be trickier indeed though. Although I'm fairly certain you could reach both and still have at least +20-25% hot increase from mastery. Right now I've got +24%, with 2076 haste and mostly FL heroic gear.

We are in a bad state,but maybe there is something we can do about it. It would be better off forgetting our Firelands role and trying to further boost the niche that we fufill right now,which is damage blanketing alone. We are not capable of doing the burst heals that DS requires. We won't be capable of doing that even if we keep scaling the same stats we did in firelands,since the problem is not the scaling,it's the class mechanics themselves.

I will personally give this a shot myself,I will also give further feedback as soon as I can. (on wow-europe forums mostly. I will post here as well if my results are exceptionally well)

All in all,maybe it's time we all tried something different. I'm not saying that my different is the best option,but as long as we stay stuck to our 4.2 status,we will always be one step behind the other healers in everything.

On a sidenote,I'll be dropping Nature's Ward,since after a search it doesn't seem to procc from raid spell damage...oh well...

[Taiphon]

Well,an increase is always an increase.

What matters is how fast we can get healthbars back up after a hit, or how well we can keep them up during continuous damage.

Anything that reduces our ability to do so outside of trinket procs reduces our usefullness, even if it increases our total healing done.

We are in a bad state,but maybe there is something we can do about it.

As you say, the problem is with our class mechanics. HoTs are a pain to balance, and our toolbox is limited. Of course we should optimize our play, but only Blizzard can solve the problem.

[Capricieux]

First off, a big thank you to Lestuniem for posting here and having the patience to continue for as long as he/she did.

Now onto my ramble. As I am currently playing a Resto Druid and a Holy Paladin (both of which are about equally geared), the only major difference between the two are the tank CDs, which is fine. Lifebloom in itself is still fairly potent. Picking out some things others wrote that popped out at me, bear with me.

Our biggest assets seem to be combat res and replenishment.

Ret paladins also give replenish. There's another class but I can't remember off the top of my head. Also, if you mean by c-res, then we are the only ones capable of 100% health.

We are not capable of doing the burst heals that DS requires.

Oh, yes we are. At least, from my experience. And no, I don't have mana issues until about 7 minutes into the fight (still easily remedied).

I don't know how you came up that most people progress normally with druids,but from my experience druids cause problems from the very first boss of the raid on heroic. Good luck outhealing Morchok's stomps/crystals with rejuvs when WG and SM are on cooldown.

Hmm, let me find those logs from our Heroic attempts on that guy (25 Man)... Top two are myself on my RDruid and another RDruid.

Your swiftmend has 15 second cooldown.
Your wild growth has 8/10 second cooldown.

Stomp->crystal->stomp happen with a time difference of 5-6 seconds each? Repeatively.

Oh please enlighten on how you bend time and your skills cooldown in time.

Having more than 1 druid in Morchok automatically lowers your chances of killing him,by a lot.

*sigh* You know you have more spells than WG and SM? Try ToL -> 1-2 stacks on everyone in range -> Regrowth with all those yummy clearcasting prcs. By the time you've gotten at least three or four out your WG is off CD, and so is your SM. Let's not forget about NS + HT on someone, especially when the shaman drops his totem.

There's really no reason to get discouraged. The only thing missing from my spellbook as a druid is a legitimate tank cooldown, which we technically get in MoP. Also, Wild Growth wasn't nerfed, it's still top three for me and every other druid I've seen. Now if we want to talk about nerfs, I'd say Holy Paladins need one.

On to the actual point of the OP, which is whether to stack gobs of haste or get to the (now standard) 2005. Theoretically, more haste would mean faster cast times (I wouldn't be worrying about HoTs other than AE damage going out, and keeping Lifebloom rolling on the tank) but also would be a great way to burn through that blue bar of yours. Staying at or around the 2005 breakpoint and then starting to allocate your stats (spirit mostly, crit's still kinda a throughput stat) into mastery is a much better idea. Speaking of spirit, and I meant to post this in a different place but may as well mention it here, I noticed Arx doing some crazy weird stuff with spirit. But all in all, the reason you'd want to stop around 2005 is because druid mastery is a constant increase to your HoTs so long as Harmony stays active.

That's all for that ramble, which probably reiterated everything everyone has said here and has a high probability of not making any sort of logical sense, but I suppose it would be something to chew on.

As you say, the problem is with our class mechanics. HoTs are a pain to balance, and our toolbox is limited. Of course we should optimize our play, but only Blizzard can solve the problem.

[Apos]

Hmm, let me find those logs from our Heroic attempts on that guy (25 Man)... Top two are myself on my RDruid and another RDruid.

You almost had me until you mentioned logs.

So did I, but it's not possible to keep people up between stomps/crystals.

You say use ToL and Tranq. How many times in a row are you going to do it?

I was first in the logs with a different of up to 3K on some attempts and yet it was always the side with the druid who would lose people.

How we got him down? Oh easy, we just used a paladin. That paladin did 2K less AoE hps than I did in most attempts,yet the boss went down.

Why?

It's simple, a druid's healing has much higher peaks but also much lower slopes when SM and WG are on cooldown,whereas a holadins/hpriests or shamans majority or entire AoE heals are constant.

And that's the reason why most bosses will result in deaths if a druid is healing. Because the bosses will not wait for your cooldowns to go off so that you can reach a high slope again,like it used to be in Firelands. And rejuvenations or regrowths will never be enough to contribute to the damage coverage when compared to AoE tool kits the other classes have.

So,how about we stop using the meters as an excuse and start looking inside actual problems? The meters barely prove anything, they are a really weak indication of what happened and it's about time everyone realized that. You are supposed to be doing heroic raids,not LFR pugs, you should know better than that.

Additionally,like you said, if Arx is trying new things that seem crazy,then why do you stay so dedicated to what you knew so far,namely mastery > all? Don't you think you should be starting to try new things as well? Or do you wait everything to get handed on a plate when others are done testing?