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Resto druid: Regrowth - swirly - 08-04-2011
I run a druid with feral tank main spec and resto off spec. I keep my resto gear in pretty good shape and use it decently often. We raid three nights a week and I'd say I end up tanking two nights and healing one night.
Recently a new alt druid was with me on a Bastion of Twilight run and asked about me using regrowth a good amount. Now on that particular run I was actually spamming it more than I normally like to since the other healers were weaker and so there were more moments where I felt I really had to be throwing out some heals to keep people up. So it wasn't really representative of a normal raid. I do, however, run a more regrowth-centric build and play style. So I thought I'd talk about that some here for him to read and for others to make fun of me for. : )
Basically I run a non-naturalist build. I noticed that even when I had naturalist it was pretty rare for me to need the shorter time on healing touch. HT is such a spell that I'm either going to nature's swiftness it or I'm going to cast it when I know the person isn't going to be in danger from more damage soon. In either of those cases the shorter duration doesn't really help. Now if you have a tank getting hit hard enough that you need to spam cast HT to keep him up then it is definitely useful to have the shorter cast. That is the one time I miss not having it. When something goes wrong and the tank is getting rocked harder than a rejuv+swiftmend+regrowth is enough for. In those situations I end up having to spam regrowth which is really hard on the mana and not as good as the talented HT is. To be honest though, those situations don't come up that much and in raiding there are other healers too who will often send a big heal. So all I really have to do the majority of the time is that rejuv+swiftmend+regrowth and another healer would have added their help by the time I'm done with that such that things are back to stable. If I have to do it on my own though I can manage with regrowth spam for a little bit or NS+HT added in.
Generally I get lifebloom up, I start popping wild growth anytime enough need it (I'd say on cooldown, but sometimes not enough need it so I conserve mana), I try to keep 3 rejuvs up for faster nourishes, (which counters the loss of cast time on it from not having naturalist) I throw out swiftmend as often as I can, I throw regrowths when I get clear casting procs (even when I had naturalist, I preferred regrowth for that), I use nourish to refresh lifebloom or to do other maintenance healing, sometimes I'll use regrowth to refresh lifebloom if the tank needs a little more healing put in them or just lifebloom itself if the tank doesn't need any added healing. If swiftmend is on cooldown and a person needs more than a nourish and healing right away such that a rejuv isn't enough I will throw regrowths around without clear casting.
So the great majority of my time is spent casting HoTs. With the way resto druid mastery works now I do have to weave in direct heals too, but swiftmends + CC regrowths + nourish work for most of that and if you add in the non-CC regrowth spot heals that I end up doing then it really isn't an issue.
Now the more non-CC regrowths you have to throw the harder it is on mana. So the play style does require gearing more for spirit and learning how to make your mana stretch with the various cooldowns a druid has.
I really like how not having naturalist enables me to get Nature's Bounty and thus have a stronger more useful regrowth as well as encourages me to keep the rejuvs going out for faster nourishes too. I've actually started hearing comments lately about my HPS being good and while some of it is just me getting to be better at healing, I think a lot of it is the style too. Not using HTs, but rather more RGs nets you faster heals and less overheal (through both the hot portion being more likely to be useful and it just being smaller and faster meaning more actually lands when needed). Plus I think the encouragement to keep three rejuvs running has helped too.
It is less HPM though, but I actually enjoy that. It's good to have to work my mana and cooldowns to make sure I don't run out before the fight is over. Sometimes I do fail, but the more I play the better I get at it and I like how it rewards learning to really push my mana with stronger healing.
I'm not sure such a build and playstyle is for everyone. It might be more gear dependent and it might just not work as well for some people. (or some encounters) Like I know that alt druid who asked me about it came from playing a paladin and so is more accustomed to the big direct heals. So a naturalist build may be better for him. For me though, I definitely am liking the non-naturalist build. It works with how I already played anyway and it pushes me to pay attention to things I had a tendency to slack on before.
Anyway, I just wanted to put something up for him to read about why I do more regrowths. Was going to do it in a PM, but figured I'd let others see it too and comment with their thoughts.
RE: Resto druid: Regrowth - shoju - 08-04-2011
Simple Solution: Don't let Shoju Heal. He's not good at it apparently... Timing heals / trying to time heals, dealing with crap lag issues, ugh.
RE: Resto druid: Regrowth - Concillian - 08-05-2011
An undergeared healer feels kinda gimp, they can't use all their tools because they don't have the mana too. Once you start getting up towards 359 gearing, it opens up a lot more in terms of style options. At lesser gearing, I doubt most healers could get away with as much rejuv as you use.
Like any role though, it takes a few times of seeing an encounter before you learn what needs to happen. TAC earth dude is a good example. It's a pretty extreme transition from raid damage to tank damage. As faceroll as normals are now, you can make mistakes there and still get through it fine, but we had our share of wipes there, especially because the tank damage is also dependent on how coordinated you are on the shield swap.
But the design of healing in Cata is such that healing can feel pretty sucky when you're gearing, but it honestly does get better once you have mana to use more than the basic heals.
RE: Resto druid: Regrowth - swirly - 08-08-2011
I was looking at some logs and realized that Living Seed is basically never going to be more than 3% of my healing. So I decided to drop it down to 1 point and pick Naturalist back up. The added options that passively quicker nourishes and healing touches gives is easily worth that 2% healing. So now I can still have my stronger regrowths, but also have the stronger throughput stuff to spam when I really need it.