Help me respec my druid

[Kevin]

I was thinking of using something along the lines of this build for the end-game.  It's still got powerful bear/cat forms but the extra mana of Heart of the Wild can supplement the improvements to Healing Touch and Rejuvenation to make for a good healer, as well.  No Innervation, but it's got Nature's Swiftness
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Having taken This build into Molten Core last night I have a few observations. Keep in mind I had been a 34 resto/17 feral in 1.7 and been in Molten core and done some of the same battles that we did last night. This is a feral druid from a raid perspective some of this I commented on in the Domo thread.

I'll break down the talents more, but for your build I would drop points out of subtlety for insect swarm and the cheaper healing touch. The numbers are at the end of the post. You have the same shred vs feral fire vs whatever debate as well. I need to run the numbers on what -6 vs -12 energy to shred means. In your case is that better than 30 more AP all the time?

Anyway some thoughts on the talents with a raid tilt. I'm not touching the balance tree right now.

Healing talents:
Improved Mark of the Wild - Someone in the raid needs it as it does provide a real benefit as discussed earlier. I can live without it and just provide reagents to a druid that does have it if they want them.

Furor - Helpful even in MC and even for a full resto druid. With 5 priests the druids didn't need to heal on the trash at all it looked like if they didn't want to. I was playing as a cat giving my aura to some hunters. But I did shift out to heal a few times (I was intentionally in gear that still had me at 5K or so mana and sacrificed about 100 AP and 1.5% crit). Having Furor to get that 40 energy right away as a cat was helpful to get more DPS out. Having 10 rage as a bear so I could stun right away after a shift if need be has been helpful in the solo testing I've done.

Improved Enrage - Would help if you ever get called on to bear tank as a druid in MC. I bear tanked a few times in 1.7 but our alliance is pretty warrior heavy so I don't see that being a big deal. I also see this as less valuable than the Primal Fury talent in feral tree.

Improved Healing Touch - Great talent. I intentionally tried to spot heal with healing touch a few times on some trash mobs and wa able to land them without CT cancelling them. In healing a tank with just a priest with me it helped too as the mob has less time to get a lucky crit in there and really hurt the tank. I love this talent as much as I expected I would. :)

Nature's focus - This is another talent that gets less valuable the more people you have around. For a raid build that isn't going to solo grind or do small group stuff you can skip it.

Subtlety - Pointless in a 40 man raid. Even when I was the healer healing first in the rotations on the off tanks or the main tank I don't think I was remotely close to getting aggro. With rotations or with the way we do a lot of FFA healing no healer should ever get above the tanks aggro. Domo wandering over to smack you can still happen and this talent would simply mean it's more likely to hit a priest than a druid and a druid can bear and take it better. As I suspected this is a 5 man talent. If you aren't going to be healing 5 mans as the only healer you don't need this talent. If you are going to be the only one with healing spells in 5 mans this talent is helpful since you can't shed aggro. Of course with furor as a talent you can go bear, bash the mob to stun it and shift back out as that should be enough time for someone else to get the mob off you.

Reflection - I think my real spec when I go there will have this. It would have helped in the domo fight where I was helping heal the tank on the last one to die. Even if it only means like 9 mana a tick with my current gear. With being able to blow the mana pool faster with a 3.0 vs a 3.5 second healing touch and wanting to do more HoT refreshing when you are in a 2 man healer team this has some value. But this is a raid talent. Though I didn't have any use for it in the Sulf or Golemag fights. More valuable with less healers around though.

Insect Swarm - The damage doesn't matter but dropping a mobs chance to hit your tank by 2% is nice. Most of the MC mobs are affected by it as well.

Improved Rejuv - This is again a 5 man talent. I only had the one point in it but even maxed the little bit extra you get on the ticks here and there is much more helpful when you get all the ticks and that happens more in small groups. If you can get it do it but not a top point priority.

Tranquil spirit - I want it back. 1.7 talents had me at a 15% mana reduction on healing touch, maxed this is not as good as 1.7 was but even with 1100 or so more mana from heart of the wild (and blessing of kings and Gift of the Wild give me more benefit as well thanks to heart of the wild) I still want to slow the drain on the mana pool. With a 3.0 second cast healing touch is much more usable for me.

As a note the devs tried to make all the trees help out with healing. With moonglow a balance/resto druid could get the benefit of really cheap healing to make up for the loss of the 20% extra mana of a feral or the extra healing power + some what cheaper spells and innervate of the resto druids. If you do some crunching and if the talents are spread right all the builds can be pretty much as good as a 1.7 resto druid was. The 1.8 resto druid will have advantages but they aren't as big as they had been. I'll hit on this point later in the post.

Nature's Swiftness - Depends on how many healers are there. It's a fantastic "Oh #$%&" talent. I tried to hit the button where it was once last night though. I thought about it being useful two other times after the fact but those still would have been wipes if I had or hadn't used it. But the more healers you have around the less helpful this skill is. More valuable in the 5 mans and small raids. I know that is where I used it the most in 1.7. It's also a fantastic solo and PvP skill as you can stay feral longer, pop out and get a big heal on yourself really fast and then put up a rejuv or possibly a regrowth as well before shifting back. I miss it more in the small group situations than I do in a 40 man raid.

Improved Tranquility - 5 man talent. Even if you use it in raids you won't draw aggro with it.

Gift of Nature - 10% more healing is good. But this is a restoration build only talent and it's one that a resto build should get.

Improved Regrowth - It would have helped more with the way we were doing healing in the boss fights last night. With druid/priest teams I can get full benefit from the HoT and when the priest was sitting and regening the crits on the front end when I threw it out would have meant that I could sit around not casting for a bit longer as well. If there would have been fewer priests around for the non boss stuff it would have been nice to have extra crits for spot healing with it as well, but a 3.0 healing touch is really nice for that. Though I was mostly in cat form for those situations.

Innervate - As tufty said earlier in this thread it is 2000-5000 mana depending on who you hit with it. It's not a horribly long cooldown and it can be used more than once in some of the Molten Core fights if you plan on it. In a 2 healer rotation I would have one drain down to about 20% then get the innervate while the other healer takes over. Innervate will either get them full or get them to full quickly. Then you can go into a 70% mana switch off rotation. The innervate will also let that person start casting right now again if things go wrong early. By the end of the fight even with a good switch of and regen rotation you will have innervate to use again. Heart of the Wild is about 1400 more mana when you look at full raid buffs. Having this in the domo fight would have been very nice for what I was doing in that fight. I didn't really have a need for it in Sulf or Golemag.

Feral Talents
Ferocity - A good talent, though I could actually see a case being made for a light investor to get Feral Aggresion for the boost to ferocious bite. I do need to work the numbers more though. I was glad to have it (and my old build has always had it as well) last night though.

Feral Aggresion - The extra attack power drop would be very nice for a 5 man bear tank. The extra damage on ferocious bite has appeal to a 40 man cat druid on trash mobs. You will use ferocious bite a lot in there.

Thick Hide - Helps a cat a little but this is more a solo talent or a bear tank talent. I have it I'm glad I do but I can cower as a cat and not get aggro. Pretty much all the damage I took in MC while a cat was AoE damage and most of that was magic.

Brutal Impact - 5 second vs 4 second stun. That's a solo, small group tank, and PvP talent. I don't have it but there are times that I wanted it when solo grinding.

Feral Instinct - No help in a 40 man. I see this as more a PvP talent. Though if you know you will be tanking as a bear it will help as well. I never have problems avoiding detection in stealth in the PvE environment. With the way growl works for a bear it's not as valuable as the warrior threat talent either I don't think but if you PvP a lot or will be tanking as a bear a lot a strong talent just pointless for raiding.

Feline Swiftness - PvP and solo grinding (yes I cat a lot solo). The extra speed while stealthed is nice. It would help in Zul'Gurrub too if you are allowed to go feral on trash mobs as you can position faster. I really like it for when I'm out grinding in the world.

Feral Charge - No help in 40 mans if you are using it to intercept a lose mob that means you have lost at least one and probably 2 warriors. If that has happened and you still have enough healing for a druid to be tanking you have other problems you need to address since those warriors should never have died. If you don't have enough healing for that druid to stay up then using this probably won't stop a wipe anyway. In 5 man, PvP, solo grinding this talent has a lot of uses. Just not in 40 man or probably even 20 or 15 man raids.

Sharpened Claws - An easy way to up your DPS and unlocks two nice talents.

Primal Fury - A full feral druid is going to have around a 20% crit rate in bear or cat even in mediocre gear like I have. Though I was 18.5% in my higher mana hybrid gear last night. This talent will get you a lot of rage. When I solo with this talent I pretty much never auto-attack I do specials because it gets me rage and the rage I get from damage. If you are going bear a lot this talent will up your DPS. I'm going to be losing it when I slim down my build later I'm pretty sure since I'm staying focused on cat. But this is a good talent.

Blood Frenzy - Get's you to ferocius bite faster (or rip which has uses in 40 man). The place were this talent is the least helpful is loot raids where you have 10 to 15 people in a 5 man instance. Too many times in those raids the mob dies before you can use the combo points. In Molten Core this helped to make sure that I would always get a 5 point bite in if I wasn't mucked up on my timing. I don't think you will see as good of DPS increase as Primal Fury will give a bear but it's a good talent even for a raid focus.

Predatory Strikes - 90 attack power in any gear. This was nice to have when I was playing crappy rogue in Molten Core. It's relative value goes down the better your gear is (going from 250 to 340 AP in full caster is a bigger percentage increase to your DPS than going from 850 to 940 AP in your hybrid gear). But this is a nice across the board DPS increase and with the rock elementals liking to turn a lot it was very nice since shred wasn't easy to use.

Improved Shred - This is a big DPS boost in the 40 man vs the giants, fire elemental guys and if I wasn't healing in the boss fights it would be a big boost for those. It doesn't help at all with solo grind as you won't use it over your stealth opener and you have no way to get to the mobs back again. 5 man it's very nice, in the 10 and 15 man raids if people don't show discipline it doesn't help with aggro bouncing mobs but if people don't go complete monkey it helps a lot.

Feral Fire - I used this in MC. Since it stacks with sunder armor it was just a little boost to the damage that the raid was doing. I think I saw it up there with a regular faerie fire as well but I would need to test that. If that is the case this becomes a nicer talent in 40 man's. But this is still a personal taste talent. I do like it for solo grinding though when I don't want to bother shifting. It is a DPS boost.

Savage Fury - The boost to ravage (ambush) is quite nice. The boost to claw solo is nice and against the ADD mobs in MC. Big help to bear DPS since you can pretty much use maul constantly while tanking, especialy with Primal Fury. The swipe bonus has proved to be nice as well.

Heart of the Wild - Great to have. I had 7100+ mana fully buffed thanks to this in my caster gear. The DPS boost to cat is not as good as Predatory strikes, unless you have 450 str, but I'll take it. The extra HP in bear form is very nice for solo and small group. But again the big help is that mana pool boost that means a feral druids healing is not totally gimped. It's about 2 more top rank healing touches (and I only use top rank on the warriors) that's 4100 more HP of healing. That's a big deal. If I do pull aggro in my caster gear and have to go bear I can live that much longer as well.

Leader of the Pack - I like the 3% crit for myself. It can help rogues, warriors, hunters, other druids, shaman, paladins, etc do more damage. Gnolack had a feral druid with him when he was secondary tank once and I did notice the DPS increase. You look at it as 3% more DPS for those who get it. I'll take 3 to 4 more DPS while tanking. But it isn't huge. I could see skipping it for natures swiftness because you will be healing in boss fights even as a feral druid and having swiftness if you have to shift out to emergency heal is great. I might give this up for swiftness if I stay mostly feral.


So how well can a druid heal now with different builds? A run down of what the 3 trees can get you for healing.

Feral - 20% more mana can still get 10% cheaper healing touch as well as faster healing touch and reflection though a feral will probably not want to give up the casting interrupt for when they are solo grinding that getting all of those would take.

Balance - A 31/20 could have 19% cheaper healing touch spells along with reflection and a faster cast healing touch.

Resto - 10% better healing touch, 10% cheaper healing touch, 25% better rejuv, innervate and swiftness. They do need the 10% more healing power to keep the healing touch efficiency over total mana pool up with the other builds though.

I'm assuming that any druid that plans to heal alot is dropping 5 points in improved healing touch. I just can't see giving up that extra speed. It's a big big boost to HP/s and it makes the spell more versatile.

Assume a mana pool of 5500.


Healing Touch
No Talents -
3.5 cast; 2.61 HP/MP; 588 HP/s; 6.96 casts; 14341.77 HP/mana pool

Tranq Spirit and Gift of Nature (deep restoration build)-
3.0 cast; 3.19 HP/MP; 755 HP/s; 7.74 casts; 17528.82 HP/mana pool

One cast of Innervate with 250 spirit for the druid would make that:
3.0 cast; 3.19 HP/MP; 755 HP/s; 10.30 casts; 23329.28 HP/mana pool

Moonglow (deep balance and light resto build) -
3.0 cast; 2.86 HP/MP; 686 HP/s; 7.65 casts; 15760 HP/mana pool

Tranq Spirit and Moonglow (deep balance build and targeted resto) -
3.0 cast; 3.22 HP/MP; 686 HP/s; 8.60 casts; 17705.89 HP/mana pool

Heart of the Wild -
3.0 cast; 2.61 HP/MP; 686 HP/s; 8.35 casts; 17210 HP/mana pool

HotW and Tranq Spirit -
3.0 cast; 2.90 HP/MP; 686 HP/s; 9.28 casts; 19122 HP/mana pool


So basically you can see that judged by HP/mana pool with constant casting (I didnt' work in reflection all the examples could have that talent) that all 3 build types can do about the same amount of healing though the balance build is hurt the most on healing touch, but keep in mind they get to drop the cost per cast of regrowth and rejuv as well which will help stretch the mana pool and get more HP healed. A restoration build can of course get better rejuvs and regrowths as well, the other builds, if they go 31 deep for pack or moonkin, can not if they want to get tranquil spirit. I don't know how you want to look at efficiency all of this. In MC I think basing it off the mana pool makes sense.

I used healing touch as that is the spell most affected by talents and really it was 80% of my healing in Molten Core last night as well. I should really set up a sim of cast this, then this, etc to look at it better. Resto should always win but I bet feral and balance if you mix in regrowth and rejuv are going to be close with the cheaper rejuv and regrowth cost for a balance druid.

Resto druids no doubt have the upper hand with how much healing their mana pool can do especially when you consider rejuv and regrowth, both of which will be used. But a feral druid shouldn't be counted out. It only takes one point in tranquil spirit to get healing touch to the same HP/mana pool levels for a 5500 base mana pool (6600 for that feral druid). So again a healing touch focused druid can be a feral and do nearly as well until you look at innervate. :)