To be a Tree: The Evolution of [Druid] Healing

[Brista]

A very very interesting post on Lifebloom from Oxylos on the Shattered Hand server. In the interests of archiving and informing I'm taking the liberty to quote extensively from it

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...110537225&sid=1

The following is an in-depth look at the increase in effectiveness of Druid healing brought about in patch 2.1 and is intended to inform both the Druid community and raid/guild leaders as to the potential Druids now possess. I apologize for its length but I feel a thorough explanation will benefit those interested. Thank you for your time.


I. Introduction
II. Styles of Healing, Old and New
III. Lifebloom goes on the Patch
IV. Multi-Target Healing
V. Spell Rotations
VI. Helpful Tools
VII. Math
VIII. Conclusion

I. Introduction.

There is a common misconception about restoration druids today. The problem isn’t that other classes misunderstand us, as every class forum would be happy to point out how unfairly they’ve been treated, but that resto druids are misunderstanding themselves. Druids post regularly that they shouldn’t deserve spots in raids, they don’t bring anything another class doesn’t, that restoration is a hopeless offspec and they should all just go feral. Marilyn, the Nihilum Druid Class Leader made a post about how resto druids don’t get a slot in Nihilum raids anymore because other classes bring more raid utility and heal just as well as Druids. Many Druids jumped on board and shouted out to the world just how woefully ineffective they compared to other healers.

And it’s just not true.

VII. Math

The following math is using the stats of myself and the top geared Paladin in my guild. These numbers are unbuffed with two exceptions. My Lifeblooms will be using my +Healing bonus with trinkets activated, my Rejuvenations will not. The Paladin will be assuming Blessing of Light on the target.

Druid +Healing: 2002.
Druid +Healing with Trinkets Activated: 2512.

Paladin +Healing: 1963.
Paladin Flash of Light Crit Chance: 21.1%. For the sake of easy math this will be rounded up to 25%.

A three stacked trinketed Lifebloom ticks for 888. Over a 6 second cycle it ticks six times for a total of 5328 healed. In addition during that cycle Rejuvenation will tick two times, adding 932 healed each tick, for a six second total of 7192 raw healing. To maintain this costs the Druid 176 mana for the Lifebloom, and 332 mana every 12 seconds for Rejuvenation, coming out to an average of 342 mana every six seconds.

In a 6 second cycle a Paladin can cast four Flash of Lights. On average this Flash of Light will heal for around 1725. One of these casts will crit and heal for 2588 instead. Over the six second cycle this will total 7763 raw healing. Each cast of Flash of Light is 180 mana, and the critical refunds 60% of its cost for a total of 612 mana spent every six seconds.

In addition to being able to move freely while the Paladin is stuck in place spamming and being in danger of losing casting time or being interrupted, the Druid can do the exact same healing to another target fully doubling his output to 14384 healing (85% more than the Paladin) over 6 seconds for 684 mana. It is also worth noting that this difference of mana spent between the two, 72 mana over 6 seconds, when converted to a five second cycle is 60mp5, a difference of base while casting mana regen often made up by Druids through spirit itemization and the 15% mana regeneration talent.

In the most extreme of cases a Druid can maintain trinketed three stacked Lifeblooms on three different targets while also keeping Rejuvenation on two of them for a total of 19712 raw healing over six seconds for 860 mana. That is over two and a half times as much healing output as an equally geared Paladin.

[Bolty]

In the most extreme of cases a Druid can maintain trinketed three stacked Lifeblooms on three different targets while also keeping Rejuvenation on two of them for a total of 19712 raw healing over six seconds for 860 mana. That is over two and a half times as much healing output as an equally geared Paladin.

As a Priest, I can also spam Flash Heal nonstop to outheal a Paladin, but that won't change the fact that 60 seconds later I'm out of mana and the Paladin isn't. Finessing the five-second-rule is a critical component of Priest/Druid healing, because we get the most out of spirit.

Lifebloom/Rejuvenation spams are impressive as hell, yes, but 860 mana per 6 seconds isn't sustainable. In one minute of that, 8600 mana is gone, and all of it was spent in the five-second-rule, meaning very little regen (maybe 1500 mana back, total, with awesome stacked mp/5 gear). That's the quintessential problem with Druid healing - they need spirit regen, especially now that they get spirit/4 regen instead of spirit/5 regen, but the HoT-stack style of healing keeps them in the five-second-rule.

Also, it's cute math, but how often are you going to be using Lifebloom on three separate targets along with Rejuvenation on two? Who heals the main tank, as well?

People get carried away with theorycraft, sometimes. I don't think Druids suck at healing, but this guy's post is a bit over the top. The Druid's strength in healing is that their HoTs dominate. But HoTs just aren't as applicable in raids as direct heals. Not saying they're useless, just less applicable. For example, HoTs rule during the Gruul encounter after shatters - just run around HoTing people who have been hurt by Shatter and you can do a ton of healing very fast. But HoTs during Maulgar? Uh, no.

-Bolty

[Treesh]

That's the quintessential problem with Druid healing - they need spirit regen, especially now that they get spirit/4 regen instead of spirit/5 regen, but the HoT-stack style of healing keeps them in the five-second-rule.

Also, it's cute math, but how often are you going to be using Lifebloom on three separate targets along with Rejuvenation on two? Who heals the main tank, as well?

This is why you have more than one type of healer along on the raids. Don't have the Druids do the FFA healing. Leave that to shaman and their chain heals and the pallies. Keep the druids on the tanks so they can help get some spirit going. Have a priest help out on the tank with their greater heals, flash heals, renews, blah blah. In the 25 mans, you aren't going to have just one healer along. Each healing class has their strengths and weaknesses and all heal differently. It's not "who is the best healing class"; it's "what is the best method for healing in this specific circumstance", but lots of folks don't think that way. There has to be someone who's top dog.

[Frag]

People get carried away with theorycraft, sometimes. I don't think Druids suck at healing, but this guy's post is a bit over the top. The Druid's strength in healing is that their HoTs dominate. But HoTs just aren't as applicable in raids as direct heals. Not saying they're useless, just less applicable. For example, HoTs rule during the Gruul encounter after shatters - just run around HoTing people who have been hurt by Shatter and you can do a ton of healing very fast. But HoTs during Maulgar? Uh, no.

-Bolty

Uh huh... I replaced an (out of town) Keldor for Keepers' first kill of Maulgar on my wifes' treedruid. By the time the adds were dead, there were two priests, Tori, a resto shammie and a spriest alive. By 15% it was down to myself, the now completely Oom resto Shammie and the spriest. It was scary as hell for me (and I'm sure for Cheepers as well :D) but I effectively solo healed the MT from ~14%ish to dead in treeform, and it was a fairly slow kill as nigh on 25ish people were dead.

When healing *just* the MT you can go: Regrowth (21), Rejuv (12 / 15-set bonus), Lifebloom (7s) and usually take 2 tics of spirit regen (5+4) before you need to insert something to catch back up on a hard hitter, or up to 4 tics (5+8) if you're just having to maintain what's there. At 600ish raidbuffed spirit, you can most definately last a long time doing that.

That's my experience anyway, Tori most likely has something more to add. :wub:

Cheers,
~Frag B)

[Arshes]

The thing about Resto 'Tree' Druids and Druid healing in general isn't that it can't be effective. It's more that it has had it's focus shifted towards HoT's completely. And the problem with HoT's in most situations is that they require other healers to realize this is how druids heal and play nice, because literally, with HoT's we can have our healing completely nullified by other healers tossing heals on those targets.

Lifebloom is a great healing spell. It's low on mana and with high +heal can heal for a great deal. Better yet once you plant them down you have time to heal other people or just regen. The problem of course is that 90% of that healing is at the end of the 6s in a burst. Frequently what happesn to me is the following. I see dps or other healers down -1800 or so health and not taking fast damage. So I plant Lifeblooms on them. 3s later a Paladin or Priest has planted 1500-1800 heals on them with Flashes, Prayer of Mendings, etc. So my lifebloom healed maybe 300 while it was ticking and lost that last 1600 tick that would of topped them. It drives me crazy. Because basically any other healer can make it so that I spent my mana on nothing but overheal.

Lets not forget now also that in Treeform you can't even cast Healing Touch. You have to completely rely upon your HoT's, and a cooldown ability Swiftmend to do any large amount of healing.

So the question is, what does a Full Resto Tree druid bring to the group? Easy, excellent HoT'ing capabilities. Unfortunately HoT's require 100% of your healing force to trust each other, and to be able to see HoTs are active on people. In reality that has never been the case for me.

So the remaining things a Druid would bring to the raid? Innervate, Rebirth, MotW. All of which any Druid brings to the raid as well. So you might as well bring a Feral Druid in a DPS slot for those benefits, because they won't need the Innervate for themselves, bring more Holy Paladins, Resto Shamans, and Holy Priests for the healing slots. Because until every single healer can 100% work with HoT's that poor Tree Resto Druid can potentially have their effectiveness reduced by each and every single other healer.

Edited: Edited out the Healing Touch comments since it doesn't really matter and I overlooked Gift of Nature.:P

[Tuftears]

In fact there is literally no difference now in Healing Touch from a full out Resto and a Feral Druid.

I call shennanigans.

Arshes is 47 feral/14 resto. His only resto talent that applies to Healing Touch is Naturalist (-0.5 secs to HT casting time).

I'm 33 resto/28 feral. I have that plus Tranquil Spirit (-10% to HT cost), Gift of Nature (+10% to all heals), and Empowered Touch (+20% to bonus healing on Healing Touch).

Given an equal amount of +heal, my HTs should be roughly 25% larger than Arshes's and cost 10% less. This should allow me to downrank a little more, and keep the MT alive for significantly longer.

Edit for grammar

[Arshes]

I call shennanigans.

Arshes is 47 feral/14 resto. His only resto talent that applies to Healing Touch is Naturalist (-0.5 secs to HT casting time).

I'm 33 resto/28 feral. I have that plus Tranquil Spirit (-10% to HT cost), Gift of Nature (+10% to all heals), and Empowered Touch (+20% to bonus healing on Healing Touch).

Given an equal amount of +heal, my HTs should be roughly 25% larger than Arshes's and cost 10% less. This should allow me to downrank a little more, and keep the MT alive for significantly longer.

The argument though I was making wasn't really that a feral can heal as well as a Resto, thats obviously not true. It's about the usefulness of a Full Resto in Treeform.

I tried out Full blown Resto Treeform on many PTR's. I came to find that I got way better healing out of a Resto/Balance spec.

[Treesh]

Because until every single healer can 100% work with HoT's that poor Tree Resto Druid can potentially have their effectiveness reduced by each and every single other healer.

So teach them. You hear so much talk about having set rosters so everyone can be on the same page, learn how to play nice with each other. Treeform was put in before the expansion; a lot of things changed during the time right before the expansion and folks were having to learn how to deal with all those new talents - treeform should have been one of the things that folks learned to play with. Speak with your other healers, talk about how you personally heal. If they trust you and each other, they'll listen and everyone will try to adjust and make everyone's heals effective. This is especially easy if you do have a set roster and takes a bit more work if you don't have a set roster. But why waste all that potential? Why have to waste all that mana/time/consumables if you don't have to? Teach them. After a few five mans with our tree healing and me catching some health spikes here and there, I learned how she heals (and btw Torenia is a fantastic tree healer) and have learned to watch for the HoTs running on folks despite Mogo not having any HoTs herself, I try to keep track. Now, sometimes, yes, a chain heal will hit someone with lifebloom on. It happens. Communication is the key though. If the healers don't try to work together as a team, a lot of everyone's heals get wasted and mana becomes an issue.

[Treesh]

The argument though I was making wasn't really that a feral can heal as well as a Resto, thats obviously not true. It's about the usefulness of a Full Resto in Treeform.

I tried out Full blown Resto Treeform on many PTR's. I came to find that I got way better healing out of a Resto/Balance spec.

We actually have two trees (one an alt) right now and a resto/balance druid for healing. They all heal fantastic, but they heal differently. It's really up to how comfortable the person behind the keyboard is with the different healing. Dunar does fantastic with his resto/balance spec; Tori does fantastic with her tree; Frost still ends up tanking more than healing in groups I'm in so I don't have a lot of experience backing up healing for him. I don't think treeform fits Dunar as well as it does Tori, because it is so different. I don't know if Tori would do as well as she does if she didn't have treeform (gearing notwithstanding). It really comes down to what spec fits how you play, how you react, and how good the communication is between everyone involved.

[Tuftears]

The argument though I was making wasn't really that a feral can heal as well as a Resto, thats obviously not true. It's about the usefulness of a Full Resto in Treeform.

Ah yes, I can't really comment on the treeform thing since I've been resisting trying it - I really enjoy the balance of resto/feral that I'm using now, and treeform would obviously require a radical shift in spec.

If we get a regular tree druid, I'm sure we'll adjust and assign the tree druid to worthwhile purposes, but that's a fairly big if. Scorpi respecced moonkin for instance.

[Arshes]

If we get a regular tree druid, I'm sure we'll adjust and assign the tree druid to worthwhile purposes, but that's a fairly big if. Scorpi respecced moonkin for instance.

There's the rub. If we get one.

Doesn't it say something about the talent tree when not many people want to take them? It's like 1.0, everyone was Resto because there was no point going to the top of Feral or Balance. Now the split is that Druids go to the top of Balance, Feral, or do combos of half Resto/Balance or half Resto/Feral. It's very rare to see Druids that went to 41 points in Resto and beyond.

Treeform isn't useless, and I'm not putting down on Druids that have it. I just think that for a 41 point talent it could use a bit more tuning and changes to make it more appealing.

[Brista]

The thing about Resto 'Tree' Druids and Druid healing in general isn't that it can't be effective. It's more that it has had it's focus shifted towards HoT's completely. And the problem with HoT's in most situations is that they require other healers to realize this is how druids heal and play nice, because literally, with HoT's we can have our healing completely nullified by other healers tossing heals on those targets.

Except for personal Healing Meter scores it doesn't matter that HOTs get over-written

Look, if you have 5 healers casting a 4k heal at a 4k deficit 4 of them are going to be redundant. And that's fine. The reason you have lots of healers spamming heals on a tank is because it's distinctly possible he may take more damage than his life total in less time that it takes to cast a fast heal

So when you have lots of healers spamming heals on, say, a 15K life tank, if damage spikes so that he takes 12K and then a second later 5K those heals will save him if one is lucky enough to land in the one second gap.

It doesn't matter that for 99% of the fight you over-write each others heals. It doesn't matter that paladins with their 2 second casts and the ability to shove hots out of the reckoning most of the time top the Meter

All that matters is that the tank doesn't die

So if in that gap the sequence is

Boss hits Tank for 12K (crushing)
Rejuvenate ticks for 800
Lifebloom ticks for 2K
Boss parries (giving the boss a speeded up attack)
Boss hits Tank for 5K

That is wonderful, that is the reason raid leaders bring excessive amounts of healing capacity to the extent that most of the time HOTs have no chance to breathe

In playing the game of Land Some Heal Blindly In The Gap Hots are very very effective

In fact what you do NOT want is:

Boss hits Tank for 12K (crushing)
5 Healers start casting Holy Light
Tank parries (giving the boss a speeded up attack)
Boss hits Tank for 5K
Tank dies
5 Holy Lights land which would have healed tank for 6 k each

That is what all healers have experienced at times in raids when we are reacting to spikes - we ALL simultaneously react and we all land the heal just a millisecond late. I know I've seen that quite a number of times

So the virtue of HOTs is they are on a different pattern to other heals and complement it very well, far better than just one more healer spamming the same vanilla short heal as everyone else

[Brista]

People get carried away with theorycraft, sometimes. I don't think Druids suck at healing, but this guy's post is a bit over the top. The Druid's strength in healing is that their HoTs dominate. But HoTs just aren't as applicable in raids as direct heals. Not saying they're useless, just less applicable. For example, HoTs rule during the Gruul encounter after shatters - just run around HoTing people who have been hurt by Shatter and you can do a ton of healing very fast. But HoTs during Maulgar? Uh, no.

I think the extreme case is the least interesting part of the post - what is much more interesting is that you can trinket and triple stack Lifebloom and it retains its heightened value

Lifebloom is 220 mana, 176 in treeform. If you cast it once every 6 seconds just to keep the stack refreshed that's a respectable sum of healing for 146.66 mana per 5 seconds. With reasonably decent mana regen gear you can keep that up forever

I think it's interesting for all Druid healers after level 64 not just those entering the high raid content. I certainly hadn't appreciated this. I did find my Druid, when Resto, kept up a very very good pace in 5 mans, comparable with a Pally with Shadow Priest support. Sometimes a burst might mean disaster but I almost never oom-ed or slowed up a fast group for mana. With triple stacked trinketed Lifebloom on the tank, enough regen to keep it infinite and well-disciplined dps who almost never need heals and you simply would not stop and could chain pull constantly (more theorycraft, sorry!)

As for direct heals I simply don't agree, as I posted above in answer to another poster. 3 direct healers and a hot-er on a tank makes a more survivable tank imho than 4 direct healers. You of all people Bolty (remembering your superb parody of healing meter chasers) can see what I'm saying here - it's all about what works to keep the tank up and everything else is fluff

[Kevin]

So if in that gap the sequence is

Boss hits Tank for 12K (crushing)
Rejuvenate ticks for 800
Lifebloom ticks for 2K
Tank parries (giving the boss a speeded up attack)
Boss hits Tank for 5K

I'm mostly staying out of this discussion because the people I play with know how to heal with each other and very few of them seem to heal like people in this thread seem to propose so I'm just leaving it.

But you are not understanding what parry does. If the tank parries the tank swings faster, not the boss. If the boss parries then the boss gets the haste modifier. If it worked like what you are saying parry would be a very bad stat for a tank instead of a very good stat.

[Brista]

I'm mostly staying out of this discussion because the people I play with know how to heal with each other and very few of them seem to heal like people in this thread seem to propose so I'm just leaving it.

But you are not understanding what parry does. If the tank parries the tank swings faster, not the boss. If the boss parries then the boss gets the haste modifier. If it worked like what you are saying parry would be a very bad stat for a tank instead of a very good stat.

Good catch, Gnollguy.

It was a mistake, I do know what parry does, I've now edited my post

[Legedi]

Interesting WWS of a druid keeping four 3xLifebloom stacks going on four tanks for a VR fight. Pretty impressive numbers that made me think of this thread.

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=1565h...s=12834-13293&m

[Torenia]

Okay, I rarely even read, let alone reply to forums, but I was asked by a guildmate to make a post here, given that s/he was wondering how I heal as a tree druid. So here goes my Wall of Text ala GG, and please excuse me if I ramble. I'm not used to composing these things.:P

First off, I really enjoy being a tree. I run 13/0/48 on my druid, and while I chose tree knowing that it's a specific niche of healing with strengths and weaknesses, I've found out it's pretty flexible for healing the instances and raids that I attend. I have no trouble healing heroic 5-mans solo, or Kara, loved MT healing on Maulgar (where I feel my HoTs were extremely useful btw), and I'm looking forward to going further into Gruul's lair and beyond.

As far as getting my heals squashed by other healers with their big heals, I'd say it almost never happens. I know what to expect from all the other Lurkers I heal with, and I'm fairly certain they know what to expect from me. We rarely step on each others' toes. It's one of the aspects of the Terenas Lurkers that I really enjoy.

I'm also not very good with numbers, and so I don't do any theorycrafting. I heal kind of instinctively, no set strategy, but there is logic behind it. I guess in order to explain how I heal (which is what I was asked to do), I'll go through my favorite heals. :blush:

Lifebloom: I use lifebloom a lot. I only ever stack it for tank healing, so I couldn't tell you anything about mana efficiency of lifebloom stacks on multiple people. I've also never, to memory, had to keep up more than a couple tanks at once because there are usually enough healers to go around.
So if a party member is taking a little bit of damage, I toss a lifebloom on them. If it's a long debuff or they're likely to take dmg a bit longer, they get a rejuv instead. Simple as that. This is most of my healing in 5-mans: single lifeblooms and tank healing (which is lifebloom + rejuv when needed).

Rejuv: This is my best friend in Kara. While I still do mostly single lifeblooms or the lifebloom/rejuv on a tank, I change my tactics slightly on squishy monkey-casters (love ya Vinnie). If a caster is likely to die when I see them taking damage, instead of a lifebloom, they get a rejuv. Then I can quickly assess their situation and swiftmend if necessary. It's saved a lot of casters, especially on aoe pulls.

As far as how I prioritize whom to heal and whom not to heal (another question I was asked), I'm not quite sure how to answer that one. It's mostly situational. I guess the question I ask in my mind is: what does the party or raid need to get through this encounter? If a tank and a healer is enough, I keep the tank stable and try to stay out of trouble (whether that means keeping myself healed or keeping my agro down or avoiding dmg by moving). If some solid dps would see us through, I'll add more HoTs or a regrowth to some of the best dps in the group (lifebloom if they don't need much, rejuv if they need a quick save or if they're taking dmg longer, regrowth if they're likely to get low despite the ticks of a HoT).

As far as healing with other healers, all of our healers know not to step on my HoTs and I know that even when things are really crazy, I can count on them to take care of the large heals that are needed. I don't even try to do anything about a player who needs a fast, large heal because I know that the other have it covered. And they haven't let me down yet. My only exception is (as I mentioned above) saving Vinnie and the monkey-casters from the consequences of their own dps. We usually don't even have to discuss or set up healing for Kara, everyone just fills in as their skills are best utilized. I like that, makes the raids more fun and relaxing.

Personally, I'm not quite sure how I rarely run out of mana. My spirit, mp5 and +heal aren't spectacular compared to some of the other healers in our guild, and like I said, I'm not much one for math or theorycraft. I just do what I do and usually folks stay alive and right around the 90-some percent range for health.

Cheers all, and I hope this helps!
*hugs
-Tori

P.S. I'll also add that I rarely remember to trigger my trinkets and therefore lean towards the equip-function ones. Bad of me, I know, but I'm still learning. :lol:


(Vinnie and the Monkey-Casters, sounds like a band doesn't it?)