Innervate for all Druids!

[vor_lord]

Linky for blue post source

When patch 1.11 releases, Innervate will become a base ability for all Druids, trainable at level 40. Once the patch is live, any Druid who formerly had the Innervate talent will instead have the "Swiftmend" talent, which has been added to the Druid Restoration tree, replacing Innervate as the 31 point talent. This new ability will consume a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect to produce an instant heal.

[Watto44]

Hehe, I was just about to post this. :)

I'm actually not sure what to think of this.

On the one hand I'm please that some of the pressure is taken off to "spec resto or get out". (And believe me, that pressure is very real for a lot of people.)

On the other hand, I wonder how innervate itself is going to be affected. Is it "base ability" material in its current form? Will the affect have to be reduced or the cooldown increased?

Overall though, I'm over-joyed by this. :D I just worry that a can of worms is being opened.

PS. I bet there are a few moonkin druids out there who fell off their chairs when they read Eyonix's post. :)

[Quark]

Don't like it. Innervate is in Restoration for a reason -> it's supposed to help druids when they spec healing. This is giving power to Balance/Feral that I feel they just shouldn't have.

Blizzard stopped looking at this from a game-balance perspective, and actually started listening to all the stupid complaints. Honestly, if raids have problems with Balance/Feral, that's their issue. Game balance shouldn't be affected because people are too narrowminded.

Edit: addition. The Moonglow (Balance) and Heart of the Wild (Feral) talents were added in to counteract the must have Innervate beliefs of guilds. Where does that leave Resto now?

[Watto44]

Don't like it.  Innervate is in Restoration for a reason -> it's supposed to help druids when they spec healing.  This is giving power to Balance/Feral that I feel they just shouldn't have.
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The problem was that Innervate is almost never used on the druid. In effect, innervate has absolutely no impact on my healing.

Edit: addition.  The Moonglow (Balance) and Heart of the Wild (Feral) talents were added in to counteract the must have Innervate beliefs of guilds.  Where does that leave Resto now?
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Where does it leave resto druids? Well, with a bit of luck it will improve their situation. Assuming that innervate is saved for a priest, a 24/0/27 druid will out heal a X/X/31+ druid in 1.10. With a bit of luck, the new 31 point resto talent will actually change that and a full resto spec will start out healing balance/resto as they should.

While game balance is definately a major concern, I don't think resto druids should be up in arms about this until we see a final draft of the new talent.

[Warlock]

Assuming Innervate remains the same (Hurricance actually improved in it's similar transition) it's a clear buff for all Druids. Resto druids gain what sounds like a very sweet ability indeed; Non-restoration druids gain Innervate.

It restores a situational advantage to using a Druid main healer for small group stuff which is a good thing. Priests will still have better group, long and short heals and better aggro management but a sole Druid healer will have a deeper effective mana pool and if a restoration build now have a PW:S replacement.

[Mavfin]

Hehe, I was just about to post this. :)

I'm actually not sure what to think of this.

On the one hand I'm please that some of the pressure is taken off to "spec resto or get out". (And believe me, that pressure is very real for a lot of people.)

[snip]

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This is the problem of narrow-minded raid guilds, not a problem with druids.

[Sir_Die_alot]

I've wanted this for a long long long LONNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG time. Also with the new priest changes I haven't been able to keep up with priests and their healing. In large raids it's a bit different since you can have 4+ people healing the same person and druids stayed fine here, but in smaller groups druids lost their ability to main heal versus a priest. With their new faster cast, better mana regen, higher mana pool, I wasn't getting heals off before healthbars went to full so I ended up throwing on my feral gear and popping out of cat/bear form only to innervate the priest. For someone who built and speced their character to heal that sucks.

[Treesh]

any Druid who formerly had the Innervate talent will instead have the "Swiftmend" talent, which has been added to the Druid Restoration tree, replacing Innervate as the 31 point talent. This new ability will consume a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect to produce an instant heal.

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Mmmm. Nature's swiftness and swiftmend? Could be pretty tasty since frequently there will be a rejuv up on folks frequently taking damage anyway. :)

[Xanthix]

The problem was that Innervate is almost never used on the druid. In effect, innervate has absolutely no impact on my healing.
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And I never cast Power Infusion on myself, instead I prefer to cast it on mages. That doesn't make it, or Innervate, any less of an awesome ability. As a priest who has received Innervate I will say it is very powerful and can double my healing capacity for a fight.

So I can understand the argument that taking Innervate out of restoration does seem like a nerf to restoration. But I hope that Swiftmend is powerful enough to replace it as a suitable 31-point talent. I don't know how druids perfer to use HoTs but it sounds like it might be very useful on main tanks.

[Quark]

I don't know how druids perfer to use HoTs but it sounds like it might be very useful on main tanks.
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The more I heal, and the better I get at healing, the less I'm using my HoTs. Regrowth is just a mana hog, only suitable for trying to save an AoEing mage unless you've got the talent to make it crit and can afford to try and take advantage of the crit. Know how often that is? Basically when I'm solo-healing a tank on a mob that doesn't hurt that much.

Rejuvenation is a great spell, sure, but with multiple healers involved it's never getting its full benefit.

Healing Touch is my preferred method of healing.

[Tuftears]

*respecs feral*

Swiftmend would have to be no-holds-barred awesome to get me to stay 31 Resto.

[Bun-Bun]

*respecs feral*

Swiftmend would have to be no-holds-barred awesome to get me to stay 31 Resto.
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*respecs Hykim as no-longer-OOMkin*

Agreed.

[MongoJerry]

I like it. Before, Innervate was so good that it made the restoration tree almost too good not to get for raiding purposes, which in effect limited the choices for end-game druids -- at least those who couldn't stand the taunting of their raidmates. This change releaves the pressure on feral and moonkin druids to respec for the sake of their raids but at the same time gives restoration druids an additional ability to play with. It sounds good all around.

[VoiceMan]

I don't know how druids perfer to use HoTs but it sounds like it might be very useful on main tanks.
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Depends on the tank. I got lucky enough to win Rank 11 of Rejuvination in AQ a week ago, and while I don't have great gear, my rejuv now ticks for about 308-313. If I stack that with my Regrowth, a well geared tank doesn't need much from me for the duration of the stacked spells. I have talented my Healing Touch to reduce the cost of mana, but I have to admit that I use my HoT's alot, more so when raid healing, than I do in the 5 man stuff. In five man content, usually the tank is about the only person taking much damage, so I can just steadily hit him with Healing Touch spells. What makes the Druid HoT's so nice, especially my new buffed up Rank 11 rejuv, is it helps compensate for the blasted 3 second cast of Healing Touch. My initial reaction to the new Swiftmend is good. Trying to heal a tank who doesn't have the +defense to help prevent crits, having an instant cast is good. Nature's Swiftness is something I'm very fond of in those situations, but having healed under-geared tanks, having another "Oh crap" type heal is a good thing.

[Quark]

If you want to heal, now, why not just spec 30 Feral, 21 Resto?

Before it was "good enough" to get you by healing, and now you'll have Innervate on top of that.

[Kevin]

Hmm I thought I was against this but as I posted more I'm not sure.

The issue is that because of how healing talents and gear interact, gear was already more important for how good a healer a druid was than talents (well that and skill at playing the class). You see priests looking at not taking a talent that improves the amount healed because it doesn't change the amount that is healed when you add in new gear and suddenly those 2-5 talent points look better spent somewhere else. 10% healing is the same amount per rank regardless of gear. 10% damge talents give you even more damage when you add +damage gear.

I was already at that stage with my druid and was quite happy being full on feral (all talents placed to increase feral abilities) and I knew I could still be a very effective healer in any situation.

The biggest talents for a resto druid right now, that help them heal better, are nature's swiftness and the time reduction talent on healing touch. The cheaper mana cost provided by Tranquil Spirit had a feral and a balance talent to even it out (Quark pointed this out already). I've touched on the +healing talents being overwhelmable by gear, sure a druid with those talents and the same gear is a better healer but they are still no where near my damage and tanking abilities and they aren't that much better of a healer from those talents, they just have a little more longevity. They are a better healer because of NS, Imp Healing touch, the longevity that Reflection can add, the ability to not have to worry about aggro as much in small groups that subtletly can provide (it's a pointless talent in raids) and the bigger effective mana pool they could have in small groups from innervate (innervate is rarely used on a druid in raids so that is small group solo healer booster).

Giving me innervate when I'm in my full healing gear is a huge deal for how long I can keep healing.

However depending on how swiftmend works, two instant heal abilities is a big deal in how much better of a healer you are. I miss NS and the 3.0 cast healing touch much more than I do innervate or the other healing talents since I respec'd the druid to feral when 1.9 (yes, 1.9, not 1.8 when they did the talent revamp) came out. I'm not sure it's enough, but they would have to change all the healers talents to work with +healing gear the way they work with +damage gear to really make a healing build feel that all the talents are really giving you a boost. Pretty much in the end game all those talents do is make it a little easier to go down to a lower rank of the healing spell for more efficiency. Resto druids given the same gear, can outlast full on feral and balance druids but not by a lot right now. The big difference is innervate, even if they don't use it on themselves. There are very solid mostly feral builds that still provide the biggest bonus that resto offers, which is NS. Now they get innervate as well. Pretty crazy.

What was Blizzard trying to fix here? When I look at resto talents many of them are pointless in raids or just offer a marginal effiency upgrade. That is generally more valuable in raids but with the huge boosts to priests has become less valuable, because of the role that druids fill in raid healing. Innervate was a boost to the raid not to the druid. In 5 mans running out of mana as a solo healer usually wasn't an issue on guild run, in PuGs it could be. Innervate would help cut down time as a healer. It helped cut down time solo play as well.

So yeah, I think it might be a good thing. You've made 45 minute Baron runs easier for PuGs, you've just boosted the whole raids healing ablities (since those feral and moonkins can now innervate priests too and open minded raids were already embracing the other druid builds) you've cut down time while soloing for other builds (and we all know that resto druids don't solo :) ). You may have increased the "oh #$%&" healing of a resto druid by a lot. Yeah adding a unique ability that helps you do things a lot better with your spec is good. Innervate was unique but it didn't help your healing power (well it could but it generally was better used on someone else) as resto. Most resto druids already know that improved regrowth, improved rejuv, and subtlety were better talents for small groups than raids anyway. Tranquil spirit and gift of nature are both just effiency boosts for raid healing even if they do other things and tranquil spirit has counters in the other trees.

So yeah, I might actually be tempted to go back to resto with this change because it will give me a couple of talents that really mean something to me being able to heal better than I can without them. And yes with mostly blue (just a few epics) and feral spec I was only healer for the tank on the last elite standing on domo. I got to do that fight resto and feral in the same gear and it was the reason I want full feral because it didn't really make that much of a difference what my spec was and I was doing that at a time when we still didn't have domo on farm status.


Interesting how I started out thinking this was bad but now I think it's good because it's the unique talents, the talents that gear can't really replace, that make resto that much better at healing. Reflection, nature's swiftness, and improved healing touch are really the talents that help you heal significantly better than a druid without them. Nature's focus to help prevent stuttering is a talent I miss too. Yeah giving resto druids a healing focused talent in their healing tree should be a good thing. It might be enough to make me want to give up all that I can gain in feral because it might actually make me feel like I can really heal that much better as a resto spec, give me something that I can't get through gear or that I don't need if the party plays well.

[Kevin]

If you want to heal, now, why not just spec 30 Feral, 21 Resto?

Before it was "good enough" to get you by healing, and now you'll have Innervate on top of that.
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Actually as you'll see I didn't think you even needed that. Innervate was a lure that really impacted the raid but not me as much and I thought really hard about doing a 30 feral/21 resto build because I thought that would be the best druid healer as it was. I didn't think it was good enough, I thought it was the best as it was.

That is why I was against it at first. What would the point of being 31 resto be now? Why even bother when it wasn't the best healing build to being with.

Well now, again depending on just what they do with swiftmend, it really could make you the obviously best healing build. Sure a 30 feral / 21 resto will have most of the big healing toys, but having two oh crap buttons really could make me that much better. I've had times where I used NS to save someone and someone else died because it was in cooldown. Now I might be able to save both of them and the 30/21 couldn't. It's been rare that me being out of mana has caused someone to die because in most of those cases there were other healers who did have the mana and didn't have other people they really needed to heal. Innervate was big in situations where the raid just didn't have enough healing (be it because of gearing levels, not enough healers, not good enough people at the keyboards, bad luck and too many people dying but the raid hanging on, it's been really huge there). Innervate rarely felt like the difference maker, sometimes it was, the epic firemaw fight, wipe without innervate. But many times I saw it used on priests who were dry but there were two other priests at 75% mana, the dry priest thought it was a wipe saver, I didn't. Setting up a rotation in that situation very well could have made innervate pointless.

Innervate is a difference maker spell, no argument there. But two instant heals could still be more powerful. Sure all the druids will have innervate now, but only restos will be able to NS after that crit, crush, shadowflame and then swiftmend the next time it happens so that the boss never leaves the MT. I think if they do it right it could make me feel like I'm that much better of a healer. Sure it might be a case of cast rejuv then cast swiftmend but that isn't any different than hit NS, hit Healing Touch.

I understand why you think it's really bad, I felt that way too, but I like a unique ability that is out of reach of other builds.

The talents I would have to give up in order to get to NS right now is a huge difference in DPS (natural weapons and omen of clarity is a big DPS difference in raids, omen of clarities DPS addition is very under rated in raids) and is the biggest reason I didn't go 30 feral / 21 resto. I didn't go 31 resto because while innervate is huge my healing was strong enough to make me feel I had the flexibility. I'm still thinking that swiftmend done right could make the healing feel that much better to give up all that I would have to to get it because it will make a difference in every type of healing I do, 5 man, 20 man, 40 man, solo, duo. Innervate doesn't make a difference in most of those situations. The extra tanking and DPS ability I have right now does. Swifmend looks like it could.

[Tuftears]

The way I had it suggested to me that Swiftmend would work is that it'd behave like the Warlock talent Conflagrate. Here's the quote:

Conflagrate
165 Mana
36 yd range
Instant Cast
10 sec cooldown
Ignites a target that is already afflicted by Immolate, dealing 249 to 316 Fire damage and consuming the Immolate spell.

Rank 8 Immolate costs 380 mana and does 279 fire damage directly, then 510 fire damage over 15 seconds.

So, for comparison, let's imagine that we're casting Swiftmend on someone who's already affected by Regrowth.

Regrowth rank 9 takes 880 mana, heals for 1003-1119, then 1064 over 21 seconds. I speculate that Swiftmend would then take 440 mana, and would convert whatever remained of the Regrowth effect into a 600 point instant heal. Probably the healing done would be affected by instacast spell rules, i.e. only what, 33% of +heal is applied, so for someone with 400-ish healing, you'd get 732 healing. Regrowth itself should get about 66% of the +heal, or something, so +264. Total, 3121 heal for 1320 mana, or 2.36 heal/mana.

By comparison, rank 11 healing touch: 800 mana for 2267-2677 healing, plus another 400 from +healing gear, so 3.59 heal/mana.

This makes some pretty big assumptions that it scales just the same way as Conflagrate, of course.

Unless Swiftmend is a lot more effective than that, I don't see a compelling case for getting it. It would require you to time your regrowths and rejuvenations very carefully, and even if you resorted to using rank 1 rejuvenation and regrowth to get the Swiftmend to proc, it still wouldn't be mana-efficient.

[vor_lord]

Unless Swiftmend is a lot more effective than that, I don't see a compelling case for getting it.  It would require you to time your regrowths and rejuvenations very carefully, and even if you resorted to using rank 1 rejuvenation and regrowth to get the Swiftmend to proc, it still wouldn't be mana-efficient.
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I guess I figured mana efficiency wouldn't be the point behind Swiftmend. It seems like it could be another powerful "oh crap" spell to pair with NS.

[Hedon]

Don't like it.  Innervate is in Restoration for a reason -> it's supposed to help druids when they spec healing.  This is giving power to Balance/Feral that I feel they just shouldn't have.

Blizzard stopped looking at this from a game-balance perspective, and actually started listening to all the stupid complaints.  Honestly, if raids have problems with Balance/Feral, that's their issue.  Game balance shouldn't be affected because people are too narrowminded.

This is the problem of narrow-minded raid guilds, not a problem with druids.
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Oh how much I love such comments denying social realities.


Yes, perhaps people are narrowminded. Druids are useful raid members even if they wouldn't have specced innervate and I personally campaigned in our raid alliance to allow them to do so, because I think a happy player is a better player.

But things don't work this way. People are set in their ways and have developed dogmas: every druid has to have innervate, every priest has to be holy/disc, every mage has to be ice/arcane (on the other hand there is an unexplainable tolerance for offensive warriors).

Now you can of course refuse to cave in and stand your ground; sounds noble doesn't it? Surely there is some high end raiding guild that knows better and will tolerate your spec, right? Well reality will prove you wrong. On a med pop server, you will have perhaps like three raid groups that have downed Nef by now. What if all of these don't tolerate your spec? Then you have the choice of standing your ground, but not being able to raid with them or respecc, just to please them and get a raiding slot. This is the reality out there!

So I'm happy for my druid colleagues, as this is change accounting to the social realities that druids with raiding ambitions have to live in.