"Of Healing" vs. "Of the Eagle"

[nobbie]

From the "green" staves, i.e. Thaumaturgist Staff, what would you pick for a soloing Druid interested in low downtimes - a staff with the "Of Healing" suffix (i.e. +26-29 Healing Spells) or a staff with the "Of the Eagle" suffix (i.e. +14-15 Intellect and +14-15 Stamina)? Does the "+26-29 Healing Spells" provide for lower downtimes because it can boost the least expensive healing spell "Rejuvenate" to a good refresh rate? And how exactly does the "+26-29 Healing Spells" work? Is that additional hitpoints per tick, or some percentage of the healing spell used? A calculation example would be nice.

[Warlock]

From the "green" staves, i.e. Thaumaturgist Staff, what would you pick for a soloing Druid interested in low downtimes - a staff with the "Of Healing" suffix (i.e. +26-29 Healing Spells) or a staff with the "Of the Eagle" suffix (i.e. +14-15 Intellect and +14-15 Stamina)? Does the "+26-29 Healing Spells" provide for lower downtimes because it can boost the least expensive healing spell "Rejuvenate" to a good refresh rate? And how exactly does the "+26-29 Healing Spells" work? Is that additional hitpoints per tick, or some percentage of the healing spell used? A calculation example would be nice.
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For low downtime soloing, I woudn't use either of those (but the Eagle piece is nice to have to switch in for a hard fight). Both are good items for healing Druids.

+healing gear adds the listed bonus to Healing Touch (a Druid's most mana efficient heal) and 80% of the listed bonus to Rejuvenate (20% per tick). I believe it adds 100% to Regrowth, split roughly evenly between the initial heal and the HOT, but have not personally verified this. This is for highest rank spells, the very early ranks get lower bonuses.

Eg. If you have +200 healing gear and cast a Rejuv that normally heals for 1000 in four ticks of 250, you will instead get four ticks of 290 for a total of 1160 healed.

For solo play as a caster, +Int and +Stam provide power - a caster with a deeper mana pool and more hitpoints can take on tougher mobs and win. +Spirit provides speed - a caster with faster mana regeneration can kill more mobs per hour.

As a druid, switching between forms is probably the fastest overall way to grind - nuke until you're low mana, then tank a couple, switching back when your health gets low and using the mana you rebuilt while in Bear form to heal and nuke again. Cat form can be used instead, especially before level 40 and the doubling of Bear armour, but that doesn't fit so well with Balance spell use (not ready to fight immediately after a shift, more fragile so needs more healing, interrupting mana regeneration).

[nobbie]

Thanks. So, it does only make sense if you focus on healing gear with more than just 1 or 2 items carrying that affix. I think I'll stick with my "of the Eagle" gear then :)

[Brista]

I went Restoration with my druid, then I respecced at 42 for Feral and got a big bonus in my killing speed

For grinding on greens I went from around 40 dps with MF, FF, Bear to around 80 dps with Catform. Every 2 or 3 mobs I need to heal, that's the only downtime, plus the approach takes slightly longer

If you're in a position to twink your Druid then stocking up with lots of Strength and Agility gear would make it an even faster grinder. Even more so if you leave it to gather Rest state until the next patch comes out and boosts Feral Druids