Confused about what gear is for resto and which is for balance after the changes to spellpower, spell hit, and spell crit? Guest author Graylo of Gray Matter graces our glen with a guide to gauge the gear guaranteed to gain glory and greatness! 
Mailbag: Idol of the Raven Goddess
Published on February 14, 2008 by Phaelia 
Items and Equipment, Mailbag, Obsolete 
14 Comments
I have revised my original opinion on this topic. You can find the updated analysis here: Idol Chatter.
Leighbra of Sentinels (US) writes in with this question:
At the moment, I have 494 Spirit unbuffed. I’m at about 675 fully raid buffed. I don’t have any idea how I ended up with so much Spirit and have been looking at what I can do with my enchants to play with that number, but I’m cheap and don’t like to re-enchant things… I have the [Idol of the Emerald Queen] equipped, and of course Lifebloom is my most commonly cast spell. So, from my Tree of Life aura, in raids, that means about 135ish additional +Healing for the people in my group.
I’m trying to figure out if it would be more beneficial to the guild/raid (not just my healing numbers) for me to be in a group with our tanks and to equip that often discarded [Idol of the Raven Goddess], especially after it gets buffed, than me having the [Idol of the Emerald Queen] equipped. Especially on Gruul, when after 8 growths we tell our DPS to heal themselves, and have all 8/9 healers focus on our two tanks.
First of all, great question, especially in light of the upcoming update to our idols. Previously, the [Idol of the Emerald Queen] was indisputably the best one available to us. This is kind of sad considering it’s a blue item from a non-Heroic dungeon (Shadow Labyrinth). It really speaks to the — likely unanticipated — power of Lifebloom. With Patch 2.4, however, the bonus to your Tree of Life aura from the [Idol of the Raven Goddess] will jump from 20 to 44, certainly a marked improvement. And while I hesitate to tell you definitively which Idol will be better for you and your raid, I can help give you a list of considerations to help you decide!
- You have to remain in Tree of Life form to get any benefit from the [Idol of the Raven Goddess]. You mention Gruul’s Lair as a consideration, but I would personally be terrified to try to avoid shatters with Tree Form’s 20% speed reduction. Of course, you aren’t as likely to need to be healing while moving around in preparation for a Shatter, but it’s expensive to shift in and out that regularly. Similarly, if you ever find yourself forced to return to caster form for extended periods of time, this is not the Idol for you. For instance, I’m often forced to shift to caster in order to NS + HT and then stay there until I’m able to spare the GCD to switch back. Your experience may vary, however. I know a lot of Druids tie their Nature’s Swiftness to Regrowth to avoid popping out to caster form.
- The [Idol of the Emerald Queen] is pretty awesome since its healing bonus (+88) gets tripled when you stack up Lifebloom. That’s 264 +Healing for your LB x 3, albeit only for yourself and only for that spell. I’m pretty sure that this wasn’t taken into account when they allocated itemization points. It should really be a purple item, in my opinion.
- The [Idol of the Raven Goddess] does not scale. Its +Healing bonus is a static one that becomes less significant as your Spirit increases. Still though, to get the same amount of +Healing added to your Tree of Life aura, you’d need 176 more Spirit. That’s not a low number!
- Do you use an addon like Recount? It will give you an idea of what percentage of your total healing is comprised by Lifebloom. The higher that percentage is (I usually run about 80-90% Lifebloom), the more attractive the Idol of the Emerald Queen will be. If you’re regularly doing 47% of your raid’s healing in 10 mans, I’m tempted to say a buff to your own healing is going to outweigh a buff to the healing from your raid’s other healers.
If you consider the above, it should help you make the decision which you want to use. Obviously, the greater the amount of healing necessary to the tank, the better the [Idol of the Raven Goddess] becomes so it will potentially become more attractive. However, it’s going to be REALLY hard to beat 264 +Healing to your own Lifebloom stacks! I would, of course, love to hear opinions from readers. Have any of you found an Idol that you feel surpasses the value of the [Idol of the Emerald Queen]?
Related Posts
14 Comments
Trackbacks
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
This is certainly very situational. 264 healing added to lifebloom helps alot especially in gruuls when most of the time healers have problems with keeping the tank up later on in the fight is when silence is up and after shatter. Our hots make these hot spots in healing alot smoother when we can time our lifeblooms and of course puting up rejuv right before silence and shatter (if it isent up already).
A little off topic but while we are talking about silence and gruul, during those last seconds you are waiting for reverb silence i used to just refresh lifebloom at 5 seconds if you are having trouble with that.
That’s funny… I got that idol yesterday (yay for super raven!), and I was going to bug you about that very same choice.
You nailed as always. Thanks Phae!
Outfitter solves this question real quick. It has a built in option to auto-equip items when changing forms. I have it switch my idol to the raven goddess every time I switch to tree form and then back to the Emerald Queen when I switch out.
On occasion I will manually override it, but generally I leave it alone.
>> I know a lot of Druids tie their Nature’s Swiftness to Regrowth to avoid popping out to caster form.
I’m one of them. Only on rare occasions, like 5 mans, where I’ve had to use it for an HT. And it’s only been for the instances where I have a pally taking 5 mobs on a Heroic. lol
I would have to agree that the raven goddess is very situational. Like the spellsurge enchant.
Personally I would never use either of them, since our main role as I see it is to heal and not boost critical strike rating on dpsers who usually already have enough aggro issues. Specially in aggro sensitive fights like VR.
However, if you feel that your dps needs the boost to avoid enraging or something and your healing is good enough to get the job done without the emerald queen bonus, then go ahead and use it.
@Akia:
Unfortunately the idols cannot be changed in combat, so using outfitter only affects you before the fight starts.
BTW I really have money problems to start the q as raiding sucks my g like a damn hoover. I do not see the idol coming my way anytime soon… Or the epic flight form for that matter…
Hey, that’s me up there! lol You should have a “Feel free to disclose this, but edit everything I write so I don’t sound like a goober” option too
We go to Gruul’s on Friday, and since we always need to make a couple of tries, I think I’m gonna switch out my idols and see what happens; I’ll keep a storm crow eye on the charts with both idols equipped. Thank you for helping me work through all this, and know what I need to be putting in the scales to make this decision. (Yes, that’s a Libra reference, too!) I have a sneaky suspicion that it’s not going to make or break us, either way.
Do you have a guide regarding our different available idols? *hopes and/or hints* I know I’ve gotten a lot of use out of your trinket and aggro-reducing guides.
((Also, I have a macro that triggers my trinket (Essence of the Martyr), then NS, then LB. Yes, it pops me out of tree form, but, as it says in tiny letters on the macro button, it’s my “ohsh**” macro. With a loverly crit *crosses fingers*, I can heal my almost dead tank for ~10k, and give myself time to get back into tree form.))
Hope you had a wonderful Valentine’s day! Thank you for being here for us, I don’t know what I would do without you (lose a lot more sleep, I expect)
I was pretty convinced that idols count as weapons, thus are interchangeable in combat…
and that the boosts to crit only counts if you are in cat/moonkin form, thus it’s only the treeform bonus that’s interesting to resto
@Dimitris
I think you might be a little confused. First off, the buff provided by the Raven Idol only works if you are shapeshifted. So If you are in Tree form, your party members receive 40 healing from all heals. Your party will only get the crit bonuses if you are in Feral or Moonkin forms, which is unlikely for a healer.
Second, Idols are considered a Weapon and can be changed in combat. I do it all the time with my Moonkin idols. In fact. I have several macros that make the change automatic with no time losted due to the global cooldown.
@Phae
Great post. I have been thinking the changes to the Idol of the Raven Goddess from a moonkin perspective and I think I am coming to the same conclutions as you are. Its a pretty situational Idol, that may be worth while in an ideal group.
I did some quick calculations. After they remove the cooldown from the Idol of the Unseen Moon it should be worth about 58 spell spell damage. Then if you use idol swapping macros The added damage from the Ivory Idol of the Moongoddess will give you another 70 damage or so starfire cast. You can see that this adds up quickly and 20 crit for 5 people doesn’t stack up. This is especially true since I usually have a shadow priest and or a resto Shaman in my group.
For the Idol of the Raven Goddess to really become useful I think they will need to up the crit rates to somewhere around 40, and move the healing rate up to about 100.
@Zackoria: Do you find it difficult to use Tree of Life for Gruul’s? Do you have to shift at all? Maybe I just need more practice. >.< @Hokuto: /blush - I'm happy it was so relevant and helpful!
@Akia: You are my hero. I run with Outfitter and had no idea that this option was available to me!! I also didn't realize that Idols could be swapped while in combat This will be tremendously helpful. Thank you!
@Dimi: I know they're boring and tedious, but you should consider hitting up a few dailies each week. 3-5 of them would probably help cover your repair and consumable costs! I used to have the same trouble, but I find it's easier to devote an hour of time to Blade's Edge dailies than it is to farm.
@Leighbra: Haha ... but your questions are such great food for blog! This was a really fun one to respond to. The only thing that makes me sad is that I usually do a better job responding to a question when it goes onto my blog than when I respond in an e-mail (maybe because I proof my blog posts moreso than my e-mails). I don't actually have a guide to Idols, but I'm pretty sure that the Lifebloom idol is still going to be your best bet. Nasira of "A Tale of Two Druids" has a guide on Healing idols here:
http://twodruids.blogspot.com/2007/12/healing-gear-idols-weapons-and-off.html
though she doesn’t rate them in order of preference. Great idea trying your +Healing trinket to NS + HT, btw!
@Bloodthorn: It would appear that you’re correct. However, I believe that switching them activates the GCD so you would probably want to perform the switch *after* switching forms.
@Graylo: Good analysis. That’s so significant I think you should be highlighting it on “Gray Matter” since many Balance Druids might miss it here. I’m thrilled their axing that internal cooldown. It was stupid addition in the first place. >.<
I have heard that if one druid in a party wears the Idol of the Raven Goddess, the bonus applies to ALL druid auras in that party. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
I do not believe it shows changes on your character sheet, or on the buff itself and I have not seen any *obvious* improvements when I do equip it. It is just something I have messed around with on trash on those oddly frequent heroics where I find myself in a group with a feral and moonkin druid. I have considered equipping it in 25 mans for trash, since one of our MTs is a druid and I am always in his group. I just can’t get my fellow druids to mess around with this idol with me long enough to see its possible effects.
Also – if you have Idol of the Avian Heart, don’t forget to macro it to HT so you always equip it! Make sure /equip Idol of the Avian Heart comes AFTER /cast Healing Touch and it will not interfere with the GCD but will still apply to the cast.
@Aertimus: Just to be sure, I’ve tested this in game. It’s not true. It may SEEM like the second person is benefitting from the first person wearing her charm if her aura is stronger than yours since you’ll be benefitting from the stronger aura (yours is negated if you happen to be in the same group). I tested this by having someone equip their idol in caster form and seeing it affected the amount healed by my LB while I was in Tree of Life. Then having him remove it and finding the healing value to be the same. The stronger of the two Trees should be the only one who needs to wear it for both of you to get the benefit (though it doesn’t really make sense to put a second tree into the tank group since the effects don’t stack).
Thank you for the reply!
A few quick notes, regarding the comment on Gruul..
I remain in ToL during the whole fight, except when NS&HT is needed (I have NS “macroed” with both HT and regrowth so I use any of them depending on the situation), and I’m not the only one
. It’s true we have it pretty much on farm status in my guild, but I’ve done it like that since like forever.
Also don’t be afraid to shift in/out now and then.
Imagine you’re in “caster form” and you have to quickly spam regrowth after some massive AoE.. Shift to ToL. Even if you’re not a “natural shapeshifter”, you’ll save mana by the forth regrowth (while helping other healers with your aura while they do their magic). During a regular spell rotation scheme you’ll get your mana back in maybe 15-25 seconds anyway (take 20% of a bunch of lifeblooms and rejuvenations and there you go). The only real problem is the use of 1GCD when going into ToL, but it’s still worth the shift most of the time.
Mobility isn’t such a big deal for a tree (hey, you can heal while moving!), and even when it is, shift mana cost is affordable. I stay out of ToL form in very few fights, and probably never in 25-man raids.
What can I say, I like it being a tree
@phae ive never really had trouble with ToL on that fight although i can see how some people might. It all comes down to finding a place that is less populated in the room over the course of the fight before the ground slams. Barkskin really makes it alot more survivable. I actually had more problems dieing when i was a rogue than my druid though that prolly has alot to do with my druid coming later and i had more experience on that fight. /shrug The biggest thing that always helped me with ground slams was realizing that he dosent bounce you far. so standing in a spot on the room before hand with less people in it, you are more likley to not get stuck with 20 people around you.
Phae, have you had a chance to evaluate these trinkets in the Beta, and determine if their function changes with the change in the ToL aura? Because with the aura changed to 3% healing bonus, I imagine the idol of the Raven Goddess would (have to) be changed to accomodate?
Thanks in advance!
Natarumahs last blog post..Spell Focus: Shadow Word (Death)