I have also heard people testify that this has been reverted, the tick nerf at least.

Anahka
“I just got off the PTR and i can confirm that the new LB notes actually _replace_ the old ones. My live and PTR LB ticks are same again and the final bloom has been reduced slightly. 1678 on live vs 1636 on the PTR in treeform with 518 spirit and 2027 +healing.”

Commence dancing in the street.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. I’ve always seen healers broken into 2 components:
Utility – GotW then nil. So bring 1 resto. And honestly, the difference between imp mark and regular is negligible.
Healing – This can be broken into two categories: quantity & quality. Quantity is pretty self-explanatory. Quality has to do with timing. The nature of our heals is such that with the exception stun/silence mechanics, we have the worst timing among all healers (as you noted, a 1k LB tick before the flash of light’s start landing is negligible, and even that assumes no pre-casting from other classes; we also have more trouble with aggro wipes than any other healing class). If we lack in utility, and we lack in heal quality (aka timing), then we need make up for it with quantity. Good resto druids are able to do that, to an extent (and largely varying by encounter design) presently. An 8% nerf to that ability is very significant. Besides which, it confirms to me the blue post made absolutely no sense.

Don’t get me wrong, I get the idea that, if no one is pre-casting, HoTs will get ticks in while healers are reacting to the damage, but only lifebloom ticks more than once every three seconds. So it might be that only lifebloom ticks (and then only once or twice) before those greater heals and holy lights and Healing Waves come flying in. If a tank at full health takes so much damage that one or two ticks of lifebloom was the only thing holding him to the mortal coil, then I think that’s not a great situation for the raid to be in.

As for raid healing, well, some guilds like to put trees into that role, and it’s not like they do bad, but chain heal does that so much better that I can’t see much reason for a tree there, aside from certain encounters or a lack of resto shamans. Single stack lifebloom is (imo) the best option a tree has for consistantly patching up random raid members, and yet it does a bit over half its healing only after seven seconds have past from when it was cast. That can be a long time to wait when you’re hurting. Meanwhile, a shaman can spend just one more second after the global cooldown to heal three different people, or a paly can cast flash of light on someone to do direct healing in the same amount of time a druid’s lifebloom can be cast and have one tick occur.

And because those HoTs are taking time to work, another healer who’s watching the raid might look at the health deficits and heal someone who already has a lifebloom, essentially wasting the druid’s mana and global cooldown. Sure, two healers can both land a direct heal on someone around the same time, thus overhealing that target, but the window for that happening is significantly smaller.

You mention that you’re trying to force an honest evaluation of what different healers bring to raids, and I full-hearted encourage that, because I believe that as you collect more information about different healers and classes, you’ll see how relatively little trees add to utility and buffs. That’s why an 8% lifebloom nerf will hurt us so much; because healing itself is really all trees have going for us.

The Good News I’ve finally finished updating the Team Tree list with everyone who has added the badge. If, by any chance, I’ve missed you, let me know. Thanks so much to you all. The Bad News We finally have…

@Falina: Or they were assigned different jobs. Only foolish guilds put all of their healers on free for all. If a fight requires three tanks, and healer A is on one, and healer B is on the other, and they take different amounts of damage (or in different ways), then the heal meter readings could be very different.

Similarly, tank healing and raid healing will often yield different spots on the healing meter by their nature. Which is which will vary by instance/bosses/etc.

“@Luke: You bring up some really excellent points with regard to the usefulness of a HoT vs. a direct heal. However, couldn’t a pre-cast Prayer of Mending or remaining charge from a Chain Heal fulfill essentially the same purpose? Many people play with addons that notify them just before a silencing effect, and while I agree that Druid HoTs are ainly the best means of countering damage during a Silence, it feels very much like a support role rather than a necessary one. And a support role that unfortunately is being nerfed.”

I can cast Prayer of Mending once every 10 seconds. It’s worthwhile; it heals for a thousand or two, puts threat on the tank (yay!), and smooths stuff out. I also have Renew, which on my holy priest (which is my main) ticks for 900 or so. Conversely, you guys can put three HoTs (and one stacked to three!) on the tank if you need to; that’s always the best way to smooth spike damage, and druids do more of it than anyone else. It’s a very necessary role, contributes to the desirability of restoration druids in raids, and doesn’t show up well on healing meters. That’s my primary point. Yes, that’s being nerfed by 8%. That’s not nearly enough to make a restoration druid no longer desirable in those situations, and basically every zone has a major damage spike fight.

Also, it’s not just to counter silences, although that was my initial example. Any fight with large damage spikes where the healers may end up being stuck in reaction mode and may not be able to keep up is where restoration druids shine. Some of those are announced by BigWigs or Deadly Boss Mods (I’m the one in my raid group responsible for calling them in Vent), but many are not predictable.

“And if our role is truly to be tank damage mitigation (i.e., we are not intended to be suited to the role of raid healing), what does it say that the core ability linked to this is being reduced in effectiveness?”

My response was very limited in scope; I was only crying foul regarding your statement about druids and healing meters. I wasn’t attempting to make a statement regarding the nerf in general. I’m a healer (and a heal lead) myself; any nerf to any heal class is a nerf to the team as a whole.

I don’t really know the logic behind why Blizzard does what they do. I’ve seen them both buff and nerf various classes. I don’t play a tree so I don’t have a as good of an understanding of what an 8% nerf to Lifeblooom means as you do; it sounds like it reduces your overall healing by about 7%. I’m not saying that’s a good thing; rather, I’m trying to force and honest, overall evaluation regarding the value that various classes bring to raids that may or may not show up on the heal meter…and I guess I just don’t think that an 8% nerf to Lifebloom destroys druid viability.

As an aside, when I play a heal lead role (which is most of the time), I regularly assign druids to raid healing, which I think they excel at also. I generally will give that job to a shaman, then a druid, then a priest, then a paladin, but it varies by who I have and how many of each, what other needs are, etc. etc.–point being, as a class, with all other things equal, I view druids as the second-best class for general raid healing.

I used to be within the top three of the healing meters in SSC and since TK i’ve been slipping to shamans slowly but surely
I have over 2000 plus heal and tons of mana and mana regen but can’t make it over 4th position on healing meters with all our shammys now in full T6, and all have the staff of argus, 2 other droods in my guild also have full T6 and still finish either 3rd or below me.
I am lucky in knowing that our guild understands how to read meters, it is merely a tool to see if someone of similar stats and class is way below his other team mates, the percentage is really what you should look at, lets say u have a druid at 13% of healing and another one with similar gear at 6% then you know the person at 6% is doing something wrong or just slacking off /cruising.
In general, if your healing target doesnt die and ur within 2-3% of of the top 5 healers, then you did your job well.
We only want to be number one because of personal competition… which is healthy in a guild to help progression…