By now, you’ve almost certainly heard about the change to itemization whereby the +Healing and +Spell Damage stats are being retired for the less specialized Spell Power stat. What, exactly does this mean, though, and what can you expect at the release of Patch 3.0?
I don’t respec very often, mostly because I’m cheap. In fact, since they applied the patch that caused the price of talent respecs to fall 5 gold a month to a minimum of 15g, I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than 15g to change my build. I’ve put up with some really … not very good talents in the past because I didn’t want to shell out another 20g to fix myself (a practice which I can’t in good conscience advocate — be a responsible respeccer!). Llanion of Mooonfire recently wrote a post entitled, "Fourteen Points about my New Talent Build" which helped inspire me to cast Teleport: Moonglade and select the build that I’ll want to have in 2.4 (which, by all accounts, is coming "soon"). At the risk of being a Copy-Conifer, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you about some of the highlights from my new build:
Restoration
- Improved Mark of the Wild 5/5: A waste of 5 points in my opinion, but I have no need for Furor right now. WTB Subtlety at Tier 1 of the Restoration tree!
- Improved Regrowth 5/5: This talent is pretty much the reason for my whole respec. Since I have the strong suspicion that the reduced-cost Regrowth will be a new bread-and-butter spell in my healing retinue, I needed its additional 50% crit chance.
- Empowered Rejuvenation 3/3: This talent being changed to affect the final bloom of Lifebloom helps to offset — but not completely compensate for — the nerf to Lifebloom’s bloom coefficient in 2.4.
- Because Regrowth is becoming so much more viable, I dropped all the talents related to Healing Touch and picked up all those related to HoTs instead. This freed up a number of points I could sink into the Balance tree for killing things that attack me while fishing.
- Living Spirit 3/3: My Spirit is pretty abysmal, but I would hate to think of how much worse it would be without this talent!
- Tree of Life: ZA gear is UGLY. Tree Form helps compensate for that. Oh, and the mana reduction is nice, too.
Improved Tranquility: I included this 2-point talent in my previous build. I think I used Tranquility once in that time period. Depending on how much time I spend in the new 5-man instance, I may consider picking this up again, though.
Balance
- Brambles 3/3: I needed more points in Balance to get down to Vengeance. As I consider Brambles to be a raiding talent, this was an obvious choice. I hate having it, though, as it makes me feel extra guilty when I don’t maintain the 10-minute buff on tanks (more about the value of Thorns). Paladins got their base blessings bumped up to 30 minutes, why is Thorns still only 10?
- Insect Swarm: Probably my favorite damage spell. It’s so cheap and when combined with Lifebloom’s super-low mana cost, I feel very eco-friendly and "green."
Thoughts? Questions? Suggestions? Keep in mind that any changes will have to wait a month for the price of a respec to drop back to 15g.
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*hugs* .-= Softi´s last blog ..Dum di dum di dum =-.
With the incomming mama regen and regrowth changes and not having enough spirit to make the tree form usefull, you can also try out this spec:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0torumZZxVcxcq0eot
You lose tree from, but you gain nature’s grace.” All spell criticals grace you with a blessing of nature, reducing the casting time of your next spell by 0.5 sec.”
With the 50% crit of regrowth, nature’s grace will proc a LOT, giving you a 1,5 sec regrowth
I’m unsure if I can shelve HT in 5/10 mans with the upcoming patch. Yes, mana efficiency of regrowth is much better, but that has never been my concern. I worry about HPS.
In these small 5/10 man situations I usually allow my lifeblooms to bloom to help the tanks out with much needed TPS generation. This forces me to break tree and do the brunt of my heal work with HT. Regrowth looks great on paper, but in practice its very difficult to get the full effect of the spell. In addition, I really want to avoid getting into a situation where I am spamming regrowth when HT just does the job so much better.
I suppose part of my problem is I am in love with timing heal touch (bragging rights) and absolutely hate the implementation of regrowth. Both parts of the spell frustrate me to no end. If you want to raid heal and use the direct heal portion, other healers are queued up on the target (with faster cast times to boot) and the hot portion of the spell goes to waste. If you want to use the spell as a hot, the duration is to long to put out effective hps. The only situation I really know of it using both parts of the spell is on the tank, but even that isn’t that great. In 25 mans I end up cast canceling half the time cause I don’t want to overheal to much, then instead of recasting regrowth I have to check to make sure my triple stack lifeblooms aren’t going to break. In 5/10 mans I don’t think I can put out the hps with regrowth to counter using single stack lifeblooms.
Personally I’m holding onto my HT talents for now and am very interested in hearing how regrowth pans out for others.
As to balance talents…
Brambles: 18 damage bonus to thorns, which on average boss fights come out to a 10 TPS increase on tank. Negligible improvement and a pain to keep up, better served picking up Nature’s Reach for soloing and using your extra cash to increase raid performance.
Insect Swarm: Great solo spell. Used to experiment in raids keeping it up on bosses back in my dreamstate days. What I learned was it wasn’t all that handy. Can put out a considerably larger amount of healing than the damage mitigation given, and thats consistent heal output instead of flaky additional miss rate.
AHHHH!!!! Brambles again. Here are a couple of thoughs.
1. Brambles, you know how I feel about brambles, but I understand your reasoning if you just want to get to tier 4 of the balance tree. The real question is:
2. Why the heck do you want Vengeance? From a raid perspective it is almost useless to you. The only fight it would help you on is Leo. From a solo perspective I can understand a little bit more but not much. Yes it is a damage boost but not a big one considering you have very little spell damage and crit unless you swap gear. Celestial focus is a much better talent for you in my opinion. It will provide you with more consistent DPS which I think is more important than the spikiness of crits. You will still ba able to cast when getting hit and stun every so often.
3. Insect Swarm – My opinion really depends on where you are using this spell. I have actually dropped this spell from my raid rotation. It is very mana efficent but the DPS isn’t that great and the tanks are actually complaining about not getting hit. For soloing its better especially for a resto since it is instant, but I wouldn’t use it in a raid unless your tank really wants the avoidance.
Graylo
I’m all for my resident druid having brambles. It will be great for me to have my tanks producing as much TPS as possible.
I’m a specialist. I tend to gravitate toward maxing out a given role over hybridizing. This is partially because I’m a min/maxer, but mostly because I have multiple 70s. I generally don’t need to DPS on my Druid because I have other characters for that purpose.
Additionally, I don’t like stealing the Boomkin’s thunder. I love those furry chickens.
I think I’ve mentioned it before, but this is what I prefer to raid with when I’m restoration specced: BAM!. But, as someone above mentioned, you might be able to drop the tree form entirely and go back to a Dreamstate build when 2.4 arrives (in which case the HT talents would be more than useful to pick up again). In the meantime, there’s really no problem taking a few talents in the balance tree to round out when you might be farming or casually PvPing; you’ve effectively maximized all you can do for tree form, and all the rest of the talents are junk.
Additionally, I’m a fan of Brambles, and so’s my MT. Any TPS edge a tank can get (whether that’s a stupid Thorns buff or dropping a shaman into their group for Windfury) is an important one, especially in a competitive raiding environment. I leave out Nature’s Grasp because it pisses me off (and never procs when I want it to) and took Control of Nature instead, which is much more useful if a mob is beating the crap out of you. I’ve found Insect Swarm more viable in five man instances rather than raiding, but depending on the encounter, it’s a debuff I make a point of applying, even if it means switching out of tree form.
As for the improved Moonfire, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard raid leaders yelling “HEALERS, GET YOUR DoTs ON THAT ______”. Sounds retarded, but every little bit helps. I don’t consider taking 14 or so points in Balance “stealing the boomkin’s thunder” in any way, shape or form; it allows you to broaden your horizons and function as a multipurpose healer. Anyone who says you need 0/0/61 to be an effective healer is wrong; with the spec I linked above, I can stay in the top 4 or 5 on healing meters and do juuust fine.
Overall I like your build. I’m personally not a fan of the balance tree so any extra talent points I have I toss into the feral tree. There are only two raid bosses I can think that I respec specifically for Insect Swarm – Leo the Blind (for the inner demons) and Reliquary of Souls (for phase 1).
I suggested this to Blizzard once, I wish they would unlink Improved Rejuvenation and Improved Regrowth. I think it would give us more opportunity to try out different builds.
Oh I don’t think you need to be 0/0/61 to be effective, I (personally) just like specializing.
Phaelia is more pew pew than me? That’s not supposed to happen. Looking at my talent tree just made me realize it looks like crap. I don’t have living spirit.
Oh I’m by no means dreamstate anymore, triple stack lifebloom is just to good to pass up, but I do shift into cow form for 5/10 mans. I feel that tree is a support healing style, and when you don’t have as many healers around, you can’t afford to specialize to that extent. You need your full arsenal of heals.
Now, if your tank is really worried about TPS, just let lifeblooms bloom on him, the final heal counts as his own threat. Now for some number crunching…
1,700 final bloom * .6 to account for avg overheal = 1,020 avg bloom heal
1,020 avg bloom * (1/2) heal threat modifer = 510 bloom threat
510 bloom threat * 1.25 prot war threat modifier talents = 637 threat
Assume your super man and you do this every 8 seconds…79 tps
Now that threat is further split by the number of active mobs out there, but 79 tps if its a single target. A good tank generates 800 tps, you just increased their tps by 10%. If you have good DPSers that ride the tank, then you just increased their DPS by even more than 10% when you account for talent threat modifiers, salv, and range bubble (20%ish).
Yes, brambles does increase TPS, but by no means as much. Brambles adds 18 damage onto thorns. Let’s assume the boss mob has a 2 second swing timer and your tank has 40% avoidance (combination of dodge and parry)…
18 thorns damage / 2 second swing timer = 9 damage
9 damage * .6 to account for avoidance = 5.4 damage on average
5.4 damage * 1.25 prot war threat modifer = 6.75 tps
Obviously there are variables to both brambles and bloom that can’t be taken into account well on paper. Bloom loses effectiveness in relation to how many active (non CC’ed) mobs are around. Brambles effectiveness is determined by the attack speed of the mob and the avoidance of your tank. The thing to take away though, is using blooms is vastly superior method.
But why not just use both? I have done both in the past back before they buffed triple stack lifebloom. However, I wouldn’t recommend doing it now, in a 25 man raid situation bosses hit hard, really hard…you can’t afford to gimp your heal output on the tank for tps generation. In 5/10 mans my guild is past that stage, and I wouldn’t consider respec’ing to be more efficient in them.
These are the talents every PvE druid should have in my opinion:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?00000000000000000000000000000000000000000050050350031500531051
I’m glad we agree on that
Balance, however, looks weird. With 5/5 Starlight Wrath you still pick improved Nature’s Grasp, so I suppose you want some control (PvP or grinding?) and not just filler talents, but you don’t pick Control of Nature. Not having it for PvP is a crime, but if you’re thinking on quests etc.. how are you going to kill mobs? No Control of Nature, no Celestial Focus.. all I can think of is MF/IS spam
For Vengeance to be useful you need high crit. If you’re grinding in good balance gear it can be nice even if you’re not a moonkin, but not at all if you’re using healing stuff. By the way, if you’re around 10% crit chance, you can move 1 point from Vengeance into NP while keeping practically the same DPS. Whatever the case, baaad for raids. For Leotheras I have to agree, CF is absolutely superior; even with 1.5-second wraths, interruptions will make those few crits worthless.
Sorry if it sounds harsh, but that’s how it looks to me
In my case I’m doing some arena now and then, so I also have 3/3 Natural Shapeshifter and 3/3 Natural Perfection, which makes me miss CF when I’m indoors. I’m thinking of getting Nature’s Reach instead of Imp. MF. Trying to kill elementals at Vashj was a frustrating experience (out of range, out of range, out of range). PvP without feral charge is sad though :/
By the way, I have to try the NG+Imp. regrowth experiment some day. I’m sure it’s worse than ToL for raids, but it has to be a lot of fun for “soloing” and heroics.
P.S.: brambles? Oh my..*cough* *cough*
i’ve been using a 16/0/45 built since Leo, and i can say i can now cleanup my quest log again, having over 700 spell damage with my healing gear on also helps.
I have been contemplating trying the dreamstate built and will try it soon, i think my guild can afford me dropping in the healing charts a bit to test it and tune it. I dont do 5 mans much anymore but will definitely have to when 2.4 comes out so a dreamstate built will probably be better combined with the scarab of infinite cycles for HT? and some haste gear i picked up in ZA and the soon to come T6 boots belt and wrists….
All the tanks I raid with want insect swarm on the bosses. I am a priest so I have no idea as to how much it helps, but they are really big on it. To me it seems like a pro-active (mitigation) vs reactive (heals) issue, for progression nights at least.
This is actually my build, with the 4 points from Natural Perfection and Omen and placed into Vengeance.
I dropped all HT based talents a loooong time ago. Initially I went with this build you’re doing now. But then later moved the 4 points back into Resto (into the talents mentioned prior) when they made the change to Natural Perfection.
@Repsaj: I find the builds that combine Nature’s Grace and Regrowth crit very tempting. I used a Lunar Guidance/Moonglow build when I had just hit 70, and I think it was probably my favorite build ever. Nonetheless, losing Empowered Rejuvenation (and Living Spirit) would be pretty painful. (Btw, I think you relinked the build I originally linked.)
@Sheshonk: I’m not 100% certain I can go completely without HT in the new 5-man, but I’m really hoping so. I don’t think it’s as hard to get the full effect of Regrowth as you might think though since in a 5-man you’re likely to be the only person healing so your HoT will continue running and providing Swiftmend fodder. It’s going to be efficient enough to use as a raid heal in 2.4 and is certainly faster than Healing Touch. I like Brambles. ^_^ I’m sorry!
@Graylo: <3 Brambles! But great point about Vengeance. Not sure what I was thinking there … I’ll move those points into .. something else. Next month, of course.
Insect Swarm is great when I’m out and about and getting beaten on by mobs in Skettis or the like. DoT DoT HoT HoT … you’d think I were a ‘Lock ‘Lock. /faceroll
@Crythia: Yeah, Crythia is the reason I’m getting Brambles!
@MeanderingMind: I also have another character for the purpose of farming, but she can’t fish (one of my favorite in-game pasttimes). She also isn’t Phaelia who is and always will be my favorite character to spend time on so having a little extra firepower doesn’t seem a bad thing. =)
@Runycat: I don’t think I could go Dreamstate, at least not until we have an additional 10 talent points to play with. I simply can’t do without Swiftmend. It’s a huge help with tank healing. And I’ll definitely going to move points from Nature’s Grasp to Control of Nature.
@Jazzy: Our guild hopes to be doing Leotheras soon so hopefully a build like this will be helpful!
@Auryann: Have your people talk to my people, and we’ll get you set up! =)
@Sheshonk: I was under the impression that allowing Lifebloom to bloom over and over increases your tank’s net threat with regard to everyone else but that the amount healed by the HoT portion will end up being associated with you and so basically cancels the Bloom out. Still, it would be very nice if you were grouped with crit-happy … whatevers. Another thing to consider is that healing threat is divided evenly among all the mobs that are engaged with your group. Thorns threat, on the other hand, is generated on a per-mob basis. It may seem intuitive but the more mobs present, the higher the value of Thorns (and conversely, the lower the value of the threat from Lifebloom blooms). And as you point out, you often can’t allow your tank to get low enough for the bloom to be almost all effective healing. Using both is definitely not a bad idea.
@Ermengol: Do you really like Nature’s Focus all that well? That and Subtlety are usually the two talents I target for “trimming” if there’s something else I want. Certainly both are a must for PvP-builds, but we use so many instants that I generally don’t have to worry about spell delay. Of course, with a HoT build I guess there really aren’t any other good options at Tier 2.
I’m not PvPing at all right now, but I suppose I could see moving the points from NG into Control of Nature instead. And you’re definitely right about Vengeance. I’ll move that over to somewhere else. =)
@Falina: You’ll definitely have to let us know how you like Dreamstate come 2.4, especially how you handle not having access to Swiftmend. And grats on your ZA spell haste gear!
Common builds are
14.0.47 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0xcbuZZxxIxcqMeot
20.0.41 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0xcrziZZxxIocq0eot
10.0.51 http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0xcbzZZxxIxcqMest
20/41 works well if you have a good spell damage set in your bags. Makes farming a lot easier while restoration. I tend to bounce between the 1st and 3rd depending on mood and if PvP at all.
As far as 5th tier balance goes? There’s nothing in it ever worth dropping for treeform. Empowered Rejuvenation > Lunar Guidance when you have more than 1500+ healing. Treeform (20%) > Moonglow (12%). As far as NG, I find it not as useful unless you’re spamming Regrowth while raid healing. Between keeping lifebloom rolling every 7 seconds, and rejuvenation every 12, I can’t see it being a make or break talent to lose tree for.
But then again, that’s my 2 cents >_>
You certainly don’t need 61 points in resto to be effective. In fact there was a few months where I ran around raids with 0/0/42 just because I respecced, put the bare 42 points in resto and actually forgot that I had not spent my other points. To raid resto you only need those bare 42 points Phae has in her build.
Insect Swarm certainly helps on Leo even though it isn’t necessary. I still find it always useful somewhere (Moonfire and Insect Swarm on striders certainly helps as well).
*Garglearghlargh!* Brambles! *hisses* I never found a real use for this talent over something like Control of Nature (which I find to be infinitely more useful). I can certainly see how 10 more TPS for tanking would be nice to maximize a tanks threat. I can see this because I try to keep thorns up myself (at least on 1-2 tanks, any more than the 2 main tanks and its just silly). Of course 10 TPS is still pretty small when you look at all the other talents. A sliver more threat and damage of that size just doesn’t entice me enough.
Do people really need HT still? Other than those blue moon uses when someone has all 3 HoTs on them, my Swiftmend is down, and they STILL need heals I haven’t really used this spell since hitting that +Healing marker for Lifebloom to overtake HT. I know in some situations when I still had 1.2 and 1.5k healing in heroics I had some troubles though. My standard procedure for high risk fights is 3X LB and Rejuv for Swiftmend prep. Burst hits and I click Swiftmend (and Regrowth is needed). I then refresh my Rejuv. I personally have never needed more. The only place I could see using HT would be for ZA when the only 3 healers online are 2 resto druids and a shammy (which has happened before, it sucks). Ether way thats still a sticky situation that wont get you many timed events. I dont know, maybe this is just me. Part of me feel icky when i go out of tree form to HT whenever i do it.
I felt I should post my own build just for you to look at Phae.
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0zjMzZZEVcxcq0est
I don’t have as many balance points and I have Control of Nature. I only have Furor and Natural Perfection because I still PvP on occasion. I also probably have too many points in Natures Grasp that should be in Starlight Wrath. Part of that is because im a noob and didnt notice they added Starfire to that talent and ive been too lazy to respec. >.< All in all your build is pretty spot on except for Brambles/CoN but of course that will always be up for debate hehe, but dont feel pressured to change for us.
Once in awhile its good to steal a little moonkin thunder with a more balance heavy build. :p
Hissssss! x3
Can you cast Insect Swarm in tree? I was under the impression you can’t, which is why I never ended up speccing into it, plus I’d always feel like I was wasting a GCD that I could be healing. We have a boomkin that keeps up IS anyway, and probably thorns (not sure if he has the talent)
As a pure raider, I’ve never really seen the big draw of having the points in balance. Brambles I can see (and yes, I read your article on it~) , but I personally won’t dump the points into balance specifically for it when I wouldn’t be using IS in raids. Leo’s shadows are easily dispatchable barring you don’t get lots of resists, and the other times I see healers DPSing it’s either the enrage timer or too many healers in the raid.
I spec into the HT talents for the rare, rare times I use it, and it is a bit nice to lose some of the mana cost on tranq, but hardly noticable. I also like the added crit chance onto my regrowth, which I use a good bit of the time.
I disagree with the spec, but can’t say there’s anything wrong with your build especially since I’m guessing you’re not a dedicated, pure, I-do-nothing-else-but-raid raider. The fact that you’ve got Nature’s Grasp over Control of Nature tells me that, cause we sure have lots of outdoor raids, hehe.
I wonder if Natural Shapeshifter might be a better investment of the points you put into Vengeance, though I can’t say I find myself shifting in and out very much … just during Leo’s shadows, I’d guess.
I left a comment, edited it for something … forget what it was, and it said it was spam
I don’t think I said anything that would be reported as such, but it was also in a period where the site was temporarily down or taking ages to load. could have just been my connection, though.
i’m running around with this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0torumZZxVcxcq0eot
my focus is pve (t5 raiding atm) but i do like some accasional pvp and i try to do skettis and ogrila dailies – although i usually group for banishing
and i do quite a lot of heroics
about HT – im about 1800 healing, a bit less when i have to equip anti-threat trinket (priceless for heroics), i i find i still have to use it sometimes, and its not just once in a blue moon… mostly in heroics, which i do quite often… i mean you have those “blue geared tanks and not enough cc” cases, or “crazy overgeared tankadins pulling 2-3 groups at once” cases…
on all such occasions, when all the hots are running, swiftmend and NS gone and the tank is still dieing, naturalist comes pretty handy…
when i finally get bored by pvp, i may even take points from natural perfection to empowered touch. natural perfection is getting nerfed anyway
dreamstate – tried it, didn’t like it… i love hots too much and not having swiftmend hurts
Guys, remember to click on “link to this build”, since the browser doesn’t update the url when you choose talents
Heya, with the incomming patch Regrowth crit will be nice, however we are raiding MH,BT right now, and I can tell you, if you are not assigned to heal MT, you dont even have time to cast Regrowth, usually you spam LB, Reju, swift. Because of 25 raid, there are many healers who are assigned to heal raid and these three spells are quite enough to keep raid up. On the other hand if some healer dies and you need to keep tank up and heal raid, it is great opportunity to cast reg. and have some time to focus on raid.
But what I want to share with you all is a spec which I have right now and it is counting with some other things like PVP, and still can be used in BT,MH. Even more, you dont have to respec everytime when you need to farm or go to arena, you only need to change some equip (PVP or balanced one).
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0tszu0hZZxMIxcq0Ist
Here it goes, I need right now 3 things to do with my drood :
- daily (farm leather), Arenas, PVE(MH,BT).
- For farming there will be better to put talents FS and Vengence, however, with players having resil in arenas, dont even think your hit will crit, especially when you mainly heal (with heal gear) and you are helping to zerg only for a short time. Clestial focus is very useful in farming, 70% resist on spell inter. for wrath
I just love it.
- For Arenas the most important is to have CoN and even Brambles (i know it is very low dmg, but it is, and it will help you also in farming, and even in raids with aggro (for tanks). Also nature grasp saved me many times
- For heal tree, I was thinking about removing NatPerf and put it to Imp Reg. maybe I will do it, when I will see a need for it. And the 1 point which will remain I will put to Imp moonfire. However even those 3% crit helps in farming and dmg reduced in arenas.
So thats it. Feel free to comment this build here or via emails
I recently respecced from 11/0/rest to 2/0/rest … which I kind of regret as I’ve lost a lot of DPS and utility. I wanted to pick up the healing touch talents to fool around in 5man instances. We’re about to drop SSC so I don’t need the DPS for leotheras anymore either (thankfully).
Yes, fool around. There is zero need to use Healing Touch in any kind of content if you have more than 1600+heal. I use Healing Touch in heroics just to keep myself entertained because rolling a trippe lifebloom stack on the tank for an hour can get rather boring after a while (and once you reach T5 gear that’s all you need to do to keep the tank alive in heroics, with the exception of a few selected mobs).
If your tank is dying even though you have all three HoTs on him, then there’s something very wrong or he’s very bad equiped. The problem with spamming healing thouch in that kind of situation is that it’s rather troublesome to fit it into your healing rotation. Between refreshing lifebloom you have just 6 seconds. If you don’t want to risk dropping that trippe stack (insane loss of HPS) then you can’t cast more than one HT. Which costs you a load of mana and HPS as your HoTs lose quite a bit of +heal (~130 in my case). I’d rather spam a ranked down regrowth there.
I don’t think I’ve ever gone without 5/5 imp. Regrowth. It makes an average spell /good/ whenever it crits. And with >60% crit chance that’s most of the time
Using lifebloom’s bloom to help the tank with threat is… a good intention but most ineffective. Well timed you might want to do that when there’s a threat wipe about to happen, but other than that I’d advise against it. You lose waaaaaay too much HPS doing that.
Phaelia: “ZA gear is UGLY” << I disagree! The [Helm of Natural Regeneration] looks amazing on my tauren druid in combination with T5 Shoulders, Kilt and Cenarion Expedition Tabard. Servers are down for maintenance so I can’t upload a screenshot to prove it
TBH hitting MH’s door these days having 1,9k healing I am sticking with my
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?01000000000000000000000000000000000000000050550351531522531351
I m even considering throwing the 1 point in nature’s grasp to natural shapeshifter to reduce the cost of casting HT and forming back to tree.
I consider myself a healer and this is what I have to put all my talents in. I expect myself to perform the best I can in raids so losing some HT efficiency or something else would just make me not give 100% of what I can give.
Sure more specs are viable, but surely full resto is more efficient.
If you need easier farming lvl a hunter or a warlock.
I have a 65lvl mage that does at least 3 times more damage than my druid, so I m using him for farming rep items or enchanting mats.
Of course all this from a pure PVE perspective
Well I have my warlock at lvl 70 full geared T5> and vengeful. However, I just love my drood
It was my main and I want to finish all kind of wow content with him (reputations etc.) To your Spec, I preferred also full resto tree, but those days are over 
when you dont use HT or dont have problems with agro from Tranquil. Why do you wanna keep these points. On the other hand if you just heal and dont do arenas, farm etc. why not 
In this case you dont need Balanced or feral at all 
But remember last minute on Archie you go full dps, and it is always cool to be the best DPS healer 
:D:D And also on Essences in BT you have to DPS in 1st phase:)
HT with Nature’s Swiftness is really valuable for those “OH SHIT” moments where the tank is in trouble. Specially when it crits for 12K
As for tranquility threat well I guess that it is not a big improvement but still is far more useful than having nature’s grasp…
I do arena only casually here and there and still got no problem with most of teams in my rating level.
As for Archemond, Leotheras and other fights where u need to do some dps, there really should not be any problem doing that as resto… Maybe just switch to a damage weapon combo.
Bloodboil – the boss for the HT-spam on “Fel Rage” victim. We have 3 druids on first kill, 2 of us spam HT in the Phase 2 to help our pallys. First(and last) boss for HT…
Brambles adds from 40(“worst case” – blue geared tank) to 10(high end BT epic tank) unmodified(by stance/talents) TPS. Not so bad.
Just my 2 cents.
P.S. never have any problems with Tranquility aggro
My, my – you all are certainly a bunch of chatty Cathies when it comes to talent specs! Thank you. =)
@Yunk: Insect Swarm has to be refreshed so often that it would be really difficult to get the benefits from Tree of Life and maintain it to help out the tanks. On the other hand, a Moonkin would be perfect for this. Unfortunately, we are without Laser Chickanery in Aegis Hestia.
@Akia: What made you decide to pick up Omen of Clarity? I found it really fun ability while levelling and wouldn’t mind an excuse to use it again, but I’ve been pretty much scoffed at for the idea. ^_^
@Zackoria: I like your build and agree that moving your NG points into Starlight Wrath will probably be helpful. I assume you’re waiting till your respec costs drop, as well.
@Nilanil: I rescued your original comment from the Spam-compactor. I actually found one of my own in there, as well (wth?). I picked up Insect Swarm for soloing and for 5-man instances (where I also sometimes wear my PvP gear because it’s pretty) since those are generally low stress and don’t require the use of Tree of Life. I will definitely move points from NG to CoN at yours and others’ suggestion. =) And I actually strongly considered Natural Shapeshifter but decided that the only time I have to shift is for NG + HT and Remove Curse. Hmmm…
@Kawen: You reposted the link I used, so I can’t actually look at your build. I’m sure it’s rocking, though. =D You know I have to group for the banishing quest, too. That’s something not even the free spell damage was able to help me overcome. I generally just skip that daily. I’d rather go do the cooking quest. I’m VERY happy to hear that you find value in using threat-reduction trinkets in Heroics. I have to as well on occasion, but I wasn’t sure if it was just me (or just my tanks
). It’s a great option to have, though.
@Toopy: I’m not sure if I agree about not having time to cast Regrowth. If you were going to throw a Lifebloom on someone, it only takes half a second more to use a Regrowth. And the DH from your Regrowth won’t get overwritten like the HoT and bloom components of Lifebloom. Granted, it used to be too inefficient to use Regrowth this way but with the mana cost reduction and the increased mana regeneration in 2.4, I would encourage you to give it another try. It still won’t be viable if you’e having to roll HoTs on 3 or more tanks, but any less than that, and you can definitely squeeze in at least one Regrowth. The build you suggest does seem well-balanced among the different avenues of play you mention. I do agree that you should try to move more points into Improved Regrowth but not at the expense of Natural Perfection. With its resulting buff benefitting from the 30% dispel resistance of Subtlety, it’s quite helpful as protection for the HoTs you cast on yourself.
@Kuhbi: I think that 5/5 Improved Regrowth will make a good spell great in 2.4. It’s a lot cheaper to cast than it used to be and sets you up to use Swiftmend on the target for 21 seconds (27 with the set bonus). I use the Grid raid addon and show those with Regrowth with a dot on their top left corner so I can easily see who is in trouble and needs an instant heal. I’ve been trying it out a bit already and am really loving it. It’s only going to get better come 2.4. =)
And I loaded up the WoW Model Viewer to model the outfit you described. That is cool looking, but 2 of those pieces are T5! The helm of Natural Regeneration is a chickenhead! T5 hat is so much cooler looking IMO. I would definitely hide it. =)
@Dimitris: I guess that I view having maximum efficiency in the few times I need to use Healing Touch to be less beneficial than my ability to afford repair costs through daily quests. =) Because I’m replacing HT usage with RG usage, I feel comfortable pulling points out of all the HT talents. 60 points in Restoration is just really over the top. I think our Resto tree is incredibly bloated, probably to prevent Druids from getting too many of the nice healing synergy talents from Balance. And you don’t need Naturalist 5/5 or Tranquil Spirit 5/5 to use NS + HT (2/2 Empowered Touch is up for debate as it’s still useful). I’d definitely consider scrapping OOC, Naturalist, Empowered Touch, Improved Tranquility (not especially needed in raids since it essentially forces you to allow your HoT stacks to drop), and 3/3 Natural Perfection (it’s not a PvP-oriented build). Branch out! (Haha! Get it?)
I’m presently spec’d 19/0/42, but considering tweaking it to this:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?51032201203000000000000000000000000000000050050350031500531051
I don’t pvp, so I spend most of my non-raiding time solo/farming. IMO, these are the talents that gived me the greatest bang for the buck.
I fixed my tree yesterday ^_^
@Akia: What made you decide to pick up Omen of Clarity? I found it really fun ability while levelling and wouldn’t mind an excuse to use it again, but I’ve been pretty much scoffed at for the idea. ^_^
I like meleeing the mobs for the fun of it. ^_^
That’s really all. On boss fights, where I can get in close, I would hope up there and melee. Same with trash mobs, etc. The guild gets a good laugh from it, too. The meleeing tree! (or druid, as I do use Insects, too) lol
@Akia
I wouldn’t say Omen of Clarity is especially useful unless you’re a Boomkin expecting to get your ass kicked frequently while farming (and even then I’d argue against it) or a feral druid, in which case it’s extremely useful. If you’re a resto druid, I wouldn’t waste the point, regardless of how funny it may or may not be.
Thanks Phae – wonder what was going on with it, hehe.
Ahha, Remove Curse – I knew there were times I found my shifting more, but couldn’t remember what it was. Silly remove curse … I wanna’ cast it in tree form, hehe.
I’d love to try out insect swarm sometime, and I’ve thought lots of times on it, but I imagine I’m even cheaper than you when it comes to respecs :p I respecced once at to resto, then for farming my onyxia key I respecced feral, and once that was done back to resto. I would definitely like the extra damage (and cast time decreased) from those first few tiers in the balance tree.
Oh yeah, and since I have OOC, too, may as well say that I don’t find much of a use for it, though sometimes I’m randomly hitting mobs in an instance and I get a clearcast; very nice for a free regrowth or even tranquility. Actually, it was more useful for soloing as resto before we got the healing -> spell damage change, as before then I didn’t have a boomkin set so I feral’d stuff as resto … which is slow, but I guess worked~
Any talent spec that makes Angler Self-defense a consideration gets my resounding seal of approval.
@Repsaj: I find the builds that combine Nature’s Grace and Regrowth crit very tempting. I used a Lunar Guidance/Moonglow build when I had just hit 70, and I think it was probably my favorite build ever. Nonetheless, losing Empowered Rejuvenation (and Living Spirit) would be pretty painful. (Btw, I think you relinked the build I originally linked.)
———-
@Phaelia
Yeah, I linked the wrong spec, this is what I mean:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0toruV0oZZxVcLcq0eox
So you still have the Spirit and Empowered Rejuvenation, and you get the Nature Grace
@Phaelia: to the Regrowth, yesterday I tried to use it more often in MH. And sure you have time to cast it, however we really need the changes in patch, it cost lot of mana. I have also some haste, and with this, it is faster to cast and will be even more usefull. Btw in healing im still first overall
Unleash drood powa 
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Drak‘thul&n=Toopy
@Repsaj Without Tree of Life? That servery cuts in your mana efficiency during raids. I can see using that for basic stuff, like 5 mans and secondary raid healer. But to be any kind of main healer, you really need Tree of Life form.
@Runycat Yeah, it’s purely for sport. It does come in handy, however, on bosses where I can melee: curator and VR are two examples. Also Shade and Nightbane and Netherspite … well, you get the idea. I actually do use the procs to shoot of a regrowth (or moonfire) here and there.
You all sure thorns causes threat? I was under the impression that it might not.
Anyways hopefully someone will find this useful but with the following build (and decent feral gear of course) you can tank hyjal waves, BT trash, and any heroic with ease. Really as long as you have Feral Instinct you can tank anything as resto. Just make sure you have 5.6% crit reduction before you put yourself in front of a really nasty mob. Your healers will thank you for it.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/classes/druid/talents.html?51032201203000000000000000000000000000000050050350031500531051#none
I’d like to put in a vote for Improved Tranquility. If you ever do any 5-man heroics, it gives you eight seconds of threat-free healing which makes the tank’s job much easier for difficult pulls. It’s not an amazing talent, but if you’ve got points to spare (which you do if you don’t pick up the HT talents), I would go for it.
I have tested the Brambles and IS build before and found it lacking. The spell hit we loose makes it rather annoying to keep IS up at all times. I think it could be a good thing for a druid to have if your are really pushing the edge of content and your tanks aren’t quite geared but generally this can toss your rotation off and loose a LB or some seconds on the Rejuv that fell off. If we could get around that pesky hit.
If you are stuck on using IS this is how I would use it now.
Opening off a fight toss on IS so the tank can possition while healers are moving into possition. Fights like Bloodboil where that extra miss can allow for the dots to clear off. Archimonde becuase of healers moving in and out.
I am currently http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0xcrzbhZZxcIxcq0eot.
I’ve been looking at making a minor change and going: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0xcrzbhZZxVIhcq0eot. This decreses my threat reduction by 8% in exchange for nearly uninterruptible Regrowths. I’m not too worried about threat as I’m not even close on our fights. We have paladins who are spamming heals with Righteous Fury up to keep the plate-lacking healers from getting hit.
I have to admit that this made me laugh. Yesterday I went boomkin for a couple hours to finish up a heroic bot run. I’d never, ever been anything but resto and those were a FUN couple of hours. I danced a LOT as a boomkin. lol! But my guild needs more healers, not fewer, so it was only a temporary change. But when I changed back, I decided not to go 0/0/61 again. Instead I kept some points in balance. What made me laugh about your post was that I seem to have made pretty much exactly the same choices as you did, pretty much exactly for the same reason! I was out questing today and looooooved my extra balance kick. I hope we both stay happy with our new build! If you decide to change, I hope you’ll post and let us know when and why! peace…
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t like to respec, and the number one reason why is “I’m a cheap bastard.” I might need that money for something someday, people!
Doofy
One forum thread i found amusing was this one.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=5281957214&sid=1&pageNo=1
It is amazing how many people get so riled up on the simplest questions of spec, at least for resto druids. Now i know where that Ocellaris guy came from.