“We are also the only healers who have the ability to Remove Curse.”

As a resto shaman, we have a spell called “Cleanse Spirit” that removes 1 poison, 1 disease and 1 CURSE.

In general, you should keep all of your HoTs stacked on your group’s tank. I generally start with Lifebloom + Rejuvenation + Lifebloom + Regrowth, though I’ll cast a Regrowth earlier if I get an Omen of Clarity proc. If I get an OOC proc and Regrowth still has a long duration remaining, I’ll throw a Wild Growth on the group instead. Use Regrowth as your direct heal while all your HoTs are running, Swiftmend your tank if he gets into trouble, and use Nature’s Swiftness + unglyphed Healing Touch in real emergencies.

Good luck!

The druid is now 72, and I have run a few 5-mans, some of which have gone well and some of which ended up with the group asking me to leave after wiping so many times. So to start off I have to say I have a new found respect for healers and I tip my hat to all of you!

I started off using HealBot which I loved and found to be incredibly easy. My difficulty arose from when I was told I should be using Grid. I had a friend help me set it up and everything so it works fine but I find it insanely overwhelming and even in 5-mans difficult to read each box and remember which heal is in which corner and which color means what, etc. I’ve also been told I spam heals, but I find that I’m constantly unsure of if my HOTs are going to keep a tank up enough through fights.

Is all of this normal when learning how to heal properly or am I just a poor excuse for a healer and should stick to DPS? And I’m beginning to loathe Grid because I find it so overwhelming and not easy to read…will it just take time to get used to or is it just a preference thing?

I really really want to be a good druid healer and I have read all of your blogs and as well as the ones on ElitistJerks and find that some is helpful and some with all the numbers and calculations just make my head hurt.

Help!

@Tone: Good question. I actually didn’t know the answer myself so I talked to Jon of the Bronze Kettle since he plays a Paladin. Apparently overheals (or wasted HoT ticks) do not proc Spiritual Attunement. Interestingly, just as Lifebloom blooms and Prayer of Mending count as healing done by the recipient (in this case, the Paladin), they also do not proc Spiritual Attunement. Thanks for the question!

Thank you for another enjoyable and cogent post. In reading it, a question came to my mind which I thought you might be able to help with:

Do you know if overhealing a Paladin will still return mana to them through Spiritual Attunement (e.g., a Paladin has a full health bar, a less-than-full mana bar, and is receiving ticks from a Druid’s HoT spells)?

I mostly just ask out of curiosity (for my reference in the field!). But I guess, in the context of this discussion, it also seems like it could be a nice synergy for a Paladin tank and a Druid healer, and could perhaps be considered another strength of Druid healing (albeit a situational one). I’ve healed for a Paladin tank a few times, and often found myself in a situation where I had his health maxed and had temporarily created an impenetrable wall o’ healing with Druid HoTs. Similarly, encounters often end w/ a full stack of HoTs still running as his health hits 100% again. Druids sort of have the unique ability to overheal in a respectable, mana efficient way so maybe this is a little extra positive outcome from that.

But even if overhealing doesn’t count for Spiritual Attunement, it still seems like the Druid’s overall strength for creating a constant stream of healing also makes for a constant stream of Paladin mana, which might be advantageous compared to larger bursts, farther between.

(I should mention that my comments come from the perspective of someone who hasn’t done any raiding yet – I would imagine that the dynamics of a larger party w/ multiple healers would be different, and the overall volume of healing might just blend together, removing any of the distinctions I make above.)

Thanks again!
-Tone

if u take count of improved regrowth(5/5). I get around 60% of crit.
When tank get in trouble ( aka 10% hp) , i would say regrowth give more burst heal than flash of light.

@Crythia: The same could be true of Mind Control or Shackle Undead. At least in a raid boss, if I’m using Hibernate it’s because it’s pretty necessary. And frequent refreshes (I usually refresh once every 10-15 seconds to be safe) will keep you pretty much in the clear!

@Jeremiah: I’m very happy that you found this (and the debuffing article) helpful! I find adding these additional techniques make healing a lot more fun. You should see how crazy I get in non-Heroic instances. I’m all PEW PEW!! RAWR!! Okay, not so much with the “RAWR” as that would imply I use a Feral form. /shudder

@Yashima: Yeah, I actually really miss having Feral Charge available. BEAR ROCKET!!! was the most fun thing about being PvP spec. I even used it to interrupt spellcasters in Karazhan when our Rogues were slacking. In fact, most of these additional “non-healing” techniques developed as a result of having PvPed during Season 2. PvP really makes you examine and leverage ALL your abilities, not just the set associated with healing.

@Zedwards: The unlimited mana post 2.4 may not be as unlimited as one might think. Instead of having a plethora of mana left over, we can shuttle some of that extra blue goo into swapping Regrowth for Lifeblooms, at least for non-tanks. If you ignore the mana cost (as you could if your mana were unlimited) Regrowth is far and away better since it does its healing immediately AND sets you up to Swiftmend later if it’s necessary. Pretty neat! Best of luck in your new Heroics. They’re a great way to push yourself to the limit of your ability, both as a healer and a Druid.

@Solum: The tools we get from being “full” Resto are pretty amazing. I could probably live without Nature’s Swiftness (or at least my tank could), but Swiftmend is pretty much a must have, and I probably use it every 20 seconds or so in raids (less frequently in groups). As a Feral, you’re going to have to rely on your Healing Touch more than your HoTs simply because you don’t have the Talents or +Healing to bump the HPS of your HoTs up enough for them to do the job alone. Unfortunately, Healing Touch is slow and clunky and terrible for responding to “splash” damage. I don’t downrank my Regrowth at all, but I know that some do. If someone is taking 1K of damage, a single application of Lifebloom should heal them to full. Just toss them out *before* the mine explodes, and it should heal them back up once it’s gone off. I imagine that healing as a Feral will require better reflexes and better anticipation of group damage because you can’t fall back on Swiftmend or Nature’s Swiftness.

@Scott: What are you doing reading this? Go forth and level, young Sapling! Thus goes my plan for blog domination by converting players of all other classes to the path of the Restoration Druid!

@Ermengol: A big part of successfully leveraging Cyclone is communicating with your groupmates. If using Cyclone to protect myself, I’ll announce in voice chat “OMG GET IT OFF GET IT OFF… as soon as Cyclone drops in 3 … 2 … 1…” If my husband’s Polymorph breaks and it’s chasing him around, I’ll Cyclone it to allow him to get some distance on it before he starts casting Poly. This, of course, is made 10x easier by the fact we play beside each other. Generally, my groupmates are familiar with the idea that I will use Cyclone at times, so they aren’t “DER … WHY IS MOB IN TORNADO?” You’re right that it is harder to use than many other forms of crowd control, but I still think it’s a valuable (and FUN!) tool for instancing. It’s even once saved a Lurker attempt. A Mage died, leaving a Hunter to fend for himself on one of the islands with two Naga. I rotated Cyclone on them while he kept the other icetrapped until the raid could help.

@Solum: talents not only improve efficiency, but give you more speed with stronger HoTs. Also swiftmend is THE talent, better than Nature’s Swiftness. It’s also the main reason not to downrank regrowth (so if you don’t have it it doesn’t really matter).

Against AoE you can spam lifebloom (it’s so cheap!) and, if needed, regrowth. Healing, but specially with so many HoTs, require to know well the encounters and try to adjust your heals to the gear of your party (if you’re used to top tanks and one day you have to heal one “just ok”, you may end up wiping with the first trash..). Don’t be afraid of “pre-casting” HoTs (rejuvenation ticks after 3 seconds; lifebloom after 1, but most of the healing takes place way afterwards so…)