@FB: It appears that you (and others) were correct; Koraa’s later comments that follow up on her original post make it clear that she does understand the Druid’s role as a HoT-based healer (and not necessarily one designed for large, fast throughput). And don’t get discouraged from picking your Druid as your main in Wrath; I think the changes overall look like the class is going to be a lot more fun and dynamic to play.

@Meugly: I’m very curious about the state of a DS healer in the expansion. I think HT will mostly be eclipsed by Nourish, and Nourish is improved by HoTs … At the same time, Lunar Guidance is seeing a pretty substantial nerf, making ToL and its associated talents more attractive than before. Hopefully a DS Druid can still get her direct heal “fix” (supplemented by HoTs as you describe) with Nourish.

@Yggdrasil: I can’t say that I disagree. I rarely hope for someone else to be nerfed, but I really hope to see a reduction in the attractiveness of Chain Heal. That spell comprises even more of a Shaman’s total healing done than Lifebloom does of ours, and it requires a lot less thought.

@Zaira: Hmm, I wasn’t aware of “Tidal Waves” – that should help make their heal style more dynamic and kind of similar to that of a Druid (whose core “rotation” is comprised of Lifebloom and supplemented by other stuff that fits in between).

@Balderun: I’m not sure that I agree; I suspect that we’ll see Lifebloom relegated to tank healing (or healing a pre-designated target who’s going to be taking constant damage). It’s simply not efficient enough to keep up with all the crazy raid healing flying around in Wrath. I am planning to look at Nourish vs. Regrowth, but I haven’t decided how to approach Flourish, yet.

@Karmakin: An interesting perspective; Druids are becoming a hybridized healer sort of like Priests with an assortment of tools available. I’m probably not the only one contemplating using my second talent spec for an alternate healing spec. Okay, well maybe I am.

@Brian: Rolling Lifebloom will still be a good thing to do for tanks. However, it’s going to heal for less and cost a lot more. Already Lifebloom comprises less of my effective healing than does Regrowth on some fights. I’m just glad that GotEM will reduce the amount of time I have to spend maintaining a spell which is effectively a large health regeneration buff.

Lifebloom won’t be quite as good, but it’s not completely nerfed and useless. Even if it were to lose 20% of it’s total healing power it’s still an awesome healing spell. (Mine currently tick for 750 – I would still use it if it ticked at 500 honestly).

I’m pretty sure 3 stacks of lifebloom will still be used on tanks. I can’t see any healing changing too much except for the fact that there is nourish to actually count on and crits giving living seed allowing druids to have a little more choice in healing.

This is kind of how I feel about this change to Lifebloom. Smart Druids are going to continue to use a triple stack of Lifebloom on the tank(s), but now they have to expend more mana in addition to the Lifebloom, Rejuv, and Regrowth they had stacked, in order to make up for the 20% of healing that is no longer there. You have to do more heals to do the same amount of healing. Perhaps the buff to Regrowth balances it out, but I find it unlikely, due to how the spells work.(Most of my Regrowh casts end up as overheal on the direct heal portion right now, I primarily use it for the extra HoT on the tank, or for an “oh poop” heal when a DPS is dying, where the HoT is usually wasted.)

And all 4 can really be done with the same talent spec, more or less. My same warning still applies, the amount of skill differential is going to increase substantially for healers come WotLK, with druids more than the other classes. I’m fully expecting battles where damage patters will change even more substantially during the fight.

I find all the new possibilities exciting and I am looking forward to healing in WotLK. However, what I sense from the above discussion is the aftermath of how under powered druids where at the begining of TBC. Druids are again fearful that they end up not raidviable as healers for WotLK.

On the other hand if we look at the difference between what we got from the change from vanilla to tbc wow and what we get now, I must say it looks ok. But, we all know that how designers think we are going to heal and how we actually end up healing may not be the same thing.

So, there is nothing to do but follow the beta testing and keep our fingers/branches/twigs cross (or hoofs if you are tauren like me). Personally I hope for a (even more) versatile class that continues to fun playing.

/Balderun

ps: is there plans for a preview of nourish/flourish on this blog that i’m really interested in.

So it doesn’t seem like single-spell healing will be ‘the new hotness’ anymore, and we’re just being clipped by that bug albeit in a harsher manner than the other classes (who are getting talent, and new spell incentives as opposed to the dreaded NERF BAT).

Considering that druids were the first class out, we’re also the first class revised. Lets wait and see what happens on the first re-work to the others.

I’m disheartened by this. Here’s the thing that gets me, as stated above by others, why is it unacceptable for our class to favor 1 spell (which is not enough to heal on its own without other spells being cast) but the spells of other classes that they spam continuously are getting buffed to a point it seems they will ony need to use that 1 spell repeatedly, just as they have been already. Don’t get me wrong, I WANT to be a more versatile healer, but not at the expense of my effectiveness. I don’t want to do 8 times more work (and to keep in mind, maintaining multiple Lifebloom stacks while on the move is not easy, by any means)just to end up doing marginally better than what I was before, or to just pale in comparison to other healing classes.

I know I’m preaching to the choir, but this just sounds stupid to me that a core healing spell is being nerfed before we even begin because we might not use the other spells enough. It really doesn’t change anything in how I predicted I’d be healing typically in 5 mans or in raids, it just nerfs my ability to do it effectively. I won’t be using Lifebloom any less, I think, it’ll just be less effective now, which could be very bad.

When you mention the 40% buff to the front end heal of Regrowth, are you using the Glyph of Regrowth or is that not yet available?

No glyph.

with a 70 resto sham and my main tree, i am still on the fence as to whos the main in wotlk, i like playing the druid more so i really want that to be the decision … things like this are discouraging and encouraging both, and lol , i hate change.

great dialog here though. love to read it