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Guest Post: Balance vs. Restoration Gear
Published on October 28, 2008 by Graylo 
Community, Featured, Items and Equipment, Lunar Guidance 
31 Comments
Phaelia: This week, I’m honored to share a guest post from Graylo of Gray Matter, a premier Balance blog featuring tons of theorycraft beneficial to any Balance (or Restoration) Druid seeking to improve her DPS or learn vital feather-preening techniques.
The night after patch 3.0.2 dropped my guild was running Black Temple and the [Naaru-Blessed Life Rod] dropped off of the Reliquary of Souls, and my GM, who plays a Warlock, said “looks like a Warlock item to me.”
Before you start writing angry comments about how my GM is an idiot, rest assured that he was joking. Though his comment does highlight one of the issues we are going to have after Wrath of the Lich King is released. With the merger of Healing and Spell Damage into a single stat, Moonkin and Trees are going to be seeking some of the same gear. However, this does not mean that every piece of leather gear with Spell Power is ideally suited for a Tree or a Moonkin. While any item with Spell Power maybe good for both builds, it is my opinion that most items with Spell Power will lend themselves more to one spec than the other.
In this article, I will take a look at each of the relevant stats to see how they lean. Then I will look at a couple of examples to answer the question: Is it Resto gear or Moonkin gear?
Spell Power
I only mention it to get it out of the way. This is the primary stat for both builds and provides no insight into who benefits from this item most. Plus, when considering items of a similar level the amount of Spell Power will be fairly close on both items.
Hit Rating
Unless something has changed in WotLK, a heal is not going to be miss or be resisted by its target. Therefore Resto Druids have no use for Hit Rating. This is the most obvious indicator of how an item leans. If it has Hit then it’s Moonkin gear.
Note from Phae: If it’s “hit” then it’s sh— … er … that is to say, it’s not something you want to GET. 
Crit Rating
Crit is a little more ambiguous. It is not the most important stat for either build, but definitely has its purpose in both builds. In TBC, Crit Rating was good for Moonkin, but horrible for Trees since few Druid heals could crit. That has changed somewhat in WotLK. Regrowth will play a much bigger role in Druid healing, Healing Touch can now be cast in Tree of Life, and the new spell Nourish can crit. All of this points to a bigger role for Crit Rating in a Resto Druid’s life.
However, it is my opinion that Crit Rating favors Moonkin more. Over 80% Moonkin DPS comes from spells that can crit. Critical hits not only increases Moonkin damage but also increases our average casting speed for Starfire and returns mana. A majority of druid healing will still come from HoTs, and critical heals have an increased risk of wasted heals due to overhealing.
Note from Phae: Yes, spell crit is better for Restoration Druids than it once was, but try not to go overboard. HoTs still can't crit, and the 50% additional crit from Improved Regrowth actually makes spell crit less desirable to Restoration Druids, not more. To understand why, imagine you have 0 crit chance and pick up gear that gives you 10% crit chance. Your net improvement would be 1.1/1.0 or 10%. Now imagine you have 50% crit chance and pick up gear that gives you an additional 10% crit chance. Your net improvement is 1.6/1.5 or 6%, a substantially lower improvement. For the sake of clarity, this assumes you get exactly double the benefit from a crit, which is actually close due to Living Seed but not exact.
Haste Rating
Haste rating has the biggest question mark. When I talked to Phae about this stat she said she was slightly inclined to defer to Moonkin on this stat, but I think it is much more even.
Haste can be a significant DPS increase for Moonkin but it comes at a cost. It doesn’t increase mana efficiency at all so if you don’t have the mana pool for it, it won’t help your DPS much. From a Restoration perspective, haste does not decrease the duration of your HoTs, but it does have several benefits that can make a Resto Druid more effective. A shorter global cooldown means you can roll Lifebloom on more targets, or allow you to get more direct heals off in between refreshes. It also will help you to get off an emergency heal if both Nature’s Swiftness and Swiftmend are down.
In my opinion Haste doesn’t lend itself to one spec over the other. So, there is no help here.
Note from Phae: The value of haste depends almost entirely upon your style of healing. A healing style that relies primarily upon insta-cast HoTs – Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, and Wild Growth – will little benefit from haste; its global cooldown reduction is overpriced. On the other hand, an unglyphed Healing Touch or heavy Regrowth build would benefit from stacking spell haste. Still, it’s rare for a Restoration Druid to so vigorously eschew her HoTs to focus instead on direct heals.
Spirit
In the Burning Crusade, Spirit clearly lent itself to Restoration build,s and it is still a good stat for Trees in WotLK due to talents like Intensity, Living Spirit, and Improved Tree of Life. Moonkin on the other hand had very little use for Spirit. It was good for mana regeneration because most Moonkin picked up Intensity, but it did little for our DPS. That is changing with the addition of Improved Moonkin Form, which increases Spell Damage by 15% of your total Spirit.
Despite this change, I still believe that Spirit lends itself more to Restoration then Balance. The Resto Tree has more talents that benefit from Spirit, and I think healers in general benefit more from mana regen then DPSers do. Restos can easily blow through their mana really quickly trying to keep someone up and prevent a wipe. A Moonkin’s mana usage is much more consistent and can be managed in other ways. Plus, the extra DPS a Moonkin will get from Spirit is fairly small.
Note from Phae: I’m the one with Spirit; I don’t wanna hear it! Living Spirit means a Restoration Druid gets 1.15 Spirit for every 1 Spirit that a Moonkin would get. If said Moonkin doesn’t even have Intensity, I’d punch it in the beak for trying to take an item with a ton of Spirit.
Intellect
Obviously both builds need some amount of Intellect, but an item with an extraordinary large amount of Intellect probably lends itself more to a Moonkin. The Balance tree has two talents, Lunar Guidance and Dreamstate, that buff the druid based upon his level of Intellect. Restos can’t get these buffs without putting over 20 points in the Balance Tree.
Note from Phae: I believe that the new mana regeneration effect, Replenishment, makes Intellect desirable for all casters since the amount of mana restored is based on your total mana. As a result, I would be less inclined to consider this a stat that favors solely Moonkin, though I agree that Lunar Guidance and Dreamstate does seem to give the slight advantage to Balance Druids.
MP5
To be honest this isn’t a great stat for either build. It is a very expensive relative to the other stats listed above. Plus, it has only a situational impact on performance. If you don’t have mana issues currently, then more MP5 isn’t going change anything.
That being said, I believe that MP5 lends itself more to Restoration builds. As I said before I believe that mana regen is a little more important for healers then it is for DPS.
Note from Phae: Ewwwww … MP5! This stat continues to be overpriced for those casters with an Intensity-esque ability (ex. Meditation, Arcane Meditation). I’d look the other way on an item who sinks a large portion of its item budget into MP5.
Examples
To illustrate these points lets look at two pairs of boots that drop in Naxx25:
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I think both boots would be good for either a Restoration or Balance Druid, but I think I know which one Restos would prefer. Despite having 38 Crit rating, I believe the [Boots of Septic Wounds] are more of a Resto item. They have a large amount of Spirit and the gem socket allow for more potent heals and greater longevity. On the other hand, the [Boots of the Escaped Captive] favor a Moonkin build in my opinion. The sheer quantity of Haste means that they will provide more DPS at the expense of less valuable base stats.
For another example look at these two chest pieces, also drops from Naxx25:
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In my opinion, the [Vest of Vitality] is clearly a Moonkin item. The large quantity of Crit and complete lack of Spirit say this item is for all out DPS. The [Tunic of Prejudice] is a much more balanced item that has lots of Spirit that I think Restos will find more attractive.
Leather vs Cloth
I want to make a quick comment on the Leather vs. Cloth debate. Moonkin are used to having to fight with Mages, Warlocks, and Priests for cloth gear because there was very little leather caster DPS gear in the Burning Crusade. My guess is that in Wrath of the Lich King we are going to see clothies push back and say they should get priority over Druids.
I still believe that armor type doesn't matter for the most part. The stats on the gear are what cause you to do more DPS or be a more effective healer. Therefore, I say rolling on cloth items that are clearly better then the other options available should be okay. That being said, be mindful of the clothies' needs. Don't roll on a cloth item when there is a leather item that is equally accessible. For example, a Moonkin should probably pass on [Slippers of the Seacaller] if a clothie wants it, because the [Naturewarden's Treads] are available just a few bosses later.
Final Note
None of this means that Restos shouldn’t roll on the [Vest of Vitality], or that Moonkin shouldn’t use the Boots [Boots of Septic Wounds]. All of these items could be upgrades for either spec. These are just guidelines to help you navigate your gear choices.
My suggestion is that you talk to the other caster druids in your guild and see what gear they are looking for and how big of an upgrade it is. This type of planning with your shape shifting brethren can prevent arguments and feelings of animosity. It can also save you DKP and help you get the item that best suits your needs when it drops.
I want to say thanks to Phae for giving me this opportunity and supporting my blog. The Druid community would be at a loss without you. Note from Phae: <3 Thanks, Gray!
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Great write up gray! I found it extremely helpful. More helpful then talking to my other caster druid guildies… *im sooo lonely….*
On the other hand… I get all the leather!! Mwahahaha *mutters something about eating soulstones and being a sadist*
Cage match!!!!!!
(My money’s on the Tree… Moonkin are classic bruisers, but Trees have been deceivingly quick and spunky since the patch!)
Loved the post! It was both well written and very very helpful.
I’m very new at being a restoration druid, though I have a lot of experience playing a disc/holy priest and this post helped me a lot in understanding what I need.
It’s very interesting that the stats needed seem to be very similar to what I’ve always preferred having on my priest (though I know not all priests agree).
By far my most favourite stat of them all is Spirit. I live by it!
Glad to see Phae agrees.
Aaaanyway, enough babbling. Great post! /ty
Aendis last blog post..Despair
Good post, follows pretty much on what I’ve been thinking.
A couple of thoughts:
I’m not sure what the optimum raiding talent builds for balance will look like at 80, but will Moonkin still be picking up Intensity and/or Dreamstate? Given that the Balance tree seems bloated with goodness, and Furor and Master Shapeshifter make sinking points into Resto quite appealing, builds might change a lot. This could affect itemisation choices.
Additionally there’s now a lot of regen floating around: Survival Hunters, Lolret Paladins, and our very own Moonkin Aura mean that at the moment the mana-based DPS classes rarely find themselves oom – AOE on trash with Hurricane and Moonkin Aura is sheer mana-efficient and DPS awesomeness.
Blizzard have stated that the new challenge of raiding will be conserving healer mana (as opposed to TBC, where the bottleneck was often tank threat), so this would suggest prioritising your healers for regen-heavy gear. Especially since while dps tends to be fairly consistent in mana usage, healers can easily adjust theirs to suit a scenario (I’m having a lot of fun spamming Wild Growth to take advantage of the initial burst heal of its HoT, it’s _almost_ as good as Circle of Healing).
Haste: with the new talented 1-second GCD on our Instant Casts, will we even see benefit from Haste if we don’t use Regrowth or Healing Touch? Although stacking lots of Haste and using Tranquility could be fun.
I guess we’ll need to start seeing the numbers that start coming out as people progress through Naxx to clear up a lot of stuff (like how effective regen from other classes is). At the moment I’m picking up mage gear for healing
PS: all the druids I know (that aren’t leveling) are Resto or Balance. Where’s the love for our Feral brethren? When was the last time you saw a Feral druid? I’m tempted to check it out (temporarily) just to try our cool new 21pt Shadowstep.
Beathoovens last blog post..Random coincidences
Gift of the earthmother only drops hots to a 1.2 second cast. Haste is still good, and you’re quite unlikely to max that out.
As for leather vs cloth, there is so much caster leather that will get defaulted to you that it’s really not worth rolling on cloth. When it would otherwise rot, sure. But there’s always going to be a leather alternative.
Great post. With changes to spirit, we’re going to see that stat turning up on a lot more items for casters, not just for healers, and it will probably cause a bit of confusion for some people. In TBC, leather gear with spirit was almost always tree loot, hands down.. but in WotLK it won’t be so cut and dried.
I just hope that it is a two-way street and other casters don’t start rolling on items that lean more towards healing. It shouldn’t affect me, personally, too much, because I do prefer to wear leather where possible – but I am not averse to rolling on cloth if it is a substantial upgrade. If I see hit on something it’s a definite no, and if something lacks spirit entirely or is high on int, crit, mp5, haste etc I will usually pass… but will the same be true of our dps casters? How many of them will have an understanding of what they shouldn’t really be rolling on? I get the distinct feeling that I will have to mirror this subject on my guild forums
My guild will be running with dkp so commonsense will factor into things quite heavily. If casters bid on leather dps gear I can tell them to pull their heads in, but if they bid on something that is a cloth healing item, there’s probably little I can do other than urge them to be considerate. It gets messy and fuzzy too when a healing item is a massive upgrade over their current gear (I went into Karazhan wearing balance gear – sometimes you take what you can get!), despite not being the best option for them. Again, I suppose all I can do is urge people to play nice, and not bid on every spellpower item that comes their way. Time will tell.
Keevas last blog post..Rats and fish
Last time I ran with you you were a tailor keeva =P Hehe. Great write-up I have been wondering about crit and haste for my tree for a few months now and can never be bothered with the hard numbers so it was espescially good to read your crit analysis. Bring on arthas can’t wait to kill him/beat him into redemption.
PS Thought I’d also add another point why int is better for moonkin… it adds crit, small amounts but another tally on the chalk board for our feathered cousins still I think.
Silly druids. You can’t use wands.
I’m still a tailor, Camel
I get a few raised eyebrows about it, but the fact is that crafted cloth gear has always been better than crafted leather gear, with the exception being the Sunwell stuff – which was too little, way too late. Back in the day, PMC was hot, and I never regretted picking up the profession.
In WotLK, I get PMC v2.0, flying carpets, increased cloth drops from mobs, cheap spellthreads, and cloak embroidery for my cloak/s.
And I get to wear dresses.
*thumbs nose at leatherworking*
Keevas last blog post..Rats and fish
This answers most of my questions involved with the merge and it answers my friend’s answers too! And Tunic of Prejudice? Thats a druid item? Does that mean we are still a prejudiced healer or something?
Thaaat was really awesome. I have had a druid for a while, but only in the last week have I been trying to pick up gear that isn’t feral in anticipation of double specs and resto-duty. Thanks for the clear tips!
gts last blog post..Hi, I’m addicted to Cat Form.
Actually that wand with spirit is pretty decent for warlocks, that 16 spirit gets converted to [url=http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?spell=47892]~5 spellpower[/url].
@Beathooven: It seems that in beta they’re splitting Moonfury in 3 points instead of 5 which should help Moonkin a bit because, you’re right, at the moment there are too many good talents to pick.
Regarding haste, at first I didn’t like it because it meant giving up on spirit which I already keep lower than I’d prefer, but now I’m beginning to have access to SWP loot, with more balanced stats, things are getting more interesting. However I have to admit that even though having a reduced GCD for HoTs felt way more useful than expected, Wild Growth has changed this considerably. I do use regrowth a lot on top of my arsenal of HoTs, but I haven’t decided yet how much haste I need after last patch.
About crit rating, as long as I stick to ToL specs, I won’t want it. I don’t use HT yet (surprise surprise) and I won’t be getting Naturalist nor the HT Glyph (I like my NS+HT macro as it is). However resto-balance specs will be more effective with such fast heals than they were pre-3.0 (they are quite good already). I prefer HoT over direct heals, and deep restoration has enough emergency buttons to provide high HPS when needed, but I have to say hybrid specs may turn out to be superior; we can get Wild Growth with Moonglow and Nature’s Grace at 80, but Celestial Focus, Lunar Guidance and Dreamstate plus Natural Perfection from restoration (a talent many PvE trees won’t get) may result in a very powerful Healing Touch (with or without glyph, I have yet to find out). I’d rather roll a paladin before doing that though.
Another good thing about resto-balance healers is they can share even more gear if they switch to deep balance, something that WotLK is supposed to make easier.
So.. tough choices.
I hope that the “Tunic of Prejudice” is a Pride and Prejudice reference and not a slight to healers’ open-mindedness.
Thanks for the article, Graylo! I’m going to have to start reading up on moonkin dps seriously once dual specs come into the game. My guild is planning on having healers maintain a dps spec/gear in case we’ve got too many of us for some fights. Our guild has about 12 healers, and we all like to heal (and show up for raids).
Sydera I WISH I had that problem lol. Your guild is very blessed by that. BTW phae, you have a friendly mage that can you can post this to? I have been hearing quite a bit of QQing about healers stealing there gear now that its “all the same”
To be frankly honest I long for the days when you could easily tell which gear was healy and which was dps by the key words “spell damage” and “healing”. After the patch I figured that things with more spirit would go to the healers, and since my tree had just hit 70 and was up and coming in the world of raiding, thats what I rolled on. Of course this started some arguments with dpsers because now warlocks need spirit for something of theirs (I don’t remember off the top of my head what it is, some improved thing) and of course the Moonkin thing with spirit. That would explain why your GM was wanting, even jokingly, to roll on a wand with spirit on it.
So we’ve had to guess that +hit rating would be dps only, but still theres a lot of confusion. I half dread when something cloth or leather thats not clearly a feral druid/rogue piece drops… because the arguments on vent start up almost right away. Slowly we’re learning how to deal with this new change, but still, it was so much easier on everyone when gear clearly said +healing or +spell damage.
I just hope in Wrath things will work out better… or if we’ll all have to stumble around and try to figure out which gear is gonna work best for which class/spec.
On the upside, thanks to everything being +spellpower, I can at least solo my dailies now and live and not take 5 hours to do them
Nice post.
As a respec addict, the change from +damage and healing to +spell power had a significant impact on my bags and bank occupation. Not that I didn’t find ways to fill them up (tabards) since. It’s however nice to be able to wander around with less armor.
However I’m definitely not using quite the same gear for healing and as a damage dealer (not to mention my feral kit hehe) and the two biggest determining factors are hit rating and spirit. I’m using some items that have spirit on my moonkin kit since patch, but that’s very few of them. Not because spirit isn’t good gor a moonkin now, but because it’s detrimental to other more useful stats in terms of item budget: when there’s spirit, there’s rarely crit or hit, sometimes less spell power.
Of course hit rating is a big nono when I wear my bark outfit. I wonder if I could pretend to deal damage in case we have way too many healers (never happens) in a raid though. Since it’s quite mana inefficient to heal as moonkin, I have a suspicion the reverted situation may hold true: low-ish damage for the mana consumption. In raids that look like Zul’Aman and where a third healer is only necessary for very specific fights, it could however be advantageous to put our ability to switch from a role to the other in the same gear.
Whenever (or is that if?) we can dual-spec will be even better in that regard.
Awesome post, Phae and Graylo! You may have been reading my mind as I was pondering the question of caster vs healer gear myself just yesterday. Int and Spirit are obvious, Stam is a nice bonus, and the Spellpower, but I was trying to decide what besides those I should be looking for to differentiate the two.
This post will be a nice guide to choosing the most appropriate gear. My guild will be following the 10-man path and I’m usually the only tree, so it wont be much of an issue, but its still nice to know what to look for to get the most bang for your dkp. Not to mention I know that pesky resto shammie will roll on leather if mail doesn’t drop. ::laughing::
Very insightful – thank you for this!
Thanks guys. I’m glad this post has been so well received.
@ Beathooven
What I’m hearing from the beta is that Moonkin mana regen is fine. For this reason there are quite a few Moonkin that are saying they are going to drop Dreamstate, Intensity or both. Personally, I’m in kind of a wait and see mode. I haven’t had any troubles with mana in BT or SWP, but I have heard that some of the mana regen from Pally’s is being nerfed. Right now my plan is to pickup Intensity but probably skip Dreamstate.
@ Werebeef
In the past the Leather vs Cloth debate has been about the quantity of gear available, but it has also been about the quality of the gear available. In WotLK the quantity issue has been fixed, but that doesn’t mean that the quality issue has been fixed for all pieces. Take or example the Vest of Vitality I mentioned in the article. This is the best Leather DPS piece, but if I had to choose a non-tier chest from Naxx 25 I would choose Heigan’s Putrid Vestments because I would gain 51 Haste, 49 Hit, and 23 Stam at the cost of just 67 Crit and 20 Mp5. It’s a no brainer. Heigan’s Putrid Vestments are clearly better, and that’s my point. If there is a comparable leather piece then Leather wearers should pass cloth to clothies, but if an item is clearly superior to items of the same level then Armor type shouldn’t prevent people from rolling on it.
@ Tiagantar
It’s funny you should mention the names. When I first came up with the idea of this post I thought about using the names as a hint. If you look at names in BC you get things like Mitts of the Treemender and other very tree related names. There is some of this in WotLK but it doesn’t seem to hold as true as it does in BC. That is why I left it out.
@ Ermengol
I encourage you not to write off Crit so quickly. Wrath of the Lich King is going to force Resto’s to change the way they think about gear. In BC you’ve had it easy. If you look at ever leather healing piece from Kara to Hyjal you will see that they all follow the same pattern. Stam, Int, Spirit, Spell Power, and maybe Mp5. In BT they started to introduce Haste a little bit but the prior model was still the dominant design.
This doesn’t hold true in WotLK. Most of the leather caster gear has Haste or Crit on it. While these are not ideal stats they are they do serve a purpose, and are unavoidable to some extent. This is also going to force trees to make some harder choices.
For example, spirit is clearly a primary stat for resto’s. If you had to choose between 30 spirit or 30 crit, I’m sure the spirit would be picked most of the time. However, what happens when you have to choose between 10 spirit and 30 Crit?
I don’t know the answer to this one because I haven’t run the numbers, but this illustrates the hard choices that are around the corner for resto druids. As a moonkin I have had to make these choices quite a bit. If you offered me 30 SP or 30 Crit I would pick the SP every time, but gear rarely works this way. More often then not you have to choose between 15 of this or 30 of that.
So, I encourage you to find out how much each of the stats are worth to you so that you can make reasonable trades.
@ Willowhorn
I don’t think you have to worry about DPS trying to stack Spirit. I think all of the talents to boost the value of Spirit to DPS is just to try and prevent some QQing. It just supplements our DPS but does not dominate it. We would much rather have Spell Power, Crit, Hit, or Haste.
Graylos last blog post..Gray Matter is Branching Out
I’ll be stacking Spirit pretty much, or at least as much as I can. Has spirit? I want it! My guess is that I’ll end up doing the same thing I did with TBC, in getting decent gear and then from that point passing on minor upgrades unless nobody else wants it. Unless I desperately need the gear to make progress, however, I suspect that once a guild gets geared enough to clear Naxx in the first place, that’s not going to be an issue.
@Gidget: Careful with those soulstones. They’ll rot your teeth.
@Beathooven: Since GotEM only reduces the GCD of Rejuvenation/Lifebloom/Wild Growth by 0.3 seconds (down to 1.2), Haste will continue to reduce it. That doesn’t mean that it’s especially helpful, given how expensive those spells are to cast, but it could be fun and certainly useful on some encounters.
P.S. I think many Restos are going to opt for leveling Balance-specced because of the spell power change and the fact that their top-end Resto gear is now essentially slightly less efficient (no crit/hit) than the equivalent top-end Balance gear they would have had.
@Keeva: I’m in the same boat as you. I prefer leather when possible, but some leather tunics are just … hi-deee-us. Like the leather tunic from Badges that look like someone tied a handkerchief across our chest. Despite the fact that the cloth robe was so similar to the leather tunic, I picked up the robe. With the changes to Improved Tree of Life, I’m kind of regretting that decision now.
P.S. I’m also a Tailor (and a Leatherworker). Flying carpets FTW!
@Ermengol: I hadn’t heard about the change to Moonfury. Huzzah for reduction of Balance bloat. And thanks for chiming in with your perception of the usefulness of Haste. Hopefully I’ll have more of an opportunity to experience it myself in the expansion. My guild never did get far enough for me to nab too much haste gear.
@Zamir: I’m not sure if you’re aware, but you don’t have to hold onto tabards to get the tabard achievement. Blizz has said that purchasing one will fulfill its requirement, even if you sell it right back.
In Live right now, it looks like the improved Tree of Life form only gets 15% of base Spirit (I don’t know if improved Moonkin is the same), so Spirit on equipment won’t help there
A tailor AND leatherworker? I haven’t seen that before!
I wanted to come back and share an anecdote about intellect.
We were doing KJ last night and one of the resto shammies was bemoaning the lack of Replenishment on him.
Let’s backtrack a little though. This particular shammy is really into Int stacking at present. Int int int, gotta have more int. He has something crazy like 17,000 mana raid buffed. Why? Huge replenishment ticks. Huuuuge. Not only does he have a massive pool of mana to get things started, but that’s heaps of mana coming back in each time Replenishment ticks. He’s crunched all the numbers and worked out the crazy amount of mana that will be coming back to him over the course of XYZ minutes.
Opening up the WWS from last night, he started cursing when he saw that one of the hunters got 23,000 mana back from Replenishment and he only got 3,000! He was furious.
So why was he robbed of the buff?
Because he has 17,000 mana. The game AI decided he didn’t need the Replenishment ticks – because he had plenty of mana already. Better give it to someone else – like a hunter!
The moral of the story: don’t stack Intellect for Replenish/Replenishment, because there will come a point when it starts *preventing you* from getting mana back!
I laughed so hard.
Keevas last blog post..Blizzard announce three new "role" forums: Tanking, Healing, Damage Dealing
Very well written
YOu forgot one thing in your Intellect description.
Moonkins taking Furor (they all should) get 10% more Intellect (when in moonkin form). Just makes that stat more desirable for a moonkin
Thanks again
p.s. I’m a tailor and leatherworker too btw!! Flying carpets + shirts + bags + fur lining = yay!
This is an awesome post! Thank you for writing it Gray and Phae! I was actually just talking with some of my fellow guild druids about crit and haste.
And I am a tailor/enchanter (love to make the cloth stuff but hate wearing it at the same time)
Have a delicious day!
Cuspers last blog post..Leveling in Wrath: LeveL 80!
I believe you are slightly mistaken on the Haste vs. Crit. If you notice, the resto T7 has haste and the balance T7 has crit. This should very distinctly direct you to choose gear much like blizz intended. However, as a multi-speccing hybrid, I grab all I can get and wear the right set for the job.
Thanks for this
I’ve been beating my brains out trying to figure out whether I was supposed to take crit gear or haste gear, and this article definitely settled it for me. I’m a holy priest re-roll, so there is still a lot I need to learn about resto druids
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@Sevin
You made a comment that I see a lot on the forums and such. It seems to be a very common idea that Tier gear indicates how particular builds should gear. For example, Resto T7 has lots of haste so haste is a resto stat.
I have to say that this is 100% incorrect.
Tier gear is great, but it is not built perfectly for any spec of any class. If blizzard allowed me to design a set with the exact same itemization points and menthod I guarentee I could do better then that set. The reason is the stats on tier gear arn’t spread out enough and that causes more itemization cost.
Second, the fact that tier gear has a lot of Haste or Crit on it actually makes those stats less valuable in relative terms.
Third, what blizzard intends isn’t always right. There are plenty of examples where players have thought up new uses for spells that unbalance the game or make one ability more use full then another. What is important is the math, not what blizzard supposidly wants you to do.
graylos last blog post..Moonkin Consumables
AWESOME website you got going here + alot of valuable info, but dang! I didnt know everything gets so complicated and this is just about gear nevermind actually being as efficient as possible with the druid..
Well i hope your all happy for burning up the rest of my brain cells..
very nice post!!