@Norain: I’m not raiding yet, but for healing 5-mans at least, it’s Lifebloom + Rejuv then see if I get an OOC proc for a Regrowth. If not, I’ll stack another Lifebloom or two hoping for a free Regrowth. Any additional OOC procs while Regrowth is already up (and assuming none of my groupmates need a burst of healing) get spent on Wild Growth. I am really, really enjoying the level of strategy that OOC for heals introduces and have been surprised at how much fun it is to manage.

@Kitsu: Blizzard has acknowledged that Wild Growth is less of a problem than Circle of Healing, I think more because of it’s HoT component than it’s sometimes silly AI. I’m hopeful this means that if they DO nerf CoH, that the nerf applied to WG won’t be as signficant.

@Tarqon: I agree that Lifebloom and Chain Heal have different mechanics. Lifebloom is more difficult to use than Chain Heal but it was nerfed because of characteristics that the two spells have in common. And I hope that most Druids are already sinking 14 points into Balance. The stuff at the bottom (top?) of the Resto tree really sucks in comparison. It’s kind of sad that I’m more excited about the stuff in Balance than the top of my healing tree.

@Tielong: As much as I hesitate to admit (hopefully Blizzard doesn’t see this), WG does seem perhaps a little too inexpensive at around the same cost as Regrowth. Of course, I prefer to think that Regrowth is simply too expensive. *sniff* ^^

@Kohana: I really like the idea of giving WG a bonus based on the presence of HoTs, though cutting its amount healing done otherwise in half would make the spell as worthless as it was when no one was speccing for it. Perhaps a more modest reduction would serve the same purpose while still encouraging people to pick it up.

@Amorino and Luka: I certainly don’t mind that you disagree. Blizzard seems to think, however, that people won’t be able to continue spamming these spells (or there won’t be enough raid-wide damage to justify doing so) at level 80 raid content. I do think that WG being the best choice for all situations would lead to some VERY boring raiding and that something needs to be done to encourage switching things up, I just don’t think we know enough yet to say whether this is the case. I think we’re pretty much on the same page, though.

@Karthis: In my mind, if AOE heals are too desirable in Naxxramas, then Naxxramas needs to have its raid-wide damage reduced. Because watching a 6-second cooldown over and over is not very fun, either. From the link you’ve shared (thanks, by the way), it looks like they agree. If it isn’t necessary to spam WG/CoH every six seconds, it won’t be done. But I don’t relish the idea of content that makes me want to, either.

@Zamir: Since it doesn’t sound like you’re relying heavily on Wild Growth right now, you probably won’t be affected as much by this change. Maybe that’s a good thing!

@Sydera: Well, I think the maximum performance “rotation” (I use quotes because “rotation” is a term I’ve not heard applied to healing until very recently) is going to depend upon the role you wish to fulfill. It’s definitely something I wish to explore in an updated version of my direct heals post, hopefully some time after Turkey Day.

@Jezabell: While I think that there is likely a correlation between WG spammers and the former LB spammers, Lifebloom was never capable of putting out the numbers that WG can AND it took a lot more effort and tedium, so I can understand the concern if the spell were to become the end-all, be-all spell of Druid healing (which seems unlikely given its HoT component).

@Sophi: Keep the faith (in Elune).

@Kwast: Well, look on the bright side. Since you weren’t abusing it by spamming it, you may not notice the 6-second cooldown. Now, if they simultaneously decide to adjust the amount healed or the mana cost … =/

@Nianal: Do they show good movies on TV?

@Andrige: Thank you, sir!

@Cellere: I LOLed. OM NOM NOM!

@Drun: I do sometimes wonder why they don’t want Shamans to have more spells in their healing arsenal. I would be even more bored pressing Chain Heal 90% of the time than I was rotating Lifebloom on 3-4 targets (if not quite as spastic).

@Leyati: Unfortunately, healers have to compare themselves to each other as this the exact comparison that raid leaders are making when deciding upon raid composition. Maybe Shamans really were losing out too much on their desirability because of the potency of CoH/WG, but it sounds like it was the silly Priests complaining that might lead to this change. ^^

@Arranum: NoooOooooOOoo… come back! Take a picture for Turkey Day first, of course, but come back after!

@Wiz: Unless your raid is spread out into 5 clumps of 5 people, I don’t think that throwing it out 5 times isn’t going to accomplish what you describe (giving a raid-wide health “buffer”). Maybe I’m misunderstanding your description, though.

@Marus: Welcome to the site, and thank you for commenting! The problem with increasing the mana cost of Wild Growth could end up being that Druids would simply opt to stack mana regeneration over everything else. Because they would have to sacrifice other stats (such as spell power) to do this, it would tend to exacerbate the problem since our other, non WG spells would be even less effective. (P.S. It’s certainly not bad manners to respond to others’ comments. )

@JKong: Thanks for commenting. Regarding your inquiry as to whether this is based solely on pre-WotLK content, it sounds like it was a decision based at least partially on what they saw on the beta servers for Naxx-level raiding.

@Gwynn and Arielore: I have nothing to add but that I agree with your assessment!

@Stillsong: Congratulations (belatedly) on your kill of Archie!

@Rosiline: It really isn’t very fun to be given lots of neat new toys (the GotEM change where it lost it’s mana reduction component, for instance) and then having them taken away. Such is often the nature of beta, however.

@Dimtauren: While I like your idea for the unseen, fifth frame of the comic, I don’t think I want to be that morbid. A tree chopped in half was bad enough!

@Sharlot: Interesting point about how much the tanks are suffering from AoE-frenzy!

@Tebh: Resto4Life/Resto2Death?

@Theother: I’ve heard next to nothing about playing a Disc Priest as a healer so far, though I did see a lot of hopping up and down and demands for viability in the beta …

@Eggo: It honestly sounds like Blizzard is beginning to worry about the number of spells available for healing. The problem is that we all feel shorted if we DON’T get a few new toys with each expansion. But this leads to situations like the introduction of Nourish, a spell that fulfills a role too similar to that of other spells already in our arsenal.

@Yggdrasil: ““We want you to work twice as hard to do half as much as the Shaman who is hitting 1 button almost constantly”.”

And there, in my mind, is the crux of the problem. Is it really fair for Shamans to do as much effective healing as everyone else with considerably less effort? It doesn’t seem fair. Which is why I’d like to see diversity of skills provided to all healers. On the other hand, it’s possible that the people who were attracted to Shamans in the first place enjoyed that playstyle (much as Druid healers love their HoTs), so is it really fair to change it considerably?

@Vandenite: I’m not sure that I think a 6-second cooldown on Wild Growth would necessarily ruin the spell, especially since it sounds like you’re using it intelligently (re: not spamming it). I’m more irritated by the fact that a nerf to Priests requested by Priests will likely end up falling over onto us as a result.

@Wise Fox: Wow … I thought MY dreams were weird! Ghostcrawler Gumbo, anyone?

@Lemesca: Thank you for commenting! Since I’m in a guild that’s a bit further behind on the progression curve, being left out of raids has never been much of a concern before. But I understand that it’s been a serious issue at SWP-level progression where AoE is king. You’re right that neither Lifebloom or Rejuvenation are good choices for raid heals. I suppose that our best option for raid healing (other than a CD WG) will come down to that which is most sustainable but has a low enough casting time that it isn’t simply irrelevant given all the smart healing bouncing around. Sounds like a job for Excel to me!

@Meanderingmind: Thank you for weighing in with your dual perspective. Much appreciated. We most certainly CAN be friends and, in fact, several of my best in game friends are Shamans. (I know so because I’m the one who dabs at the drool on their chins during 25-man raids — KIDDING!)

I am very, very glad to hear that the Shaman’s healing repertoire is being expanded, though I suspect many would say the same thing about Druids and their lessened ability to rely almost exclusively upon Lifebloom. Re: Your point #3, it is true that Shamans have not been hit by nerf after nerf the way that Shamans have. Corrections to bugs and needed improvements are very different than nerfs, after all. All-in-all, though, you make some good points, and I certainly don’t want to promote cross-class hate with what was intended to be a humorous and lighthearted comic.

I’d like to dispel several misconceptions about Resto Shamans I’m seeing repeated here on a regular basis.

1. Chain Heal is brainless. This is incorrect, Chain Heal *was* brainless. In the Burning Crusade a Resto Shaman could indefinitely spam downranked Chain Heals without any thought or care so long as they could reasonably aim at clumps of people. However the removal of downranking, the preeminence of Spirit, and the high base mana of Shamans (highest of any healing class) mean that mana costs prohibit this brainless practice in Wrath of the Lich King.

Chain Heal remains the Shaman’s staple, but around it are built a number of mechanics vital to how a Resto Shaman functions. Riptide is a direct heal/HoT hybrid that also increases the effectiveness of Chain Heal. Tidal Waves, a significant boost to Healing Wave and Lesser Healing Wave, will proc only off of Chain Heal and Riptide. Earthliving Weapon is boosted greatly by being able to proc off of each jump of Chain Heal.

Chain Heal has been set into the earth as the foundation of Shaman healing. In the same way that Druids became extremely alarmed at only *the thought* of moving away from HoTs for more direct heals, pushing aside Chain Heal would be an ideological and mechanical nightmare.

2. Blizzard is applying a double standard with Shamans and Druids. This is also inaccurate. Blizzard is treating Druids and Shamans differently, yes, but the difference isn’t favoritism or malice but a fundamental necessity when dealing with utterly different healing classes. What Chain Heal means to Shamans is entirely different from what Wild Growth means to Druids. Because of that, Blizzard can’t treat them in the same manner.

So yes, Blizzard is acting differently toward Shamans and Druids, the same way you play a guitar or a piano in different ways. Complaining about how Blizzard is nerfing the Druid’s A key while leaving the Guitar’s A string untouched is, more often than not, overlooking the fundamentally different roles they play.

3. Druids have been continually nerfed, while Shaman have it good. This is most exemplified by the comic which, while humorous, is entirely inaccurate. From the outset of the beta Shaman were greeted with a 51 point talent that didn’t work, couldn’t possibly be balanced, and wasn’t fixed until Blizzard was well into wrapping up before the expansion’s release. Riptide, the replacement for Spirit Link, won’t even have proper graphics/effects until the first content patch. Many other talents were in similar straights. Tidal Waves was bugged through most of the Beta and ineffective, so too was Ancestral Awakening. In fact, the state and future of the Resto Shaman was precariously up in the air for more than the first half of the Beta.

Druids, on the other hand, have had their own rollercoaster ride, but nothing nearly as frightening. When Wild Growth (then Flourish) was nerfed Druids grumbled but shifted points to Balance where useful talents were waiting for them. At worst the new Restoration talents were lackluster. While another potential nerf to Wild Growth nerf is saddening, Blizzard streamlined all the Balance points for us, buffed a number of our talents, and generally made us excellent healers. We, Resto Druids, never worried about our viability so much as whether a mechanic we liked was going to shape up to be important. Resto Shaman spent the majority of the Beta wondering if they were worth bringing even for their Bloodlust buffs, struggling with their mana issues, and faced with obsolescence in the face of their peers.

To some extent I exaggerate the differences, but given the demographics here I felt it was necessary to illustrate my point. Simply put: Resto Shaman are a different class with their own problems, and complaining about Chain Heal without acknowledging the issues they face is disingenuous.

MeanderingMinds last blog post..WRATH

I usually get taken into raid as a raid healer as we already have another resto druid who takes care of tanks. I already feel like resto druids were so limited in terms of the numbers taken to raids, a cooldown on our ‘effective’ raiding spell doesn’t really seem to help with that at all.

At first I was able to use lifebloom on people who were being hit, and if the damage continued I’d follow with a rejuv/regrowth and maybe a swiftmend while at the same time trying my best to maintain HoTs on the tank. Now with the bloom nerf, that is the spell that makes the least sense to use as a raid heal as I’d run out of mana so incredibly quickly.

What are my options?

Raid heal with Rejuv? It ticks after 3 seconds, how is that effective at all?

Regrowth, continuous spam on it? Is that the best I can do? In the time I heal one person a shaman can almost heal 3 people. I’ll agree, it can be fairly efficient at times.

Swiftmend. Sure, that’s highly effective, every 15 seconds or 13 seconds (as of now with some T6 gear). What would I do for the other 15?

Use a healing touch flash heal constantly? Yes, I’d better have innervate ready and be ready to run out of mana quickly.

So seriously, using Wild Growth without a cooldown can be effective. If you just sit there and spam it on people, yes, you’re probably doing something wrong. Druid healing consists of using all their tools. Yes, on certain fights where people are forced to settle in different groups, Wild Growth may seem effective, but really, its not the only thing we have.

I’m just so concerned that blizz is now managing to take away every single one of my efficient buffering raid heals. What would be the point of taking a second resto druid to a raid at all?!?

Until I see an improvement in our other HoTs, I just see us as a very limited class (and I hate saying that, I love being a resto druid).

That is hilarious… but at the same time I hate the fact that Wild Growth is getting a 6 sec cooldown… Its a HoT… therefor it should not get one… bah!

Cuspers last blog post..WOLK – Thursday Nov 13th Release!

I had a dream early this morning that I was a crab, in a stadium of crabs. Ghostcrawler was on the podium talking about healing touch being druids new heal as everything else was nerfed. All the other crabs where cheering and they had been hand picked to be there as they would not complain. I walked sideways up the podium to say no! lifebloom and regrowth where the way forward and another crab walked up before me and started giving a speach on healing touch, in his experience, being the best heal.

The healing touch idol dropped in kara for me a few days ago, maybe it is a sign?

Wise Foxs last blog post..EXPLORER!

Wild growth has its use in main tank healing too! When I am main tank healing on nasty boss, for example, 4th boss of MH.. (Azgalor? or Azrogal? lol I always confused with the name)… anyway on the 4th boss which silent, I typically stack 3 Lifebloom, put Reju, put Regrowth, refresh lifebloom, wild growth.

Doing so, put 4 HOTs on the Main Tank at a time, and it makes the silence part of the fight more trivial.

I do so on every single boss that hits hard and requires that much buffer.

I really feel Wild Growth is a good thing, nerfing it… it just make me a sad tree.

@Vandenite
“So why is Blizz taking it upon themselves to ruin a great heal spell in the effort to make bad healers better healers and making good healers have more problems?”
Aye, exactly. Who are Blizz to tell me how to heal? If they want to, tho, they should go ahead and make a guide on how to perform so we get it straight. Not throw a spell expecting X results and changing everything so they get their Y results. This is not a new problem, AoE heals that is. And we certainly have healed without it. Just.. taking away a whole new role for druids hurts.

Ive been fighting for some healer changes since bwl when I played a priest. I’m just sad that with all the money wow generates and all the feed back we give they still say here is another healing spell put it on your bar. The game play hasn’t changed. What reward or risk do we have when we push a button in wow?

When I heal I don’t feel like I’m making a huge impact in a fight. When a spell lands I’m not say over vent ecstatically that I healed for 7000 because no one really cares. Plus I’m to busy looking at small bars change color to notice the amount it healed for. And none of this is new it was like that in MC all the way to BT. Hell I still use the same healing add-on for the most part.

Now don’t get me wrong I do like wow and healing in it. I just expect a bit more innovation out of blizzard. Dual speccing will be nice but it nothing more then a free repec when you think about it and we have been asking for that for year or two now. With the generalization of all the healing classes It would be nice to see some uniqueness come back into the game.

Not all druids spam WG because it not an effective heal to spam. The people that actually analyze the situation and use the appropriate heal know this simple fact.

So why should a great heal be nerfed just because there are druids that do spam WG while not really thinking about what they are doing? When players like this participate in a raid, the raid pretty much fails due to wipes. You can’t keep a raid up with WG no matter how many times you push the button. Putting a 6 second CD on it totally defeats its usefulness. Groups are spread out and they all take damage at the same time, they need to be healed quickly and 6 seconds can pretty much mean certain doom.

So what to do? I tell the healers that I see spamming CoH and WG in raids that they aren’t really helping. The numbers speak the truth of this. During raids I take a close look at the recount data to see what is going on. If the raid is having problems not staying up and the tactical is correct, it’s most often the fault of poorly chosen heals. Correcting the problem during the raid is your only option.

So why is Blizz taking it upon themselves to ruin a great heal spell in the effort to make bad healers better healers and making good healers have more problems? WotLK raids will definitely be more difficult to those that cannot play their class. Catering to whiners and complainers with a completely flawed solution is not the answer here. The solution for those that spam WG: learn to heal and stop holding your raid/group back because you can’t make effective healing decisions in the heat of action.

Bliz, leave well enough alone with WG and move on.