It also depends on the other players. If you PuG, and the tank has less than 20k HP and the dps doesn’t know how to move out of fire, you’ll be oom after every pull. My personal goal as a healer is to be able to heal any heroic, regardless of how bad the other players are. Yours may be different, perhaps you only care about running heroics with your guild of naxx 25 geared people. In that case BT gear might probably be sufficient for heroics. I PuG’ed _normal_ Azjol Nerub at 77 where the tank had barely 14k health, the dps didn’t know to move out of poison, focus fire or LOS the casters. I was oom after every boss, and completely oom after the last boss (innervated, potted etc). And my gear was high end BT gear.

@marus the reason mindflay scales with haste is because it’s channeled with a cast time.

@enq i healed the lower heroics just fine with my bt gear

@daniel i don’t think u should be healing

@Rensaelys when i started out doing the heroics i had to drink nearly every mob also, but the gear you get from heroics and raids makes it very easy. i only have to drink about twice in heroics now depending on how heavy a pull is

@Krythia azjol nerub was the first heroic i did with all my bt gear on… 0 deaths… easy instance

@jkong don’t be afraid to wear cloth

@Lorangiel: Druids really shouldn’t have been “stacking” MP5 in TBC, especially after the mana regeneration changes in Patch 2.4. Spirit and Intellect were just so much cheaper for a much better return.

@Zaira: I agree with your prioritization of spells and evaluation of Nourish.

@Nimiel: I haven’t had many problems in 5-man instances (even Heroics) with the exception of a couple of close calls or near wipes where I couldn’t sustain a large HPS throughput on my tank while keeping myself alive (the first boss in Heroic Strat). However, I definitely noticed the strain in 10-man Naxx. Then again, I remember having similar difficulty when I first entered Karazhan. I’m sure we’ll eventually grow into that level of play.

@JKong: Whenever someone says they can handle fights without running OOM, I don’t necessarily take that to mean “without Innervate.” I probably need my Innervate on about 50% of Heroic boss fights and am unashamed to use it! Maybe Nimiel does as well.

@Ermengol: I do suspect (hope?) that the undergeared entrance into Naxx was the source of your mana regen problems on Patchwerk. I’ve yet to step foot in Naxx, yet, but I don’t necessarily feel my gear is up to snuff as it should be, either. Must … level … leatherworking … erk!

@Geren: Welcome and thank you for commenting! Sorry I’ve been so late to respond to all of these. Moving points out of GotEM as your haste increase (involuntarily or otherwise) is not a bad idea. The problem is, I’m just not seeing anything I want and have only picked up GotEM to access Wild Growth. =/

@Gofurr: I’ve tried to like Nourish. If my tank is in trouble and taking too much steady damage, spamming Regrowth seems about twice as effective and gives me a decent chance to “catch up.” Whereas Nourish hardly makes a dent. Phooey, I say!

@Amradorn: Grats on your two Earthgiving pieces. I’m sort of holding out on buying them because I know I can eventually craft them for skillups.

@Akia: Sorry about the commenting trouble. Hopefully it’s cleared up now!

@Krythia: *Ahem*

@Aureai: It sounds like you may be overvaluing Spirit relative to Intellect. Remember that the addition of Replenishment has shifted the scales more toward Int again. So, while you should pick up the gear option that includes Spirit (these generally also come with Intellect), try not to gem/enchant PURELY for Spirit. Pick up a few of the +16 Intellect blue gems, too!

@Jtmaxis: I’ve just recently acquired the Innervate glyph and so far really like it. It’s a very “passive” effect, though: much less flashy than glyphs that increase the duration of Lifebloom or boost your Regrowth direct heal. Still, I think it will be a must-have for introductory raiding while our mana regeneration is still catching up.

@Heike: Avoid Mp5. Stick with Intellect and Spirit. You should still get more bang for your buck.

@Enth: I am not entirely opposed to mana conservation being a core issue for healing. I agree that it does make things more interesting than simply who can AoE heal the quickest (OOC procs, as you mention, are particularly engaging). I just hope that some of the mana shortages I’ve heard about are the result of undergearing and not an endemic problem with increased costs and reduced mana regen. It’s certainly no fun to twiddle your thumbs waiting for enough mana to Lifebloom. ^^

@Sydera: That’s definitely a downside of a loot council I wouldn’t have normally considered. At least with DKP, you can determine for yourself if it’s worth spending your efforts on! I imagine that waiting behind everyone else would get very frustrating very quickly.

@Rensaelys: I’m relieved to hear that you were able to overcome your initial struggles with mana. Maybe that’s something we can all look forward to!

@JKong: 9 bosses in 4 hours is awesome! Well, I’m quite impressed anyway. Grats! I’m not sure why everyone keeps saying they want MP5? I was under the impression that Spirit/Intellect are still better, but I guess I need to crunch the numbers to make sure I’m not crazy. ^^

@Mârus: I agree that rolling LB on 4-5 targets was not only unintended but really, really sucked. My butt cheeks got numb from rocking back and forth trying to keep the rhythm going. Which was probably more than you needed to know, but …

No, HoTs don’t tick faster with haste. The only effect haste has is to reduce the GCD on our insta-cast HoTs and to make Regrowth cast faster. I would love if haste affected HoTs by increasing their HPS as you describe.

@Daniel: Players shouldn’t win all the time, but *I* should! Ha! Just kidding … mostly.

@Enq: Good explanation of mana regeneration scaling. Thank you.

I don’t understand a lot of the QQ about healers. I understand that everyone has has different game playing styles and that’s OK. But I don’t think its realistic for Bliz to accommodate them all.

(1) I don’t agree that healing is all about consistency. To me, one of the great joys of playing a druid is that *luck* plays a significant role in what we do. I like that.

(2) If the party wipes, it wipes. Players shouldn’t win all the time. If they do, where’s the challenge? It just seems like masturbation to me.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with Druid healing. I just think there is a lot of unrealistic expectations out there.

Well my mana regen is now at something like 1200 and i think 400 or 500 raid buffed. Thats insane. Getting outside the 5 second rule is mandatory. especially since our HoTs run longer now and manaregen is not ticking anymore but running in “real time”.

And i mean rolling liveblooms on 5 or now even more targets for a full fight wasn’t exactly what the developers intended i guess. I mean you could practically guarantee no one is dying by having 1000 hps on everybody all the time.^^

But i share your view on equip. Haste is not the statt we desire yet there is no alternative. Everything with spirit on it has either haste or crit. Or hit rating…which obviously isn’t really helpfull for healers.^^

But…don’t our HoTs benefit from haste rating? Don’t they tick faster? Thats whats supposed to happen to DoTs, isn’t it? Only there were a few bugs. Mindflay for example.

If they could find a way of haste rating making our HoTs tick through faster…that might make sense. More HPS. Probably it needs to be toned down by a factor because otherwise it would be to strong.

We ran with 2 healers, both TREES!! yay us. Unbuffed I have 15xx+ healing with 7xx (247mp5). Both trees shared the healing 50/50 throughout the raid which is great stuff.

But I had to innervate myself in boss fights, sadly, I find mana regeneration is still the problem in my current build/gears.

I lament on Blizzard’s poor choice of gear itemization for druid. I mean do you realise there is ZERO MP5 leather gears in Naxx (normal), and for the 29 pieces of gears with spirit, 6 items are with hit rating?

I am in a dillema what to get, MP5 (which means I wear cloth) or spirit (means I will be making enemy with a lot of warlocks). sigh whine whine whine.

Am I alone here feeling as such? Blizzard truly screwed resto gears badly this time around imo.

I healed my very first heroics right before the raid. Occulus and Pinnacle in my level 70 raiding gear (which was a mix of QD badge gear, MH and BT gear, with only two pieces of T7). My mana regen was through the floor. I had to drink after every single fight, even trash, and for the first week of raiding, I had to innervate myself constantly. After three weeks, I am loving it. I almost never go OOM anymore and my style of healing competes decently with our very talented raid CoH healers. Healing heroics now is laughable and I have found that Nourish is an excellent spell if a stack of full HoTs (LBx3, Rejuv, Regrowth & WG) isn’t quite topping off a tank that may be undergeared. After all, people are still getting gear, so not every tank is going to be optimal for heroics. That’s why we help them get there.

All in all, I’m pretty comfortable right now with where my healing stands in comparison to other classes. Culling of Strat is currently my favorite heroic just because of how absolutely resto Druid friendly the instance is in terms of mobile healing and the bosses. I suppose, ultimately, that time will tell how well our healing scales in comparison to other healing classes, but for now, I’m happy. And for people who say WG isn’t all that great… What? Really? You’re doing it wrong. And if you really feel it isn’t healing enough, do what I do. Consider the damage your party is taking, and once the tank is smothered in HoTs, drop a WG on your party followed up with individual LBs or rejuvs dependent on the amount of damage they may be receiving.

Maybe I’m just spoiled because I no longer really have mana problems, but I’m certainly living it up right now.

-Rensaelys of Dark Iron