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Nourish to Benefit from Moonglow and Wild Growth HoT (and Blues)
Published on January 8, 2009 by Phaelia 
Blue, Patches, Spells and Talents 
39 Comments
According to the most recent patch notes, a couple of improvements to the oft-derided spell Nourish will go live with the next patch:
- Moonglow: This talent now also benefits Nourish.
- Nourish: Wild Growth applied to a target now increases the healing done by this spell by 20% like other heal over time effects.
This means that instead of spamming Regrowth as a raid heal, you’ll cast Wild Growth on the five raid members at lowest health (hopefully) and then apply Nourish to supplement the healing (WG will now grant a 20% throughput bonus). This not only gives Nourish a special niche (high HPM raid heal) but lessens the sting of the 6-second cooldown simultaneously being applied to Wild Growth. Also, it’s worth noting that, while Nourish remains the lowest option in terms of HPS, you’ll be using it on targets who are already getting healed over time by Wild Growth. A Regrowth bomb would likely just waste that HoT. I’m especially pleased about this new synergy and the idea that a Druid will “nourish” a “wild growth.”
Here are the revised HPM/HPS graphs for the new variations of Nourish. I’ll update the Direct Healing in Wrath article with these graphs (and updated observations) when these changes go live:
And, in case you missed them, here are all the other announced Druid-related changes in the upcoming patch:
- Aquatic Form is now available from druid trainers at level 16.
- Feral Attack Power: All weapons now have the potential to grant feral attack power based on their dps (as compared to the best superior-quality weapons available at level 60). Players will see their existing feral weapons grant roughly the same attack power as they did before (+/- 2 or so), but many new weapons will be options for the feral druid. Some feral weapons have had strength converted to attack power to be more appealing to other classes able to equip them. All druids will see the amount of feral attack power granted by an item in the item tooltip, if it grants any, but other players will not see that information.
- Remove Curse and Abolish Poison can now be used in Moonkin form.
- Genesis: Now works with Tranquility and Hurricane.
- Growl: Range increased to 30 yards.
- King of the Jungle – The Bear effect is now physical, and thus cannot be dispelled.
- Moonglow: This talent now also benefits Nourish.
- Nature’s Grace – Now also effects Revive.
- Nourish: Wild Growth applied to a target now increases the healing done by this spell by 20% like other heal over time effects.
- Polearms: Now trainable by Druids.
- Primal Tenacity: Now reduces the cost of Bear Form, Cat Form, and Dire Bear Form by 17/33/50% in addition to its previous effects.
- Protector of the Pack: No longer changes value based on party size.
- Savage Roar: The buff now persists outside of Cat Form but only provides its benefits while in Cat Form.
- Starfall: Instead of canceling shapeshifting, now cancels on shapeshifting into an animal form.
- Survival of the Fittest: This talent now grants 22/44/66% bonus armor in Bear Form and Dire Bear Form in addition to all of its previous effects.
- Swipe: Swipe (Cat) has now been added at level 71, dealing 260% weapon damage, costs 50 energy with no cooldown. All talents affecting the Bear Form version affect the Cat Form one as well.
- Wild Growth now has a 6 second cooldown.
- Bear Form: This ability will now grant the correct attack power per level for levels 71-80.
- Entangling Roots: When determining if a new Entangling Roots should overwrite an old one, and will now calculate the correct damage modifiers for the creature type of the target.
- Maim: Tooltip adjusted to match the duration the ability has always had.
- Opening: Opening doors and objects should no longer cause shapeshifted forms to be cancelled.
- Rake: The initial damage from this ability is now properly considered bleed damage, and will be increased by Mangle and Trauma.
- Savage Fury – Mangle (Bear) damage was being increased by a higher percentage than intended. This has been fixed, and in result Mangle (Bear) should see roughly a 16% damage reduction. Also fixed a bug with Savage Fury where the Rake bleed effect was not being increased.
- Starfall will no longer cause nearby creatures to become hostile for no apparent reason while the Druid is affected by fear effects. In addition, it will no longer pick ambient creatures as targets.
- Survival Instincts: The extra health from this ability now persists in all forms, but the ability can only be activated in Cat Form, Bear Form, or Dire Bear Form. This prevents the health gain from occurring multiple times if constantly shapeshifting.
- Swiftmend: Riptide will no longer cause this ability to light up, and this ability will no longer sometimes consume Earthliving off the target.
- Idol of the Emerald Queen: This idol was providing greater healing than implied by its tooltip. It has been reduced to correct value.
- Glyph of Rejuvenation: The heal from this glyph is now properly considered a periodic heal.
- Soul Preserver: This item will now interact correctly with Desperate Prayer, Lay on Hands, Riptide, and Wild Growth.
Boo at no longer being able to Swiftmend Bobo the Shaman’s Riptide!
Blue Tidbits
Responding to concerns from Priests that they’re not strong enough in PvE or PvP, Ghostcrawler made the following (much abbreviated) statement:
If your raid is stacked with Paladin healers your group healing will suffer. If your raid is stacked with Druid healers, your tank healing will suffer. If your raid is stacked with Priests, you won’t have any problems.
Um … what? Am I the only one who finds it alarming that developer opinion is that Druids aren’t good tank healers? Especially given that three (arguably four) out of five of our healing spells are designed for use on tanks? Lifebloom is too inefficient to use single-stacked, Rejuvenation generally heals too slowly to use as a raid heal and better serves as a buffer, Nourish works best on a target with one or more HoTs (and don’t even get me started on the 4-piece T7 set bonus), and Regrowth gets a 20% throughput bonus when used on a target who already has Regrowth (assuming the [Glyph of Regrowth], of course). With a 6-second cooldown on Wild Growth and 4-minute cooldown on Tranquility, we are definitely not specialized as raid healers. The changes to Nourish above will certainly help counteract the Wild Growth nerf, but I find it worrisome that a developer would make a statement that seemingly flies in the face of the spells and tools we’ve been given.
On a separate topic entitled It’s time for the silence mechanic to change, Ghostcrawler shared this bit of PvP-specific but encouraging news:
We are considering DR for silence effects.
Praise Elune! Am I the only one who’s tried trinketing out of a silence? Silence is nothing but a form of caster-specific crowd control and should have been subject to diminishing returns from the beginning.
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I am excited that BRK is back, though!
/cry I love you, ty for everything.
So the Idol of the Emerald Queen reduction implies that the Idol of Lush Life procs are correct? Or is Lush Life still broken?
Thanks for the update Phae, this is great!
@Charlotta: No specific confirmation, but I think the implication is that Lush Moss is working as intended. It’s just that Emerald Queen was OP.
Another note worth mentioning, two set bonuses are changing. The T7 2-piece bonus is now a reduction on the mana cost of Lifebloom (instead of Rejuv). As a Bloomaholic, I say yay! The Deadly Gladiator 4-piece bonus is also changed. It now shaves 2 sec off the Swiftmend cooldown instead of the Regrowth cast time reduction. I don’t gladiate so I have no idea if this’ll be a buff or a nerf.
Alameins last blog post..3.0.8 updates from 7 January
@Charlotta: I agree with what Alamein says in the it implies that Lush Moss is fine and Emerald Queen was OP. My problem with that is that with healing power rolling into spellpower at the same time as our many changes with the 3.0.2 patch it was hard for anyone to tell if the idol was indeed overpowered. As a result, we are essentially forced to spend fifteen Badges of Heroism on an item that appears to give around 30 more healing over the course of Lifebloom than we were used to receiving with Emerald Queen.
In the long run it doesn’t really matter. Fifteen badges are quick to farm, and most of us probably would have done it at some point anyway. It just feels wrong to upgrade from an item that many of us have had since 68-70 and see no real change in our healing.
Should be interesting to see the Nourish change. Still not sure I’ll ever really use it, though (maybe in 5 mans?).
Re: Diminish Returns on Silence…
Strangely enough, at one point Silence had Diminishing Returns on the PTR. This never made it live, because Blizzard apparently felt that it made healers too powerful. Considering what Resto Druids and Discipline Priests became during S3 and S4 (the two healing classes most resistant to Silence effects), I can maybe understand that thinking.
On the other hand, trying to do Arenas as a Holy Paladin was no more fun than self mutilation, specifically BECAUSE of Silence (and drains). I had more than a few matches where I spent the entire match either stunned, silenced, or interrupted. Those matches didn’t last long.
So… in the past DR effects on silence made healer too powerful. Now, healers are basically fodder in a DPS-man’s game. Maybe this is a bandaid? I can’t see it, though, since matches often don’t last long enough for any serious DRs to kick in.
Regarding GC’s point about druids as tank healers, I think what he’s saying is that you wouldn’t want only druids on tanks. You could manage most fights pretty easily with only paladin healers on your tanks (look at how well they do on Patchwerk). HoTs from druids make good health buffers on tanks since they take guaranteed damage, but they might run into difficulty if the tank takes consistent spike damage. At least, I think that’s where GC was coming from when he made that post.
> Aquatic Form is now available from druid trainers at level 16
So one more class specific quest chain is gone. BOO.
Oh god yes, DR on silences.
Tried to do 2v2 last night, fought a prot warrior/holy paladin. Prot warrior just sits on me (holy paladin), strips all my buffs (BoW, Seal) and silences me for something like 6 out of every 8 seconds
Beathoovens last blog post..Servers back up early, no patch in sight
“Polearms: now trainable by druids”
Tried to sneak that one in there didya?
You had me for a second. Visions of Vendorstrike raced through my head. Alas, tis but a cruel joke.
That comment about Druids not being good tank healers really worries me. With our HoTs + Nourish/Regrowth we should be perfectly fine tank healers, and that’s what we should be going back to doing after the WG nerf. So we’re not supposed to be doing AoE healing (saying that because they’re nerfing us in that department) and we’re not supposed to be good at tank healing (because of GC’s comment above)?
Yayaya! I went Resto just because of the animation on Nourish, and was terribly disappointed by the results of your previous post full of graphs and anti-nourish speak. This was a much needed improvement.
@Cata: No, Druids really are getting polearms in the next patch. I haven’t talked about it on R4L because there aren’t really any healing-oriented polearms to concern myself with.
The polearm change allows Feral Druids and Hunters to share weapons (I think there is a nice polearm in Naxx that is good for Cats). This is the outcome of the Feral Attack Power change made in the same patch. In short, Ferals now have more weapons to pick from. As do hunters and DKs, since our once Feral weapons will have “real stats” on them that they could use. This doesn’t mean they will be itemized correctly for other classes, but it allows Blizzard to do so in the future.
The horde Polearm trainer is in UC. Not sure where the alliance polearm trainer is located.
Thanks for always keeping us up-to-date Phae. Love the fact that I can get your blog through my work webfilter (shhhh!!!)!
Nourish: Wild Growth applied to a target now increases the healing done by this spell by 20% like other heal over time effects.
From the way I’m reading this the change will have no effect on the 4t7 bonus correct? It is just adding WG to the list of HoTs that trigger the 20% bonus to Nourish.
Has 4t7 gained any value now that Nourish is a more respectable raid heal with the more likely chance of a 20+% gain? Does this make respecing into Nourish more viable (at the expense of what talents, imp RG, NatPerf)?
One more question, how does the relationship between the Nourish bonus (20%) and the 4t7 additional HoT bonus (5% per) work? Is it additive (i.e. 20+5+5+5 = 35% bonus healing on a tank with full HoTs)?
@Arcaedus: 4T7 was always really good, if only as a boost to tank healing with Nourish. You are correct that it isn’t affected by the change to Wild Growth affecting the throughput of the spell, though. I believe the bonuses are additive as you suggest (that’s what the wording leads me to believe), but there’s no real way to know for sure without testing it.
Boo at loosing aquatic form quest
Those quests were to me what made being a druid really fun.
Riverwishs last blog post..Wishing on a star
Eh … I’m really not impressed. At all. I can see its use in situations where someone isn’t going to be taking constant damage, but I find that’s rarely the case anymore. If someone takes damage, good chance they’ll be taking it again in the future even if it’s random damage in a 25-man – that random damage is rarely single target, now. Maybe the next zones will change that. Compared to Regrowth, even though much of the HoT might be overheal, it still feels like at least two to three of the ticks go to use on most raid members I cast it on. I’ve got no way to prove that, of course :/ I’m just not able to think of many bosses that have sporadic enough damage that the target doesn’t have a good chance of being hit by it again in the next 15 seconds or so.
Nice for Patchwerk, I guess, depending on how one heals that fight.
If WG doesn’t happen to be on the targets already, casting it and then casting Nourish on a single target might very well be overwriten by another healer in a raid setting. Already lose 1.2 seconds on the incoming direct heal.
Though it is a lot more efficient, I don’t see it being enough. If I’ve got Wild Growth on someone, a heal over time, am I really that concerned with them taking spike damage? Probably not. I imagine Rejuvenation would be the more efficient spell to cast if you know you have time, but you know the numbers more than I do – it might not be. Is it worth casting Nourish only to have some of the Wild Growth go to overheal, or would another spell be a better fit?
If I am concerned with burst damage, I’m definitely not going to take the time to cast Wild Growth first. That’s a no-no. Yet … if I’m moderately concerned about burst damage on someone that’s already got a Wild Growth on them, that tells me the damage is likely consistent enough to use a Regrowth or Rejuvenation instead.
This is something that should have existed since Wrath went live. It’s a good addition, but it just doesn’t seem like I’ll be casting the spell more often than I have been. That’s just me, though, and I’m mainly concerned with 25-mans.
It’s another change that I see having greater benefits in 5s and 10s than in 25s. Very good chance someone already has a WG on them already if they suddenly need a burst heal in 5s or 10s. 25-man … not so much. I’m having issues thinking of times where a target would already be Wild Growthed and suddenly require quick healing as opposed to a Rejuvenation or Lifebloom.
As it is, all this change means to me is Nourish has a shot at being cast if a target already has Wild Growth on them and suddenly takes very infrequent burst damage. Again, great for 5s, good for 10s, not exactly breathtaking for 25s.
I admit I’d be more excited if mana was an issue for me at the moment.
I always love the graphs. Possibly too much…
I was reading the patch notes about the nourish buff the same way.
Phae, could you throw in a line there for Nourish on a tank with 4 HoTs AND Wild Growth, just for fun? I know its a rare chance that it would happen like that. But for times when you know the tank is about to take spike damage and you know you could use a boost, or the tank got the WG HoT because you healed the melee, it would be nice to know the ultimate power of nourish.
Aertimuss last blog post..1 Drake and Malygos Down!
Hmm.. They don’t mention fixing Soul Preserver with regards to Nourish. I hope they forgot! I have not innervated myself since i got that trinket.
I have to say that with accumulating experience in WOTLK I really am appreciating Nourish more. Its speed is its critical value – Regrowth is too slow and overheals if a flash of light lands first. Of course with a proper raid healing assignment this should not be happening, but we all know how this works.
With regards to the idols, I have to say I was never a fan of periodic LB idols. I preferred the Raven Goddess before it got bugged. Now I much prefer mana-saving trinkets for Rejuv or Regrowth. I mean, if you had a choice between +10 tick on LB and 30 mp5 (as I estimate Idol of Budding Life or Crescent Goddess – your choice depending on your style) – which item would you pick nowadays?
I agree with Nilianil, I don’t see this change making any difference on how often I cast Nourish. From what I can see, Nourish is just BARELY beating out Regrowth for HPM on that graph, and I assume that’s including 5 points in Tranquil Spirit? Weak. Very weak.
My current build doesn’t include that talent, because I don’t see a 10% mana cost reduction of spells I never cast to be worth 5 points. I never use Healing Touch except with Nature’s Swiftness, I only cast Nourish when my Soul Preserver proc is up, and Tranquility is an emergency button anyway and I might only cast it a few times in an entire Naxx run. How would Nourish compare against Regrowth without that 10% reduction?
It seems pretty ridiculous to me that I’d be spending 5 talent points just to make one spell I heal perfectly fine without be viable in some situations. I’d actually rather spend those points in Improved Tranquility, despite almost never using it, because when I DO use it, the fact that it’s completely threat-free allows me to use it without worrying about pulling aggro from adds and getting killed in the middle of channeling it.
Also, I agree that I can’t see a time I would ever Wild Growth and then Nourish individually. I’d either Wild Growth and let it tick, or hit them with Regrowth individually. I don’t even use Regrowth for its HoT portion, but it has an insanely long duration and continues to heal raid damage long after I’ve forgotten about it. It also lets me Swiftmend someone if they take a chunk of burst damage again later, which they almost certainly will. It’s nice in theory, but I can’t see myself ever using Wild Growth + Nourish.
Not impressed myself.
As someone previously stated, my Regrowths also often get effective ticks even if topping up people with the initial heal, and I’m not willing to put points in Tranquil Spirit when the difference is so small. Plus healing with Regrowths ability to crit (and proc Grace), the 20% bonus to multiple Regrowths and the option to swiftmend makes it better as a raidheal still in my book.
On a positive note, with the 6sec CD on WG, our manapools should feel way bigger, atleast for those of use who use it frequently today, (WG also gets 9% cheaper with the new Moonglow-effect). Also we might get more effective ticks of them considering priest nerf, unless more efficient raidhealing from palas/shamans evens it out.
Perhaps this has been addressed earlier…but what is the HPS and HPM for lifebloom as well in these graphs? I’m interested in how I could be stacking it for tanks and for raid (mostly raid since I already stack it for tanks anyway) if the 2 set bonus does change and perhaps in relation to mana conservation if Uldur does make it harder. I know it is very situational, but I’m just interested.
I don’t see why people are getting worked up about GC saying “If your raid is stacked with Druid healers, your tank healing will suffer”. If this isn’t the case for you, as in you can heal tanks just fine, then why worry about it? Afraid druids will become more of a raid healer in the future? It seems the devs think they fit the role of raid healer already, so if you can heal the tank as a said ‘raid healer’, why let his comment bother you? You should pat yourselves on the back, not get frustrated.
@Phaelia
“Silence is nothing but a form of caster-specific crowd control and should have been subject to diminishing returns from the beginning.”
The same holds true to immobilizing effects being melee-specific damage control. Also, silence hurts a lot of melee’ers. Many Death Knight abilities are spells (a lot more than it seems like, actually). Ever silence a ret paladin and watch him completely lose focus? What about a feral druid as he tried to heal or CC? Silence a warrior when you anticipate a fear bomb or a demo shout to uncover your rogue partner in 2v2. Enhancement shaman would be in the same boat as a ret paladin. Silencing them can completely throw them off. At least casters can still cast when immobilized. Melee’ers are extremely limited here. Warriors have nothing (unless they got ranged attacks from 71-80 that I don’t know about), rogues have next to nothing (also unless they got new things in WotLK), ret paladin have a couple abilities they can do from a distance, feral druids can’t really be immobilized, death knights have one offensive ability with a 30yd range (unless you talent into 30yd Icy Touch) though they can Death Grip and Chains of Ice you. Enhancement shaman can cast their elemental spells from quite a distance, but they’re typically pretty weak. What I do agree with you on, though, is that silence should’ve always had diminishing returns.
EDIT: My examples of silencing melee’ers are mere examples, not every scenario. There are many more ways silences can hurt these classes.
Interesting tidbit from MMO-Champion patch notes…
“Dreamwalker’s Regalia 2 piece bonus has been changed to reduce the mana cost of Lifebloom”
If true, I welcome this change wholeheartedly. Resto Druids have been asking for something like this in a glyph since the beta. Incorporating it into the 2T7 bonus is also fine since this has better utility then the Rejuv mana reduction.
- Flynx -
I briefly considered glyphing HT for raid, and Nourishing tanks. It seems dumb though to trade tank HPS for HPM, and raid HPM for HPS, especially paying a glyph for the privilege. Personally I just don’t want another bread and butter heal. RG is fast enough with NG, I’ll be sticking with that.
How much SP is needed for glyphed HT tank HPM to catch up with RG? I’ve hit 2600 with Illustration and raid buffs and I’m still wearing a couple of blues. I’d guess it could be worth using (for all targets) around 3500-4000.
WRT GC: We aren’t built around a big spell like HL/GH. The Nourish/RG tank buffs are merely to turn raidheals into something remotely able to compete with HL/GH, like an inverse HT glyph. GC was discussing priests so he didn’t belabour the distinction.
He may still have been wrong, saying tank healing would suffer, but I guess there must be some reason top guilds don’t run with 7 druids for 7 hot stacks on the MTs?
@Riverwish: No worries. GC has said that he believes the quest will remain — it simply won’t be required to acquire the form. I, too, really enjoyed that quest!
@Nilianil: I think you make some excellent points. Imagine, however, a scenario in which mana was actually a concern (something that is their goal). If you had to choose between a Regrowth and a Nourish when you suspected that the HoT portion of Regrowth might be mostly wasted, you might be more inclined to use the more efficient option. Still, you might be correct that this is not enough or not necessarily the direction they should have taken the spell. Thanks for giving me the additional food for thought.
@Aertimus: 4-HoTs seems very optimistic, but I will see what I can do and e-mail you the results.
@Fiord: I’m not aware of the bug to which you’re referring. Does Soul Preserver proc on every cast of Nourish or something? (And we’re in the same boat for idols. I’ve never liked the periodic LB ones.)
@Kiryn: You’re right. This comparison does include the effects of Tranquil Spirit (something I’m not necessarily willing to invest in). It would seem that Nourish isn’t as strong as I had thought. The Swiftmend consideration of a running Regrowth is also significant. Well, now I’m all depressed!
@Bettil: I imagine that many Druids will find themselves with tons of extra mana thanks to the cooldown addition. I think I’ve always been a little more conservative with my use of Wild Growth and am hoping I won’t notice the difference.
@Glass: These graphs are for direct heals only. I’ll be looking at Lifebloom vs. Rejuvenation vs. Regrowth in an upcoming article, though.
I don’t believe you’d ever want to raid heal with a single-stack Lifebloom in its current state, though the new 2-piece T7 set bonus might make a difference.
@Random: It’s very significant when a developer makes a statement that goes against the core design of your class. If they do not understand you and how you work, how can they correct deficiencies where they exist?
As for Silence and immobilizing effects, I’m under the impression that all immobilizing effects have had DR on them for some time. Well except maybe Spamstring which SHOULD but is typically used on casters to prevent them from getting range anyway. I think the definition of CC is sometimes conveniently narrow. If it keeps you from performing your character’s role, it’s a form of crowd control. Great point about DKs and Silence, though. That’s something I hadn’t though of.
@Flynx: Oh wow. Thank you for pointing that out. That will be a great improvement since we certainly cast Lifebloom more frequently than Rejuvenation.
@Aelinna: I agree that I wouldn’t want to sacrifice tank HPS. Our HPS buffer is the thing that defines as primarily a tank healer. I’m not sure what SP would be required – the updated spreadsheet is on my desktop system at home. But I’ll try to make a note to look for you later.
Phae – Nourish doesn’t consume the Soul Preserver’s effect, but it does give the -800 mana. It’s bugged to just chain cast free Nourishes for 15 seconds whenever it goes off
About immobilization … More and more abilities have been given to certain classes to get out of them. Improved Sprint. CloS. Shadowstep still works, though from what I understand it doesn’t break the root in the process. Heroic Leap. Warbringer (Prot’s pretty viable). Ret Paladins can dispel it themselves. Classes aren’t necessarily useless if they’re immobilized, either. Shaman can still nuke if he feels like it or shock if a target’s in range. There’s Deadly Throw, Heroic Throw… It’s not a lot, but it’s got nothing on what silence does to a caster, which not only kills their damage output but also kills their survivability. Lockouts are a little different, seeing as it’s only one school, but that’s almost the same thing for most casters that only use one of their schools. I guess that druid can moonfire when the counterspell hits~
(And those melees that can be silenced – well, they’re part caster after all, save warrior’s fear. Just because it can screw them up if timed perfectly doesn’t mean it’s anywhere near as decimating, for the most part)
I suppose I’m just annoyed that as BC and WotLK have come out I’ve seen more and more ways added to close the gap but almost no ways added to widen it.
But yes, the important thing about all this is that roots have DR and are removable by the PvP trinket. Silences should be the same.
Nourish affects Wild Growth! Nice~
Remember this is why I wanted the original name kept.
You could Nourish your Flourish! Now that’s something to embellish on!
Arra
@Phae -
I would expect some flames from readers of this blog, but before you flame, I want you to know I play a Restore Druid that have fully cleared every single content (except OS with 3/2 Drakes) in WOTLK, and I don’t play a priest. OK?
Given all things equal, in theory, the player skill/latency/raid buffs:
I echo the developer sentiment, it is true that priest is by far THE healing class of WOW. If you bring, in a typical 25man raid with 5/6 healers, half holy and half discipline priests – you will have absolutely no trouble what so ever. You have your COH priest, and your powerful discpline heal. Really its overwhelming.
I guess thats part of the rationale they are nerfing COH. Because as it stands now, Priests, owns.
Priest have renew, flash heals, big heals, shield, guardian spirit, COH, POM…etc etc. they bring a lot.
Where as druids generally excel in raid healing – still lag behind, not far, but still behind what a priest or a pally can output for single target heal.
HOWEVER,
In reality, we, at least I, do not play druid to be the most uber-awesome healer beat you on meter healer; I play druid because I like the class, the versatility, I like the lore, I like the branches, and I like bear.
If you wanna be pwn your face healer, roll a priest. Serious.
Of course, I will be happy to be proven wrong, that Druids is really that complete a healing class that I can say we are on par with priest. However, from my limited experience raiding, I cannot honestly say that with clear conscience.
Ok I smells incoming flame …. *HIDE* *POOF*
Flames? Well, maybe just because it almost sounds like you’re saying we’re just weak, and we’re not. Nope, we’re usually not the best option for tank healing, but focus just one or two of our GCDs every 10 seconds on a tank and those that are giving them the oomph-heals will love you for it.
Many priests are also having longevity problems at the moment, compared to the other healers, at least.
I’ve heard too many claims on who’s the best healer from various people to care anymore. It’s always relative to the particular guilds and players said person has played with. Myself and another druid almost always have #1 and #2 on effective healing by a large margin in our raids. Everyone in my guild says druids are overpowered. My friend’s guild has a shaman and paladin smoking the meters on another server – ask their members, and it’s not us trees that are overpowered.
“They just haven’t seen a good druid.”
So sayeth their shaman. Problem is, everyone says that about everyone else’s anecdotal evidence.
“Well, you just haven’t seen a good class_x (but, of course, I certainly have).”
I just don’t see the real point in bringing it up for the most part.
Honestly, unless you’re in one of the top 25 guilds on WoW or something like that, if you’re good, you’re an asset, and your officers probably know it. It’s not just number performance in raids that people should pay attention to. The end-all small differences that will determine what class is technically the best healer at the moment will only come into play at the very very top where everyone’s skill, computer, and latency is excellent. Let’s not forget it’s based on encounter design, too.
I am saying all things equal (skill/latency/buffs) as stated in my comments, in theory, priest will be the all rounder healer that will fit the bills.
This also echo what the developers think, which is why the developer made the comment in the first place.
I didn’t say we are weak, if you read, and I quote myself
“Where as druids generally excel in raid healing – still lag behind, not far, but still behind what a priest or a pally can output for single target heal.”
We are “NOT FAR” but priest does it better. Before you comment I ask that you read my post clearly.
I certainly didn’t write what I wrote because of some priest out-healed me, I myself can beat priest on meter as wells in raids.
However, I am saying, and again, all things equal, priest is still, the all-round healer that can replaces the other healers effectively in the current game design.
My point of bringing this up is in response on all ppl that react to the developer statement that if you bring all priests to a 25man raid, you’ll be fine and not gimping the raid, heal wise.
Can you clear 25man Naxx/OS/EoE with only pally healers, yeah you probably can.
Can you clear 25man Naxx/OS/EoE with only druid healers, I think you should be able to.
Can you clear 25man Naxx/OS/EoE with only priest healers, yes you can.
Difference is subtle.
My comment specifically to WG change to Nourish? It is unreliable.
WG heals random target; not designated. It is possible in a 25man raid that even if you spam WG 3 times, and there are few does not get the tick; the only person certain to get the WG tick, is the person you targeted when you click WG it seems.
As healers and raiders, we want to minimize randomness, yes? So personally I will still stick to reju / lifebloom / regrowth to my assigned heal targets).
Nourish will remains as flash heal sub 1.5seconds cast to patch dying raiders fast.
The change is welcome as a side bonus, but not a real buff imo.
Not a big fans of 4T7 bonus as well – in reality, except for dedicated tank healing which are mostly assigned to Pally/Priest, how often we find rolling more than 1 type of HOTs on raider? Very situational.
@jkong
And I think that’s the way it should be. I might argue that as healers Druids are over powered still, even under your analysis. The great advantage of the Druid as a class is that it can play all the roles (DPS, Healing, Tank) with just a respec. That flexibility has to come at a cost. If the Druid could be #1 tank, #1 healer, #1 DPS why would anyone play anything other than a Druid?
I always think of the Druid as “Jack of all trades, master of none.” And I think that’s the way it should be. If you want to be the best at any one role, roll another class. Don’t play a Druid.
@Daniel
Precisely my point
As I said, I play druid because it is versatile. And also entertain my 4yrs old daughter the fact that it can shape shift!! She will go, papa turn into bear, .. no no.. I want seal.. I want lion…. etc.
Priest, as the traditional role, much like cleric, has always been, primarily a healer – they excel and is strong in it. So be it.
I still love my tree. If I can borrow the site name, I am Resto4Life.
Do you take the fact that regrowth have near 70% (in raid condition)a chance to crit in your graphs? Personnaly, with this high crit probability and wtih a good template -0,5s on ne next cast, a very long hot (1K/tick)and a good swiftmend oportunity and the seed, i don’t think that i’ll spam nourish in the futur.
I only use nourish when my swiftmend, nature swiftness or nature grace are not ready. This situation is very rare.
I don’t understand some statement:
I can care every heal role on every encounter: tank healing on patchwerk, raid heal on thadius etc… I didn’t know a situation that a healer can care that the druid not (maybe it will be easier for a pal to heal a tank ok).
And we can be THE top healer on each event on LK (except horreb).
On my last Naxxramas with 6 healers, i made 24% of the heal, the priest behind made only 18%.
I play in a decent guilde witch clean every event of LK (Sartharion+3adds) etc… so i don’t think that our priest,sham or pal are lammers.
@Yonisos: In the above, Regrowth is assumed to have a 60% crit rate. The resulting reduced casting time from Nature’s Grace is also taken into account. All of this is described above.
@JKong: You can *definitely* borrow that phrase any time you want. =)
Thanks for the great analyses!
One clarification question – did you factor in Moonglow for the revised Nourish numbers?
@Likas: Yes, the reduced mana cost from Moonglow is included.