HoTs that crit would drastically change the way we view gear… if we could crit on each tick, resto druids would clamor for crit rating like it was the only stat that mattered in game. I doubt they’ll implement it any time soon, but it’s just interesting that Blizz is potentially toying with the idea.

Also – another interesting note about Living Seed… I have 3/3 talent points in it, and last run in Naxx 25, the total amount of my living seed counted for less than .5% of my overall healing. I’m wondering if I should take the three points I have there and put them in Imp. Regrowth for more crit with that… I don’t use the Glyph of Regrowth (If I did, I would have 5/5 Imp Regrowth – right now I have 0/5). I’m wondering if the extra healing due to more regrowth crits would do more effective healing than the little bit that I get with living seed. Besides, I’ve never healed a tank and then said to myself, “Self, I’m so glad you put those talent points there, because without Living Seed, this tank would be going down!” Yeah. No, not so much. However, I have sometimes thought “Man, I’m really glad that Regrowth just crit.”

Avernas last blog post..Naxxramas

Rejuv does show up on my overhealing meter for sure.

Regarding NOT stacking resto druids… We brought FOUR to Naxx 25 man this week and didn’t notice. I think the content is all so easy at this point, synergy hardly matters. We may be screwed come the next tier since we have so many druids, but right now I can’t wrap my head around people complaining about lack of ToL synergy.

@Kelerain: I am seeing living seed taking up a larger % of my healing too, especially on the MT. I no longer feel like it is completely worthless, but you still won’t see me stacking anything but spellpower and spirit. And since it had the proc bug in the beginning, I will ALWAYS call it “Seed of Suck”

@Mayfax and Phae: We have one druid in our guild who can top the healing meters with over 30% of his healing coming from rejuv. I don’t know how he does it, but it is his spell of choice and he makes it work. I on the other hand am still very LB heavy despite the nerfs.

Aertimuss last blog post..Why We Do the Thing We Do

@Anelf: Haha … well, in TBC my guild had about 10 MEELION Druids, several of whom were Resto. Luckily, many of them have found a new FOTM to play, but it’s no fun to lose your raid spot to someone new because there’s only one to be had.

@Myssidia: I’ve also been really pleased with the amount of feedback that we’ve gotten from developers lately, though I think they’re getting irritated with the frustration of PvPers and it’s starting to come through in their posts. Thank you for reading, the kind words, and for taking a moment to comment!

@Keeva: Just think of all those DPSers cajoled into playing healers in TBC only to discover they loved it and are now being forced to switch back to DPS to get into the raid. Oh, the humanity!

@Karthis: I don’t think Naxx is so challenging that healer balance has to be perfect. I think most people are worried about the more difficult content that’s sure to come. I sure would have liked to have been in that raid with 3 Resto Druids, though. Swiftmend city!

@Raaff: Rejuvenation is an excellent tank healing spell. However, it’s generally overwritten by smart heals or Paladin heals when used as a raid heal. If, in the situation you describe, the tank takes damage and you know the melee will too, there’s no reason not to use a 1 GCD Wild Growth instead of 5 GCD Rejuvenations. Precasting, however, might make the spell more useful. It’s something I’ll try. =)

@Graylo: It really seems like the new idols (for all specs) were more or less an afterthought. Essentially “just take these and make them a little better.” Which doesn’t make for very fun or entertaining upgrades.

@Mayfax: I’m a Tree of Life. I have a very crooked face, thank you. ^_^ I imagine that Rejuvenation could be very useful in the rare cases when you can predict who will be taking damage, know that the damage will be over an extended period of time (so the HoT can tick a few times), know they aren’t going to be grouped up together (otherwise, you’d just use Wild Growth), and all your other healers are fast asleep or passed out drunk (it still takes 3 seconds to do anything). I still love Rejuvenation as a tank heal, but it’s kinda bleh in my other experiences.

@Kelerain: 3-4% effective healing is actually really good. If I were seeing those numbers every time, I’d be hopping up and down! After all, Living Seed is not a new spell designed to comprise 20+% of your healing (a la Wild Growth) but a talent that augments an existing spell. You make a great point about how it’s REALLY useful when it does activate, and that’s definitely value that’s difficult to quantify.

@Kohana: I’m sorry that you got the impression that I’m looking for the “one” spell to cast. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even in TBC when many Druids were Lifebloom fiends, I was trying to mix as much Regrowth into my rotation as I could. Evaluating direct heals against one another does not mean that you would eschew rolling HoTs on your tanks. It simply means that, when it’s appropriate, you would know which of our direct heals is most effective or efficient. Knowing ahead of time which is better under which conditions makes split-second decision making that much easier.

@Aelinna: I’m in the same boat. In Wrath, one of the nicest things is longer-lasting HoTs for decreased tank maintenance (Rejuvenation and Regrowth both got 6 more seconds; Lifebloom got up to 3). The freedom to do other things has been wonderful, and I’m not sure I’d want to give that up for increased HPS.

@Kayeri: Most Druids base their haste goal on how much haste it will take to reach a 1.0 sec GCD with GotEM. I actually discuss this at varying numbers of points in the talent over here: http://www.resto4life.com/2009/01/05/living-seed-replenish-and-gift-of-the-earthmother/#gotem

Overall I think it’d be nice, providing we didn’t take a nerf elsewhere to compensate. I’m assuming haste would shorten the HOT duration but retain the same number of ticks.

Crit on hots – definitely would need a coeff nerf to balance. You can make the same “oh it’d only overheal” argument about spellpower, but you don’t see anyone turning that down. I prefer smooth to ribbed so, no crit on hots for me please.

Might make a neat talent; actually the resto tree would be more interesting if you could choose a hotcrit+LB stream or a hothaste+HT stream.

A tree’s arsenal has a large number of diverse spells: Wild Growth, Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Swiftmend, Nourish, Healing Touch, and even Natures Swiftness. The trick is not to find the one that performs best on average and then stick to it, but rather choose the most efficient one depending on the situation. Of course, the latter is more complex. You not only have to choose who to heal, but also what spell to use. And since situations can chance quite quickly, you have to repeat this about every 1.5 seconds the whole fight long – maybe the reason that people are still looking for the ‘one’. On the other hand, this opens the gap between good and not so good players. It requires experience and a lot of exercise to get this right – I am also still learning.

Hence, like some of the previous posters, I don’t agree at all with the general statements that Nourish is a terrible spell, and that Lifebloom and Rejuvenation are nerfed badly and awkward. Sure, there are situations when they are not the right choice, but there are others where they outperform everything else.

In my opinion, the same holds for the question whether to choose spell crit or haste – again, it depends – and both can be very useful. And even more, the same also holds for a number of talents.

I think it is important to become aware that there are now a lot of more options you can choose from where none of them is always superior to the others. I at least enjoy the diversity that there is neither the ‘one’ build, the ‘one’ stat, nor the ‘one’ spell. It seems that the designers have almost reached their goal here.