Warning: This article is speculative (and maybe a little preparatory). It assumes that Wild Growth will be affected by Revitalize at the same rate (15% chance per tick) that Rejuvenation is. It is possible that Wild Growth will see a lower percent chance of proccing this effect, though I am excited at the possibility that it won’t.

As of Patch 3.1, the effects of Revitalize (simultaneously renamed from Replenish to avoid confusion with the Replenishment effect) will be able to proc from ticks of our 51-point group heal, Wild Growth. This substantially increases the effectiveness of the ability for a number of reasons:

• Wild Growth has seven ticks instead of the six of a talented Rejuvenation.
• These ticks occur every second instead of once every three seconds, making it less likely that they will go toward overheal and yielding a much higher rate of restoration.
• Wild Growth hits up to five targets at a time instead of one per spell cast.
• While justifying the use of Rejuvenation can sometimes be difficult, there are many cases where the use of Wild Growth makes sense.

In short, the returns go from looking rather shabby to looking OM-NOM-NOM-delectable. To update the values presented under the Rejuvenation discussion, we’ll look at the effects it can have on just one target, keeping in mind that it has the potential to hit five of assorted shapes and colors. We can use a modified 8.57 casts per target per minute (60/7-second duration) and 1.05 procs per cast (0.15 * 7) to arrive at an approximate average PPM of 9.0, three times that of Rejuvenation:

Mana cost per Wild Growth Cast = 643
Wild Growth Casts per Minute = 60 / 7 = 8.57
Avg. PPM per Target = 8.57 * 1.05 = 9.0
Mana Cost per Target per Minute = (643 * 8.57)/5 = 1102.102*

* Here I’ve divided the total cost by five targets to avoid overstating the mana cost per target.

We can then apply this new PPM value to our previous calculations by individual class:

Avg. Return per Minute _DK = 9 * 16 = 144 Runic Power/Minute
Avg. Return per Minute _Warrior = 9 * 4 = 36 Rage/Minute
Avg. Return per Minute _Rogue = 9 * 8 = 72 Energy/Minute

For mana users, the return is again based on total mana pool, using the higher PPM of 9 instead of 3.

Avg. Return per Minute _Paladin = 9 * 0.01 * MANA POOL

Keep in mind that the above returns are on a per mana-using target basis. Assuming you hit a group of well-geared spell casters with it, you could be looking at upwards of 600-700 MP5 for your raid, more than (indirectly) compensating you for the cost of casting the spell.

Summary

With such a potent regenerative tool in their arsenal, Restoration Druids may soon be counted among those players who can contribute significantly to the longevity (or throughput) of their raidmates (alongside Moonkin, Shamans of all flavors and Replenishment-providing Survival Hunters, Shadow Priests, and Retribution Paladins), and with the unique twist of restoring more than just mana. Such a change would go a long way toward accomplishing Blizzard’s stated intention to "offer [Replenishment] to additional classes, as well as make sure that existing sources of Replenishment are more equitable." And if you’re wondering if Blizzard would consider giving such a tool to a healing class, remember that Shamans provide Mana Tide Totem, and Paladins provide Blessing of Wisdom, each of which has the potential to overshadow Revitalize, given the number of targets they can effect and the relative ease with which they are maintained.

Dear Blizzard,

I promise not to (excessively) lord my Wild Growth over DPSers if you give it the same proc chance per tick as Rejuvenation.

All my love,
Phae

Related Posts

• Living Seed, Replenish, and Gift of the Earthmother
• Wild Growth … Grows a Pair *
• Ghostcrawler: Wild Growth May Receive 6-Second Cooldown

You may recall this snippet from my previous article, Living Seed, Replenish, and Gift of the Earthmother:

Unlike other talents that affect casting speed, the reductions from spell haste and GotEM are additive; both values are calculated off a 1.5 second global cooldown and are not applied in any particular order. This means it actually scales better than it would otherwise and, contrary to popular belief, does not scale inversely with haste. Nonetheless, plan to drop one or more points out of this talent as your haste increases.

With the release of Patch 3.08, this is no longer the case. Gift of the Earthmother has been changed so that it’s applied the same way other self-hasting talents are, representing a considerable nerf to its effectiveness. As a point of reference, you now need 655 haste rating (19.98%) to reach the same 1.0 sec GCD you could formerly reach with only 505 haste rating, assuming 5/5 Gift of the Earthmother.

We can adapt the formula provided by Zoltair of Korialstrasz (US) via Elitist Jerks to solve for the amount of haste needed to reach a 1.0 sec GCD at different points in GotEM:

Haste from Gear = (1.5 * (1 – GotEM%) / ((1 + WoAT%) * (1 + Aura%) * (1 + CF%))) – 1

You can use the following JavaScript-driven calculator to determine the necessary haste rating to reach a 1.0 second GCD based on the number of points you have invested in Gift of the Earthmother (and how useful your raidmates are):

Thanks to readers Zoltiar and Trellan of Ravencrest for the heads up on this change and to Zoltair of Korialstrasz (US) for the math!

Related Posts

• Living Seed, Replenish, and Gift of the Earthmother
• Impressions Solicited: Spell Haste
• Direct Healing in Wrath

Bornakk today released information on the changes to mana regeneration in Patch 3.1:

As we have suggested, we have become concerned that mana regeneration is currently too powerful, especially for healers. We want players to have to keep an eye on mana. We don’t want you to go out of mana every fight, but running out of mana should be a very real risk for sloppy playing or attempting content that you aren’t yet ready for. When mana regeneration is trivial then certain parts of the game break down – classes that offer Replenishment are devalued, stats that offer mana regeneration are devalued, and spells that are efficient are neglected in preference to spells with high throughput.
Here are a list of changes you are likely to see in 3.1. They will be available to try out on the PTR. Mana regeneration is somewhat technical, so please bear with us.

• Regeneration while not casting (outside of the “five second rule”) will be decreased. We think that (1) the ability to cast heal over time spells and then sit back and (2) benefitting from a clearcasting proc that also gets you out of the five second rule both provide too much mana regeneration, even over short time periods.
• To make this change, we are reducing mana regeneration granted by Spirit across the board. However we are also boosting the effects of talents such as Meditation that increase regeneration while casting. The net result should be that your regeneration while casting will stay about the same, but your not-casting regeneration will be reduced. This change will have little impact on dps casters, since they are basically always casting.
• The specific talents and abilities being boosted are: Arcane Meditation, Improved Spirit Tap, Intensity, Mage Armor, Meditation, Pyromaniac and Spirit Tap. Yes this makes these “mandatory” talents even more mandatory, if such a thing is possible.
• Since paladins rely less on Spirit as a mana-regeneration stat, we have to address them in other ways. We don’t want to change Illumination or Replenishment. However, we are going to increase the healing penalty on Divine Plea from 20% to 50%. Divine Plea was originally intended to help Protection and Retribution paladins stay full on mana. It should be a decision for Holy paladins, not something that is automatically used every cooldown.
• In addition, we are also changing the way Spiritual Attunement works. In situations with a large amount of outgoing raid damage, as well as in PvP, this passive ability was responsible for more mana regeneration than we would like. We want to keep the necessary benefit it grants to tanking Protection paladins, while making it less powerful for Holy paladins in PvP or raid encounters with a lot of group damage.
• We are also taking a close look at clearcasting procs themselves. One likely outcome is to change them to an Innervate-like surge of mana so that the net benefit is the same, but healers won’t shift to out-of-casting regeneration so often.
• We balance around the assumption that even 10-player groups have someone offering Replenishment. To make this even easier on players we are likely to offer this ability to additional classes, as well as make sure that existing sources of Replenishment are more equitable.
• These changes are ultimately being done to bring the different healing classes more in line with each other as well as to give the encounter team more leeway when designing encounters, who can balance with these new mana regeneration numbers in mind. In a world with infinite healer mana, the only way to challenge healers is with increasingly insane amount of raid damage, so that global cooldowns become the limiting factor since mana fails to be. An example is the Eredar Twins in late Sunwell. We weren’t necessarily happy with that model, and this change hopefully allows us to move towards giving healing a more deliberate and thoughtful pace rather than frenetic spam.

These are some pretty extreme changes. My initial impressions:

• The mention of heals over time and clearcasting procs (Omen of Clarity) in the first point makes me feel like this nerf is being directly targeted at Druids, though it will likely impact our Spiritual Sisters, the Priest, as well. Despite the Paladin nerfs, it may end up as a relative buff to Paladins (and possibly Shamans) who don’t rely upon Spirit.
• So much for learning to dance the 5SR dance. An across the board nerf to mana regeneration outside the Five Second Rule makes trying to time your heals and rotations less valuable.
• Intensity and Intensity-like effects are being buffed, but only to keep regeneration inside the Five Second Rule relatively equal to the current value. At the same time, mana regeneration across the board is being reduced. As a Druid, the value of Spirit was based largely upon its effect on Innervate. This represents a substantial nerf to Spirit and a corresponding buff to the value of Intellect since Replenishment is not being changed (to avoid devaluing the classes that provide it).
• Expect to see more Balance Druids pursuing 3/3 Intensity to make up for the nerf to mana regen within the 5SR.
• As Innervate multiplies out of combat regeneration, this may represent a substantial nerf. If they successfully handicap mana regeneration, we may see a lot more Druids using the [Glyph of Innervate] for the boost when used on themselves moreso than the benefit granted when conveyed to another. I hope that Innervate not being listed among the talents and abilities being boosted is simply an oversight.
• /mourn [Darkmoon Card: Blue Dragon] (Okay, okay. I know it’s two expansions old. But we had such good times together! /sniff)
• The nerf to clearcasting effects means Omen of Clarity will no longer help you get outside the 5SR, though the benefits for doing so are going to so greatly de-emphasized that I don’t really see why such a change is needed.
• This probably hurts Druids more than other healers because our go-to heal, Regrowth, is so much more mana intensive than that of other classes. Expect to take HPM (and therefore Nourish) into consideration in the future.
• The reduction in value of Spirit will cause Restoration Druids to purposefully seek out more cloth armor, possibly those items whose regeneration comes in the form of MP5. Here is the current breakdown of 0-Resilience, 0-hit rating epics with spell power:
  • 12 leather epics without Spirit
  • 45 leather epics with Spirit
  • 27 cloth epics without Spirit
  • 66 cloth epics with Spirit

  I’m sure non-Spirit cloth casters won’t be big fans of this aspect of the change.

Overall, these changes are terrible for Druids. Both Spirit and Innervate are taking a big hit in usefulness, Omen of Clarity is being nerfed for mana users, a popular (if outdated) trinket is being made obsolete, and no other stat is being made more attractive to us to compensate (hello, crit and haste, I still hate you).

Additional Restoration Changes in 3.1

You can view the full list of Druid (and lesser classes) changes here, but here are the ones that will affect Restoration:

• Thorns and Nature’s Grasp can be cast in Tree of Life form.
• Replenish – to avoid confusion, this talent has been renamed “Revitalize.” It now also works with Wild Growth.

For some reason, I thought we could already cast Nature’s Grasp in Tree of Life. That’s a nice buff for handling accidental PvE aggro (but too long of a cooldown to be much of an improvement in PvP). Huzzah for finally being able to cast Thorns in Tree of Life. And here I was expecting to have to wait until the Emerald Dream expansion! I hate the name “Revitalize,” but I’m thrilled to see it added to the splash HoT of Wild Growth. This change, combined with the overall nerf to mana regeneration should make it a more attractive 3-point investment.

Want impressions from other Druids in the blogosphere? Check these out:

• Kalon from ThinkTank
• Karthis from Of Teeth and Claws
• Keeva from Tree Bark Jacket
• Sydera from World of Matticus

P.S. Given the above, who thinks I need to rename Phaelia to something beginning with a “K”? Khaelia? Ew.

Related Posts

• Intensity to Become 30% Regen while Casting
• Blue: Mana Regen to be Updated or Redesigned
• Blue: Mana Regen Complexity and Restoration Scaling

As longtime players may recall, having enough mana regen to be effective once meant maintaining a careful balance of Spirit, MP5 (yes, even Druids once found this stat desirable), and/or spell crit (for our tin-plated brethren). Then along came Patch 2.4 with its complete revamp of the once easily understood mana regeneration formula. Intellect suddenly became a factor along with a coefficient that scaled inversely with level. They even threw a square root in there for good measure. With these changes, Intellect suddenly gained newfound import and many Druids and Priests found themselves with practically endless founts of mana once they reached at least middling TBC-level raid content.

With the release of Wrath, Blizzard attempted to de-trivialize mana regeneration by significantly decreasing the level-based coefficient from 0.009327 to 0.005575. Many players initially complained that they found mana regeneration a real struggle. Of course, this was before players had acquired much gear from Heroics or Naxxramas, and most quickly discovered that our mana regeneration was at least as manageable as it had been at the end of TBC. Exacerbating this issue, the Replenishment effect now provided by Shadow Priests, Retribution Paladins, and Survival Hunters made Intellect an incredibly desirable regeneration-based stat. As a result, many players can now significantly discount efficiency comparisions when deciding which spell to cast. Sound too good to be true? Blizzard thinks so, too:

We think mana regen is too trivial at the moment in PvE and just right or too difficult in PvP (depending on the class). Now part of that is because the content is easy. Part of it is because we’ve given players a lot of reasons to avoid having to worry about the FSR. Part of it is just generous talents (like Illumination). Part of it was the change to let Int scale regen to some degree. The whole package is something we’re looking at. Mana regen is supposed to be part of the game – you aren’t supposed to graduate out of it with enough gear.

We can probably assume that too-easy content won’t always be a factor, but what about the Five Second Rule? With the introduction of Lifebloom in TBC and its 1-2-3-4-5-6-CAST! mechanic, Restoration Druids didn’t really have the luxury of planning around the Five Second Rule. With the 3- and 1-second extensions provided by Nature’s Splendor and the optional [Glyph of Lifebloom] respectively, however, many Druids are once again able to steal a second or two of out-of-combat mana regeneration every now and again. Just look at how much you can do in one 10-second cycle and still get a “tick” of regeneration that’s outside the 5SR:

This is a lot more feasible (and a lot less tedious) than it would have been in TBC with 7-second Lifebloom and 2-4 tanks. While Priests have long been masters of taking advantage of the Five Second Rule, they aren’t limited as a Druid is by Lifebloom. The question is whether this type of micro-management would actually be enjoyable to the more time-constrained Druid. As Keeva highlights in her article Waxing Philosophic: Healer Squabbles, the amount of damage in an encounter is finite over time. This means that healers are essentially competing with one another to accomplish the same objective. Intentionally “opting out” of healing your raidmates for 5 out of every 10 seconds will do little to make you feel – or appear – useful.

Lhylee of Maelstrom (US) asks if it wouldn’t be simpler to scrap the whole idea of the Five Second Rule altogether and simplify the system across all healing classes:

Question: would not it be simpler for Devs, Class Designers and Boss Designers not to have to deal with the FSR, and rework the mana regen system and simplify it between healing classes? (I’ve never heard about a DPS class running oom anymore, as they did in Vanilla) Eventually change talents and values around it, and rework Spirit too to make it a more valuable stat for all classes? (why would warriors not put some Spirit to really boost their health regen?)

I find it interesting that Lhylee specifically says “healing classes” and not “mana-based classes.” The implication here is that mana regeneration being considered trivial is not necessarily an issue for DPS classes. The argument for this being the case generally centers around the idea that mana-based DPS needs to be able to compete with Energy-, Rage-, and Runic Power-based DPS, something that can’t happen if their DPS isn’t sustainable over long periods of time. Obviously, all healing classes are limited by mana.

Twiddling your thumbs waiting for your mana to regenerate while people fall around you (no doubt planning what bad words they’ll carve into your bark later) is frustrating. In TBC, healers could fall back upon Super Mana Potions, using them early and as often as possible to avoid falling into mana-starved, Lifebloom-maintenance-only mode. While I’m not saying I want to go back to chugging 3-4 mana potions per boss attempt, failing because I can’t sustain healing output isn’t fun. At the same time, it can be fun to plan your spell selection to avoid getting into a situation like the one described, and Druids have traditionally excelled in this area with our efficient heals over time.

On a separate thread entitled GC: Why should we be worried about mana?, Pointyend of Khaz Modan (US) asks about why mana management is considered so core to raid difficulty:

It’s challenging enough to be a healer just keeping people healed and watching all the GCDs.

Ghostcrawler responds:

I am sympathetic if you find healing too difficult. Many players do not and are clamoring for more of a challenge. There are many ways we challenge players in PvE, including complex encounters, short enrage timers and high damage. When mana management, or healing in general, are too easy then certain encounters become too easy. Furthermore, the game mechanics as designed don’t work — Spirit and mp5 become stats players aren’t interested in. Choosing efficiency vs. throughput is not a meaningful decision. Healers in general are marginalized because raids can get by with fewer of them.

[…]

We have structured the game in such a way that you can find a difficulty level you are comfortable with. Naxxramas is one of the easiest raids we have ever done. Malygos gets a little more difficult, and Sartharion with multiple drakes is fairly difficult. Going into the future we will keep adding even more challenging and hardcore encounters while still making sure players who just aren’t into that can still enter raids. The game has difficulty levels. If you are finding things so difficult that they aren’t fun then by definition you probably aren’t a cutting-edge raider. That’s cool. We want to make sure you still have plenty of interesting things you can do, even within a raiding environment.

Right now, it isn’t uncommon for a guild’s corps of 8-10 TBC healers to roll off for the 5-6 slots allotted to them in current content, and the problem only gets worse as a guild becomes more comfortable with the content in question. The seemingly obvious solution to this dilemma would be to increase the amount of damage done in a limited time frame so that you would need more healers to keep up with it. Huge, Hurtful Strike-esque hits to the tank run the risk of causing the raid to wipe to the RNG, leaving AoE splash damage the only alternative (that I can think of). However, Blizzard has stated they’re specifically trying to limit or reduce the amount of AoE healing necessary to avoid having to make all healers AoE-healing super stars (see also: Wild Growth, Circle of Healing, and [Glyph of Holy Light] nerfs).

While it’s not clear how to improve healer representation without nerfing mana regen, Replenishment seems to be an ability that may need to be nerfed because it scales so incredibly well. To quote Lhylee of Maelstrom (US) again:

Replenishment [returns] 0.25% of your max mana every second. So it is basically 1.25% of max mana as MP5 (easier to compare that way)

• Raid buffed, you can easily [reach] 22K mana in Naxx25
• 22,000 x 1.25 = 275 MP5 (315 MP5 at 25K mana) (scales)
• Improved BoW = 110 MP5 (fixed)
• Improved Mana Spring = 110 MP5 (group only) (fixed)

Replenishment is eclipsing other mana return effects so much so that boosting your mana pool through Intellect is frequently the preferred way to improve your mana regeneration. When asked about the strength of this ability, Ghostcrawler responded:

We consider Replenishment mandatory. What I mean by that is we assume that you have Replenishment available to your raid. It is technically possible to go without it, but you will need to overgear the instance or otherwise compensate for it in other ways.

That doesn’t mean we will or will not nerf Replenishment. But we don’t want it to feel optional (assuming you are in reasonably challenging content) and nerfing it too much might have that effect.

So it would appear that Replenishment is here to stay. That’s not a bad thing since it seems to be fulfilling its purpose of increasing the desirability of a couple of specs that sometimes had a hard time gaining legitimacy in TBC. Nonetheless, it needs its effectiveness toned down so that it stays in line with other similar effects.

And finally, I’d like to share this tidbit from the Why are priests considered a ‘hybrid’ class? thread:

I think you can make a good argument that the pendulum has swung back towards Spirit and away from MP5. I think long term the whole system is in need of an update or re-design, but this is not a 3.1 level task.

This is one of the reasons that I am not planning to revisit mana regeneration post-Wrath right now. I suspect/hope that the system that will replace our current one will:

• Make MP5 a more attractive stat to otherwise Spirit-based healers and/or make Spirit attractive to all mana users
• Make mana management an important part of healing to reward and encourage efficiency
• Simplify the mana regeneration formula so that gear comparisons are less tedious (and utilities like the 2.4 Mana Regen Calculator are unneeded)
• Co-incide with some or all of the healing overhaul

What are your opinions on the current state of mana regeneration? Do you think current content isn’t challenging because you have too much mana or that you have too much mana because the current content isn’t challenging?

Related Posts

• Blue: 3.1 Changes (Mana Regen and More)
• Intensity to Become 30% Regen while Casting
• Blue: Mana Regen Complexity and Restoration Scaling

Feldruid of Frostmane (US) writes in with the following question:

After some discussion with a guild-mate this morning regarding which Glyphs to use, I decided to check with the tree maven for advice.  Which glyphs do you recommend for a raiding level 80 tree?  Have you done any theory-crafting around which gives the most healing benefit?

This is actually a question I get asked a lot, and I haven’t responded to it publicly because several other blog authors have done such a great job tackling this subject (see also: Keeva of Tree Bark Jacket and Bellwether of 4 Haelz). I’d say that Resto Druids are mostly in agreement about prioritizing your Glyphs, but here’s a handy dandy flowchart to help you make the decision for yourself:

The [Glyph of Swiftmend] is non-optional. The [Glyph of Regrowth] is also considered pretty standard, though there’s a chance that a Nourish-oriented Glyph may surface that eclipses it in the future. How you fill your third Glyph slot depends on whether you have issues with mana; the [Glyph of Innervate] is a tremendous boost in this regard, but an additional second on Lifebloom from the [Glyph of Lifebloom] (representing more than a 10% increase to its HPM) is also pretty nice.

P.S. I apologize for my messy flowchart. It’s really hard to fit that many decisions into so narrow a horizontal space!

Related Posts

• Direct Healing in Wrath
• Mailbag: Preferred Tank
• Mailbag: Idol of the Raven Goddess