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

Wrath of the Lich King included many changes to the Druid class, including some very positive changes to the Restoration and Balance trees. Talents such as Nature’s Focus and Improved Mark of the Wild were reduced from a cost of 5-points to 3 and 2 points respectively, and fun abilities such as Omen of Clarity, Nature’s Grace, and Nature’s Grasp were made a lot more accessible. In particular, I consider the 14 points in Balance for Genesis, Moonglow, Nature’s Majesty, Nature’s Grace, and Nature’s Splendor to be staples of the healing Druid’s specialization.

In addition to the obvious care and attention that was given to “pruning” our early talent trees, we were given 4 new abilities at the bottom of the Restoration tree to give us something to spend points on leading up to our 51-point talent, Wild Growth. Today, I’d like to take a look at three of these abilities: Living Seed, Revitalize, and Gift of the Earthmother.

Continue reading ‘Living Seed, Replenish, and Gift of the Earthmother’…

Related Posts

• Speculation: Revitalize and Wild Growth
• Gift of the Nerfmother
• Direct Healing in Wrath

If the post title seems familiar, it’s because I already wrote this post once during the WotLK beta, using the then-applicable values for +Healing, coefficients, talents, and Glyphs. A lot has changed since then (for the worse, unfortunately) so we’re due for a second look at the various direct heals in Wrath, their relative efficiency, and relative effectiveness. Today we’re going to look at the following spells:

• Regrowth without the [Glyph of Regrowth] used as a raid heal and cast on a target without Regrowth
• Regrowth with the [Glyph of Regrowth] used as a tank heal and cast on a target with Regrowth already
• Nourish used as a raid heal and cast on a target without Rejuvenation, Regrowth, or Lifebloom
• Nourish used as a tank heal and cast on a target with Rejuvenation, Regrowth, or Lifebloom
• Nourish used as a tank heal and cast on a target with Rejuvenation, Regrowth, AND Lifebloom with the 4-piece T7 set bonus
• Healing Touch
• Healing Touch with the [Glyph of Healing Touch]

Since our goal is to compare the maximized version of each of these spells, we’re going to assume the following talents have been taken:

• Regrowth: Improved Regrowth, Empowered Rejuvenation, Moonglow 
• Nourish: Tranquil Spirit, Moonglow 
• Healing Touch: Naturalist, Empowered Touch, Tranquil Spirit, Moonglow 

All spells will be assumed to have been cast in Tree of Life form, and all benefit from Gift of Nature and Master Shapeshifter.

Continue reading ‘Direct Healing in Wrath’…

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• Method: Coefficient Testing
• 2.4 Mana Regen: Valuing +Healing
• Nordrassil Raiment and Regrowth

By now, you’ve almost certainly heard about the change to itemization whereby the +Healing and +Spell Damage stats are being retired for the less specialized Spell Power stat. What, exactly does this mean, though, and what can you expect at the release of Patch 3.0?

Converting +Healing to Spell Power

Balance Druids should see a direct translation of their spell damage into spell power at a 1:1 ratio. (This doesn’t account for the loss of spell power due to the reduction being made to Lunar Guidance, however.) Restoration Druids – or anyone wearing their healing kit – can expect to see their +Healing converted to Spell Power in the following manner:

Spell Power = +Healing * 0.532

In other words, players can expect to see a 46.8% reduction in their +Healing when converting to Spell Power. Note that this change will not affect your effective healing as spell coefficients are being adjusted to account for this reduction (more on this below). 0.532 was derived by comparing the ten staves with the highest +Healing values available in TBC:

At the same time, you can expect to see your Bonus Spell Damage (in the form of spell power) increased by approximately 60%. This increase in fire power – or Arcane/Nature power, as the case may be – should make leveling in your Resto-kit a lot more viable than it would have been otherwise.

Adjusting Coefficients

While it was Blizzard’s intention to streamline spellcaster gear by having DPS and Healer casters use the same items, it wasn’t their intention to nerf the effectiveness of our spells. Therefore, the +Healing coefficients for Healing spells pre-WotLK will be increased to compensate for the reduction of +Healing. In order to keep the effective amount healed for a given spell the same, we’d expect the original coefficients to be multiplied by 1/0.532 or 1.88. To verify this, I returned to Outlands on the Beta server (no small feat for someone bound in Borean Tundra) and did some coefficient testing for the HoT portion of Rejuvenation and Regrowth. In both cases, using the same gear and same level of +Healing, each spell ticked for the same amount on beta and live (there was a very small difference in a few HoT ticks, but that is no doubt due to rounding issues).

Note: At some point, I hope to publish some revised spell power coefficients for Wrath, but haven’t had the time to perform data collection, yet.

Talent Implications

In Wrath of the Lich King, the Spell Power afforded by Lunar Guidance will be reduced from 25% to 12%. This is a reduction of 52% which is, not coincidentally, about the same percent reduction being applied to +Healing. I believe this talent was reduced in effectiveness to avoid making it too desirable to Healers (as it otherwise would have afforded more than twice the benefit that it did in TBC). This had the unfortunate side effect of harming Balance Druids in the process, however. I suspect that the relocation of both Nature’s Grace and Moonglow to much higher in the Balance tree was similarly meant to discourage Restoration Druid’s from dipping so deeply into Balance. Blizzard probably didn’t want to repeat the perceived mistake of making a hybrid build like the Dreamstate healer even close to as viable as a deeply Restoration-specced Druid.

At first glance, it might appear that the effectiveness of Empowered Touch is being doubled from its previous value of 20% to its post-Wrath value of 40%:

However, the wording of the bonus afforded by Empowered Touch is significant. Note that its description reads, “gains an additional X% of your bonus healing effects.” This means that the bonus is applied additively (X + 0.2). This is in comparison to the bonus from Empowered Rejuvenation whose description reads, “The bonus healing effects of your healing over time spells is increased by 20%.” From its description, we can tell that Empowered Rejuvenation’s bonus is applied multiplicatively (X * 1.2) and will, therefore, automatically scale with the conversion to spell power. With the change to spell power cutting +Healing almost in half, the HT spell power coefficient had to be increased to compensate. The increase to 0.4 is actually a slight buff over the value of 0.38 that would have been necessary for Empowered Touch to maintain its effectiveness.

Related Posts

• ToL Aura Change Buffs Some Spells, Nerfs Others
• Direct Healing in Wrath
• Mystery No More: +Healing Explained