For a different spin on this issue, I invite you to take a look at Bellwether’s recent post A Rebuttal for Bear which is in response to BigBearButt’s My Thoughts on PvP in General (which this post was not specifically intended to rebut, though it should be obvious from the below that I do not agree).

I only spent one season (Season 2, the one with the attractive set of Arena and BG epics) doing Arena-based PvP, and then only at the ardent begging request of Mr. Phae. It all started with me spending a couple of nights in Alterac Valley, curious what all the hubbub was about. This was prior to the changes that re-introduced actual PvP into AV, and I was amazed at how fun it was to participate in “PvP” as a healer. (I later discovered that spamming heals on a few over-eager Warriors and Druids while the “raid” of BG participants beat frantically on Drek is not PvP.)

Surprised at my burgeoning interest in PvP, Mr. Phae convinced me that we should do some 2v2 Arenas together. He’d read that Warrior/Resto Druid was a strong combo and thought we’d be crazy not to take advantage of that fact while we could. Up until that point, I must confess that I was one of those players with an attitude of, “Moonfire?! Why would I cast Moonfire?! Don’t you know that I’m Restoration-specced?” In fact, I was quite irritated when Mr. Phae informed me that he would not let me in his group to level unless I put at least a few points into Balance at the start of Burning Crusade. (Shhhh – I did, but I didn’t really use them.)

Full Season 2 The gear of which I am most proud, despite none of it dropping in a 25-man

Stepping into the Arenas, I can remember being initially appalled at all of the horrible, horrible people who wanted to stab me, smash me, stun me, blow me up, set me on fire, or turn me into a farm animal (HAHA /shapeshift) … anything they could do to prevent me from doing “my job.” (Remember, at this point I saw “my job” as being solely to “make the bars go right.”) I quickly learned that I would have to do more than spam Lifebloom, Regrowth, Rejuvenation, and Swiftmend if I wanted to be able to cast those spells at all. Poisons were suddenly no longer something I could yawn at and outheal. Faerie Fire found a place on my action bar once again. I dipped further than I’ve ever dipped into the Feral tree so that I could pick up Rocket Bear I turned into a Cheetah, I humped pillars, I used Cat Form for more than jumping from high places. And oh the Cyclone, the beautiful Cyclone!

/sniff

My point is that — had I not had the courage to step foot in an Arena —  I wouldn’t be half the Druid I am today. I learned timing and counters and a lot of positive protective measures that have served me well in PvE: instantly shapeshifting when polymorphed, pre-emptive casting of HoTs, using Abolish Poison before the poison lands, using Barkskin, utilizing line of sight, bunkering down in Bear Form and using Bash to give my tank some time to help me. At the same time, I’ve learned to leverage my class debuffs, too, the ones that aren’t available in Tree of Life like Insect Swarm, Faerie Fire, and Cyclone (the latter sometimes to the chagrin of my tanks). And when it comes time for Wrath of the Lich King, I look forward to being quick on the draw when it comes to casting Entangling Roots, an instinct that will likely serve me well since a mob rooted once it’s reached the group is still very much a threat.

For this reason, I’d like to encourage all Restoration Druids to try their hand at Arenas. I recommend this specifically for Restos for two reasons:

1. Your general spec performs very well in Arenas, even though you’ll likely have to shuffle some points into Balance and Feral.
2. Diehard Feral and Balance Druids are more likely to be familiar with the Druid’s healing spells than a healing Druid is likely to be familiar with a Druid’s Balance and Feral skills, so you stand to gain more than the other two who cannot generally augment their playstyle as much as you can (no healing in Bear Form or Moonkin).

For those interested in giving PvP a shot, I’d recommend the following sites:

• PvP Source
  A great source of news for all things related to Arenas and PvP, including information on tournaments (which was always not very interesting to me, but I guess it’s cool for people into heavy competition). They also have a nice selection of videos as well as a searchable strategy database that lets you specify your team composition and the composition of the other team to find tips on beating them (hint: press Cyclone).
• Arena Junkies
  Arena Junkies is most well known for their forums which are like the Elitist Jerks of PvP (for those unfamiliar with Elitist Jerks, this is a good thing). Posting on their forums is restricted to only those players who have a team rated 2000 (with the notable exception of the “Ask a Gladiator” forum) which ensures that what you can read there is sure to come from serious players with a lot of experience. AJ has a really active community of players and there is a ton of information to be gleaned from them.
• Out of Mana
  Having trouble getting into the Cycl-own spirit? Read Out of Mana! While not specifically dedicated to PvPing as a Restoration Druid, Megan has the right attitude and the mindset of someone who really enjoys PvP. She recently wrote a pair of great articles on Confidence and Humility (part 1, part 2) in which she details how not to be the schmuck that costs his team a Battlegrounds victory because he refuses to do what is needed. All in all, it’s a fantastic blog that’s only made better by her slick MS Paint skills. (Hand-drawn “LOL” FTW!)

As I said earlier, I only PvPed a single season. I eventually had to give up Arenas due to stress and anger management issues. I bruised my hand pretty badly and threw a LOT of hairbrushes into the kitchen before learning that my keyboard pad was a good thing to smack into the wall instead. ^_^ I am not a competitive person by nature and am easily frustrated. I also hate feeling like I’m being “picked on” which, as a Restoration Druid, is pretty much your entire role in Arenas. Nonetheless, I’m very glad for the experiences I did have as there were some fantastic victories (no glorious defeats, though, losing … FTL) and doubt I would started Resto4Life if not for the feeling of empowerment I got from participating.

Related Posts

• PTR Report: 4-Piece Set Bonus Changes
• Arena 2 Class Set
• Druid Changes May Indicate Possibility of Indoor Arenas

Many authors have covered the addon Grid in one form or another. WoWInsider’s Marcie Knox wrote an article back in January entitled Unkicking Butt (a Grid Story) in which she unraveled many of the mysteries behind the addon’s daunting configuration menu and shows you step by step how to customize your layout. Just recently, Sioban of Lifebloomer shared his experiences with the addon in Addons: Grid, which helps you to get in the right mindset when setting up your grid to your personal taste, including a list of helpful addons that can augment this already very robust set of unitframes.

I’d like to share my take on Grid with a more detailed look at how — and why — I have mine set up the way that I do. Step by step and addon by recommended addon, here’s a Resto Druid’s comprehensive guide to customizing Grid. Please note that you should have first gone through Marcie’s article on Grid for information about resizing, borders, and text. This guide is intended to help you get the most of the Druid-specific features available in Grid.

General Configuration Tips

You can configure Grid in one of four ways. In order of decreasing difficult/annoyance:

• Command-line

  This method requires you to familiarize yourself with a lot of … well … commands. I can see how learning a few key commands might be useful for adjusting your Grid for a special encounter, but I wouldn’t want to make all my changes this way!

• Minimap Icon

  If you’re one of those archaic people whose minimap looks like it has a case of the measles with 20+ minimap icons displayed, you can right click on Grid’s config icon (looks like this ) to configure the addon through a series of cascading menus.

• FuBar Icon

  Similar to the Minimap Icon above but appears on your FuBar instead.

• GUI Configuration

  The makers of Grid have also created a UI screen that can be accessed via /grid config. This is the method I’m going to assume you’re using for any configuration instructions.

Addon: Grid Dynamic Layout

Restoration Druids are often asked to "roll" Lifebloom stacks on one or more tanks for the duration of an encounter. If you organize your raid frames by name, group, or — in this age of Druid, Paladin, and soon-to-be Death Knight tanks — it can be harried to move your cursor across a few inches of screen real estate. Imagine if instead you could have all your tanks grouped together within a half inch of each other, all in a column. Grid Dynamic Layout does just that:

A beautiful thing: Lifebloom rolling on 4 Tanks

Once installed, you can switch to using Dynamic Layout as your preferred layout by going to Layout > Raid Layout and selecting Dynamic Layout. You can then access GDL’s configuration under Layout > Dynamic Layout. GDL seems to do a good job of determining who is a tank, healer, ranged DPS, or melee DPS, basing its decisions on stances and auras assumed by each raid member. However, it is sometimes necessary to override their categorizations (I often find this to be true for Elemental/Enhancement Shamans) by adding names to the "Forced" lists, separated by commas. This is also useful for fights where "tanks" are atypical classes like a Mage for the Maulgar fight. By adding the Mage’s name to my "Forced Tanks" list, I ensure that he is more visible than he would be if lumped in with the ranged DPS.

The "Defaulted DPS warriors" list is an interesting setting that allows you to specify Warrior who will default to melee DPS but automatically be moved to the tanks group should they have need to swap into Defensive Stance.

Monitoring Thorns

Display showing Thorns missing on Beefshanks

Keeping Thorns on tanks can be a tedious task with its 10-minute duration (which should have been increased along with Paladin Blessings) and the fact that it can’t be cast when in Tree of Life form. I’ve configured Grid to display a corner indicator for those raid members who have Thorns cast on them. Since all the tanks are grouped together via the Grid Dynamic Layout above, I can tell at a glance if I need to refresh the buff. To set this up yourself:

1. Select Status > Auras.
2. Under the Add New Buff textbox, enter "Thorns" and press Enter.
3. Select Frame > [Position] (ex. "Bottom Right Corner").
4. Uncheck everything under the Statuses section.
5. Check Buff: Thorns.

If you want to adjust the color of the indicator (I use white), it’s available under Status > Auras > Buff Filters. You’ll also find a Class Filters option but, given the fact that tanks come in three or more flavors, this option isn’t especially helpful.

Addon: GridStatusHoTs

Enlarged unitframe example with all HoTs running

With the GridStatusHoTs addon you can easily keep track of your own Rejuvenation and Regrowth effects … while simultaneously being aware of those raid members who have a Rejuvenation or Regrowth on them from you or someone else. The advantage of this is that you can easily see who in your raid is eligible for a Swiftmend, regardless of whether of not you’ve been the one to give them the HoT. At the same time, by separating your own indicators, you can keep track of when you need to refresh a particular HoT.

I reserve the top left corner for Regrowth and bottom left corner for Rejuvenation because the default WoW cursor is oriented such that it partially obscures the bottom and right sides of the health bars when you move your cursor over them, making these two positions the most visible.

To configure the position of these two indicators:

1. Select Frame > [Position] (ex. "Top Left Corner").
2. Uncheck everything under the Statuses section.
3. Check Buff: My Regrowth.

You can change the options for this indicator under Status > My HoTs > Buff: My Regrowth. I use a bright green that fades to a dark green for Regrowth and a bright pink that fades to a dark pink for Rejuvenation since these are the colors I intuitively associate with each spell. I reduced the Threshold to Activate Color 2 to 2 seconds and the Threshold to Activate Color 3 to 1 second since Rejuvenation and Regrowth are spells you don’t want to refresh before they elapse. Make sure the Enable option is checked.

To create a "universal" Swiftmend-able HoT indicator:

1. Select Frame > [Position] (ex. "Top Right Corner").
2. Uncheck everything under the Statuses section.
3. Check Buff: Regrowth and Buff: Rejuvenation.

You can adjust this indicator through Status > Auras > Buff: Rejuvenation and Status > Auras > Buff: Regrowth. I like to use yellow for these two since it complements the pink and green of the other two.

Addon: GridStatusLifebloom

Rather than a simple Yes/No indicator, GridStatusLifebloom provides you with a countdown of the time remaining on your Lifebloom as well as a color-based indicator of the number of stacks you have running. You’ll want to set it up as a line of text (which is why using an addon that gives you a second or third row of text in addition to the line with raidmates’ names is so helpful). To set up GridStatusLifebloom:

1. Select Status > Lifebloom > Lifebloom Stack.
2. Specify Color, Color 2, and Color 3. I prefer Red, Yellow, Green like a stoplight.
3. Set Priority to 90 or higher.
4. Make sure that Enable is checked.
5. Select Status > Lifebloom > Lifebloom Duration.
6. Adjust your Global Cooldown Duration to whatever is appropriate given your level of spell haste (I’m guessing that this determines when the countdown starts).
7. Select Frame > Center Text 2.
8. Uncheck everything under the Statuses section.
9. Check Lifebloom Duration.
10. Set Priority to 89 or lower.

Monitoring Heals with GridStatusIncomingHeals

Enlarged unitframe with an incoming Healing Touch

GridStatusIncomingHeals is an addon whose core functionality has since been incorporated into the main Grid addon that utilizes the IncomingHealsLib library to "color" raidmates’ health bars based on the amount of healing they are expected to receive from spells currently in the process of being cast. This is an exceptionally helpful tool for reducing your total overhealing, especially if you utilize a lot of Regrowth (which you should). Recommended configuration:

1. Select Status > Incoming Heals.
2. Check Ignore Self.
3. Select Frame > Healing Bar.
4. Check Incoming Heals under the Statuses section.

By choosing the Ignore Self option, Grid won’t display your own incoming heals, giving you a better idea of who is healing your currently selected target so that you can cancel your spell if you think someone else will hit them first.

Note: To view heals from other players, they must also have the IncomingHealsLib installed and active. This library is widely used by many addons such as Pitbull and Ag Unitframes. To view the raidmates who don’t currently have it installed you can click the "Show HealComm Users" button under Status > Incoming Heals dialog.

Addon: GridStatusMissingBuffs

Don’t be that guy. The one who never refreshes his group buffs after a wipe or rebuffs people who have been resurrected. With GridStatusMissingBuffs, you can add a visual cue to your unitframes when someone is missing Mark of the Wild. I prefer to set mine up as a border, second in priority to the aggro indicator. To do this:

1. Select Status > Missing Buffs > Mark of the Wild.
2. Set Color. Normally, I’d be inclined to use pink because that’s the color of the spell icon, but it would make it difficult to see when Rejuvenation were active so I’m using a bright blue.
3. Set the Priority to a value lower than that of the aggro indicator (Status > Aggro Alert).
4. Select Status > Missing Buffs > Mark of the Wild > Show.
5. Toggle the setting for When in Combat to you personal preference.
6. Select Frame > Border.
7. Check Missing Buff: Mark of the Wild.

Decursing and Removing Poisons

Because we all know the Mages aren’t going to take time out from Pew, Pewing, it’s important that we can see an indication of when raidmates are poisoned or cursed. One option is to display an icon in the center of your raid frame representing the debuff. The disadvantage of this is that it can obscure other important information like Lifebloom counters or make it more difficult to see the target’s health bar. Instead, we can configure the border of the frame (currently being used for Mark of the Wild and an Aggro Indicator) to light up when the person needs a decurse. To do this:

1. Select Status > Auras > Debuff: Curses.
2. Set the Color to your preference (I use green for poisons and pink for curses).
3. Ensure that the Priority is higher than the priority used to display Missing Buff: Mark of the Wild as well as the Aggro Alert (tanks get cursed, too).
4. Select Frame > Border.
5. Check Debuff: Curses and Debuff: Poisons under the Statuses section.

Another plugin that you might find handy for this purpose is GridStatusRaidDebuff which adds a status and indicator for the debuffs cast by many common raid mobs.

Raising the Dead

As a Druid, it’s important to quickly take note of who has died during an encounter so that you can bring them back as expediently as possible. While the default configuration dims out dead players, you may want an indicator that’s more pronounced. To change the color of a frame to red for dead players:

1. Select Status > Death Warning.
2. Set the Color to your preference (by default, it’s gray; let’s change it to red).
3. Select Frame > Frame Alpha.
4. Check Death Warning is checked under the Statuses section.

You don’t need to worry about changing the Priority for this option as someone who is dead can have neither aggro nor buffs/debuffs.

Using Grid in Groups

After using Grid to heal your raids, you may never want to go back to using another set of unitframes, even while running 5-man instances. Luckily, Grid can be configured as a group unitframe, too:

1. Select Layout.
2. Under the Show Grid drop down list, select Grouped.

Grid will now be displayed when you are in a Group or Raid. Selecting Raid will hide Grid in groups but show it in raids only. Note that you may need to adjust the settings of your non-Grid unitframes (ex. Pitbull, X-Perl, Ag_Unitframes) to hide the group window if you plan to use Grid exclusively.

Related Posts

• DoTimer
• Ark Inventory
• The Belkin Nostromo N52 TE

#showtooltip
/equip [nomod,noworn:Fishing Pole] Seth's Graphite Fishing Pole
/cast [nomod:ctrl,worn:Fishing Pole] Fishing
/use [mod:ctrl,worn:Fishing Pole] Sharpened Fish Hook
/use [mod:ctrl,worn:Fishing Pole] 16

The above macro will:

• Equip [Seth's Graphite Fishing Pole] if it isn't already equipped
• Try to fish if you have your fishing pole equipped and you aren't pressing down CTRL
• Apply a [Sharpened Fish Hook] to your fishing pole if you have one equipped and hold down CTRL

I created this macro tonight and thought I would share. Does anyone else have a favorite fishing (or other tradeskill) macro? Edit: Gweedo does!

Related Posts

• Macros for Reagent-Driven Spells
• Heal Self by Default
• Debuffing Your Focus Target

Prior to Patch 2.4, Druids were best served by switching to a high Spirit weapon during Innervate, the idea being to boost Spirit-based mana regeneration as much as possible during that 20 second period (the [Bangle of Endless Blessings] was recommended for the same reason). Now that Intellect and Spirit both affect mana regeneration, however, Innervate frequently returns more mana than we have. In this case, use of the Bangle becomes overkill, and a high-Intellect weapon is preferable since it temporarily increases the size of our mana pool. Of course, which group you fall into depends on your current balance of stats, and you can use the Mana Regeneration Calculator to easily determine which option you should pursue: Bangle + High Spirit Weapon or No Bangle + High Intellect Weapon. For the sake of completeness, let’s look at both options.

Spirit-Based Swap

Under this strategy, you’re trying to temporarily boost your Spirit during Innervate so that your regeneration rate increases, bringing the amount of mana returned closer to your total mana pool. If you’re just starting out in your healing kit, you’ll probably end up in this group. The [Bangle of Endless Blessings] is among the best mana regeneration trinkets available to you due to it’s use granting an additional 130 Spirit for 20 seconds. Here are a few of the high Spirit weapons available at your likely level of progression:

• [Staff of the Ashtongue Deathsworn]: quest reward from Akama’s Promise in Shadowmoon Valley
• [Ameer's Judgement]: Quest reward from Nexus-King Salhadaar in Netherstorm
• [Ironstaff of Regeneration]: drops from Exarch Maladaar of Auchenai Crypts
• [Serpentcrest Life-Staff]: drops from Mekgineer Steamrigger of Steamvault.
• [Staff of Divine Infusion]: world drop, easily purchasable for around 50g on the Auction House
• [Nightstaff of the Everliving]: drops from Nightbane in Karazhan
• [Rod of the Blazing Light]: drops from Vexallus in Heroic Magister’s Terrace; 3 gem slots
• [Ethereum Life-Staff]: drops from High Astromancer Solarian in Tempest Keep; more than likely overkill at this level of gear
• [Dathrohand's Ceremonial Hammer]: Drops from Captain Skarloc in Heroic Old Hillsbrad. While the spirit on this item is lower than on the staves listed above, it frees your offhand for a [Draenei Crystal Rod of Spirit], a level 70 green item that has 32 additional Spirit.

Whether you choose a 1-hander or 2-hander, have it enchanted with [Mighty Spirit] and fill any available gem slots with [Sparkling Star of Elune]. Assuming you have the [Bangle of Endless Blessings], equip it before any fight where you think you might be pressed for mana. Including a weapon swap, your Innervate macro should look something like this:

/use Bangle of Endless Blessings
/cast [target=player] Innervate
/equip [High Spirit Weapon]
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

Note: A more convenient option for Spirit-based weapon swaps is the use of the now out-of-date Evocation2 addon. It will swap to your highest Spirit-based weapon or mainhand/offhand combination while you’re under the effects of Innervate then swap back once the effect expires. Users of the Outfitter addon can use the walkthrough provided by Walkere of Rolling Horde to set up a custom outfit that activates automatically during Innervate.

To give yourself the option to share your Innervate with another player without using the Bangle or swapping your weapon, you can add a required modifier. Your macro would then look something like this:

/use [nomodifier] Bangle of Endless Blessings
/cast [modifier:ctrl] Innervate; [target=player] Innervate
/equip [nomodifier] <High Spirit Weapon>
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear();

Assuming you don’t use an addon like Evocation2, you’ll also want to map your regular weapon or weapon and offhand to a separate key so that you can swap back once Innervate elapses. To determine how much additional mana you’ll gain from the above swap, check the Mana Return from Innervate field on the Mana Regen Calculator at your current values then again at the value of Spirit you’ll have once you’ve made the swap (be sure to include the effects of Living Spirit, if applicable).

Intellect-Based Swap

Under this strategy, you’re trying to temporarily boost the size of your mana pool to eke out as much mana as possible from your Innervate (note, however, that Intellect will also boost your rate of regeneration). It works differently than the Spirit-based swap since it isn’t necessary to have the Intellect weapon equipped during the effects of Innervate but between the time where your mana begins to approach full until you’ve spent all the additional mana gained. You can opt to tie a weapon swap to your Innervate macro or — to maximize efficiency — you can micro-manage the weapon swap yourself by performing the swap near the point where Innervate is about to completely fill your mana bar and keeping an eye on when it will be "safe" to switch back. The addon CasterWeaponSwapper can assist with this as it has a setting for "high mana" swapping.

There are a ton of high Intellect weapons available post-Karazhan (where you’re more likely to be needing an Intellect-based swap) so I won’t list them here. Instead, I’ve created a set of filters through WoWHead to generate a list of weapons to consider:

• High Intellect weapons

Whether you choose a 1-hander or 2-hander, have it enchanted with [Major Intellect] and fill any available gem slots with [Brilliant Dawnstone] or [Brilliant Lionseye]. If you opt to swap your weapon on the use of Innervate, your macro might look something like this:

/cast [target=player] Innervate
/equip <High Intellect Weapon>

To determine how much additional mana you should expect to get from performing an Intellect-based weapon swap, find the amount you expect your Intellect to increase by when you change weapons and multiply it by 15. So, for instance, if I were to swap from the [Ethereum Life-Staff] with 44 Intellect to a full-gemmed and enchanted [Staff of Dark Mending], I could expect an additional 57 Intellect or 855 Mana.

Related Posts

• Getting More out of Innervate
• 2.4 Mana Regen: The Mana Regen Calculator
• 2.4 Mana Regen: The Basics

Karom in Restoration by Orsolya Berecz

One big question that’s arisen time and time again since the initial discussion of mana regeneration post-2.4 has been how we should value +Healing relative to MP5. It’s a question that kept the [Staff of Dark Mending] and [Rod of the Blazing Light] gathering dust in my backpack because I initially didn’t know how I should best gem them. How you value +Healing relative to mana regeneration will not only be subject to the conditions of an encounter — fight length, assigned targets, intensity of healing necessary — but subject to your personal playstyle, as well. Rather than stating a rule about how much +Healing is equivalent to 1 MP5 — be it from the MP5 stat or the MP5 determined from your personal Spirit and Intellect values — I’m instead going to walk you through the steps to determine your own personal healing value, using an encounter that I parsed using Recount for just such a purpose.

Step 1: Reasoning

The comparison of MP5 to +Healing involves a less straightforward set of calculations than those used to determine the relative values of Spirit, Intellect, and MP5. Whereas the latter deal primarily with up front mana and mana return, +Healing can only be compared to mana return in terms of what you would do with the extra mana returned by MP5, be it in the form of pure MP5 or Spirit or Intellect contributing to your overall regeneration. As this blog is Resto4Life, I’m going to assume that we’re going to use that additional mana to cast more heals, although you could perform a very similar analysis for increasing your total damage (although, from what Mr. Phae tells me, for most DPS casters it’s pretty much DAMAGEDAMAGEDAMAGEDAMAGEheywhere’dmymanago?). For this example and as a personal choice, I’m going to assume that any additional mana — i.e., mana left over at the end of the fight or mana remaining while Potions and Innervate are on cooldown — will go toward increasing my healing output via converting single stack Lifebloom into a cast of Regrowth. For my reasoning on this conversion, please see Regrowth: the New Raid Heal? 

On the other hand, +Healing also allows you to do more healing, albeit by augmenting each spell as it’s cast rather than allowing you to cast more individual spells. To help quantify this, we first need to determine the marginal value 1 +Healing or, in other words, how much additional effective healing we could expect to do if we increase our +Healing by 1. Once we know the marginal value of +1 Healing, we can determine the additional mana needed to eke out the same amount of effective healing (through our conversion of Lifebloom to Regrowth) and have a good estimate of how the two compare.

Step 2: Data Collection

The first thing you will want to do is to select one or more encounters that your guild currently considers challenging. Parsing the Maiden of Virtue fight if your guild is currently farming Mount Hyjal will give you a number that’s greatly skewed toward +Healing, so be sure to select something that you find difficult. For this example, I choose the Morogrim Tidewalker encounter. Here was my Recount output for that fight:

Morogrim Tidewalker Parse

As you can see from the output above, Lifebloom is still my greatest source of effective healing, followed by Regrowth. I’ve selected each spell and taken a screenshot of their individual contributions as well as the breakdown of direct vs. HoT ticks. Due to an unfortunate limitation of the combat log, Recount is unable to determine the following:

• How many times your Lifebloom bloomed and for how much.
• How much of your Lifebloom heal over time healing was from a single stack vs. a triple stack.
• How many times Swiftmend affected Regrowth vs. Rejuvenation.

None of these values are included in the above breakdown so we’ll have to guesstimate them. Data items you should also record at the time of your healing parse(s) include your +Healing, Spell Crit %, and length of the fight. At the time I performed the above parse, I had 1749 +Healing and 8.49% spell crit with an additional 50% spell crit from 5/5 Improved Regrowth. The fight took somewhere around nine minutes.

Step 3: Math

While I eventually hope to add these calculations to the Mana Regen Calculator, I’m first going to walk you through setting up an Excel spreadsheet since it’s a great way to go through the math. From the Recount parse above, I’ve recorded the following values:

* These values were not available from the Recount parse and were therefore estimated.
** While these values are from Recount, they are not intuitively obvious. To determine them, you must sum the total healed from Hit (Count * Avg) and the total healed from Crit (Count * Avg) and divide this value by the total amount Regrowth Healed for (in my case, 56478). The amount healed by its HoT component is simply 1 minus this value.

In Table 1 above, I’ve included an Estimated Breakdown by Component that represents the percentage of the spell’s total healing that came from the various components of the spell. For instance, I’m estimating that 20% of my Lifebloom’s total HoT healing came from single stack while 80% was from triple stack on tanks. Using these breakdowns, we can determine the average amount healed by component (Avg. Amt Healed by Component = Estimated Breakdown by Component * Total Healed from Recount).

Full Heal Equivalents

The next step is to determine the value of Full Heal Equivalents for each spell and component. A Full Heal Equivalent is the number of times a spell would have to be cast and never been overwritten or overhealed. For instance, if 50% of my Rejuvenation HoT were wasted due to OP Brain Heal, the number of FHE for my Rejuvenation would be 1/2 the total number of times I cast Rejuvenation over the course of the fight. We can determine this number by dividing the total amount healed by each component by the average of what we would expect it to heal were none of the healing ineffective.

Full Heal Equivalent = Total Healed by Component / Average Healed

To determine the average of what we expect a spell to heal for, we must take into account its base heal (determined from tooltips and applicable talents like Gift of Nature), its +Healing Coefficient, and our value of +Healing. For spells which list a range (such as Healing Touch), we can average the minimum and maximum values. For all direct heals, we’ll also need to factor in our spell crit percentage.

Average Healed = Base Amount Healed + (+Healing Coefficient * +Healing)

Using the values in Table 1: Gathered Data and the formulas above, we can generate the following table:

* Assumes Gift of Nature, Improved Rejuvenation, Improved Regrowth, and Empowered Rejuvenation.
** No concrete values are available for the fields marked "???"

Marginal Value of 1 +Healing

To determine the marginal value of 1 +Healing for each component, simply multiply FHE by the component’s +Healing coefficient:

Marginal Value of 1 +Healing = FHE * +Healing Coefficient

Once again, the Marginal Value of 1 +Healing in the Table 3 above represents the additional amount of effective healing we could expect to do from that component over the course of the fight were we to increase our +Healing by 1. As a triple stacked Lifebloom not only has a high +Healing coefficient but comprises a large portion of my overall healing output, it’s understandable that it would have the highest marginal value. By summing these values together, we find an overall MV of 186.7 which is the total additional effective healing I would expect to derive from increasing my +Healing by 1.

Alternative Uses for Mana

We’re assuming that any additional mana we have left over can be used to convert a single-stack Lifebloom into Regrowth. But how much mana would we need to make that possible? Assuming Tree of Life and the [Idol of the Crescent Goddess], it costs 488 mana to cast Regrowth. Since Lifebloom under the same conditions costs 177 mana to cast, we’ll spend 312 additional mana to cast Regrowth instead. How much MP5 would be required to give me 312 additional mana? Our 9-minute fight has 108 ticks. 312 mana divided by 108 5-second ticks equals 2.89 MP5.

We know that an average Regrowth will heal for 3765.2 (summing the average healed for both direct and HoT portions). Because we’re looking at a single stack Lifebloom application, we’re going to have to guess at how much of the bloom we expect to be effective and how much of the HoT we expect to be effective (Recount can’t break down Lifebloom’s HoT portion by triple vs. single stack). I used two sets of values, one an optimistic 75% HoT/65% Bloom and the other a more conservative 40% HoT/20% Bloom. To determine the average effective amounts, we multiply these values by the average base heal for each component:

Avg. Healed Lifebloom_75/65 = 0.75 * 1499.8 + 0.65 * 1480.8 = 2087.4
Avg. Healed Lifebloom_40/20 = 0.4 * 1499.8 + 0.2 * 1480.8 = 896.1

These two values can be subtracted from the average amount healed by Regrowth (3665.2) to determine how much additional healing we’d expect to derive from converting a Lifebloom to a Regrowth. Under the 75/65 and 40/20 breakdowns, we get 1677.8 and 2869.1 HP respectively.

Now that we know how much extra mana it will cost to convert a Lifebloom to a Regrowth and the estimated amount of additional effective healing we’ll derive from doing so, we can determine the relative value of amount healed to MP5 like this:

Healing equal to 1 MP5 = Addtl. Amount Healed / Addtl. Mana Cost
Amt Healed vs. MP5_75/65 = 1667.8 / 2.89 = 580.8
Amt Healed vs. MP5_40/20 = 2869.1 / 2.89 = 993.2

Note that this is the amount healed and not +Healing. To convert these values to +Healing, we have to divide them by the total Marginal Value of 1 +Healing (186.7) we derived earlier, giving us values of 3.1 and 5.3. Therefore, from the above calculations, 1 MP5 is approximately worth between 3 and 5 +Healing. Conversely, 1 HEP equals between 0.19 and 0.32 MP5.

Final Thoughts

Unlike some previous articles, the purpose of this article was not to give you a concrete value for how you should personally value +Healing relative to MP5. These calculations were based upon a very specific fight under specific conditions but, if applied to your own circumstances, could help you determine your own value (alternatively, you could just wait until I’ve built the math into the Mana Regen Calculator). I wouldn’t consider these conditions ideal as I’m still learning to leverage Regrowth and would like to see a larger portion of my overall healing coming from that spell rather than Lifebloom. Nonetheless, I feel like this "educated estimate" is close enough to have made several gear decisions upon it, including which staff to use and how it should be gemmed.

Related Posts

• MP5 vs. Healing
• 2.4 Mana Regen: Regrowth as the New Raid Heal?
• Nordrassil Raiment and Regrowth