I am trying to avoid deep Resto and still be a great healer because I like to see my character’s humanoid shape more often than not. I was either going to go a bit down Balance to get Lunar Guidance and Dreamstate or a bit down Feral to get Nurturing Instinct. I wouldn’t think to go Feral, but 70% of Ggility gear could be a lot of a healing, right?

I was wondering if you’ve done the math on these and could suggest one path over the other.

Prior to the release of Wrath, it used to be somewhat viable to skip over Tree of Life as a Restoration Druid. In fact, one of my guilty pleasures in TBC was to run Heroics as a Night Elf in all my S2 PvP gear just because I looked so darn cool (though I kept using the form for difficult raid content). You see, while the 20% spell cost reduction was great, you could get a weaker, non-Lifebloom-affecting version from Moonglow, a talent that was formerly much deeper in the Balance tree. There were also a number of TBC encounters where staying in Tree of Life was more a liability than a benefit due to its 20% slow-movement and inability to decurse.

However, with the release of Wrath of the Lich King, we get all of the (raid-important) benefits of the form with none of its limitations. Blizzard has removed the movement speed reduction, added both Abolish Poison and Remove Curse to its arsenal of available spells, and even allowed us to cast our class buff, Mark of the Wild without leaving form (and in Patch 3.1, we’ll finally be able to cast Thorns). Moonglow has also been made much more accessible, a talent whose effects stack with the mana reduction afforded by Tree of Life. Without Tree of Life, you also lose access to Master Shapeshifter, a Tree of Life-specific talent that grants you an additional 4% healing in the form. And this doesn’t even consider cases where you are the only Restoration Druid in a raid where no Paladin has 3/3 Improved Devotion Aura, making you the only potential source of the 6% to healing aura. To summarize:

As you can see, there is no justification for not having and using Tree of Life as a Restoration Druid in Wrath. It is a spec-defining form that you sacrifice too much to avoid. As such, I cannot in good conscience recommend any spec that doesn’t include the ability (and in Wrath, there are specs that include both the form and Dreamstate). Honestly, if you’re hung up on having to look at rotten broccoli, can’t wait for the upcoming revamp to Druid forums, or simply don’t have much faith in Blizzard meeting your aesthetic standards, I suggest rolling a Priest doll to dress up. They certainly get the best looking armor and aren’t restricted to using a special form to reach their full healing potential. Of course, Druids are still way more fun than Priests, in my opinion, even if we do look ridiculous.

P.S. Nurturing Instinct is a terrible talent for any healing Druid as there are no items that have spell power and Agility on them. You would never want to purposefully wear Feral items to boost your healing if healing is your intended role.

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Mailbag: A Deforested Restoration Build?

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

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Speculation: Revitalize and Wild Growth

If you played a Balance Druid in vanilla WoW, you are very familiar with the term “Oomkin.” Our mana issues were so pervasive that this term survived through most of the Burning Crusade, even after most of our mana issues were fixed. In Wrath of the Lich King, our “Oomkin” days are far behind us, and anyone that uses the term is either uninformed or joking.

However, I still regularly receive question asking: How much mana regen do I need? Which talents are best? Can I give up Talent X to get more DPS talents? With that in mind I wanted to provide this little guide for Moonkin mana regen.

Talents

How much regen do I need?

This depend a lot on your group make up, but as a general rule you will need more regen as your group gets smaller and the fights get longer.

In 25-mans, I have absolutely no mana issues, and I have seen some high-end raiding Moonkin drop all of their mana regen talents without issue. In 10-mans, I have issues on the longer fights like Sarth-2D because my group doesn’t have a Mage, Shadow Priest or Ret Pally. In 5-mans I don’t have any issues because the fights are too short, but my experience may not be relevant to you. My gear level makes up for my low mana regen.

If your playstyle focuses on 5-mans and you don’t have a lot of gear, then you’re probably going to want as much regen as you can get. If you raid 10-man’s regularly, it’s going to depend on your group composition. If you regularly raid 25-mans, you probably have most of the buffs covered and can sacrifice some mana regen for some DPS talents. However, the best way to tell if you need more regen is if you’re consistently running out of mana on boss fights.

Ok, I need some regen, but which talents do I choose?

If you’ve looked around the various moonkin forums then you have probably seen this equation.

Omen of Clarity > Intensity > Dreamstate > Moonglow

This equation was written with well-geared raiders in mind, but it is a pretty good guideline and fairly vague. Let’s see if I can put some numbers to it to explain it better.

The Numbers

Omen of Clarity

Numerically, this is a hard ability to nail down. It’s very random, you may get it but not use it, and it’s hard to determine which spell consumes it. To calculate its value I looked at several old WWS reports. Look at a couple of high-casting fights like Patchwerk and Razuvious, the proc rate does indeed seem to be about 2 times per minute but highly variable.

Next I tried to figure out what is the average mana cost of the spells I cast during a boss fight. Looking at the WWS report from the raid where I got the Undying achievement, I summed my total spell casts for a Naxx clear. (I know this is a 10-man instead of a 25-man. However, I don’t think my casting habits change much if at all from 10-mans to 25-mans.) I won’t give you the boring details but I cast a total of 1,326 during boss fights at an average mana cost of 458 per spell with one point in Moonglow.

Now, even though Omen of Clarity procs twice per minute on average, not all of those procs will be used and it is highly variable. So, to try and get a minimum value let’s assume that you only use Omen of Clarity one and a half times per minute.

We can get an MP5 equivalent by dividing the mana saved per minute by 12. Therefore the equivalent MP5 is equal to:

(458 * 1.5) / 12 = 57.40 MP5 equivalent (assuming one point in Moonglow)

This may not seem like much, but since it costs only one talent point, it is far ahead of what you would get by investing that point in Dreamstate or Intensity. Just for reference, if you invest a full 3 points into Moonglow, Omen of Clarity would be worth 54.10 MP5 equivalent under these conditions.

Moonglow

This talent was much easier to quantify, but it is very easy to present misleading information. If you look around the web, you may find a person or two that will indicate one point in Moonglow is equivalent to 45 – 50 MP5. Their numbers may be theoretically accurate, but here not practical because they are evaluating the talent under ideal circumstances. For Moonglow to reach those levels of mana savings, you have to be constantly casting with no breaks and no latency. In real life that isn’t going to happen.

So to accurately quantify the value of Moonglow, I will have to look at WWS reports again.

Looking at just the boss fights in my latest Naxx run I cast Starfire 488 times, Wrath 525 times, Moonfire 113 times, and Starfall ~10 times. All 15 boss fights took a total of 46 minutes and 6 seconds (2766 total seconds). For each spell cast I saved the following amount of mana:

Starfire: (3496 * 0.16) * 0.03 = 16.78
Wrath: (3496 * 0.11) * 0.03 = 11.54
Moonfire: (3496 * 0.24) * 0.03 = 25.17
Starfall: (3496 * 0.35) * 0.03 = 36.71

So, to get MP5 equivalent for the raid, you take the total mana saved and divide it by the time spent in combat times five.

MP5 Equivalent = (((488 * 16.78) + (525 * 11.54) + (113 + 25.17) + (10 * 36.71)) / 2766) * 5
MP5 Equivalent = ((8,189.03 + 6056.82 + 2844.35 + 367.08) / 2766) * 5
MP5 Equivalent = (17457.28 / 2766) * 5
MP5 Equivalent = 6.31 * 5 = 31.56 MP5

These numbers will vary from person to person and night to night, but I doubt it will vary much. In fact, I think my estimation of Moonglow’s value is a little high because I used Wrath a little too much.

Dreamstate

This one is really easy to quantify. All you need is your total Intellect fully raid-buffed. To calculate it, look at your armory and get your unbuffed Int. Then add 60 for Arcane Intellect and 51 for Improved Mark of the Wild. Then multiply that value by 1.1 for Blessing of Kings, and by 1.1 again for Furor. For me the equation works out like this:

Total Intellect = (889 + 60 + 51) * 1.1 * 1.1 = 1210 Intellect

When you have your fully raid-buffed Intellect, you multiply that value by 0.04 to find the value of the first point, and 0.03 to find the value of the second and third point. So, for me Dreamstate is worth:

Dreamstate _{Point 1} = 1210 * 0.04 = 48.4 MP5
Dreamstate_{Point 2 & 3} = 1210 * 0.03 = 36.3 MP5

Intensity

This one is a little more complicated to calculate. First, we need to find our out of combat mana regen. To do that we use this formula at level 80:

MP5 = 5 * (0.001 + sqrt(Int) * Spirit * 0.005575 )

I’ve already showed you how to find your raid-buffed total Intellect. Finding your raid buffed Spirit is very similar. Look at your armory and get your unbuffed Spirit. Then add 80 for Divine Spirit and 51 for Improved Mark of the Wild. Then multiply that value by 1.1 for Blessing of Kings. For me the equation works out like this:

Total Spirit = (371 + 80 + 51) * 1.1 = 552 Spirit

So my out of combat mana regen is:

MP5 = 5 * (0.001 + sqrt(1210) * 552 * 0.005575)
MP5 = 5 * (0.001 + 34.79 * 552 * 0.005575)
MP5 = 5 * (0.001 + 34.79 * 552 * 0.005575) = 535 MP5

Therefore, to get the value of each talent point, we just multiply this by 10%. So for me, each point I put in Intensity is worth:

Intensity(1pt) = 535 * 0.10 = 53.5 MP5

The TL:DR Version

As a general rule you can currently use this priority when evaluating mana regen talents:

Omen of Clarity > Intensity > Dreamstate > Moonglow

Please remember though that Omen of Clarity and Moonglow are very static since they are based primarily upon the spell’s mana cost. This means that they favor relatively low levels of gear, but will be outpaced by Intensity and Dreamstate as your gear improves.

That said, Omen of Clarity is still the best mana regen talent currently because it only costs one talent point. I do not expect this to persist until the end of Wrath of the Lich King because Intensity and Dreamstate will improve significantly in Tier 8 and Tier 9.

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Guest Post: Moonkin Mana Regeneration

• 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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Nourish to Benefit from Moonglow and Wild Growth HoT (and Blues)

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.

Quick Links

• Living Seed
• Revitalize
• Gift of the Earthmother
• Summary

Living Seed

Living Seed gives critical heals a chance (100% at 3-points) to temporarily store 30% of the critical heal’s effective healing. This means that if your critical heal heals for 6000 hit points, the effect of the Living Seed would be 1800 HP. However, if of that 6000 HP, only 1000 was “effective” (non-overheal), the value of the Living Seed would only be 300 HP.

In practical terms, healers often choose their heals based on what will bring their target to full life. A tank whose health is maintained at 90-100% is much less susceptible to death-by-RNG than one allowed to fluctuate between 50 and 70%. This is especially true with the elimination of downranking, a practice whereby healers would often use lower ranked spells to conserve their own mana, deal more precisely with incoming damage, and guard against too many healers applying large heals to a target simultaneously. As a result, the direct heals that are typically applied now are heavy-hitters.

A Druid who focuses on Regrowth as her direct heal of choice will also employ the [Glyph of Regrowth], a glyph that increases the strength of the spell’s initial heal by 20% when used on a target who already has Regrowth. At an approximately 60% spell crit, Regrowth hits hard and crits often, proccing Living Seed more times than not. Even if used on a tank who suddenly finds himself low on health (likely giving the maximum value for the seed), this situation often leads to the tank being bombarded with large heals from other healers frantically trying to prevent a raid wipe. These healers cannot (and should not) depend on a Living Seed to keep the tank alive. However, it is worth considering that when is effective, it has the potential to be a life-saver.

From what I have read and experienced, it is not unreasonable to see the contribution of Living Seed at 1-3% of your total healing, with Regrowth users more likely to see the 3% value. A general rule of thumb is that 1 talent point yielding a 1% increase in effectiveness is a talent point well spent. At 3 points, this talent is worth taking for Regrowth casters, assuming it contributes 3% or more of effective healing. It is not recommended for those who focus on Nourish or glyphed Healing Touch who are considerably less likely to see such a contribution.

Revitalize

Formerly known as Replenish, Revitalize is a 3-point Restoration talent that has a chance (15% at 3 points) to restore Mana, Rage, Energy, or Runic Power with each tick of Rejuvenation. This includes ticks when the target is at full health. Untalented, Rejuvenation ticks 5 times, giving Revitalize an average of 0.75 procs per cast. With 1 point in the Balance talent Nature’s Splendor, Rejuvenation increases to 6 ticks, giving Revitalize an average of 0.9 procs per cast. Let’s look at the expected yield for Revitalize and Nature’s Splendor for each target:

Mana cost per Rejuvenation Cast = 446
Rejuvenation Casts per Target per Minute = 60 / 18 = 3.33
Avg. PPM per Target = 3.33 * 0.9 = 3
Mana Cost per Target per Minute = 446 * 3.33  = 1486.67

Death Knights

Avg. Return per Minute _DK = 3 * 16 = 48 Runic Power/Minute

One way to gauge the value of this return is to compare it to the 2-point Blood Talent, Butchery which reads “Whenever you kill an enemy that grants experience or honor, you generate up to 20 runic power. In addition, you generate 2 runic power per 5 sec while in combat.” The runic power regeneration portion is equivalent to 24 Runic Power per minute. By chaining Rejuvenation on a DK tank, you’re tripling the automatic Runic Power regeneration he would normally see with this talent (though perhaps more value is attributed to the RP from kills mechanic).

According to Krythia of Scarlet Crusade (US):

Revitalize does very little for a Death Knight. Ones that are tank spec usually take the talents and use a rotation that gives them enough RP to do what they need. Beyond that, I still find myself generating plenty of RP to do what I need. In the next patch, I will need even less RP as an Unholy specced Death Knight as Unholy Blight, an ability I only use once every 20 seconds, is getting its RP cost reduced by 20.

For a Frost specced Death Knight, it is much more valuable. Frost strike is a great aggro ability for them and it costs 40 RP. The attack cannot be dodged, parried, or blocked. I noticed that when I played as Frost spec that I would become RP starved from time to time.

It is useless on a Blood spec DK as they have no abilites that are necessary for them to succeed that use RP. That, and they have a chance at casting Death Coil (40 RP cost) for free anyway.

Warriors and Bears

Avg. Return per Minute _Warrior = 3 * 4 = 12 Rage/Minute

Similar to what we looked at for DKs, we can compare this return to the Arms talent, Anger Management which “Generates 1 rage per 3 seconds.” This works out to 20 Rage per minute which is nearly double the return from Revitalize. Warriors and Bears also aren’t generally rage-starved on encounters, making the contribution from Revitalize both negligible and superfluous.

Paladins and other Mana Users

The calculation for Paladins (and other mana users, including ourselves) is a little more complicated since it’s based upon total mana pool. Using the formula above, we can create a graph of average MP5 return by cost based on recipient’s total mana.

Avg. Return per Minute _Paladin = 3 * 0.01 * MANA POOL

It is worth noting that Protection Paladin-appropriate gear does not typically include Intellect, so the average Prot-Paladin will have a very small mana pool, somewhere between 5 and 6k from my observation. This means that a constant stream of Rejuvenation with Revitalize is worth between 12 and 12.5 MP5. To contrast, the Paladin trained ability Blessing of Wisdom is worth 91 MP5. At 446 mana to cast, it would cost a Druid It currently costs a Druid 124 MP5 to maintain Rejuvenation in this fashion. Your target would need a mana pool of nearly 50k to make this a positive transfer of mana (the talent is obviously not intended to be used this way).

However, there is another, better way to look at the practical application of this talent for mana users. With its mana return, it can be seen to be reducing the mana cost of Rejuvenation, albeit retroactively. If 90% of the time, Revitalize procs from Rejuvenation and the target has a mana pool of 15,000, it will restore 150 mana or 135 mana on average. You only get the benefit when casting the spell on yourself, otherwise you’re passing the savings onto the spell’s recipient. This mana refund can be seen as modifying the HPM of the spell. Assuming full talents, a 15k mana pool, and 1500 spell power:

Rejuvenation @ 1500 Spell Power

Coefficient per Tick = 0.647
Untalented Number of Ticks = 15 / 3 = 5
Number of Ticks = Number of Ticks + 1 = 6

Untalented Base Healed = 1690 HP
Base Healed = Untalented Base Healed * (Gift of Nature + Genesis) * Tree of Life * Master Shapeshifter = 1690 * (1.05 + 1.10) * 1.06 * 1.04 = 2463.89 HP
Base Healed per Tick = Base Healed / # Ticks = 2463.89 / 5 = 492.78 HP/tick
HP/tick from Spell Power = Spell Power * Coefficient per Tick = 1500 * 0.647 = 970.5  HP/tick
Total Healing per Tick = Base Healed per Tick + HP/Tick from Spell Power = 492.78 + 970.5 = 1463.28 HP/tick

HPS = Total Healed per Tick / # seconds in one tick = 1463.28 / 3 = 487.76
HPM = Total Healing per Tick * Total Ticks / Mana Cost = 1463.28 * 6 / 446 = 19.69
HPM with Revitalize = Total Healed per Tick * Total Ticks / (Mana Cost – Proc Chance _Revitalize * 0.01 * 15000) = 26.52
% Increase in HPM = (26.33 – 19.69) / 19.69 = 34.7%

This works out to a 34.7% increase in the HPM of Rejuvenation when cast at 1500 spell power and on someone with a mana pool of 15k. Revitalize makes Rejuvenation insanely efficient when you think of it as passing on your mana savings to the recipient and makes it a wonderful self heal. In fact, my next analytical article will evaluate the use of Rejuvenation as an alternative to other methods of raid healing.

Rogues and Feral Druids

While tanks are the most likely beneficiaries of Rejuvenation – and therefore Revitalize – the restorative effect also includes Energy. This means that Rogues and Feral Druids in Cat Form can also benefit. We’ll calculate the potential value of this effect for a single Rejuvenation effect since they aren’t likely to be chained on DPS:

Avg. Return per Cast _Rogue = (0.9 * = 7.2 Energy per Cast

Rogues and Cats naturally regenerate Energy at a rate of 10/second or 600/minute. The 7.2 Energy every 18 seconds from Revitalize works out to 24 Energy per minute. This is a 4% increase over the natural regeneration that a Rogue normally experiences. Increasing Energy regeneration should approximately represent the same % increase in damage from yellow attacks. Druids tend to have a larger percent of total damage from yellow attacks than do Rogues, so this is slightly more beneficial to them. And all Trees know that every time you heal a Rogue, a kitten dies so heal Feral Druids first!

Gift of the Earthmother

Gift of the Earthmother is a five-point talent that reduces the global cooldown of Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, and Wild Growth by a certain percentage. It can be difficult to place a value on this talent since its contribution directly depends on the number of times you typically cast the relevant spells each minute. If, for instance, you cast nothing but Rejuvenation and Lifebloom and assuming 0 spell haste, it would represent a 20% increase in throughput (though not necessarily effective healing since this much healing could be unnecessary). Obviously, this is an unrealistic and unsustainable situation. A more accurate estimate would be to assume that the Druid will maintain two Lifebloom stacks, two instances of Rejuvenation, and will cast Wild Growth every so many seconds. In this case, I’m going to assume a Wild Growth cast every 10 seconds:

Total Lifebloom Casts = 2 * (60 / 9) = 13.33
Total Rejuvenation Casts = 2 * (60 / 18) = 6.67
Total Wild Growth Casts = 60 / 10 = 6
Total GotEM Applications = 13.33 + 6.67 + 6 = 26
Healing Throughput Increase = (26 * 0.3)/60 = 13%

Obviously, this is a very rough estimate based on some pretty arbitrary assumptions. If you use Rejuvenation more often as a raid heal (or cast Wild Growth more often), you will place a higher value on this talent.

Haste 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.

Updated with Patch 3.08: The global cooldown reduction of Gift of the Earthmother is now percentage-based. This represents a significant nerf to its effectiveness. 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):

At level 80, 32.79 haste rating is equivalent to 1% haste. With 5/5 Gift of the Earthmother, you’ll need 20% haste or 655 haste rating to obtain a 1 second global cooldown.

Summary

I hope that the above looks into these three somewhat ephemeral talents has helped you evaluate the potential value they present to your playstyle. Unlike many of our simpler talents, so much of their value depends on how you heal. Nonetheless, here are a few summarized bits of advice:

Living Seed should really only be taken in conjunction with Improved Regrowth in a build that emphasizes Regrowth as the direct heal of choice. All other direct heals do not have the potential to “proc” this ability due to their considerably lower crit rates. In a Regrowth build, you should expect to see approximately 3% of your effective healing to come from this ability. If you do not, consider moving those points elsewhere.

Revitalize is bad for Paladin, Warrior, and Bear Tanks and good for mana users with sizeable mana pools. Its value is questionable to Death Knights with the possible exception of those who are Frost-specced. Its benefits would be decent for Rogues and Cats, but damage isn’t often such that Rejuvenation would need to be chain cast on either of them. Should you take this talent, it should always be in conjunction with the [Glyph of Swiftmend] since a Swiftmended Rejuvenation cannot proc Revitalize. This talent is most useful in 5-man and 10-man instances where you can more often afford to group heal using Rejuvenation with less risk of your HoT being overwritten by a direct heal from another healer. A Druid with this talent should heal herself using Rejuvenation whenever it is safe to do so since it is an incredibly efficient (high HPM) spell once you factor in the potential mana return.

Because Gift of the Earthmother affects the global cooldown of Lifebloom, Rejuvenation, and Wild Growth, you will derive greater benefit from it the more you use any of these spells. Some have asserted that GotEM is losing 1/3 of its effectiveness with the impending addition of a 6-second cooldown to Wild Growth. Assuming, however, that Blizzard allows Nourish to gain it’s 20% throughput bonus from Wild Growth’s HoT and makes the spell more competitive with Regrowth, GotEM’s reduction of the Wild Growth GCD will continue to be valuable. Once you have around 750 haste rating, plan to drop a point in Gift of the Earthmother.

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Living Seed, Replenish, and Gift of the Earthmother

Shadowmeld has changed. Previous uses of this ability involved hiding from mobs while outside of combat or getting out of combat in Arena, sitting to drink, and using Shadowmeld to hide from your opponents. Now however, thanks to the powers that be, this Night Elf racial can remove you from combat and even temporarily from the hate list – permanently if you happen to be alone. We can all see the obvious advantages of Shadowmeld in a PvE dungeon setting, but you might be underestimating its full potential. Let’s consider a few additional uses:

While in a PvE dungeon setting (5-man only), use SM to take you out of combat mid-fight to:

• Drink or Eat: Even in a heroic dungeon where downtime is low, you can find yourself an 8-second quick drink (think of it as another mana pot).
• Revive: Yes, you can use our 10 second resurrection mid-battle (good luck finding those 10 seconds, though).
• Gear Change: If you have Itemrack or another gear-swapping mod installed, a Boomkin could switch over to healer if the healer goes down.

In PvP:

• If Shadowmeld is paired up with Nature’s Grasp via macro (neither is tied to the global cooldown and will therefore activate at the same time), the pursuer will drop you from their target list and will need to reacquire you. In such a situation, you will most likely be running and will break Shadowmeld immediately. The first attack after the pursuer reacquires you will most likely be an auto-attack and not a stun, thus entangling your opponent and giving you some breathing room.
• Outdoor PvP holds a cheeky benefit. If you’re being ganked, use Shadowmeld to take you out-of-combat, hit Swift Flight Form, and high tail it to the nearest bed and breakfast.
• There is currently a bug in Wintergrasp that will keep you in combat for long periods of time, even though there is no battle to be seen. Using Shadowmeld will break you out of combat so you can mount up.
• You can still use Shadowmeld to drink in Arenas, though it’s more challenging since your stealth will break once you’ve started drinking. Alternatively, you could use it in the same manner as before, running to get out combat long enough to sit and drink then activate Shadowmeld. However, given the now longer cooldown on the ability (3 minutes), you only get one shot at this in most matches.

Can you think of any other uses for this revised ability?

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Guest Post: Leveraging Shadowmeld

Subject: GC: Allow WG to count towards Nourish bonus?
I know I’d use the spell a lot more if I could WG a party and then tab/nourish them all off of that HoT. Just something to consider.

To which Ghostcrawler encouragingly responded:

Yeah, there is a good chance we’ll do this.

This change would mean that a Druid could better leverage Nourish by casting Wild Growth on her raid group, watching to see who had been hit with the HoT, and then patch heal whoever needed it with Nourish, effectively switching it over to the “tank heal” graphs of Direct Healing in Wrath. In this case, Regrowth would not get the +20% bonus from the [Glyph of Regrowth] which could make Nourish a more competitive option.  This news comes hot on the heels of an earlier announcement that Blizzard will look to both increase talent-based benefits to Nourish and to add a Nourish-specific Glyph to help increase its viability relative to Regrowth:

We think there is some validity to the notion that Nourish is not propped up enough by talents. It will also be getting a glyph at some point.

Break out the tinsel and Winter Veil lights, everyone. We might have a new toy to play with soon!

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Blue: Nourish may be Affected by Wild Growth

“Resto4Life” is sounding more like a prison sentence lately. And here are the rest of the Druid-specific changes announced (or discovered) today:

• 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.
• Bonus Armor: The mechanics for items with bonus armor on them has changed (any cloth, leather, mail, or plate items with extra armor, or any other items with any armor).  Bonus armor beyond the base armor of an item will no longer be multiplied by any talents or by the bonuses of Bear Form, Dire Bear Form, or Frost Presence.
• Genesis: Now works with Tranquility and Hurricane.
• King of the Jungle: The Bear effect is now physical, and thus cannot be dispelled.
• Nature’s Grace: Now also effects Revive.
• 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 : Now be cancelled by any shapeshifting.
• 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.
• 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.

I’m really excited about the addition of a mana cost reduction for Feral forms on Primal Tenacity. This is essentially what I suggested last month in light of Feral mana woes and should make PvP as a BearCat much more fun and sustainable. On the other hand, the bug fix to Mangle – Bear was unexpected. I wasn’t aware this was an issue. Either way, ouch. Or maybe “less ouch.”

Not necessarily Druid-specific but still interesting:

Tapping: All player spells which cause a creature to become aggressive to you will now also immediately cause the creature to be tapped.  

This means we’ll be able to “tag” mobs using the slightly cheaper Faerie Fire rather than having to spend 4% additional base mana on a Moonfire. Not a big deal, but nice if you’re Restoration-specced and grouped with your husband’s leather-wearing DPS Warrior where your Moonfire is less than necessary to help kill things (and your mana would be better spent keeping your partner from impaling himself).

Want more delicious Feral stuff? Be sure to check out Kalon’s recent post The Collected Ideas on How to Fix Bears (But what if I wanted cubs!?) and Runy’s recent post on tanking idols (or the lack thereof), Azerothian Idol: Bears to Rock Out with New Idols.

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PTR Changes: 6-Second Cooldown on Wild Growth

Yeah, if I can offer a suggestion, please don’t disregard a player’s argument just because their class is good in aspects of the game you care about that the OP may not.

We think we are going to remove the cooldown of Fan of Knives altogether. There are just too many PvE situations where rogues feel at a disadvantage without a reliable ranged attack. The example that came up recently is Meathook in CoT:Stratholme and having the spawning zombies causing pushback on your healers. Rogues can FoK once and then have to run over to help the healer.

And in case it gets asked, Feral druids we haven’t forgotten about your AE either.

We’ll try and announce something soon.

Or is that really what that comment means?  Not forgetting about it doesn’t actually mean they’re going to give it to us, just that they’re thinking about it.

What do you think about that?  How would that work?  Would we Purr the enemy to death, rattling the integrity of their skeletal structure into nothing but a fine powder?  Maybe the Angry-Kitty Death Shriek where we make that creepy baby sound cats make when they’re hurt, tearing the tympanum from the eardrums of our foes with an awful wail?  Or could it be the Spastic LoLCat Scritch-Scratch, blinking from alien girl to alien girl like James T. Kirk on Red Bull?

Who knows?

This St. Patty’s Day, why not celebrate your arboreal nature with a Resto4Life Tree Shirt? Now through March 12, U.S. residents can save 17% on all orders $25 or more with code MARCH39 (Canadian residents can use code CADMARCH39).

A Plethora of Claws

So it was that Phae showed me Talent Chic and I noticed that my spec is nowhere on the list.  My initial reaction was that I must have missed the boat.  Somewhere, somehow, people were seeing things I wasn’t and suddenly, I had to rethink my spec.

But as I started looking it over, I realized that were I to respec, I’d likely pick the same points all over again.  Why?  I’ve read the arguments for and against certain talents and I’ve looked at the math involved and I know that not all my choices are optimal, so why did I pick what I did?

Well, let’s look it over and find out.

First, I think it’s important to understand the realities of the way you play.  What content do you find yourself in frequently and what content do you need to be able to perform well in?  What sort of role do you play in said content and what are the classes and capabilities of the people you’ll be grouping with?  How much do you solo, how much do you tank, group, quest for dailies or PvP?

For a long time, I’ve been the big bad Druid tank of my guild.  My playtime is limited, thus my raid time is also limited and based in part on my performance (I’m really not trying to be arrogant, I’ve just done it for a long time and several cited me as an inspiration), several others have also taken up the mantle of the Dire Bear.  As such, my capabilities have been eclipsed in no small measure.  Most of them are my statistical equal or superior at this point and are accomplished tanks in their own right, independent of any guidance or inspiration I may have been.

Many of the others have followed Phae Phae into Resto while a few more than that have gone the route of the Laser Chicken, confidently calling death and destruction from the heavens.  To whit: DPS and Healing, when not covered by “pure” classes, are as well and truly covered as Bear tanking.

As has been discussed many times over, there is a fundamental lack of tanking Mains in the world, something our guild never really felt until daily Heroics were implemented.  In and of themselves, they didn’t – of course – cause a tank shortage.  What they did, with their lockouts and badge bonuses, was make it so that only about half the guild had ready access to daily Heroic runs.

So the net result of all this is that I am still needed to tank frequently, but just as frequently, I find myself soloing dailies, filling in for a DPSer that drops from a run in progress, or some other task that requires a generalized Feral Druid.  My role, as I approached my build, was one of MT/DPS/OT, about in that order.  I must be able to drop into an MT role in a raid (I can and have, even for one boss fight I made it to in MH) just as easily as I must be able to become a purple kitty (please, FSM, please let me be a Snow Leopard soon!).

So first things first.

Furor, while nice, is really just a speed bump to Naturalist and Omen of Clarity.  I happen to be one of those who shifts a lot even in PvE content, moving between encounters in Elf form and shifting to Dire Bear during a pull.  My typical pull involves Moonfire on a secondary un-CC’d target, then shifting and going to my tanking rotation.  I hate looking at my big fuzzy ass all the time so I shift.  It’s likely not the most efficient method.  Sue me.  I still like Furor for its mechanics, though.

Naturalist provides me with both threat and damage and as such, is a nice payoff, even if you consider it’s essentially 1% per point if Furor is useless to you.  2% per point if you make active use of it.

Omen of Clarity.  Oddly, this talent has seen a lot of discussion as to its relative worth on the boards.  I still see it proc a lot and free rage and energy is hybrid utility in a talent at its best.  I also get endless amusement at having it go off when I’m crafting.

Now here’s where, in the Resto tree, it gets a little dicey.  I shift enough and occasionally PvP such that Natural Shapeshifter is immensely appealing, and the crit from Master Shapeshifter is also tempting to the point of salivation.  However – and you knew that was coming because you are far more astute than any Druid Pundit credits you with – we are now looking at slightly less than 1% damage increase per point for MSS if we factor in the cost of NSS.  This discounts the bonuses Cat gets talented from critical hits, but you get the point.  It’s a pair of skills that would increase my combo point usage and increase my quality of life (not to mention my PvP viability for those rare times I PvP), but that come at a cost of 5 points quite possibly better spent elsewhere.

It’s important to note that I am not a believer that any and all talents should be valued on their ROI (Return On Investment) but on a broader spectrum of form, function, and perk.  So take it with a grain of salt when I say something isn’t worth it.  Even though I’m probably right.  =P

That said, anyone who tells you Feral Aggression should be taken over Ferocity needs to go play Hello Kitty Island Adventure and never look back.  ‘Nuff said.

Now is when we really get to the meat of my odd little spec and I attempt futilely to defend and explain my choices.

Feral Instinct gives us tanking utility and a measure of padding for both soloing and PvP while Savage Fury gives us a damage boost to the most commonly used abilities we have, increasing our DPS and threat.  That’s got to be a no-brainer.  Zombie players of Druids probably have the sense to spec that.

Thick Hide is purely for tanking.  With our armor lost from items, it’s even more critical for players that want to tank to snatch up this talent in its entirety.  For an end-game Druid it’s worth more than 2000 armor.

Feral Swiftness is as much for moving faster unmounted as it is for the dodge bonus, though the dodge bonus is how we justify this talent because even I wouldn’t touch it if all it did was let me run faster.  I don’t PvP enough for me to get a skill that’d only do that.

Survival Instincts I almost skipped.  Before you groan at my stupidity, let me explain myself.  I’m a Druid tank.  To date, my only emergency tools in tanking form have been, in order of access: Frenzied Regeneration, a potting macro, and a couple trinkets.  I am flat-out not used to tanking with any way to stave off the inevitable and I’ve been remarkably successful for it.  My first reaction to it, thus, was to wonder if I’d even remember to use it, let alone use it effectively.  But when I realized that it’d bestow an emergency 6k (or close to it) health for 20 seconds, it was really hard to keep telling myself the point would be wasted.

Here’s hoping I remember to use it.

Sharpened Claws is our crit boost and good for both bear and cat, but for obviously different reasons.  Slaved to Primal Fury the efficacy of this talent is enough to kick me in the face.  More please.  The other talent opened up with Sharpened Claws is Primal Precision.  Now, there appears to be a significant amount of Expertise gear in the game later on, so this could be something I spec out of later, but for now, the boost to Expertise is outstanding, not to mention the energy return portion of this talent making it really nice for cats, too.  I wonder how much of the benefit of the refund is negated by the other portion of the talent, though (that’s idle curiosity, nothing more really).

Feral Charge should be obvious, and Survival of the Fittest has significant value even if you don’t need or want the crit immunity (though why you wouldn’t, even if you aren’t a tank, is beyond me) just for the stat boost.  Predatory Strikes and Heart of the Wild boost threat and damage.  Good deal.

Nurturing Instinct was skipped because… well because it’s garbage.  I wouldn’t even put that in a PvP build.  Brutal Impact looks tasty for both forms, but I’ll be honest and admit I don’t use my stuns much.  2 points saved.  Shredding Attacks is nice, but I need to be group DPSing to really get the mileage out of it I’d want, so I skipped that, too.  I do DPS in groups, but not enough to warrant the talent.

Ah, Leader of the Pack.  Gateway talent to awesome.  The crit bonus, Mangle, and Improved Mangle are all reason enough to get this talent, but there are the other ornaments I’m also interested in.

I have serious issues with Protector of the Pack, but it’s the best thing we’ve got of its kind, and I can’t really pimp Thick Hide if I’m willing to skip this one.  Improved Leader of the Pack isn’t really a necessity, but I like it and the soloing longevity I get from it, as well as the rather miniscule cushion it provides my healers.  The mana regen mechanic is interesting, but I’d still like to see something more fundamental to the form to handle that, since it seems we’re not getting mana on our gear anymore.

Finally, I put 2/3 into Infected Wounds.  Widely regarded as primarily a PvP talent, the tanking applications and even soloing application should be obvious.  It’s more damage reduction.

King of the Jungle, Rend and Tear, and Berserk are juiciness I skipped.  Why?

The easy cop-out answer is that I don’t have enough points.  So juggle some around, you might say!  After all, many of those I picked (after all Infected Wounds, Improved Leader of the Pack, Feral Charge and Survival Instincts are more luxury than necessity) can be dumped to make room, and some would make the case that all the points I put into Resto are wasted.

Perhaps.

King of the Jungle is a damage boost in bear and an energy burst in cat.  God that’s tempting.  I really do want it.  Tiger’s Fury finally useful?  Wow.  I’m in shock.

Rend and Tear speaks directly to how we do our damage, through bleeds and abilities that augment or are augmented by them.  It also makes Ferocious Bite… bite less.  Overall, a very tasty talent.

I fully intend to grab both of those when I level.

So… Berserk.  51 points.  I’m not sure what to think of the talent, to be honest.  I have a tendency to forget cooldown abilities and I’m unnaturally tied to Omen of Clarity, too much for my own good, I think.

A few things that stand out to me is that Barkskin is okay for tanking, but the damage reduction is fairly underwhelming in the few situations I’ve used it while Frenzied Regeneration is my new best friend (especially glyphed).  Survival Instincts is interesting and something I’m trying to learn to use effectively.

Overall, I’ve been pretty underwhelmed by the patch in general, though I am starting to suspect that my spec is part of the issue.  I think I’ll be trying out a full Cat and full Bear spec in the near future to see what happens.

This St. Patty’s Day, why not celebrate your arboreal nature with a Resto4Life Tree Shirt? Now through March 12, U.S. residents can save 17% on all orders $25 or more with code MARCH39 (Canadian residents can use code CADMARCH39).

Currant: Not One of the Cool Kids