Azou of Sargeras wrote an insightful post about the perceived lack of crowd control available to Druids. He posits that — rather than not having sufficient crowd control in the form of spell — we instead suffer from a lack of appropriate creatures upon which our crowd control spell (Hibernate) can be applied. Here’s a snippet:

Hibernate is a very solid form of CC. It does not heal the mob, meaning you can sleep anything and not worry about having to damage it all over again. The mob stays put, meaning it won’t wonder into other mobs or maybe in the range of CC. And it lasts long enough with no diminishing returns.

We just don’t have mobs to CC. In TBC, the main mob types are humanoids and demons. Beasts show up here and there, but they are generally A) Non-elite and easily killed B) Straight-up immune.

Azou would like Blizzard to increase the number of CC-able Beasts and Dragonkin in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. From a Restoration Druid’s point of view, I would rather not have the additional responsibility of having to crowd control each pull. It’s often difficult enough to maintain Hibernate and heal at the same time in Heroics. However, I know that it’s an issue for our Balance-specced brethren, so perhaps a new ability — or a Talent to augment Hibernate — could be added. Maybe Hibernate could be modified to also affect plants, Elementals, and/or Undead. We are, after all, so in tune with Nature that I can see us having some powers over the abomination of unlife (although perhaps a “Banish” type spell would make more sense). This would increase the number of undead CCers from one (Priest) to two (Priest and Balance Druid) and could help reduce the difficulties of many Balance Druids when trying to find group spots in Heroics, especially given the strong Undead theme that will likely permeate many of the new instances.

Another option could be to grant heavily Balanced-specced druids a 51-point talent for Poylmorph: Plant, a spell already being used by some NPCs in BC instances. This would allow a fully Balance-specced Druid to more closely emulate its “parent” class (the Mage) since they would have had to sacrifice almost all other hybrid abilities to do so.

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The European Community Managers are soliciting feedback in each of the class forums about the talent builds of players and what changes, if any, they feel should be made to current talents:

Hello,

We would like to conduct a small survey on your opinions regarding talents. We are interested in finding out if there was 1 particular talent that led you to speccing the way you did. To that end, we would like to ask that players post in this thread following this template:

- Build: XX/XX/XX (Focus: PvE / PvP)

- What, in your opinion, is the key talent to your build and why?

- What talent, in your build, would you replace if you could and with what?

Please confine answers to less than 100 words, we’re not looking for essays

If you wish to discuss issues raised in this thread we have setup a discussion thread here:

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=394039749&postId=3939643961&sid=1#0

…

We would like to remind you that this is meant as an informative survey; it does not necessarily imply any future modification of talents.

Unfortunately, as these discussions are taking place on the European forums, U.S. players like myself can’t respond to the thread. If I could, I would respond in the following way:

PvE Build – 26/0/35: Lunar Guidance, Moonglow, Swiftmend (link)

Key Talent: Moonglow and Lunar Guidance; these two talents help simulate the benefits of Tree of Life at all times, not just while in form. Compare a 9% mana reduction to all healing spells except Lifebloom versus a 20% mana reduction to all healing spells except Healing Touch when in Tree of Life. Compare 25% bonus +Healing from Intellect versus 25% bonus +Healing applied to group members based upon Spirit. Keep in mind that Intellect is a far more plentiful and generally beneficial stat to optimize for.

Superfluous Talent: Improved Mark of the Wild; 5 Talent Points for the same percentage benefit afforded to other classes for only 2 points and to a buff that is widely regarded as inferior to Fortitude and Brilliance. I’d rather see this talent entirely replaced or reduced to 2 points with one of our 5 point talents moved into first tier (ideally, Nature’s Focus). This would help reduce the bloat of our Restoration tree.

PvP Build – 12/11/38: Feral Charge, Nature’s Reach, Swiftmend (link)

Key Talent: Feral Charge and Swiftmend; the charge greatly increases a Restoration Druid’s survivability in 2v2 Arenas as well as providing an additional spell interrupt once the DR on Cyclone have elapsed. Swiftmend is a must-have for delivering fast, uninterruptable heals to oneself and one’s teammate.

Superfluous Talent: None in this build. While some talents do not lend themselves to an increase of PvP ability (such as Improved Moonfire, these talents are appropriate for those specializing in their parent tree. It is unfortunate, however, that only those Restoration who PvP have a useful Tier 1 Talent (Furor).

I would love for other U.S. readers to comment with their responses to these questions, especially since the majority of respondents on the forum thread so far have been Feral-specced.

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Welcome back!
That’ll be 50 silver.
Porlin of Terenas asks an interesting question on the official forums today, wanting to know how to write a macro that will subjectively choose a Rebirth rank based upon whether or not the caster is in combat. The highest rank of Rebirth requires a 50 silver Flintweed Seed, making it the most expensive reagent-driven spell in the game. Rank 1 of the same spell only requires a Maple Seed, costing around 7 silver 2 silver. If you have an inventory slot to spare (and sometimes make use of your combat resurrection spell out of combat), this technique could add up to a signficant savings over time:

/cast [nocombat] Rebirth(Rank 1); Rebirth;

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MMO-Champion.com and World of Raids have posted images of the new Violet Eye recipes that will be available in patch 2.2. Among the additions is a new Flask recipe:

Compare this with the Druid class buff, Gift of the Wild:

Apparently Blizzard missed the article about how underpowered our class buff is relative to those of other buff-casters and decided to create a Flask that’s essentially a Druid-in-a-bottle, almost perfectly mimicking the stat bonuses afforded by our Gift of the Wild (10 more of each resistance, 4 fewer to each stat, and no armor). Something tells me, however, that the Flask’s resistances will stack with Paladin, Hunter, and Priest resist buffs. Then again, maybe they’re planning to change Mark but wanted to ensure that the buff (as horrible as it is) is still available to players in some form.

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One of the most frequently asked questions on the official Druid Forums seems to be, “How much +Healing do I need to successfully heal in Karazhan/Heroics?” While different players may choose to focus on one stat or another (pursuing longevity through MP5 or a larger mana pool through Intellect), due to the balanced nature of most of the items that can be acquired before entering Karazhan and Heroics, +Healing is a good indicator of the overall quality of a healer’s equipment. But how much healing is enough? For Karazhan, somewhere around 900 is recommended. But what does this number mean and how does it apply to the myriad of healing spells available to the Druid?

+Healing increases the HPM (healing per mana) of a given spell; this is sometimes referred to as “scaling” since it allows the same heal spell to become more and more effective as its caster’s gear improves. However, +Healing affects different spells and spell ranks differently, the degree to which is determined by two factors: the casting time of the spell (or, in the case of Heals over Time, the number of ticks) and the level of the spell’s rank relative to caster level.

Casting Time

There are several types of heals (direct, heal over time, channeled, area of effect), and casting time affects the scaling of each type differently:

• Direct Heals (Healing Touch)

  To determine the scaling of a spell with a direct heal component, divide its cast time by 3.5:

  S_direct = cast time / 3.5

  For example, 3.5 second Healing Touch is afforded 100% of +Healing. Note that talents which reduce the casting time of a given spell (such as Naturalist for Healing Touch) do not reduce scaling.

• Heals over Time (Rejuvenation)

  The scaling of HoTs is directly related to the spell’s duration:

  S_hot = duration / 15

  Rejuvenation, lasting a total of 12 seconds, receives 80% scaling divided over each of its 4 ticks.

• Mixed Method Heals (Regrowth)

  Some spells such as Regrowth have both a direct heal component as well as a portion that heals over time. The scaling for these spells are divided between the two portions and are determined as follows:

  

  

• Area of Effect Heals (Tranquility)

  Because Area of Effect heals hit multiple targets, the benefit of +Healing is divided by 3. Otherwise, it uses the same formula as a direct heal:

  S_aoe = (cast time / 3.5) / 3

  Since Tranquility lasts eight seconds, the scaling for this spell is 76% divided among its four ticks or 19% per tick.

Spell Level vs. Caster Level

Spell Level is defined as the level before which the next rank can be trained. For example, since Rank 8 of Healing Touch is first trained at level 44, the effective spell level for Rank 7 is 43. To discourage downranking (using a lower level spell with a large amount of +Healing to increase its HPM), Blizzard reduces the +Healing awarded to spells whose effective spell level are significantly below that of the caster:

S_downrank = (spell level + 6) / player level

Thus, a level 70 player casting Rank 7 of Healing Touch would have her +Healing bonus reduced to 70% ((43 + 6) / 70). These diminished returns have eliminated the technique of using the faster-casting Rank 4 of Healing Touch that was popular before the release of the Burning Crusade since Rank 4 only receives 44% of +Healing. Note that the ranking modifier cannot result in a bonus to +Healing; the maximum is 100% regardless of how the calculation works for later ranks.

Here are two figures which illustrate the HPM statistic (healing / mana cost) for ranks 4 and 10-13 of Healing Touch as +Healing increases from 500 to 1500. Notice that as +Healing increases the HPM efficiency of Healing Touch Rank 4 increases more quickly than that of ranks 10-13, even after the mitigating penalty is applied. The penalty keeps this spell from being especially viable, however, as an average untalented HT 4 is only 847 with +1000 Healing so don’t let the figure mislead you into reconsidering downranking to such a degree.

Figure 1. HPM of Untalented Healing Touch Ranks

Figure 2. HPM of Talented* Healing Touch Ranks

* Healing Touch talents under consideration include Empowered Touch, Naturalist, Tranquil Spirit, and Gift of Nature.

Bonuses and penalties to a spell’s +Healing benefit are cumulative. A spell that is downranked to receive only 70% of +Healing and that has a 2.0 second cast time (57%) that is cast with +1000 Healing would receive 399 points of healing (1000 * .57 * .7 = 399).

Individual Spell Scaling

Because spells scale according to their cast time, duration, type and rank used, the relative efficiency of Druid heals (measured in HPM) fluctuates as the amount of +Healing changes. Below are two figures which describe the relative scaling of the various heals available to Druids, including talented versions if applicable. Lifebloom has been separated from all other heals to prevent its high HPM values from skewing the graphs:

Figure 3. HPM of Heals other than Lifebloom

Figure 4. HPM of Lifebloom

Clearly Lifebloom outclasses all other heals, even without considering the 20% mana reduction afforded by Tree of Life. Also notable is that, as +Healing increases — representing an improvement in gear — the HPM efficiency of an untalented Rejuvenation eclipses that of untalented Regrowth (although a fully talented Rejuvenation far outperforms a talented Regrowth). Also notable is that, while it would seem that Healing Touch is an underperformer in the HPM stat, it does make a superior showing in the HPS stat, as any Heroic healing Druid can attest.

The two figures below demonstrate the healing power (measured by HPS) of Druid heals. Figure 5 compares the HPS of Healing Touch against the initial direct heal component of Regrowth and the final burst heal of Lifebloom were it allowed to expire. Figure 6 compares the HPS of all heals over their full duration (for example, for Regrowth, total time is 2 seconds of casting time plus 21 seconds of healing over time).

Figure 5. HPS of Direct Heals and Direct Heal Components

Figure 6. HPS of Heals over Time

As predicted, Healing Touch is a better choice under a high damage scenario where mana is less likely to be a factor (such as trash mob fights in Heroics between which the caster is free to drink). The other HoTs such as Rejuvenation and Lifebloom are efficient enough to be used to provide some padding against emergencies, however.

While none of the data collected and presented here invalidates the use of a particular spell or style of healing, it does demonstrate the relative strength — and subsequent prioritization — of certain spells over others under specific conditions. In general, Lifebloom is an excellent choice for low, sustained damage levels. Should DPS increase beyond that which can be handled by a triple stack of Lifebloom alone, Rejuvenation can be applied. At further escalating levels of damage, a Tree should fall back upon a combination Swiftmend and Regrowth. A non-Tree druid would instead fall back upon Swiftmend (if available) and the highly powerful, less efficient Healing Touch. So, too, might a Tree druid, should Regrowth prove insufficient to the task.

The bonuses of Tree of Life are not included in any of the above calculations, due to the fact that — in its current form — it is too impractical to be used most of the time. In general, this would push the HPM efficiency of all HoTs up slightly, but you would lose the ability to handle burst damage (not to mention the ability to decurse and remove poison). The subjective viability of Tree of Life is something that will be addressed in another post.

Assumptions: The following talents were factored into the “talented” statistics for each heal:

• Healing Touch: Empowered Touch (20% scaling bonus to +Healing), Naturalist (-0.5 seconds cast time), Tranquil Spirit (-10% mana), Gift of Nature (10% bonus to the end total)
• Regrowth: Empowered Rejuvenation (14% scaling bonus to +Healing of the HoT portion), Gift of Nature (10% bonus to the end total), Improved Regrowth (50% additional crit rating)
• Rejuvenation: Gift of Nature and Improved Rejuvenation (resulting in a cumulative bonus of 26.5% to the end total (1.1 * 1.15)), Empowered Rejuvenation (16% scaling bonus to +Healing)
• Lifebloom: Empowered Rejuvenation (+10% single stack, 31% for a stack of 3), Gift of Nature (10% bonus to the end total)

References: Many of the formulas and values included in this article were taken directly or derived from the following articles on WoWWiki.com:

• Formulas: Plus Damage and Plus Healing
• Healing Comparison

Download the Spreadsheet
used to calculate these values.

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