New Resto Druid Skills and Talents

The new talent trees and talent descriptions have been put up on MMO-Champion.

Base healing arsenal:

Healing Touch – Heals a friendly target for 7210.75 to 8516.07. 38% of base mana, 40 yd range, 3 sec cast

A big heal with a long cast time and a high mana cost. I would assume that this would be mostly used as a tank-healing bomb. It looks like it might be too expensive to use too often.

Lifebloom - Heals the target for 1229.34 over 7 sec. When Lifebloom completes its duration or is dispelled, the target instantly heals themself for 1773.95. This effect can stack up to 3 times on the same target. Lifebloom can only be active one target at a time.5% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast.

This can now only be active on one target. On one hand, I like that Lifebloom will have a tank healing niche. However, a lot of fights (currently at least) have 2 or 3 tanks. They will get no Lifebloom loving.

Nourish – Heals a friendly target for 3203.33 to 3722.79. Heals for an additional 20% if you have a Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Lifebloom, or Wild Growth effect active on the target. 7% of base mana, 40 yd range, 3 sec cast

Small-medium heal with a long cast time and a low mana cost. I really don’t like that this has the same cast time as HT but does less than half the amount of healing. The fact that the mana cost is super low still doesn’t make it that attractive to me. I guess I need to learn what it’s like to be mana-starved before I can fully appreciate this.

Regrowth - Heals a friendly target for 3382.61 to 3776.35 and another 2527.77 over 21 sec. 35% of base mana, 40 yd range, 2 sec cast

Medium heal (plus HoT) with a fast cast time and a high mana cost.

Rejuvenation - Heals the target for 6536.4 over 12 sec. 25% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast.

Only lasts 12 seconds, down from 15. I think this will still be one of our primary raid healing tools especially since it’s innately effected by haste and crit.

Tranquility - Heals all members of target’s party for 3882.37 every 5 seconds for 8 sec. Druid must channel to maintain the spell. 32% of base mana, 30 yd range, Channeled, 8 min cooldown

A slight improvement, but I was hoping for much more. Now heals your target’s party (rather than your own). I really wish it would heal the 5 people with the lowest health. With an 8 minute cooldown, that wouldn’t be too OP.

Remove Corruption – Nullifies corrupting effects on the friendly target, removing 1 magical effect, 1 curse, and 1 poison. 17% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast

Huzzah! No more having separate buttons for curses and poisons.

Rebirth - Returns the spirit to the body, restoring a dead target to life with 87 health and 0 mana. 68% of base mana, 30 yd range, 2 sec cast, 30 min cooldown, Reagents: Maple Seed

Cooldown has been brought back up to 30 minutes. I’m okay with this. I like having to be strategic about when to use Rebirth, and not just use it when anyone dies, with the knowledge that it will be back up for the next attempt.

Talent Trees

Resto Tree

Tier 1

Blessing of the Grove (2 points) – Increases the healing done by your Rejuvenation by [2%/4%], the direct damage of your Moonfire by [3%/6%] and the damage done by your Claw and Shred by [2%/4%].

A nice, general talent that druids of all specs will probably take. The boost to healing is small, but it’s to be expected for a first tier talent.

Natural Shapeshifter (3 points) – Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifting by [10%/20%/30%].

To me, this is one of the boring talents they should have made a baseline ability. Who cares about shapeshifting cost especially since Tree form has a 5-minute cooldown? I resent having to take this talent to get to tier 2.

Furor (3 points) – Gives you [20%/40%/60%] chance to gain 10 Rage when you shapeshift into Bear and Dire Bear Form, and you keep up to [20/40/60] of your Energy when you shapeshift into Cat Form, and increases your total Intellect while in Moonkin form by [2%/4%/6%].

Why the hell is this still in the resto tree? Why was it ever? How many other talent trees have a talent that is completely useless to the spec it’s in? Either add a piece to this talent that benefits restos in some way or get this out of our talent tree.

Tier 2

Perseverance (2 points) – Reduces all spell damage taken by [2%/4%/6%].

Taking less damage is always nice, but I think this talent still falls into the boring category.

Improved Rejuvenation (3 points) – Increases the effect of your Rejuvenation and Swiftmend spells by [5%/10%/15%].

I like the fact that rejuv is still getting a lot of love. This tells me that it will still be one of our top spells.

Tier 3

Living Seed (3 points) - When you critically heal your target with Swiftmend, Regrowth, Nourish or Healing Touch spell you have a [33%/66%/100%] chance to plant a Living Seed on the target for 30% of the amount healed. The Living Seed will bloom when the target is next attacked. Lasts 15 sec.

Pretty much the same as our current talent. Hopefully more types of attacks will trigger this in Cata so it is more useful for raid healing. If it procced off aura damage that would be swell.

Nature’s Swiftness (1 point) – When activated, your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 sec. becomes an instant cast spell.Instant, 3 min cooldown.

Same old spell.

Revitalize (3 points) – When your Regrowth or Lifebloom heal over time periodics critically hit, you instantly regenerate [1%/2%/3%] of your total mana. This effect cannot occur more than once every 6 sec.

It’s too bad that this no longer provides a benefit to our raid group, but I’m not too broken up over that. This is a much more fun talent that the generic “You regenerate 30% of your mana while casting”. I like mechanics that give you mana back when you heal like shaman and pallies currently have.

Tier 4

Nature’s Bounty (3 points) – Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth spell by [10%/20%/30%] on targets at or below 25% health, and you have a [20%/40%/60%] chance when you critically heal with Healing Touch and Nourish to reduce the remaining cooldown of your Swiftmend spell by 0.5 sec.

The fact that people will be below 25% health at any frequency still scares me, but this sounds like a decent talent. Love the reduction in Swiftmend’s cooldown.

Fury of Stormrage (2 points) – You have a [5%/10%] chance when you cast Nourish or Healing Touch to cause your next Wrath spell to be instant cast and cast no mana. Fury of Stormrage lasts for 8 sec.

I’m fine with throwing the PVPers a bone here. Might be fun for dungeons and stuff too.

Tier 5

Efflorescence (3 points) – When you critically heal with your Regrowth spell you also sprout a bed of healing flora underneath the target, healing all nearby friendly targets within 15 yards who stand on them for [10%/20%/30%] of the amount healed by your Regrowth every sec for 7 sec.

Two thumbs up. This should provide a good amount of AoE healing for the melee. Could be good for ranged too depending on the fight.

Swiftmend (1 point) – Consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on a friendly target to instantly heal the target for 5229.12. 10% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast, 15 sec cooldown.

The big change here is that Swiftmend will heal for a set amount rather than differ based on if it is a rejuv or regrowth that you are consuming. That’s good news. It’ll be nice to have this heal for a consistent amount.

Empowered Touch (2 points) – Your Healing Touch spell gains an additional [10%/20%] of your bonus healing effects, and your Nourish spell has a [50%/0%] chance to refresh the duration of your Lifebloom on targets.

Healing Touch is going to heal for a lot. Nourish refreshing Lifebloom is great.

Natural Perfection (2 points) – Critical strikes against you give you the Natural Perfection effect reducing all damage taken by [2%/3%]. Stacks up to 3 times. Lasts 8 sec.

PVP! /ignore

Tier 6

Empowered Rejuvenation (2 points) - The bonus healing effects of your healing over time spells and Swiftmend is increased by [4%/8%/12%].

HoT love! HoT love! Gimme.

Wild Growth (1 point) – Heals up to 5 friendly party or raid members within 15 yards of the target for 2866.15 over 7 sec. Prioritizes healing most injured party members. The amount healed is applied quickly at first, and slows down as the Wild Growth reaches its full duration. 55% of base mana, 40 yd range, Instant cast, 10 sec cooldown

Yes, the cooldown is now 10 seconds. I’m not too fussed. While Wild Growth does do a lot of healing, it’s also one of the more mindless spells in our arsenal. I won’t mind using this less.

Tier 7

Tree of Life (1 point) - Shapeshift into the tree of life, increasing healing done by 15% and increasing your armor by 120% but reducing your movement speed by 50%. In addition, some of your spells are temporarily enhanced while shapeshifted. Lasts 45 sec.

I think a 30% movement reduction would be more fair. Other than that, I like this talent.

Here are the spell enhancements when in Tree of Life form:

Lifebloom – Applies an additional application

Since Lifebloom can now only effect 1 target and Nourish casts will refresh it, this enhancement seems completely useless.

Wild Growth – Affects an additional 2 targets.

Good stuff. If the glyph for Wild Growth stays the same that will be 8 people effected by Wild Growth.

Regrowth – Instant cast.

Awesome! Hello stupid amounts of healing, goodbye mana pool!

Entangling Roots – Instant cast, damage increased by 200%.

PVP, don’t care much.

Thorns – ??

Not sure what happens to this. I’d guess that thorns will just do more damage.

Wrath – Cast time reduced by 50%, damage increased by 30%.

That’s kinda cool. Again, mostly for PVP but it could be fun in dungeons and the occasional raid fight.

Balance Tree

Only going to look at the first 2 tiers since we’ll only have a maximum of 10 points to spend here:

Tier 1

Nature’s Grace (3 points) – All non-periodic spell criticals have a [33%/66%/100%] chance to grace you with a blessing of nature, increasing your spell casting speed by 20% for 3 sec.

I don’t currently use this talent but with Nourish being bumped up to a 3 second cast it will be worthwhile.

Starlight Wrath (2 points) – Reduces the cast time of your Wrath and Starfire spells by [0.1/0.2/0.3] sec.

Not for restos.

Genesis (3 points) - Increases the damage and healing done by your periodic spell damage and healing effects and by Swiftmend by [1%/2%/3%].

HoTs and Swiftmend ftw!

Tier 2

Moonglow (3 points)- Reduces the Mana cost of your Moonfire, Starfire, Starfall, Starsurge, Wrath, Healing Touch, Nourish, Regrowth and Rejuvenation spells by [3%/6%/9%].

Another boring but useful talent.

Lunar Justice (3 points) - When you kill a target that yields experience or honor, a ray of moonlight will shine underneath the fallen enemy instantly restoring [2%/4%/6%] of your base mana to you or the first ally who stands undearneath it. Lunar Justice lasts for 15 sec.

Don’t think this will be part of any resto spec.

Thoughts

I think the general healing spec will be 9/0/32
What have they done with my Gift of the Earthmother?!?! /cry
If you don’t remember here’s the talent that was introduced a couple months ago: Gift of the Earthmother(5 points) – Increases the healing done by your Tranquility on targets at or below 25% health by 4%, increases the healing done by the bloom effect of your Lifebloom by 2%, and your Rejuvenation spell also instantly heals for 3% of the total periodic effect. Increases your total spell haste by 4/6/8/10% and reduces the base cooldown of your Lifebloom spell by 4/6/8/10%. Tier 10.
I’m really hoping the instant rejuv heal is a base ability, it was my favorite part of the new talents.
As I’ve said before, I think these changes will make us even better at tank healing. I think the general tank healing strategy will be:
- Stack Lifeblooms to 3
- Roll Regrowth
- Roll Rejuvenation
- Nourish will be our spam heal and will also refresh Lifebloom
- Swiftmend when needed
- HT will be used when a large amount of healing is needed
As for raid healing, we’ll still excel at that. I think any worries that we will no longer be HoT healers is unfounded. We have 4 talents that increase the amount of healing done by our Rejuvenation (and in some cases, all of our HoTs). Regrowth is further buffed by talents for mana return and Efflorescence. Combine these with the fact that people are unlikely to be at full health very often (meaning a big reduction in HoT overheal), and HoTs will still be our bread and butter.
About the damage components of our talents…I think the concerns about this are also unfounded. For one, they’re likely aimed at PVP. Also, you never know what kind of fights we’ll be seeing in Cataclysm. Maybe we’ll see more mechanics like the Inner Demons on Leotheras. A small boost to damage output would be welcome on fights like those. I’m hopeful that giving healers the ability to do more damage will be used on things like that, fight mechanics that make us do something a little different, rather than create an expectation that we will be doing damage rather than healing on a regular basis. Aside from that, who knows how many 1% wipes could have been kills with a resto druid putting out some mad dps?