Tag Archives: resto

Evaluating Resto Shaman with World of Logs

Posted on January 7, 2013 | 3 Comments

The second part of my updated Guide to Evaluating Healers with World of Logs focuses on Resto Shaman. Thank you to the amazing Vixsin of Life in Group 5, who reviewed the post and shared her wealth of Shaman knowledge with me.

(This post may be easier to read, with less squishy pictures, over on the guide page).

Here are specific things to look for when analyzing resto shaman logs. It’s best to look at specific kills or attempts in order to get meaningful numbers.

Shaman are versatile healers who can do well at either tank or raid healing. They really excel on fights where people are grouped up and they can make the most of spells like Healing Rain and Chain Heal. Though Shaman do not have a huge assortment of healing spells to choose from, they a lot of buffs and cooldowns they need to manage throughout fights.

Healing by Spell

Spell selection – Is the shaman using the appropriate spells?

Resto shaman heals include: Healing Rain, Chain Heal, Greater Healing Wave, Healing Wave, Healing Surge, Riptide, Unleash Life, Earth Shield, Healing Stream Totem, Healing Tide Totem, Restorative Mists (from the cooldown Ascendance) and passive healing from Earthliving and Ancestral Awakening.

Top Spells

A shaman’s top spells will vary by fight, assignment and raid size.

In a 25-man raid, a Shaman’s top heals will generally be Healing Rain, Healing Stream Totem and Healing Tide Totem. On fights where the raid is tightly grouped Chain Heal will be up there, while Riptide will be higher on fights where people are more spread out. Earthliving and Restorative Mists can also provide a sizable amount of healing.

If the Shaman is assigned to tank heal, you should see more direct heals, like Greater Healing Wave, used.

In 10s, where tank vs. raid healing assignments are less stringent, Shaman will likely cast a variety of both single-target and group healing spells. Because there are fewer people to stack up in 10s, Healing Rain and Chain Heal will not account for as much healing as they do on 25, and you will likely see Riptide and Greater Healing Wave accounting for a lot of healing.

For any assignment you should also see healing from Earth Shield and Unleash Life, though they are unlikely to provide more than a few percent of overall healing.

Overhealing

Spells like Healing Rain and Earthliving will cause Shaman to be fairly high on overhealing, this isn’t something to be concerned about.

Notes on specific spells:

Unfortunately, the Healing Done and Buffs Cast tabs don’t give much useful information on many important Shaman spells and cooldowns, so use of the Log Browser is often needed. I’ve provided query strings that you can paste into the Log Browser to find the spells you’re looking for. Just remember in each one you need to replace the name “ShamanX” with the name of the Shaman you’re evaluating.

Earth Shield
Earth Shield should be up on a target all the time (more information in Buffs Cast section). The shaman’s direct heals are more effective on their Earth Shield target.

Healing Surge
Due to the high mana cost, Healing Surge should not be used as a staple heal. When it is used, it should have low overhealing compared to HW or GHW, otherwise the Shaman is wasting mana.

Unleash Life

Unleash Life provides a small, mana-free heal and buffs the Shaman’s next direct heal by 30%. Healing Rain is included in this, so you should see Shaman casting Unleash Life before each Healing Rain. If Unleash Life use is low (or absent) there is a problem. Check the number of direct heals for Unleash Life – though use will vary per fight, you should be seeing at least 2 direct heals per minute of fight.

If you want to dive a little deeper, you can also check to see if the shaman is casting Unleash Life before Healing Rain in the Log Browser. Paste the following query (be sure to replace the Shaman’s name):

[{"spellNames": ["Healing Rain"], "eventTypes": [6], "sourceNames": ["ShamanX"]}, {"spellNames": ["Unleash Elements"], "eventTypes": [6], "sourceNames": ["ShamanX"]}]

Then you can check the timestamps to see if Healing Rains immediately follow Unleash Elements casts.

Healing Tide Totem

Healing Tide Totem is an optional talent but because it is a very powerful cooldown, it’s what most Shaman will use on most fights. You should see a significant amount of healing from it on each fight. The number of heals the totem will do is dependant on haste levels when it is dropped (and is a little buggy, I believe), so there’s not an exact number of ticks you can look for. It will generally heal between 25-35 times per use.

HTT has a 3-minute cooldown and Shaman should be trying to get maximum use out of it.

Healing Stream Totem

WoL displays the healing from this very strangely. The Crits and Direct Heals columns are showing the same heals. The Ticks column is showing the number of non-crit heals. To get the total number of ticks from this, you need to add the numbers from the Ticks and Direct Heals columns. Like Healing Tide Totem, the number of times Healing Stream ticks is dependant on haste. You should generally see about 9 ticks per cast.

This is a powerful smart heal with only a 30 second cooldown, so you should see it cast often. If a Shaman’s healing is low, not using this spell enough is often the problem.

To see how many times the spell was cast, use the Log Browser, paste the following query:

[{"spellNames": ["Healing Stream Totem"], "eventTypes": [6], "sourceNames": ["ShamanX"]}]

Spirit Link Totem

This is another powerful cooldown that should be used on any fight. It has a 3-minute cooldown. To tell at a glance if it was used, check the general Healing Done tab. It will appear as a pet under the Shaman’s name. To see how many times it was used, you’re going to have to use the log browser:

[{"spellNames": ["Spirit Link Totem"], "eventTypes": [6], "sourceNames": ["ShamanX"]}]

Stone Bulwark Totem
Stone Bulwark is an optional talent. It has a 1-minute cooldown and should be used often if the Shaman is taking damage. To tell at a glance if it was used, check the general Healing Done tab. It will appear as a pet under the Shaman’s name. To see how many times it was used, you’re going to have to use the log browser:

[{"spellNames": ["Stone Bulwark Totem"], "eventTypes": [6], "sourceNames": ["ShamanX"]}]

Mana Tide Totem
Mana Tide is another important cooldown, not just for the Shaman, but for the rest of the healers in the raid. The only way to see how many times it was dropped is with the Log Browser. Mana Tide has a 3 minute cooldown and should be used as much as possible.

[{"spellNames": ["Mana Tide Totem"], "eventTypes": [6], "sourceNames": ["ShamanX"]}]

Call of the Elements
Call of the Elements is a talented 3-minute cooldown that resets the cooldowns on all totems will a cooldown of 3-minutes or less. It should be used as much as possible so the Shaman can get in extra uses of Healing Stream and Stone Bulwark, as well as utility totems like Grounding or Tremor on certain fights.

The only way to see how many times it was used is with the Log Browser:

[{"spellNames": ["Call of the Elements"], "eventTypes": [6], "sourceNames": ["ShamanX"]}]

Buffs Cast

This screen will tell you how often a shaman is using their cooldowns, along with the uptime on key abilities.

Earth Shield – Earth Shield should be re-cast whenever it runs out. However, on fights with heavier raid damage, the Shaman may prioritize other spells over refreshing this. Look for uptime of around 80% or higher for raid healers. For tank healers, uptime should be close to 100%.

Ancestral Vigor – Whenever a Shaman heals a target, the target’s maximum health is increased. Since the Shaman should always be healing, uptime should be close to 100%.

Riptide – If the shaman is tank healing, Riptide should have an uptime close to 100% overall. You can look at the tank’s Buffs Gained screen to see the uptime of Riptide on them specifically. When raid healing, uptime will be lower but should still be around 70% or higher.

Tidal Waves – Tidal Waves triggers when Riptide or Chain Heal is cast. Since Riptide and Chain Heal are two of a Shaman’s main spells, you want to see high Tidal Waves uptime. If focused on the tank, uptime should be over 90%. If focused on the raid it will be a bit lower, but should still be over 70-80%.

Earthliving – Every heal has a chance to trigger Earthliving. The only thing to look out for is that there is healing from Earthliving present. If it is absent, or extremely low, the shaman has likely forgotten their weapon enchant or it has run out in the middle of the fight.

Ascendance – This is a major cooldown that copies and distributes all healing done by the Shaman for 15 seconds. It has a 3 minute cooldown, and should be used often.

Spiritwalker’s Grace – This spell allows the shaman to cast while moving for 15 seconds. It has a 2 minute cooldown, it should be used on movement-heavy fights.

Astral Shift – If the Shaman didn’t spec into Stone Bulwark Totem, they will probably have this. It has a 2-minute cooldown and reduces damage taken by 40% for 6 seconds. It should be used when they’re taking a lot of damage.

Ancestral Swiftness – This spell makes your next healing spell an instant cast and has a 1-minute cooldown. If the shaman has this in their spec it should be used frequently.

Elemental Mastery – Another talent on the same tier as Ancestral Swiftness, this increases haste by 30% for 20 seconds and has a 2 minute cooldown. It should be used often.

Ghostwolf – This allows Shaman to move faster and how often/if it’s used will depend on the fight. You should see it used on a fight like Blade Lord, but not so much on more stationary fights like Wind Lord. If a Shaman is not using this, they are missing some opportunities to get around/out of bad faster. However, they also shouldn’t be using it too often as you can’t heal while in Ghostwolf.
Fire/Earth Elemental – If the Shaman is using the talent Prime Elementalist, an Elemental should be dropped once per 5 minutes of fighting (Fire Elemental can be dropped once every 3 minutes if glyphed). *See end of section for for more on this*

Water Shield – Water Shield provides passive mana regen along with mana return when the shaman is hit by an attack or critically hits with a healing spell. If it’s up all fight, you won’t see it in the Buffs Cast table, but the active mana returns will show up under Power Gains.

Telluric Currents – This is an optional glyph which causes Lightning Bolt casts to restore mana. If the shaman has this glyph you should see mana gained from Telluric Currents under power gains.

Other things to look for:

If the Shaman has specced into Primal Elementalist their Elemental can channel a healing buff onto them. If you check the Buffs Gained tab, you should see the buff Reinforce (if an Earth Elemental is dropped) or Empower (if a Fire Elemental is dropped). This has a maximum uptime of 60 seconds per Elemental cast, the aim is to have it up as long as possible.

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Posted in Guides, Healing, Raiding, Shaman, Talents & Spells, World of Logs

Tagged cooldowns, Healing, resto, shaman, totems, unleash life, wol, world of logs

What Resto Druids Need to Know for 5.0.4

Posted on August 21, 2012 | 23 Comments

Patch 5.0.4 will be dropping on August 28th and it will bring all of Mist of Pandaria’s new talents, abilities and spells.

Mana

Say goodbye to the 160k mana pool that you’ve gotten used to. With 5.0.4, our mana pools will be knocked down to a fixed 100,000. Spell mana costs will come down a little as well, but not by that much. For example, on Beta Rejuv costs 3200 mana and Wild Growth costs 4580 mana. On live a Rejuv costs 3727 and a Wild Growth costs 5031. So we’re looking at about a 10-15% reduction in mana costs and a 30-40% reduction in our mana pools. This could make things tough.

The way we regen mana is also being completely changed. Talents like Revitalize, that regen a portion of our total mana are gone. This means that all of our regen will now come from Spirit. I’m going to guess that the 2007 Spirit I’m currently rolling with isn’t going to cut it. Be prepared to take a trip to the reforger once the patch hits. Say goodbye to all that yummy Mastery that you had reforged out of Spirit, and get your Spirit back. Spells are healing for quite a bit more at level 85 on the Beta, so the loss of Mastery shouldn’t affect your output negatively. You may also want to replace your throughput trinkets with regen trinkets.

Spells

Our spell books will look quite a bit different, and we will no longer have access to a number of Balance and Feral spells. This shouldn’t affect raiders too much, but be aware that if you’re used to throwing out some DPS on fights to try to help out, you won’t have as many damaging spells as you used to. Spells and abilities we no longer have include:

Insect Swarm
Wild Mushroom: Detonate (we will only have healing shrooms)
Starfire
Thorns

We are also losing access to a number of Cat and Bear abilities, but those shouldn’t have too much of an effect on a healer. The only one I’m really going to miss is Skull Bash.

We have two new base abilities:

Ironbark This is the damage mitigation cooldown we’ve been asking for for so long, so don’t forget to use it! We also still have access to Barkskin.
Wild Mushroom: Bloom Instead of hurting, these mushrooms heal. You can set up 3 at a time and they will heal everyone in an 8 yard radius for… not a whole lot, really.

A number of abilities have changed:

Lifebloom now lasts 15 seconds.
Harmony now lasts 20 seconds.
Nature’s Cure now has an 8 second cooldown.
Rebirth now brings people to life with 60% of their health, up from 20%.
Mark of the Wild no longer gives Stamina or spell resistance, only Strength, Agility and Intellect.
Dash and Stampeding Roar can be used while in caster form, but will activate Cat/Bear form.
Faerie Fire now causes 3 applications of Weakened Armor, instead of 1.

In addition to these things, any Resto talents that were removed with the new talent tree overhaul have been baked into our spells. Living Seed, Malfurion’s Gift, Gift of the Earthmother, Swift Rejuvenation, Nature’s Cure, Efflorescence… they’re all baseline now for Restos. However, the talents that were in the Balance tree, like Nature’s Grace, are now gone. One change that I just noticed today is that Nature’s Focus now also increases our chance to hit with Moonfire and Wrath by 15%. That’s nifty.

Talents

When the patch hits, we will have 5 talent tiers to choose, the 6th doesn’t open up until level 90.

For Tier 1 Feline Swiftness is the clear winner. Displacer Beast is awful and the uses for Wild Charge are quite limited for a healer in current raid encounters.

For tier 2 I’d go with Nature’s Swiftness. Note that the cooldown is now only 1 minute, down from 3 minutes, which is an excellent improvement. Renewal isn’t something I consider a viable option for healers. Cenarion Ward may be worth playing with, but I think having NS as an extra ‘oh shit’ button is much more valuable than another HoT that’s on a 30 second cooldown.

Tier 3 probably won’t see a whole lot of use in Dragon Soul. You can pretty much pick what you want here. Go with Typhoon if you want to drive your tanks and melee crazy. Typhoon also has the potential to help out with Bloods on heroic Spine, but please check with your kiter/RL as it could also screw things up if it’s not expected.

I think Incarnation is the best talent in tier 4. As an output cooldown, ToL is still great, and with the mana constraints we’ll be facing, I think the ability to spam Lifeblooms (our cheapest spell) and maximize Omen of Clarity procs will be important. Soul of the Forest also looks quite strong in terms of increasing our healing output if you use Wild Growth after every Swiftmend, but it will also cause problems lining up those spells as there is a 5 second difference in their cooldowns. Force of Nature is kind of fun, but pets like these have a tendency to be quite dumb, so I’d skip them.

Tier 5 is another utility tier that won’t get used a whole lot in Dragon Soul. I can think of a few times that Ursol’s Vortex could be useful if it works properly. That is a big if. In my experience on the beta, it’s seemed a little buggy to me. Ursol’s Vortex could potentially help with add control on a few fights – Forgotten Ones on Yor’sahj, Bloods on Spine and Congealing Bloods on Madness. If UV doesn’t work as expected, Mighty Bash is good, safe bet.

Glyphs

Prime Glyphs will be gone in 5.0.4, so we will now have only 6 glyph slots. We have a lot of options to choose from.

Major Glyphs

My top 3:
Glyph of Lifebloom – This will allow us to transfer all 3 stacks of Lifebloom when we need to switch our Lifebloom target. This is a must have for any fight with tank-swapping.
Glyph of Wild Growth – This hasn’t changed. I would take it for 25-man raiding, but possibly not for 10s.
Glyph of Regrowth – Regrowth now innately has a 60% chance to crit, so use of this glyph will make the spell a guaranteed crit, at the cost of the HoT at the end. I personally like the knowing that Regrowth will crit and will likely use this glyph.

On fights where I don’t swap Lifebloom around at all, I would replace Glyph of Lifebloom with one of these:
Glyph of Rejuvenation – This replaces the second half of the Nature’s Bounty target. With the change to the mana regen model, you may find yourself using Nourish more often than you’re used to, so this glyph is a good choice.
Glyph of Healing Touch – How useful this is depends on how often you use Healing Touch. I would likely use this on Heroic Spine, since I use HT often to handle the debuffs, but would find it less useful on other fights.

Glyphs to skip:
Glyph of Blooming – This is a PVP glyph, skip it for raid content.
Glyph of Rebirth – With the change to Rebirth now bringing people back with 60% health rather than 20%, this glyph is no longer a requirement.

Minor Glyphs

The minor glyphs are mainly fun, vanity things, so I’m not going to go over them here. You can find the full list of glyphs on Wowhead.

Playstyle

The spells we use and how we use them really isn’t going to change much. Lifebloom and Harmony uptimes will be easier to maintain due to their increased durations, but don’t take that as a sign that you should cast less direct spells. With mana constraints you may find the need to cast a few more Nourishes and a few less Rejuvs and Regrowths.

Don’t foget to make a binding for your new Ironbark spell and make the most out of it. You may also want to create a Power Aura to let you know when it’s off cooldown.

Healing Mushrooms will take some getting used to. The healing they do, especially in relation to their setup time is not very good. I would suggest only using them when you can set them up before the pull and during downtimes when little healing is needed. Here are some good times to use Mushrooms on Dragon Soul fights:

Morchok – Place 3 around the place the dps will stand before the pull. On heroic, make sure to put them down on the post-split positions as there really isn’t any damage beforehand. When you run out for Black Blood, you should be able to put more down from range.
Yor’sahj – Place mushrooms before the pull as well as anytime the boss is summoning oozes and the raid isn’t taking any damage. I’m going to assume (haven’t tested yet) that detonating the mushrooms will cause stacks of Deep Corruption, so don’t use them on Purple phases.
Zon’ozz – You should be able to place mushrooms on the spot where the dps/healers stand before the pull, as well as after every dark phase before the Void Ball starts bouncing.
Hagara – Place mushrooms before the pull. If you use the strat where the ranged/healers stack up in the bubble during frost phase, that’s a good time to detonate them.
Ultraxion – In my raid, I find 98% of the Ultraxion fight consists of downtime. I’d probably just ignore mushrooms on this fight, unless you’re still seeing the Timeloop happen. If that’s the case, set them up pre-pull and detonate near the end of the fight when things get tough.
Blackhorn – Between dodging (or chasing) barrages and trying to stay out of deck fire and shockwaves, there’s not a whole lot of times during this fight where mushroom use will be able to be maximized. You could try to get Mushrooms down when an Onslaught it cast and pop them just after it hits.
Spine – Most of the downtime on Spine happens while the Plate is lifted and people are killing the tendons. You should be able to set up some mushrooms around the raid during any plate lift and detonate them as required (preferably when there are lots of healing debuffs out).
Madness – The best place to use mushrooms on most of the platforms will be when the raid is grouped up and killing the Arm/Wing Tentacle and everyone is taking damage from Blistering Heat. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find some downtime to set these up. When you are on the platform where an Elementium Bolt will hit, Mushrooms can also be used just after it hits. In the final phase, I’d get mushrooms set up near the boss before any of the adds spawn and use them when the Corrupting Blood damage starts getting heavy, sub-10%.

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Posted in Changes, Druid, Glyphs, Guides, Healing, Mists of Pandaria, Raiding, Stats, Talents & Spells

Tagged Druid, Harmony, lifebloom, patch 5.0.4, resto, wild mushroom: bloom

MoP Pre-raid Resto Druid Gear

Posted on August 14, 2012 | 18 Comments

Mists of Pandaria is just 6 weeks away. Here’s a list of the level 90 gear that is available to you outside of raids. I have only included gear which is ilvl 450 or higher, so it includes gear from heroic dungeons, reputation and crafting.

I’ve included gear without Spirit, but whenever possible you’re going to want to prioritize getting the stuff with Spirit on it.

As always, this stuff is all from the beta, so it may not be entirely accurate, things may be missing or it may change. I’ll try to keep it as up to date as possible.

Head

Item	iLevel	Location
Hood of Viridian Residue	463	Siege of Niuzao Temple – Vizier Jin’bak
Camouflage Retinal Armor	476	Engineering
Snowdrift Helm	489	Shadow-Pan rep – Revered

Shoulders

Item	iLevel	Location
Incardine Scarlet Spaulders	463	Scarlet Monestary – High Inquisitor Whitemane
Whitepetal Shouldergard	489	Golden Lotus rep – Revered

Chest

Item	iLevel	Location
Vestment of the Ascendant Tribe	450	August Celestial’s rep – Honored
Chestguard of Despair	463	Temple of the Jade Serpent – Sha of Doubt
Chestwrap of Arching Flame	463	Siege of Nizuao Temple – Commander Vo’jak
Wildblood Vest	476	Leatherworking
Mistfall Robes	489	Golden Lotus rep – Revered
Nightfire Robe	496	Leatherworking

Wrist

Item	iLevel	Location
Sudden Insight Bracers	450	Klaxxi rep – Honored
Star Summoner Bracers	463	Shadow-Pan Monastery – Gu Cloudstrike
Clever Ashyo’s Armbands	489	August Celestials rep – Revered

Hands

Item	iLevel	Location
Wandering Friar’s Gloves	450	Golden Lotus rep – Honored
Rattling Gloves	463	Scholomance – Rattlegore
Vellum-Ripper Gloves	463	Scarlet Halls – Flameweaver Koegler
Wildblood Gloves	476	Leatherworking
Ogo’s Elder Gloves	489	August Celestials rep – Revered
Liferuned Leather Gloves	496	Leatherworking

Waist

Item	iLevel	Location
Hurricane Belt	463	Mogu’shan Palance – Kuai the Brute
Klaxxi Lash of the Harbinger	489	Klaxxi rep – Revered

Legs

Item	iLevel	Location
Brambleguard Leggings	450	Shadow-Pan rep – Honored
Darkbinder Leggings	463	Shadow-Pan Monastery – Taran Zhu
Leggings of Whispered Dreams	463	Temple of the Jade Serpent – Lorewalker Stonestep
Wind-Reaver Greaves	489	Klaxxi rep – Revered

Feet

Item	iLevel	Location
Airstream Treads	463	Gate of the Setting Sun – Strider Ga’dok
Treads of Corrupted Water	463	Temple of the Jade Serpent – Wise Mari
Boots of the High Adept	489	August Celestial rep – Revered

Neck

Item	iLevel	Location
Skymage Circle	450	Jewelcrafting
Tiger Opal Pendant	450	Jewelcrafting
Pendant of Endless Inquisition	450	Golden Lotus rep – Honored
Temperature-Sensing Necklace	463	Scarlet Halls – Flamereaver Koegler
Necklace of Disorientation	463	Shadowpan Monastery – Sha of Violence
Mindcapture Pendant	463	Mogu’shan Palace – Xin the Weaponmaster
Mindbreaker Pendant	463	Temple of the Jade Serpent – Sha of Doubt
Links of the Lucid	489	The Klaxxi rep – Revered

Back

Item	iLevel	Location
Pressed Flower Cloak	450	August Celestials rep – Honored
Cape of Entanglement	463	Temple of the Jade Serpent – Liu Flameheart
Cloak of Cleansing Flame	463	Mogu’shan Palace – Gekkan
Cloak of Hidden Flasks	463	Stormstout Brewery – Hoptallus
Sagewhisper’s Wrap	489	Shadow-Pan rep – Revered

Finger

Item	iLevel	Location
Band of Blood	450	Jewelcrafting
Sorcerer-King’s Seal	450	Shadow-Pan rep – Honored
Triune Signet	463	Scarlet Monastery – High Inquisitor Whiteman
Ring of Malice	463	Shadow-Pan Monastery – Taran Zhu
Viscous Ring	463	Gate of the Setting Sun – Commander Ri’mok
Alemental Seal	463	Stormstout Brewery – Yan Zhu the Uncasked
Vithrak, Gaze of the Deadman	476	Scarlet Halls – Flamereaver Koegler
Leven’s Circle of Hope	489	Golden Lotus rep – Revered

Trinkets

Item	iLevel	Location
Zen Alchemist Stone	450	Alchemy
Vial of Ichorous Blood	463	Siege of Niuzao Temple – General Pa’valak
Empty Fruit Barrel	463	Stormstout Brewery – Ook Ook
Price of Progress	463	Scholomance – Darkmaster Gandling
Scroll of Revered Ancestors	489	Shadow-Pan rep – Revered

Weapon

Item	iLevel	Location
Amber Spine of Klaxxi’vess	463	Klaxxi rep – Exalted
Amber Scythe of the Klaxxi’vess	463	Klaxxi rep – Exalted
Firescribe Dagger	463	Mogu’shan Palace – Xin the Weaponmaster
Melted Hypnotic Blade	463	Scarlet Halls – Flameweaver Koegler
Carapace Breaker	463	Gate of the Setting Sun – Raigonn
Greatstaff of Righteousness	463	Scarlet Monastery – High Inquisitor Whitemane
Gustwalker Staff	463	Siege of Niuzao Temple – Wing Leader Ner’onok
Staff of Trembling Will	463	Temple of the Jade Serpent – Sha of Doubt
Je’lyu, Spirit of the Serpent	476	Temple of the Jade Serpent – Sha of Doubt
Inscribed Crane Staff	476	Inscription

Off-hand

Item	iLevel	Location
Bottle of Potent Potables	463	Stormstout Brewery – Hoptallus
Inscribed Red Fan	476	Inscription

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Posted in Gear, Mists of Pandaria, Raiding

Tagged Druid, gear, mists of pandaria, mistweaver monk, Moonkin, resto

Resto Druid Changes (Mists of Pandaria build 15799)

Posted on June 29, 2012 | 22 Comments

Resto Druids haven’t received a whole lot of attention in the last Mists builds, but this most recent one sure changes that. A number of Druids have been concerned that with all the ‘maintenance’ spells we need to cast, we will be GCD capped and it will making healing well difficult. Blizzard seems to have answered, by increasing the duration of both Lifebloom and Harmony considerably. Full build notes can be found on Wowhead. I’ve also posted a slightly abridged version of my feedback on the beta forums.

Lifebloom

Lifebloom: Heals the target for 109315*1 over 15 sec. When Lifebloom expires or is dispelled, the target is instantly healed for ((8150 + $SPN * 0.752) *). This effect can stack up to 3 times on the same target. Duration refreshed each time you cast Healing Touch, Nourish, or Regrowth on the target. Lifebloom can be active only on one target at a time.

Lifebloom will now last 15 seconds, up from 10. The amount of healing per tick should not change any (it now lasts 33% longer and heals for 33% more). At first I was worried about the PVP ramifications of this, but that concern was quickly assuaged when I saw the changes made to the new glyph introduced.

Glyph of Blooming: Increases the bloom heal of your Lifebloom when it expires by 50%, but its duration is reduced by 5 sec and your Healing Touch, Nourish, and Regrowth abilities no longer refresh the duration of Lifebloom.

Not only does this take care of the too-long duration of Lifebloom for PVP, it also got a nice buff by now increasing the amount of the bloom by 50%, rather than 20%.

So, I’m generally happy with the increased duration of Lifebloom. I really didn’t have much of a problem keeping it up at 10 seconds, but the extra time will give raid healing druids a bit more breathing room. This, combined with the older change of having all 3 applications transfer when you change your target make Lifebloom much less cumbersome to use. These are nice quality of life improvements.

Harmony

Mastery: Harmony: Your direct healing is increased by an additional 0% and casting your direct healing spells grants you an additional 0% bonus to periodic healing for 20 sec.

Harmony now lasts 20 seconds, up from 10. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I’m not too thrilled about this change. There are a few reasons for this.

I don’t understand people’s aversion to using single target spells with a cast time (Nourish, Regrowth, Healing Touch). Yes, Druids are HoT-based, but in my opinion, that doesn’t mean that we should only be casting HoTs. Variety makes things interesting.
Since Harmony can now be kept up 100% of the time using only Swiftmend it’s going to increase the number of players who think its appropriate to cast nothing but Rejuv in between Swiftmend and Wild Growth cooldowns.
I really enjoy the mini-game of keeping Harmony and Lifebloom active as close to 100% of the time as possible. I like having to work to make my healing as powerful as possible and plan properly to ensure it is. With 15 seconds on Lifebloom and 20 on Harmony, that’s not going to be much of a challenge.

Honestly, I think that having Harmony be easily sustainable by only casting Swiftmend (which we want to cast close to every cooldown because of all the healing Efflorescence does anyway) trivializes the entire mechanic of having to keep it active. I thought the reason for the 10 second duration was to ensure we cast a direct heal every once in a while, but that no longer applies. They may as well just go all the way and make our Mastery something that is active all the time, like it is for every other class.

Wild Mushrooms

Wild Mushroom: Bloom: Grow a magical mushroom with 3 health at the target location. After 6 sec, the mushroom will become invisible. When triggered by the Druid, all mushrooms will bloom healing all allies within 8 yards for 6074 to 7348. Only 5 mushrooms can be placed at one time.

You can now place 5 mushrooms, up from 3. The range on the heal has been reduced to 8 yards, down from 12. I don’t like the whole concept of Mushrooms as a heal to begin with. I’m not sure what problem these changes are attempting to solve, but it looks like it’s a step in the entirely wrong direction. 5 mushrooms?! When will we ever have time to place 5 mushrooms? That means seven clicks (or button presses) and 5 GCDs in order to set up and then activate the heal. The range reduction is an extra kick to the shins. None of the problems with Wild Mushrooms as a heal have been addressed:

it takes too long to set them up
if the raid moves, the mushrooms you’ve set up become useless
having to target the ground to place them is cumbersome
the range is (once again) small

At this rate, I don’t see this spell getting a lot of use aside from the Mushrooms we can set up pre-pull. I’ve heard people suggest that we don’t have to use all 5 mushrooms, we could only place 1, or 3, but I don’t put any stock in this. Players want to optimize, they don’t want to cast something that is less powerful than it could be. The days of downranking spells are long over.

Since I don’t want to just complain and not offer any alternatives, here are some of my ideas for fixing the spell.

Option 1:

Grow a magical mushroom on the target player. When triggered by the Druid, all mushrooms will bloom healing all allies within 10 yards for 6074 to 7348. Only 3 mushrooms can be placed at one time.

This would solve all of the problems I have with the spell. Casting the mushrooms on players would solve the issue of awkward ground targeting. I use VuhDo, I like to be able to cast my heals by clicking on raid frames. It also solves the problem of player movement quite nicely. A mushroom on the ground is likely to heal no one if players move. A mushroom on a person will always heal at least one even if they are a dope who goes and stands in a corner by themselves.

Option 2:

Grow a magical mushroom at the target location. After 6 sec, the mushroom will become invisible. When triggered by the Druid, the mushroom will bloom healing all allies within 8 yards for 18022 to 22044. Only 1 mushroom can be placed at one time. 3 second cast time.

This isn’t a perfect solution, but i think it would be an improvement. I’d find having to hard cast 1 mushroom much less cumbersome than having to place 5. The downside would be that you couldn’t spread them out, but spreading them out makes them even more awkward to use anyway and reduces the amount the people in range will be healed.

Tier 14

The new tier set name and bonuses have also been released in the new patch.

Vestments of the Eternal Blossom

2 pieces: Reduces the mana cost of your Rejuvenation spell by 10%.
4 pieces: Reduces the cooldown of your Swiftmend spell by 3 sec.

First, pretty name! The 2-set isn’t an exciting bonus, but I’m sure it will be appreciated in the first raid tier as we’re having mana struggles and getting used to the new mana model. The 4-set is awesome. This looks like a significant increase to our healing output with all the extra Efflorescence healing we’ll be able to do. The only downside is that it will hurt to break this bonus when tier 15 rolls around.

What do you think of the latest changes?

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Posted in Changes, Druid, Glyphs, Mists of Pandaria, Talents & Spells

Tagged Druid, Harmony, Healing, lifebloom, mists of pandaria, mushrooms, resto, spells, update

Best Swiftmend Targets for Raid Healing

Posted on April 9, 2012 | 4 Comments

The bigger your Swiftmend is, the more your Efflorescence heals for. In order to make the most of Efflorescence, you need to choose your Swiftmend targets wisely. This means not only choosing a target who is grouped up with other people, but also choosing the person in that group who will take the most healing. Some specs have talents or abilities that cause them to take increased healing, so they make the best choices for who to Swiftmend when you’re trying to get out as much group healing as possible.

Here are the classes and specs who receive increased healing.

Constant Increased Healing Effects

Some of the talents mentioned here may not be part of standard specs. Be sure to take a peek at any of these classes pre-raid to see if they have them.

Feral Druid
2 points in Nurturing Instinct will give a feral 20% increased healing effect while in cat form.

Beast Master Hunter
2 points in Spirit Bond makes both the hunter and their pet take 10% more healing.

Paladin
3 points in Divinity makes a Paladin take 6% more healing. This talent is reachable for any spec, but you’re more likely to see Prot and Holy Pallies with full points in this talent.

Assassination Rogue
2 points in Quickening makes a rogue take 20% extra healing.

Restoration Shaman
3 points in Spark of Life increases a shaman’s healing received by 15%. This talent is reachable by all 3 specs, but unlikely to be taken by anyone but a resto.

Warrior
2 points in Field Dressing gives 6% extra healing received. This is obtainable by any warrior spec.

Increased Healing from Abilities

Some classes have abilities that cause them to take increased healing for a short period of time. Add these abilities to your raid frames so you can see when people are taking extra healing.

Blood Death Knight
Vampiric Blood gives the DK 25% extra healing received for 10 seconds. If they have this ability glyphed they will receive 40% extra healing.

Feral Druid
Glyphed Frenzied Regneration makes a bear take 30% extra healing for 20 seconds.

Holy Priest
With 2 points in Blessed Resilience the priest takes 30% increased healing for 10 seconds after taking damage that is more than 10% of their health.

So the best targets are…

The three on-use/proc abilities listed above will result in the biggest increases to healing done. If people are grouped up near someone under one of these effects, Swiftmending one of them will give you the most bang for your buck.

If these abilities are not up, an Assassination Rogue with Quickening or a Cat Druid with Nurturing Instinct will be your best Swiftmend targets in melee. A Resto Shaman with Spark of Life will be your best Swiftmend target at range.

If you don’t have these, a Pally with Divinity or a Warrior with Field Dressing will do. They only provide a 6% bonus, but it’s better than nothing.

One last thing

I just wanted to clear this up as I still see people who are a little behind the times on how Swiftmend works.

The size of your Swiftmend is in no way affected by the size of the HoT being consumed (or not consumed, because it’s glyphed). It doesn’t matter:
- Whether your Swiftmend target has a Rejuv or Regrowth on them
- How much your Rejuv/Regrowth heals for
- The amount of time left on the Rejuv/Regrowth

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Posted in Guides, Healing, Raiding, Talents & Spells

Tagged divinity, Druid, efflorescence, Healing, nurturing instinct, quickening, resto, spark of life, swiftmend

Barkskin in Dragon Soul

Posted on March 6, 2012 | 3 Comments

Damage mitigation is not just for tanks or PVP. Good use of your damage mitigation abilities make for happy healers and happy raid leaders.

Barkskin is a druid ability that is full of win:

The druid’s skin becomes as tough as bark. All damage taken is reduced by 20%. While protected, damaging attacks will not cause spellcasting delays. This spell is usable while stunned, frozen, incapacitated, feared or asleep. Usable in all forms. Lasts 12 sec. 60 second cooldown.

It costs no mana and triggers no global cooldown so there’s really no excuse for not making the most of it.

Here are some ideal times to use Barkskin for each boss in Dragon Soul. Most of these situations are also good times to use Divine Protection if you are a Paladin since the two talents are quite similar.

Morchok

Normal and Heroic: Barkskin should be usable once every crystal phase. The best time to use it is just before a Stomp. If you are one of the crystal soakers, you can time your Barkskin so it is active for both a Stomp and the following Resonating Crystal damage.

Warlord Zon’ozz

Normal: Barkskin is best used during the Black phase on this fight to reduce the damage taken by Black Blood of Go’rath.

Heroic: Use Barkskin at the beginning of the Black phase, as that is when raid damage is highest (as adds are killed there is less damage going out). You could also use Barkskin when you are affected by Distrupting Shadows if it will not be cleansed off.

Yor’sahj the Unsleeping

Normal and Heroic: The ooze combinations on this fight are unpredictable, so it’s hard to time your Barkskin to get the most use out of it. In general, try to use Barkskin whenever the raid damage is heavy. The Red oozes will cause the most damage, so using Barkskin anytime that is up is a good idea. Make sure you’re popping Barkskin after the oozes reach the boss – there’s no damage while they’re travelling to them. It’s also a good idea to use it when Black is active and you have an add hitting you.

Hagara the Stormbinder

Normal and heroic: Main phase – use Barkskin if you are soaking Ice lances. You can also use Barkskin if you are placed in an Ice Tomb.

Lightning phase – Damage during this phase ramps up the longer it lasts, so wait a few seconds before using Barkskin.

Ice Phase – Use Barkskin if you are standing in the Watery Entrenchment (this is a strat you’re more likely to use in heroic mode). If you aren’t in Watery Entrenchment, you shouldn’t be taking any damage so Barkskin shouldn’t be needed (though you can pop it just to be safe in case you get hit by an Icicle).

Ultraxion

Normal and heroic: Use Barkskin on cooldown to prevent as much damage as possible from Unstable Monstrosity. If your Barkskin comes off cooldown just before an Hour of Twilight is going to be cast, hold off and use it after you come back out of the Twilight Realm.

Warmaster Blackhorn

Normal and heroic: In phase 1 use Barkskin whenever it’s available and you are about to take damage from either a Twilight Barrage or a Twilight Onslaught.

In phase 2, use Barkskin before as many Disrupting Roars as you can.

Spine of Deathwing

Normal: There are a lot of good opportunities for Barkskin on this fight. You’ll want to use it as often as possible, when you’re affected by one of the following:

Grasping Tendrils – You will be taking a fair amount of damage while you’re waiting for Deathwing to do a barrel roll.
Fiery Grip – You will be stunned, but you can still use Barkskin.
Superheated Nucleus – This happens when the Amalgamation is about to explode. The whole raid will take significant damage for a few seconds until it dies.

When you’re affected by one of the above and Searing Plasma, Barkskin is particularly effective since any healing on your will be absorbed.

Madness of Deathwing

Normal: During phase 1, there are two times when Barkskin is particularly effective. First, when an Elementium Bolt is going to hit. Second, when Blistering Tentacles are up and you are taking damage from Blistering Heat.

In phase 2, use Barkskin when Deathwing’s health reaches 10% and you are taking extra damage from Corrupted Blood.

Also don’t forget to use Dream during this fight. In phase 2 you want to save it in case you get targeted by Shrapnel, but during phase 1, you can use it whenever you’re taking damage.

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Posted in Druid, Guides, Raiding, Talents & Spells

Tagged barkskin, damage mitigation, Dragon Soul, Druid, resto, spells

Tree of Life and When to Use It

Posted on January 6, 2012 | Leave a comment

The other day I was fishing for post ideas on Twitter and my guildie Serrath suggested I write about the best times to use Tree of Life in Dragon Soul. It can sometimes be difficult to know the best times to use it, especially for newer druids. Some people forget to use it at all (the horror!). Before I get into specific uses in Dragon Soul, let’s look at what Tree of Life does and how it can be used.

Tree of Life increases healing done by 15% and armor by 120%. It lasts 31 seconds (with points in Natural Shapeshifter) and has a 3 minute cooldown. When you’re in Tree of Life:

Regrowth becomes an instant cast
Lifebloom can be applied to multiple targets
Wild Growth heals 2 extra targets
Wrath is faster and does more damage
Entangling roots becomes an instant cast

Here are some reasons for using Tree of Life and strategies to make it as effective as possible:

To Conserve mana

Tree of Life will allow you to cast Lifebloom on as many targets as you want. Spreading Lifeblooms around the raid will not only put out a lot of healing for very little mana, but it will also greatly increase the number of Clearcasting procs you get, allowing you to cast many free, instant Regrowths during this time. When you use Tree of Life in this way and pair it with the on-use effect from Jaws of Defeat, you can heal a lot for those 31 seconds and barely see your mana dip down at all.

It’s best to use Tree of Life proactively, but it can also be used in emergency oom situations and will let what little mana you have go further.

To increase healing output

15% extra healing on its own is very nice. Add the two extra Wild Growth targets to that and even if you continue to heal as normal while in Tree of Life you’re going to see a considerable increase in your output.

A couple of things to keep in mind to maximize effectiveness:

Use Tree of Life when Wild Growth is off cooldown so you can use it immediately and fit in 3 casts during ToL’s duration.
Make sure to get 2 Swiftmend casts off while in ToL for the nice bonus to Efflorescence healing.
Use Tree of Life while under the effect of Nature’s Grace, or other haste increases like Heroism.

You can use Tranquility while in Tree of Life to boost its healing if the situation is very dire, though I generally prefer to spread my cooldowns out.

To Keep Up multiple targets

There are times on certain fights when a few people are taking very heavy damage at once. For example, phase 2 of Madness of Deathwing when two tanks are tanking Elementium Terrors. If you want to be able to provide large amounts of healing to both tanks at once, use Tree of Life and get a 3-stack of Lifebloom on each of them.

to be more mobile

Druids are pretty good at healing on the run normally, but using Tree of Life makes us even better. If you’re having to move a lot during a certain phase of a fight and are finding that Rejuvs aren’t doing enough, use ToL and get some extra burst from instant Regrowths.

to mitigate damage

This won’t play that big of a role in PVE, but the 120% extra armor does help with any physical raid damage you take (like Blackhorn’s Disrupting Roar or the Mutated Corruption’s Crush on Madness of Deathwing).

For DPS

This isn’t something you’ll be doing often in raids, but it is a possibility. With faster, harder hitting Wraths, ToL can help you put out extra damage if that’s what’s needed (of course it won’t help with your complete lack of hit rating). The only time in Cata so far where I’d recommend ToL Wrath spam is after the Fiery Tornados on Alysrazor since no healing is needed for a time and you get all your mana back. Otherwise, this isn’t a great use for ToL.

When to use ToL in Dragon Soul

Here are my suggestions for when to use ToL to get the most out of it.

Morchok
Use ToL during the crystal phase to help put out extra healing from Stomp and Resonating Crystal. I like to split my cooldowns, so I’ll use Tranquility during the first crystal phase and then ToL on the second crystal phase.

Be sure to use Tree of Life fairly early into the phase, with 30 seconds or more left until Black Blood – since there’s no healing to do then. You don’t want to waste it.

Yor’sajh
Use ToL when a Green or Yellow ooze hits Yor’sajh, or any time when raid damage seems to get higher. Make sure to use it fairly early so you can use ToL twice during the encounter.

Zon’ozz
Use ToL right at the start of the black phase. Again, alternate your cooldowns, using Tranquility on one, and ToL on the next.

Hagara the Stormbinder
Lightning phase is a good time for ToL. The raid will benefit from the extra healing and the added mobility can be helpful as well.

Ultraxion
You want to make sure you can get two ToL uses during this fight. Use your first ToL close to the start of the fight and use the LB-spamming strategy to conserve mana while damage is light. Use ToL for the second time when the damage starts ramping up for the extra healing.

Warmaster Blackhorn
You should be able to use ToL once during first phase and once during the second phase. Use it fairly early in the phase 1, ideally just before a Twilight Onslaught to help deal with the damage. Besides that, ToL will mainly be a way to conserve mana in phase 1. Use ToL again when it’s off cooldown in phase 2, before a Disrupting Roar.

Spine of Deathwing
This is a fairly long fight, so if you use ToL early, and then on cooldown you should be able to use it three times over the course of the fight. It will be a good way to conserve mana on what can be a mana-intensive fight as well as put out extra healing.

If your raid is desperate for dps on the Burning Tendon, you can use ToL and help out with Wrath spam. But hopefully this isn’t necessary.

Madness of Deathwing
This is a looong fight and a mana-instensive one. You should be able to use ToL at least 4 times. I generally use ToL on platform 1, near the start of the fight so I spend as little mana as possible, then again on platform 2 when Blistering Heat starts damaging the raid, then late on platform 3 when Burning Blood is doing damage. I’ll save my last ToL for the last phase of the fight. When the Elementium Terrors spawn I use ToL and roll Lifeblooms on both tanks to keep them stabilized, along with put out extra healing on the raid.

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Posted in Druid, Guides, Healing, Raiding

Tagged Dragon Soul, Druid, Healing, resto, spells, tree of life