How2RestoDruid in raids.

[Orin]

1. Addons, UI, etc: Get the necessary addons to monitor your HoTs on all targets, and be able to cast on a 1 second GCD without missing any if possible.
- Grid
- GridStatusHots
- Quartz (make sure it shows the cast bar and gcd spark)
- Clique for using mouse buttons to cast spells.

If you don't like Clique, make a bunch of mouseover macros to cast your heals. If you actually click a person's frame, then press another button (or worse, click something) to cast a heal, you are easily 3 or 4 times slower at healing than you should be. This is also essential because Druids are excellent healers in movement fights because we can HoT on the run, while others must stand still. You must be able to run and heal a full raid without dying or getting others killed.

Also make sure you download and learn to use Rawr to help make decisions with gear upgrades based on your healing role. http://www.codeplex.com/Rawr


2. Essential Gear:
- You need this Idol for Rejuv raid healing. http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40342
- http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45703 is exceptional for hard-mode content.
- 4pc T8 bonus is insane good, work for it. http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=64760
- 4pc T7 is also good, especially if the druid is in a tank healing role, though worth breaking for T8 bonuses or other ilvl 226 items.

Glyphs: These are the go-to glyphs of the majority of the raiding druid elite. Some might argue that Innervate is better, but hopefully they only use that if they give innervate to others in the raid, otherwise they are either very under-geared, or doing something wrong. Rejuv glyph I have tested as well, and in regular mode Ulduar the healing it provides is very very low, though for some hard-mode fights it becomes useful again. I still prefer these three though.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45602
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45603
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40906

Gems: I usually stick with socket bonuses because hard-mode raiding requires far more mana than regular boss encounters, and many of the socket bonuses help with this rather than giving up stats for higher Spell Power.
Red: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39998 and http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45883
Yellow: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40047
Blue: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=40026
Prismatic (belt buckle): http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39998 and http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45883
Meta: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41401 This will calculate out to 50 to 80mp5 from the proc, and is far better than the http://www.wowhead.com/?item=41333 for hard-mode raiding.

Consumables: It's all about Spell Power when it comes to consumables. Mana potions should be carried as well, though I honestly don't use them that often.
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=46376
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=43015



3. Talent Spec: I have serious issues with Druids who use a spec other than this one, though I've seen some variations for strict tank-healing Druids.
http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=11&tal=0532003100000000000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000230033312031500531153313051


4. Healing roles: Druids can fill three roles easily. Tank, Raid or Tank/Raid.

If the raid has too many other raid healers, a Druid is fine on the MT since they can roll multiple hots on the MT, as well as WG the raid. There are other discussions where you can read about if a Druid should or should not be in this role, but rest assured, any Druid worth their salt can do this job very well if they followed my advice in #1 and #2 above. The basic healing rotation would be Rejuv, Regrowth, slow-stack Lifebloom, Nourish spam inbetween refreshes and WG on the MT or melee which should catch all of them and further boost the Nourish healing with glyph.

Tank/Raid split healing is similar to simple tank healing. I usually keep Rejuv/Regrowth on whichever tanks need it, and save Swiftmend for them as well. Nourish gets a bit of a workout if other healers die or the tank needs extra healing for whatever reason. I then rotate Rejuv and WG on the raid with all spare GCD's. A Druid should be able to easily do this on 2 tanks and still keep Rejuv/WG going on ~10 people in the raid.

Raid healing has become a major role for Druids since Ulduar came out. The Rejuv spam mechanics are insane good for many fights because they are so spread out, which makes it hard for CH Shamans to shine, but Druids can still reach targets and maintain Rejuv on 15 raiders, plus WG on cooldown, plus Swiftmend anyone who needs it. A raid with 2 Resto Druids raid healing can split them to cover the entire raid and both should be topping the raw healing meter on fights with lots of consistent raid damage. In fights with spikier raid damage and not as consistent, Regrowth can also work well to mix into the raid healing rotation.

[Orin]

With 3.2 coming, 2/2 Empowered Touch to include Nourish will become a must-have talent choice IMO.
http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=33879

I also have found some more accurate Haste Rating math, which is a must-read because to get the extra second point for Empowered Touch will require some difficult decisions. Especially considering if and when to drop points from GotEM from 5/5 to 4/5. I am actually quite embarrassed that I was using the old GotEM calculations when I started looking at dropping to 4/5 GotEM recently in anticipation of the 3.2 patch...

http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t40221-resto_pve_healing_discussion/p11/#post1079250


If 3.2 came out today, I'd go with this talent build: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0VG0uZZf0IubhxiuVIsVo

[Immermnemion]

You'd rather have the third point in subtlety instead of one in tranquil spirit? I have no idea how threat plays out, but it seems the 10% vs the 2% reduction in healing cost of some spells would be a wash.

[Moknim]

Going to agree with Immer - dropping a point out of subtelty is no big deal. And that would allow you to keep N.S. in your 3.2 build (or going 2 points into tranquil spirit right now).

My build, before I was forced to take a break, left out revitalize for maxing tranquil spirit for the nourish spamming I was doing. I was planning on dropping 3 points out of T.S. to pick up revitalize, so I agree with your current raiding build except for the points in Living Spirit and Subtlety (which I would throw into T.S. - especially for hard mode, but wouldn't be required for healers who don't really touch nourish [which I began to abuse pretty heavily]).

[Immermnemion]

Unless I'm adding wrong though, I don't think you meet the 20 pt. prerequisite for Nature's Swiftness with just that one point being switched? Unless there's a point value change I don't know about - that would be great!

[Moknim]

Unless I'm adding wrong though, I don't think you meet the 20 pt. prerequisite for Nature's Swiftness with just that one point being switched? Unless there's a point value change I don't know about - that would be great!

No...you're right, I wasn't paying close enough attention - no NS. One less "oh crap" button, but no huge loss.

Still stand by putting a point or two in T.S. if you are doing any kind of tank healing or use nourish on a regular basis (especially after the Emp. Touch change making nourish sexier).

[Orin]

As it stands now, Druids excel at raid healing with HoTs, there are better choices for tank healers. If you are forced to tank heal 100% of the time, sure, get 5/5 TS. If you are raid healing, ignore TS. Hell, I even half-tank-heal some bosses and still could care less about TS. There is a stupid amount of mana regen once you get into the higher Ulduar gear level. I can do the majority of the non hard-mode fights without even using Innervate, and have started going back to two throughput trinkets in IC Steelbreaker because my regen is so high just from gear and raid buffs.

On most boss fights you could easily ignore Subtlety altogether. Unfortunately there is a lot of trash inbetween that will get you killed unless you have solid tanks and crowd-control. Bosses with lots of adds that spawn are also a problem without this talent. Anuj used to run without it in the old days, and he died all the damn time and I gave him a lot of shit for it. :P

[Orin]

The new crit mechanics of Rejuv tics in 3.2 is also interesting. Since my original posts I have swapped a few haste items over to Crit simply because they were upgrades, and am now right at the haste rating cap with raid buffs and 5/5 GotEM.

In 3.2, I believe the best practice will be to get to the haste soft-cap, then enough mana regen, then work on buffing your crit rating so you get more healing out of your rejuv tics.

How the math will all play out is anyone's guess, I personally disagree with all the guys on EJ who are thinking Blizzard isn't going to make this work for us. I plan to adjust to Blizzard's changes accordingly instead of trying to buck the system. At least until someone proves me wrong. :P

[nandien]

So, I ended up letting my account expire before the changes to lifebloom (increased mana cost, returning mana on bloom, bloom size affected by the number of stacks) and was just curious to how you go about stacking lifebloom on tanks when raid healing (if you do at all) or tank healing.

Basically, is it better to put up a 3 stack and then maintain it or are you better off slow stacking it (as you mentioned) and then letting it bloom on the 3rd stack before stacking it again.

I'd imagine it somewhat depends on the fight, but yeah.

I was also curious about taking 3/3 subtlety as opposed to 2/3 + NS. Of course, sometimes I feel that I don't use NS as I'm "saving it for later."

Thanks

[Orin]

Nandien, you don't keep Lifebloom stacks going long-term anymore. If you do it on a tank, do what is called "slow stacking". Basically cast Lifebloom, wait 8ish seconds, cast Lifebloom, wait, cast Lifebloom, wait and let it fall off. Then repeat.

2/3 Subtlety has not resulted in any real difference for me in our raids as far as pulling aggro more from trash mobs. Though we do raid with AoE tanks quite a bit. NS is helpful, but really not required IMO. You would have to macro it to get the true benefits of it, NS+HT or NS+Rebirth are good combos.