Healing Glyphs!

With the introduction of the latest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, came a new system of spell enhancement, glyphs! Glyphs are made by scribes (or inscriptionists if you're in trade chat) and while they are relatively cheap to make, many times the scribe will markup the price quite a bit per glyph. Glyphs work to boost up certain aspects of individual spells. At level 80 each player has 3 major glyph slots and 3 minor glyph slots. Below is a list of glyphs pertaining to Resto druids and how useful I feel each glyph is.

Minor Glyphs:
None of the minor glyphs really boost any in combat resto spells so you can really pick and choose pretty much any three glyphs you want. Currently, I'm using Unburdened Rebirth, Thorns, and Dash.

Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth
Removing the need for a reagent means no more trips to the reagent vendor for your battle rez. Very nice minor glyph to pick up.

Glyph of the Wild
Reduced mana means less for you to regen. May come in handy after a battle rez and you want to buff someone up.

Glyph of Thorns
1 hour thorns is much nicer than 10min thorns, especially while doing dailies/quests and such.

Glyph of Dash
I personally love dash and use either kitty dash or cheetah form to travel around Dalaran.

Glyph of Aquatic form
For those of you who love splashing around in seal form this minor glyph would be pretty useful.

Major Glyphs:
I feel that the glyph selection for Resto druids is varied enough that a tree could choose any variety of major glyphs to fit his/her playstyle. Currently, I'm using Swiftmend, Nourish, and Wild Growth.

Glyph of Swiftmend
Keeping the HoT on my target after using Swiftmend has shown to be invaluable in numerous situations. Plus it opens up the ability to cast rejuvenation then swiftmend immediately and leave the HoT on the target to finish healing any amount of health not topped off in the following seconds. Basically, leaving HoT's on our targets is a good thing and this glyphs allows us to do that and cast swiftmend at the same time.

Glyph of Nourish
This glyph is essentially the same as the 4 piece Tier 7 Restoration set bonus. The set bonus and the glyph also stack with each other and with 4 HoT's rolling on a target (Regrowth, Rejuv, Lifebloom, Wild Growth) the amount of added healing is substantial. Even without the set bonus, an extra 6% healed per HoT is enough for me to use the glyph and see a noticeable difference while using nourish.

Glyph of Wild Growth
This is almost exclusively a raiding glyph since Heroics only have 5 people so your 6th wild growth will be wasted. That being said, the glyph is an AWESOME raiding glyph since druids are most times placed into the position of raid healing and there's always a pack of melee dps that needs a wild growth somewhere.

Glyph of Rejuvenation
I personally despise this glyph and think it's absolute garbage. But my feelings set aside there has been a heated community debate on the Elitist Jerks forums as to the effectiveness of this glyph, especially compared to the glyph of Nourish. Since we Druids are primarily designated as raid healers and Rejuvenation is generally our #1 top healing spell on healing meters it would make sense for the glyph of that spell to be quite effective. But from personal experience even when raid healing, only casting Wild growth and Rejuv on as many targets as possible with lots of raid damage (Iron council hard mode, mimron, etc.) the amount of bonus healing from the glyph of rejuv simply does not make up enough effective healing to be as viable as Nourish. It looks like I've got a subject for a future post here but I'll have to do some more number crunching. Moral of the story, I HATE this glyph.

Glyph of Regrowth
I used to use this glyph prior to 3.1 in place of my Nourish glyph. Unfortunately for Regrowth, this is no longer my primary direct healing spell of choice and has thus taken a backseat to Nourish. A good glyph but the spell itself needs to be buffed before I'd consider using this glyph again.

Glyph of Innervate
For beginning tree druids I'd highly recommend this glyph. The added mana gained by innervate and the ability to innervate someone else and receive mana return yourself is vital until your gear is able to keep you casting without going OOM for long periods of time. This glyph should be ditched once you have a sufficient amount of natural regen but that in no way makes this a bad glyph.

Glyph of Healing Touch
This is a niche glyph for a niche spec. I've tried the Healing Touch spec for both PvP and PvE and personally don't care for it. I think there are other ways to make the druid much more effective as a healer though there are those who think otherwise. Unless you're prepared to go balls out for Healing Touch, this isn't the glyph for you.

Glyph of Lifebloom
With the added cost of Lifebloom and the mana return given by it's bloom druids now are actually wanting the spell to end sooner which is the exact opposite of what this glyph does. The slight added HPS (heal per second) provided by this glyph is severely outweighed by the effectiveness of the bloom and mana returned by the bloom.

Glyph of Rebirth
I've heard horror stories of guilds forcing their druids to get this glyph so that the battle rezzes can be all the more effective. I really don't see the need to waste a major glyph slot for a glyph that is just as easily negated by a rejuv/swiftmend.

Healing Spells!

Over the course of this blog I plan on making writeups on different aspects of a Resto Druid. Today I'll delve into the world of the Resto Druid's abilities and give some of my insight as to their usefulness for keeping people alive. So here we go!

Healing Touch -
Talents directly related to the spell:
Moonglow (Balance)
Nature's Majesty (Balance)
Nature's Focus (Restoration)
Naturalist (Restoration)
Tranquil Spirit (Restoration)
Empowered Touch (Restoration)
Living Seed (Restoration)
Glyph: Glyph of Healing Touch

This is our slow cast big heal. In days of old downranking this spell and selecting which one to use was the primary way to heal as a druid, but those days are no more. Due to being an extremely long cast and having relatively few talents which enhance the spell Healing Touch has taken a backseat to most other Restoration spells we have. Currently, I do not even have Healing Touch on my hotbar except as macroed with Nature's swiftness.
Note: there are those who have a hard time giving up this once staple spell for resto druids and go out of their way to spec specifically for Healing Touch and equip the glyph in order to make a viable healing spec. But spamming 1-1.5sec Healing Touches until your eyes bleed looks an awful lot like paladin healing and I don't think it utilizes a druid's greater healing potential.


Rejuvenation -
Talents directly related to the spell:
Genesis (Balance)
Moonglow (Balance)
Nature's Splendor (Balance)
Improved Rejuvenation (Restoration)
Empowered Rejuvenation (Restoration)
Swiftmend (Restoration)
Revitalize (Restoration)
Tree of Life (Restoration)
Gift of the Earthmother (Restoration)
Glyph: Glyph of Rejuvenation

This is our primary Heal over Time (HoT) spell and in many raids can be the Resto Druid's #1 effective healing spell. The low cost and no cast time of this spell make it a wonderful heal to throw on as many raid members as possible when incoming raid damage is expected. Although the glyph is a bit lack luster, the spell truly shines on its own and should be extremely liberally.


Regrowth -
Talents directly related to the spell:
Genesis (Balance)
Moonglow (Balance)
Nature's Splendor (Balance)
Nature's Focus (Restoration)
Nature's Bounty (Restoration)
Swiftmend (Restoration)
Living Seed (Restoration)
Empowered Rejuvenation (Restoration)
Glyph: Glyph of Regrowth

This is a decent direct heal spell with an extremely long HoT attached after the direct heal. the HoT is nice to have on raid members in case an emergency Swiftmend is necessary to heal them up quickly. The HoT is also something you can toss onto a Tank to provide some extra healing buffer for the other healers if your assignment is something else like raid healing. Since 3.1 this spell has taken a backseat to nourish as my direct healing spell of choice mostly due to the slower cast time and the change Blizzard did in 3.1 that gave Nourish the same critical chance from Nature's Bounty as Regrowth. I generally keep this HoT up on tanks and use it on certain encounters like Mimron phase 2/4 and XT-002 in preparation of tantrum.

Swiftmend -
Talents directly related to the spell:
Swiftmend (Restoration, duh)
Glyph: Glyph of Swiftmend

This is a handy little heal that will consume a rejuvenation or regrowth HoT (but not if glyphed) and heal for a healthy chunk of life. I don't use the spell as much as I probably should but even still I use it very liberally in order to get a quick heal off.


Lifebloom -
Talents directly related to the spell:
Genesis (Balance)
Nature's Splendor (Balance)
Empowered Rejuvenation (Restoration)
Tree of Life (Restoration)
Gift of the Earthmother (Restoration)
Glyph: Glyph of Lifebloom

An interesting spell that has been called the "reverse regrowth" with it's HoT component at the beginning followed by a large direct heal at the end. Blizzard has had a heck of a time trying to tweak this spell to how they want players to use it. In Burning Crusade resto druids used one spell and one spell only, Lifebloom, and they had it 3 stacked on as many tanks as they possibly could. With Wrath and especially the 3.1 patch, allowing the spell to "bloom" at the end has become a necessity due to the mana return and the high initial cost of the spell. While there are a multitude of ways to use lifebloom in its current state I use it on the tanks whenever I have a free Global Cooldown and my decision to let it bloom or not depends on my current mana situation and whether I think the bloom can be timed to occur when the tank takes a large amount of damage.


Nourish -
Talents directly related to the spell:
Moonglow (Balance)
Nature's Majesty (Balance)
Nature's Focus (Restoration)
Tranquil Spirit (Restoration)
Empowered Touch (Restoration, tentative change proposed on the 3.2 patch notes)
Nature's Bounty (Restoration)
Living Seed (Restoration)
Glyph: Glyph of Nourish

Nourish and Wild Growth are the two latest additions to a Resto Druid's arsenal of healing spells. While Nourish was a bit lack luster with the release of Wrath, periodic buffs to the spell through talent changes and things like set bonuses and the glyph has turned it into quite a powerful direct heal. While some druids out there cry foul that a Druid is a HoT healer and that using nourish will make us into 1 button paladin healers, I think that those qq'ing druids should take a look at the mechanics of nourish and then they will hopefully realize that in order to make this spell as effective as it possibly can that lots of spells will have to be cast beforehand. I like this spell and am liking it more and more with each patch.


Wild Growth -
Talents directly related to the spell:
Wild Growth (Restoration, duh)
Genesis (Balance)
Empowered Rejuvenation (Restoration)
Tree of Life (Restoration)
Revitalize (Restoration)
Gift of the Earthmother (Restoration)
Glyph: Glyph of Wild Growth

Awesome spell, end of story.


Tranquility -
Talents directly related to the spell:
Nature's Focus (Restoration)
Tranquil Spirit (Restoration)
Improved Tranquility (Restoration)
Empowered Rejuvenation (Restoration)
Tree of Life (Restoration)
Glyph: None

Unfortunately this is just a bad spell in its current state. Long cooldown, only affects party (not raid) members, has a 30 instead of 40 yard range, and needs to be channeled are the reasons why this spell is rarely if ever used. In the world of speculation I would make the spell targetable on other raid parties, increase the range, and significantly lower the cooldown. The fact that it is channeled is unique but at least the other suggested changes would make me at least put the spell back on my hotbar.


P.S. This is my first attempt at using wowhead mouseover links so any input/advice as to whether they work and how to make using them easier (took about 45mins to link everything in) would be greatly appreciated.