What's my job?

So most places I look there is the general consensus that Resto Druids are Raid healers, end of story. We have the arsenal of spells, the mobility to heal hard to reach players, and the springy branch arms to get the job done. Since we have the ability to mash rejuv and wild growth until our entire grid screen is a bright Christmas tree of HoTs we must absolutely suck at tank healing. I believe that statement is false. Although we don't have the same amount of life-saving cooldowns (Guardian Spirit, Pain Suppression, Bubble/Sacrifice, Aura Mastery, I probably left some out but I thought of those off the top of my head) as other classes I'd like to think that our HoTs are providing a reasonable buffer as well as multiplier for Nourish to allow us to effectively heal tanks. We do have Nature's Swiftness/Healing Touch but when a tank is being 1 shotted by a boss even the fastest fingers in the west can't NS/HT the tank to life.

I think in terms of versatility Druids are a close 2nd behind Priests. Those silly clothies have 2 specs to pick to heal from and a broader array of healing spells that just makes them a better jack-of-all-healers in my opinion. And while more and more I see that druids are being assigned to the raid healing position I'd like to believe it is because we're the best class for that job, not because we're the worst class for tank healing.

So here's my mission. Over the next few weeks/months I plan on doing some number crunching and theorycrafting on all things Resto in order to verify or challenge some of the assumptions about our healing. I think it will be a fun project and hopefully one I can archive to help all the little trees out there. Now where did my calculator go?

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.