So.... I come to Druid (53 now) from Mage (60 for a few months).

I'm not sure I have the hang of healing yet.

My problems: I seem to OOM fairly often, and if I try to conserve mana, people start dying.

It seems like priests generally like to wait for party members to get down to 25-30%, then throw off a series of FH's and/or PW:S followed by a GH depending on what's going on.

It seems like to me that Druid healing is different.... you have to kind of try to keep everyone above 50% with HoTs. Start healing when the squishies hit 75%, and the MT when he hits 50%. If a member has gotten down into the redzone near 25%, then I have to burn a Rejuv/Regrowth, or worse, a NS/HT10, which I prefer to keep for myself (as it draws an immense amount of aggro.)

So far, I tend to start with Rejuv on members taking damage, then start spamming HT on the MT and interrupting if he hasn't taken enough damage.

If multiple members are taking damage, I'll throw a Regrowth on all of the non-tanks and non-AoErs, and go back to tending to the MT.

I OOM a LOT more often than I want. At 54, with all my caster/healing gear on, self-buffed, I have something like 4700 mana. Don't have Innervate yet, but I'm still grinding and I don't want to give up 7/11 in balance (for SS) and feral (for crits and charge).

I do have a good deal of spirit, which is useful when your party is good and the MT is the only one taking damage (and you can throw a flurry of heals, for the 5s rule to finish, and start regenning mana). However, when you're spamming HT and Regrowth, it really doesn't help.

Any ideas/tips?

Thanks!

It may be a case of party dynamics and strategy. Healing is a two way street, you need to be a good healer but your party needs to minimize their healing needs. In other words, if your cloth party members are constantly taking damage, and you are trying to heal them, you will run out of mana no matter what. They just take too much damage too easily. Ideally you should only be healing your tank, he should keep aggro on the mobs, etc. Now on occassion a mob will peal off and hit you (healer) or the mage, but then the warrior should be able to get it back relatively quickly. So in most instance battles you shouldn't be healing anyone but the tank. And if that is the case you shoudln't be running out of mana, except in huge boss fights (or a mess up/unexpected add). Then I normally drink a mana potion or innervate to make up the difference.

But running out of mana isn't always the healers fault. I have on occassion had to let a party rogue or mage die to save the group. Sometimes trying to heal them just drains your mana and takes healing away from the tank. Which can quickly result in a total wipe. Also, if they die, teh warrior should easily get aggro back, and you should still have a viable party to finish that battle.

In your situation, my first question would be why are you having to heal everyone constantly? Are the mages/rogues drawing too much aggro? It is their duty to keep dps up but also minimize aggro (rogue sometimes need to tone down their damage or both rogues/mages need to wait till the tank has aggro established.) Also, some mages like to AOE everything, which results in ridiculous healing requirements. Is the warrior not keeping aggro?

I've just started recently getting the hang of healing. At first, I was also trying to wait until members got low on health so I could use my high ranked heals. Like you, I had a problem with people dying. So, I decided to revise my strategy a bit.

Currently, I have 5 healing touchs hotkeyed. Yes, rank 6 through 10 are all set up on my hotbars so I can cast them with keyboard presses. I even have rank 5 set up on a non-hotkeyed button next to my party so I can top off low HP players after fights or if they just get scratched by AoE.

The key to keeping people alive and not going OOM is to know just how much your heals heal for and applying the right ones for the situation. My rank 5 heal currently heals for about 1000 HP (with talents and a bit of +healing gear--nothing outrageous, just some scholo/strath gear). My highest rank rejuv is ~950 and the next highest is ~750. When the MT gets aggro, I slap whichever rejuv on him that I think I'll need just to delay his damage taken. Once he's about 1k hp down, I'll cast my rank 5 HT.

My goal in a party is to keep everyone as close to full health as I can manage. By using the lower ranked heals to keep members above 90%, I've noticed a lot fewer deaths than when I tried to let them get low enough on HPs to use my ranks 9 and 10 HT spells.

It's what works for me. Give it a shot and see if it works for you as well.

Any ideas/tips?

Thanks!
I am Restoration Specced and rolled a Druid specifically to be a healer for my guildies in instances.

Anyway, I'm still learning myself, but the following is what works for me:

It's all about timing. What you were saying about keeping them at a certain percentage is correct.

I'm not shy about throwing on Rejuvenation on the MT and MA. I try to go by the 85/15 rule. 85% of your healing, throughout an instance, should be on the Main Tank and Main assist, the other 15% is for everyone else. Overall, this ratio means that everyone, especially the Main Tank, is doing their jobs. If you are spreading the healing too much, someone is not doing their job properly: the Mage isn't Polymorphing or is Over-Nuking, or the Warrior is not holding the Aggro.

Some other tips:

1. Get First Aid as a profession and bring lots of the highest-level bandages you can use into the instance. I CANNOT emphasize the importance of this enough. If you draw aggro and take damage, once the Main Tank re-acquires the aggro, you can make sure everyone has the approproate health level, then Bandage yourself. It saves mana and does not re-draw aggro on to yourself.

2. Bring lots of the highest-level Mana Potions and Health Potions you can use into the instance.

3. Use previous Ranks of Healing Spells and use the right rank for the right job. This takes practice, but the previous ranks can do the job just as well, eat up less mana, and not draw as much aggro on to yourself.

I use Rejuv and Regrowth as my 2 primary Healing methods. They stack, have the shortest cast time, and work very well. I only use Healing Touch if I know I can get it off in time (rarely), or if it's part of the "Oh Crap" NS + HT combo.

By Class:
Basically what I do is heal the tank last as they will last the longest. Unless the group gets in trouble you shouldn't have to drop HoT's on the tank. HT is more efficient. You should be able to wait until your tank is at 50% to start casting your biggest HT. I can usually heal 50% hp on a warrior and 60-70% on a pally with that. If your tank is not able to keep aggro on all mobs after having half their hp bar to do so you need a new tank.

If a squishy gets in trouble I usually don't have 3.5 sec for HT. If I catch it early usually a Rejuv will do as priests/fade, mages/AE ice ability/poly, hunters/pet taunt and can get out of melee range. I'll always regrowth a squishy if their cc does not work.


AoE Mages:
They eat mana but hey, they'll give you water to make up for it. Rejuv before they even run in. Regrowth the first pull for ghetto PW:S (see below) then get in your HT's until the HoT's wear off.

Druids' PW:S
If I have aggro all over the place I can Regrowth and Rejuv the tank to buy time. The dual HoT's are our equivalent of a priests PW:S but better as they do not effect aggro generation. Dual HoT's are very safe way to keep someone alive but are innefficient.


Do it the Old Fashioned Way:
The main reason I see priests and druids run oom early is overheal. I keep my top 5 HT's, top 2 Regrowth's, and top 2 Rejuv's in buttons at all times. I do not use any mod's or macros to decide which heal to use. I do it manually and do not always heal to full but I will heal to within 100hp or so consistently. You have to watch how fast the hp meters are dropping on what classes and quickly anticipate what's needed.

Regen:
Spirit does almost nothing for the length of fights you find in Maraudon & the Sunken Temple. You regen very slowly while in battle. Try and max your mana pool instead. When the fights get longer it makes much more of a difference. I usually heal everyone to near full after the fight with HT and let them engage the next pull while I drink.


Comparison:
Your mana pool is fine. I'm level 52 and have 5.1k with my Illusionary Rod and just over 4.9k if I use my Resurgence Rod (nice regen, no stats). I've been able to effectively main heal ST once and Mara countless times. Innervate is a great safety net but I also use it on the pally tank or myself to speed up progress in safer areas.

YMMV on maxing mana sacraficing spirit. My latest gear (Wildheart bracers/gloves, legs from ST) seems to naturally incorporate all the stas I need in the order I want them. I look for Int/Spi/Sta/Agi/Str in that order for my caster gear. That's exactly what I'm seeing drop. If you don't have better the player-made Ironfeather set is nice gear. Requires 52 and 53 for shoulders and chest respectively.

Don't worry about the 5s rule until you hit the big raids. Debuff the high-AC mobs early.

EDIT: I started wrinting this when no one had replied and have been adding slowly while at work. It's nice to see alot of us agree on alot of things.

Wow, thanks for all the great responses!

Let's see -- in no particular order...

Yep, ST was my first real MH experience, and is where I started doubting my skills. I'd healed through SM and ZF, but I'd had a shadow priest in each case that multiroled just fine, so it was a breeze.

In ST, we had a 57 pally, 52 warrior, 51 rogue, 51 mage, and 53 druid (me). The pally was one of the best I'd ever worked with and, like me, was near OOM after each pull between holding aggro and secondary healing.

We successfully got through Hakkar's avatar with a (if I do say so myself) a most well-timed Barkskin/Tranquility just as we put out the last fire and raised the avatar. It was CLOSE, but one of the most thrilling fights I'd had. Lasted long enough for me to burn my stock of 5 superior mana pots too. I don't think I've EVER done that on my mage.

We repeatedly wiped on Erinakus, but that was because we were totally unable to do sufficient DPS him due to level differences. (Both the pally and I were OOM with Erinakus at 85% health.)

Here though, I found that even spamming HT I was unable to keep the MT up (here, by the time my 3.5s HT8 finally got off, the MT's health had gone from 100% to 50%, leaving only the barest time to Rejuv the pally and rogue who had gotten hit by the AoE.)

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Remina:
Do you find that keeping everyone near 90% makes you OOM really fast? I hate overhealing.... and I've been lucky in that I don't (due to CastParty and CTRA -- see below ;) )... but it just seems inefficient, but the only way to do it without PW:S.

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Ghetto PW:S:

*laugh* You know what's funny? I call it that too. I Rejuv on the mage, prolly Rejuv on another target, then Regrowth on the mage again.... and always tell them that my ghetto PW:S is coming their way. :P

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Create:

First Aid -- I don't know why I TOTALLY forgot about this. I use heavy runecloth on my mage all the time... I think I just totally forgot as I could heal myself and my profs are tailoring/enchanting.

My gear right now is Ironfeather set, Winged Helm, Illusionary Rod, and a bunch of other green +int/+spi gear. I have more Spirit than Int at this point.... perhaps I need to refocus my gear. I'd be more comfortable at 5.5k -- an extra Rejuv + Regrowth.

I really try to throw off a flurry of heals and then let mana regen... right now, I get 56 mana per tick (not bad) but I'd like more.

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Lawdawg:

As for why I'm OOMing: I don't know. The mage barely ever aggro unless he was AoEing -- and then very rarely -- I never needed to do anyting besides throw a Rejuv every 4th fight or so. The rogue liked to offtank more than he should have, which was a reasonable mana drain.

The war and pally were both tanking, and I might have ended up Regrowthing both a reasonable amount just to keep them above 50%.

(Keep in mind that the fights in particular here that I'm talking about are those nasty 3x elite 3x non-elite dragonkin and 4x elite dragonkin pulls on the upper level of ST.)

Do healers normally OOM after a battle? I rarely, RARELY am able to OOM on a battle with my mage and not draw aggro... either the fight's over, or I've drawn aggro and I'm dead -- with a normal fight, I'm about half mana.

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Mods:

I'm very ashamed to admit I've been using CastParty. I have a full button bar dedicated to heals (1x NS, 4xHT, 3xRegrowth,1xRejuv) but once I picked up CastParty for its negative HP loss display I got lazy. I gotta retrain myself.... the most difficulty I have is with selecting the target before casting the heal. Shift-clicking is so slow... I rather just click the target and have the heal I want go off....

^^'''' /hide

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Sorry for double post but after reading some conflicting opinions I want to drop in some Maraudon examples.

Example 1: Elite Elemental Giants (on the final path to Princess), pull 2
My tank should be taking all the aggro. I *know* that I have time to use HT's only. They are my most efficient heal. All I'm going to do is use my biggest, maybe a second biggest or third, on the HT. I've also got time to debuff.

Example 2: One of the Rock Patrols that frequent the place
There's a few big ones and a bunch of small ones. I want my mage to AE. In this case I need time so I'll make it with my HoT's. The order is something like this:
1. Tank Rejuv
2. Mage Rejuv as soon as they jump into combat.
3. Mage Regrowth. This pegs the mage's life bar at max with two HoT's to keep it there.
4. Tank Regrowth. Tank's HP is falling significantly now.
5. Mage HP is low. Smaller mobs should be dead. Big mobs should be on the Tank. Mage should AE ice to root if they're not dead.

At this point I've got one HoT on the tank and two on the mage. My weaker class has more regen that my sturdier one. It's all feel from here to the end.

Hmmm, group looks good.

I'd tell the rogue to stop pulling aggro, ever. Your warrior should be the MA. The pally should MT (meaning, he's offtanking everything). Once the mage and rogue get a level or two you should be blasting through the ST fights easily. I think those few levels will up your group DPS alot.

I'll say again: Spirit regen in battle in negligible until the fights are *very* long. Tray taking off all your gear and you can see what your base regen is. Compare that to what you do with gear on. Now try either one in battle and compare. I bet you can get at least a couple more casts by sacraficing spi for int. Spirit is great *if* you're in forms. You regen at your full rate while in forms even if in battle.

Anger's First Aid comment ftw. Can save a cast especially during the big fights.

As far as going OoM:
If I'm not OoM at the end of each battle I'm not doing my job. The only reason I save mana is if I'm worried about adds. I can heal flat out then DPS the end of the fight. Get improved wrath. Moonfire, Wrath, Wrath, Wrath...Use starfire instead if you want to conserve a bit.

We're way to versatile. I usually would rather not main heal. My last Princess run I just beat the hunter's pet for total damage at 12% of the total while also main healing. If I'm not main healing (meaning debuff, then caster dps until near OoM, then bear/cat for utility/dps) I can hit 20-25%, essentially carrying my weight as a damage class. The only talent I have outside the restoration tree is Improved Wrath. Those numbers can only get better if I respecced. Overall, it's alot more fun to use *all* of our abilities to keep a fight under control.

Also, if your warrior is not 1h+shield and in defensive it's much tougher on you. Use sap and poly every chance you get. A few extra second of a mob not hitting something saves you alot of mana.

Sorry for double post but after reading some conflicting opinions I want to drop in some Maraudon examples.

Example 1: Elite Elemental Giants (on the final path to Princess), pull 2
My tank should be taking all the aggro. I *know* that I have time to use HT's only. They are my most efficient heal. All I'm going to do is use my biggest, maybe a second biggest or third, on the HT. I've also got time to debuff.

I don't agree with your strategy there Create. First, it is not true that HT is more efficient than Regrowth. The only time it is more efficient is if its regen/HoT portion is wasted because the tank doesn't take anymore damage. In that one case, efficiency doesn't matter. See the following link for the actual numbers: http://wow.forums.thedruidsgrove.org/showthread.php?t=9045

In fact I think it is dangerous to start with HT because you have to wait for the tank's health to get down to a level where you can cast your top level HT. (note if you are using lower level HTs they are not anywhere near as mana efficient as the top level HT and regrowths.) Normally, with a good tank, my goals is to never let them go below 75 to 85% except in big boss fights where you are max healing continuously. That way if anything goes wrong (a not uncommon event) then we have plenty of room to maneuver. But if you are waiting for him to get down to 50 or 60% so that you can get your full top level HT in on a regular basis, that is a needless risk and asking for trouble.

Also, HT causes a lot more aggro than regrowth. Since aggro is based on upfront healing only, rejuv causes virtually no aggro, regrowth causes only as much as the initial heal and HT is all aggro. So by throwing full HTs in when you don't have to you are needlessly increasing your aggro.

Starting off with regrowth gives you the following:
1) a lot of cushion room because the regen decreases the sudden hitpoint drop on the tank that we all fear (common when bosses crit or use special ability.)
2) you can throw your high level regrowth on the tank while the tank's health is still in the 75 to 80% range. Which means you always keep a good health buffer for your tank.
3) Regrowth is just as mana efficient as HT.

So here is what I do and I think a lot of druids do, is start with rejuv when the tank starts taking damage - you can do this because rejuv doesn't create aggro. If their health bar continues to go down, at 85 to 90% I start casting top level regrowth. So it casts at about 80% which takes them back to 95 to 100% and they can normally live off the double regen for quite a long time. This keeps the tank happy as he is always 80% and above. No low dips while I am casting a 3.5 second heal. Now if it is a boss situation, after the regrowth, I cue up HTs until the existing regrowth ends. Then recast regrowth and back to HTs. But the existing regrowth regen makes it much easier as it slows the health decrease while waiting for the long HT cast time.

Regrowth the first pull for ghetto PW:S (see below) then get in your HT's until the HoT's wear off.

Druids' PW:S
If I have aggro all over the place I can Regrowth and Rejuv the tank to buy time. The dual HoT's are our equivalent of a priests PW:S but better as they do not effect aggro generation.
I have done this before, such as in RFD with no Priest. I call it The Wannabe PW:S

Example 1: Elite Elemental Giants (on the final path to Princess), pull 2
My tank should be taking all the aggro. I *know* that I have time to use HT's only. They are my most efficient heal. All I'm going to do is use my biggest, maybe a second biggest or third, on the HT. I've also got time to debuff.
This, BTW, has been quite an interesting thread, and I have gained a lot of knowlwedge from this. I think I will mix some things up the next time I am MH, based on the input here.

I am not sure in the Elemental example above if the other Giant is beeing CCed by a Hunter, but it really helps to Freeze trap the second Giant. As a matter of fact, the Maradon instance was the one where my guildies realized the power of Freezing Traps and now we use them in lots of instances.

Of course, I'm going to say that because I was the Hunter, but after almost wiping on the first set of Giants, I said, "Hey, why don't you let me drop a trap on one of them."

It was so much easier, it can't compare.

Lawdawg:

I do not disagree with your numbers or logic.

The reason why I calim HT to be significantly more efficient may have to do with the level I was at when I actually did the math. I may have had the latest HT spell but been two levels away from the new Regrowth which evens things out.

I definitely agree that the HoT's are safer and meant to be used early. HoT's do generate aggro each tick, just like any healing spell. It becomes a question of whether you want to generate that aggro slowly early in the fight or if you want to spike it later. I've noticed in WoW that, unlike EQ, aggro seems to kinda fade over time. I may be wrong on this and I'm not sure the game's been around long enough for anyone to test the theory. If we assume the previous to be true then, in the optimal situation, casting the Regrowth would be the best for efficiency, minimal aggro , and the safety of the tank.

*Nice. I learned something too, Anger*

When I've got a good feel for the group I will often let them pull the next set while I'm low on mana but out of combat. I'll drink while they fight. As a result HT becomes the only option to get the tank back near full. I'll do this for safe pulls only, like the two-giant pulls leading to the princess.

For boss fights I also agree that early HoT are a necessity for safety and speed. I rarely have the time to HT unless I am complimenting a priest. Even then there's not much that can out DPS the three HoT's.

The 50% crit rate on Regrowth is kind of a PITA though. The inconsistency means that I have to cast later in the fight so I do not overheal if I crit. This allows the HP bar to fall a bit up front. It's still better than letting the hp bar fall quite a bit more and using HT, though. For my AoE mages this really hurts. Not only am I forced to overheal due to crits but I am also generating more aggro than I needed as a consequence. A good revision to this talent would be a flat percentage increase to the hp healed. Quick math: 50% crit rate, on crit 50% more healed, therfore 25% efficiency gain average, therfore each point in Improved Regrowth should give 5% more hp healed on the direct portion.

So, I'll be changing my healing strategy as a consequence of this discussion so far. Regrowth will be my first heal, HT's will back up Regrowth if the HoT is still active, and Rejuv will be used as a second HoT only when we're taking high DPS. Dropping a Rejuv early is safer for both the healer and tank but less efficient and therfore it's use in lower-DPS situations is a matter of opinion, really. Of course, there are many factors that will situationally effect this strategy, as has been discussed.

Anger:

Yeah, we freeze trap one also. We do the same for one of the elites in the rock patrols.

Is it possible to set one freeze trap, fight the other mob, hunter fd to get out of combat, set another freeze trap for already frozen mob, attack first again, and refreeze the second one? I wish I could word that a bit better but you get the idea.

Yep!

Traps, especially chain-trapping with 2 hunters in some of those pulls in UBRS before Drakk, is vital.

Love how well it works. :)

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Edit: Create, I don't know if you can; I don't think so.

The way we always do it is with 2 hunters -- one sets a trap behind the other, and once the first one releases, the second one catches, and the first hunter lays a new one.

Of course, this is a luxury/technique really best used for 10 and 15 man raids.

Anger:
Is it possible to set one freeze trap, fight the other mob, hunter fd to get out of combat, set another freeze trap for already frozen mob, attack first again, and refreeze the second one? I wish I could word that a bit better but you get the idea.

Yes, most certainly. In duels against a hunter, they don't even need to FD. Simply once first freeze goes off, then run outside 30 yards, with 5 sec for combat to clear, set another trap and start in again with their ranged weapon.

I have seen the FD-trap reset done many times successfully in DM, and even done UBRS Capts with only 1 hunter.

Anger:

Yeah, we freeze trap one also. We do the same for one of the elites in the rock patrols.

Is it possible to set one freeze trap, fight the other mob, hunter fd to get out of combat, set another freeze trap for already frozen mob, attack first again, and refreeze the second one? I wish I could word that a bit better but you get the idea.
Yeah, it definitely makes UBRS much easier.

One Hunter can chain trap a mob using FD + Freezing Trap, but there are a lot of factors that contribute to its success/failure:

1. Feign Death can be resisted. Additionally, the pet must ALSO be out of combat, in order to do both FD + Freezing Trap.

2. Due to lag (or bug), the trapped mob will flash from where it's standing to right next to whoever's aggroed it. The Hunter needs to FD, and either lay a new trap before the first one breaks, or pull the mob away from whoever it's aggroed onto in some cases.

3. PuG's? Forget it. Most PuGs don't have the patience, planning or know how to let the Hunter work this way. They'll put a DOT on the mob or start banging on it. They usually do that to the FIRST trapped mob anyway, much less the second. It's a shame because our guild has UBRS down to a very efficient routine, which includes significant Hunter-trapping. PuG's are so unpredictable.

4. We use traps on the Drakk + guards fight in combination with Warlock Chain Fearing. Works really well and preserves the Warlock's mana to some extent. I might go oom, but if I do, at least I can still cause physical damage.

Nice, thanks for the info on the hunters.

I'm not sure I have the hang of healing yet...


The best geared holy/disc priest is not able to save a bad group, let alone a moderately geared partial Rest-specd druid.

Bad groups include:
1. Warriors/shaman who don't use their agro abilities (sunder, taunt, earthshock, rockbiter) - I include shaman because if they aren't actually tanking (and they can with enough healing), their secondary job is to keep agro off the primary healer(s) until the MT can get it.

2. Rogues who ignore the benefits of Cheap Shot and Kidney Shot as group downtime reducers (conserving healer mana) in favor of Ambush and Eviscerate. Virtually all mobs (other than named) in WoW are stunnable. Your rogue should be using stun moves when reasonable - not all the time, but certainly when there are multiple adds running around.

3. DPS classes in general that start in with high agro insta-cast abilities before a tank can establish agro. Also, classes otherwise getting agro every pull and failing to use de-agro abilities (feignt, disengage, FD, fade, ice block, etc).

4. Groups that don't make use of crowd control abilities (sap, sheep, sleep, ice trap, banish, shackle, pet offtank, etc).

That said, here are some comments and suggestions:

A decent amount of spirit helps a lot (esp until you start getting mana regen gear), but really only in longer fights where you can make use of the 5 second rule (i.e., pause and not case for > 5 seconds). This type of fight is uncommon outside of raids, unless you are facing single pulls. For this reason, your mana pool is much more important than your ability to regenerate it. Go for higher INT over SPI in your gear selection. I don't use a specific formula, but if you want one try 1 INT = 4 SPI. STA is also important for when you pull agro and critical in PvP.

The general healing guidelines here are good, and pretty much common practice. It's always good to know where your healing priorities lie, in case you have to make a fast choice to heal one person or another.

My general priority list is as follows:
Class engaged in active AE burn-down (Mage and Warlock)
MT
Yourself if you are continuing to sustain damage (add beating on you and no one picking it up)
Other healing/rez classes, depending on the situation (I've seen more than 1 Shaman die with close to full mana because they didn't heal themselves)
Cloth dps (if they have mana left)
Rogues (they have Evasion, Feignt, and Vanish to drop agro)
Hunters (have pet, disengage, and FD to drop agro)

Situations where everyone is taking damage should be rare, but they will happen. An example is a patrol adding mid-fight against several elites, agro is spread around. If no one is instantly about to die, this is the rare time that Tranquility becomes a great spell. Barkskin first, then Tranq.

A word about Talents:

I was pretty much full rest spec'd my entire leveling (beyond 5/5 NG), so I got Innervate about the time I was main-healing the ZF instance. I can't count the number of times it saved a wipe. That said, I appreciate the interest in other talents and won't try to talk you out of your build. If you have an herb/alchemist, you have pretty cheap access to mana potions, so use em when you need em (if you don't you're going to be spending a lot of gold at the AH).

Assuming you plan to get Innervate, here are the most important other Restoration Talents (I believe you said you already have NS):

Improved Regrowth - if you don't have it, AE casters are going to die a lot on you. Even with it, they occasionally will die. Make sure the other healer in group (shaman, priest, paladin) is helping you when someone AEs.

Improved Healing Touch - Great on longer fights. HT10 is one of the most mana efficient heals in the game when you have this. Don't be afraid (esp at your level) to use a lower rank HT on the MT, so you can start casting sooner without risk of overheal. I still cast rank 9 more than 10 outside of MC raids.

Improved Rejuv - without question, Rejuv is my most frequently casted spell. With only a few +healing items, I am now up to 245 healing per tick with it (they add to Rejuv at about 50 percent, at its top rank).

Subtlety - damned if you do, damned if you don't. This has likely little benefit in single group scenarios, and not much better on large raids (where agro is better controlled). Probably the most benefit is on 10-15 man runs in UBRS. I hate the idea of having this talent (one that can't be parsed / tested to be critically evaluated), but I'm honestly terrified to give it up. Still, I'll take it over Combat Endurance any day.

Best of luck. If you do want to try out other talents - remember that every time the test server is up and taking character copy = free respec. :smile:

The best geared holy/disc priest is not able to save a bad group, let alone a moderately geared partial Rest-specd druid.


Quoted for Truth.

Probably the most benefit is on 10-15 man runs in UBRS.
I saw a huge difference in PuG's.

but I'm honestly terrified to give it up. Still, I'll take it over Combat Endurance any day.
Dead on.

I've got three talents not related to healing: Furor, Intensity, and Imp Wrath. Actually, I dropped Intensity for Imp Regrowth at level 52. I just can't bring myself to drop the other two though. They're just too useful in in those occasional groups where I don't have to be the main healer. I think Imp Rejuv will be the next one I drop points into.

Off-topic, but regarding the hunter discussion from above:

On paper, a single hunter with the Imp Freezing Trap talent could as early as lvl 40 consecutively lay down traps to keep a single mob cc'd. Trap lasts 15s without the talent, up to 21s with the talent, with a cooldown of 15s. The hunter must wait until the first trap is triggered however before FDing and casting the next trap. Unfortunately, most hunters will have much better talents to spend points on at lvl 40 so most will just wait until lvl 60 to use the technique since that version of the spell lasts 20s. These times are barring any early breaks of course.

Off-topic, but regarding the hunter discussion from above:

On paper, a single hunter with the Imp Freezing Trap talent could as early as lvl 40 consecutively lay down traps to keep a single mob cc'd. Trap lasts 15s without the talent, up to 21s with the talent, with a cooldown of 15s. The hunter must wait until the first trap is triggered however before FDing and casting the next trap. Unfortunately, most hunters will have much better talents to spend points on at lvl 40 so most will just wait until lvl 60 to use the technique since that version of the spell lasts 20s. These times are barring any early breaks of course.
I realize this isn't "TheHuntersGrove" but this is an interesting thread to me.

Survival Specced Hunters used to be laughed at since Hunters aren't Melee attackers. However, this criticisim was usually from PvE Specced Beast Mastery Hunters who never had that pesky Rogue or Warrior banging away on them. Now, it's one of those topics that has gone to lukewarm on the forums, and now you are finding more Survival-Specced Hunters. You'll find even more, I'm sure, once the Hunter spec trees get revamped in the next patch.

I am 3/31/17, which is a pretty good mix between PvE/PvP, and the main reasons for going that far into the Survival tree was for Deterrence and Imp Wing Clip (PvP) and the improved Freezing Trap (PvE and PvP) for the extra 6 seconds, bringing my Freezing Trap to a possible 26 seconds.

The above quote is true, however, the latest controversy is the following:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-bugs&t=54145&p=1

Breaking it down, Blizz states that Freezing Traps could be resisted prior to the 1.6 patch, however if that was true, me and every other Hunter I know has never had this happen. I ran Scholo the other night and had about 30% of all of my types of traps resisted, while I've NEVER had a trap resisted before.

So, bottom line, Hunter Traps seem to be more of a risk than before, because the risk before was early-breaking traps, now the risk is that they may not work at all.

Kind of a bummer because Hunters already have a hard enough time finding groups, now it will be even harder once everyone realizes this occurrence.

Even though I have no problems whatsoever finding groups as a Druid, I found it equally dissapointing that Blizz would make the Crocs in ZF Immune to Hibernate. It could have been another thing we're useful for.

Even though I have no problems whatsoever finding groups as a Druid, I found it equally dissapointing that Blizz would make the Crocs in ZF Immune to Hibernate. It could have been another thing we're useful for.

Wait till ST and the dragonkin:

Resist, Resist, Resist, Sleeps, 3 seconds, Breaks

Ironicly, Sleep works pretty well in UBRS (though the ones deeper than Rend are all flagged immune).

Gah, sorry to derail the thread a bit more, but I wanted to ask something with regards to a statement Anger made:
because the risk before was early-breaking traps, now the risk is that they may not work at all.
Do you think Blizz implemented/tweaked this to bring it in line with other forms of crowd control? It's been awhile since I played my hunter, but I could have sworn my freezing trap was never resisted. It broke early plenty times enough however. :frown:

P.S. I forgot to note that my post above was from a PvE hunter perspective (obviously). I always knew though that if I was ever to engage in PvP on that toon that I would be respecing to put points in the Survival tree.



Back to the original topic. I am finding several of the techniques listed above to be very effective while healing.
1) Rejuv after tank gets first hit in.
2) Lower lvl HT after tank hp down a bit. I usually start casting it as the tank nears the hp loss equal to the amount the lower lvl HT heals for. By the time it lands the tank is back to or near full. Pop another rejuv. Top rank HT always at the ready.
3) Throw regrowth (or rejuv) on members affected by ae dmg, etc.

Of course, this is for perfect scenario encounters. Less than desirable situations call for more of a feeling on who gets what heal, what lvl of heal to use, and who gets to take one for the team. Two things I have found so far to be really helpful in my healing ability is 1) have as big of a mana pool as you can get and 2) be patient with your HoTs...let them run their course as much as you can (while still keeping the tank safe). If you don't and instead spam the HoTs, you will cause the spells to be vastly inefficient and you will just blow all of your mana.

Of course, I'm still only in my low 40's, so take this info w/ a grain of salt.

Do you think Blizz implemented/tweaked this to bring it in line with other forms of crowd control? It's been awhile since I played my hunter, but I could have sworn my freezing trap was never resisted. It broke early plenty times enough however. :frown:

Blizz stated that it was always intended for Hunter traps to be resisted, and the fact that they were not, was because of a bug.

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I think they should have stayed the same. The only gank protection I had levelling up was my Freezing Traps, and I could always depend on them. I remember im my pre-mount days, I'd always travel using Aspect of the Cheetah, Tracking Humanoids, Mouse readied on the Freeze trap. If I saw a ?? Allaince turn around to gank me on my minimap, out went the freeze trap and Schllliiiiiing, they'd be foiled and I could keep on running.

Now that they'll be resisted, it gives Hunters NO protection whatsoever in that scenario. Might as well be a Warlock. I can actually live with it being resisted by higher-level mobs, but my traps are being resisted by level 60's and lower sometimes. That never happens to a Mage with Poly. That is usually only resisted by higher-level players and mobs.

Lets us Hunters have JUST ONE THING that allows us to be useful in pre-MC groups. Give us our one dependable CC skill, now who knows.

With the Dal'Rends controversy, and now this, I don't think any Hunters will ever get pickups again.

Good thing I'm in a solid guild.