View Full Forums : A few good durids.


deathspookie
07-29-2008, 09:18 AM
Does a good resto druid never need to take a mana pot, or innervate him/herself? Or does a good resto druid know how to conserve mana while intensive healing?

I ask this because people are always going on about "oh mana this and mana that, i never need to take mana pots, i don't use my innervate". But these same people are rarely ever the top 3 healers on the healing meter either, and are more like 5th-8th (depending on how many healers are in the raid and on boss fights).

The point of being a healer, regardless of your class, is to heal. Not to see how little of the mana you have, you will actually use.

For example, there is a resto druid in my guild who has been there longer then i have. We are both equally geared, and up untill about 3 weeks ago, he was slightly better geared then i was. He is gemed 11heals/5spirit, I am gemmed 22heals, he has better regen then i do, and yet I out heal him by atleast 8% every raid, and in alot of cases, he does 50% less then what I do. Even with our gemming difference, i only have about 120 more +heals then he does, but i have about 100 less MP5.

The point I am trying to make is, what is the point of trying to save all your mana just so that you can say "i didnt have to pot" when someone else can say "well i did, and that is why I am 2nd on the heal meter while you are 6th".

Conserving mana is all about making sure you can heal the whole fight without going oom half way through, but that doesnt mean you watch your mana so that you dont have to pot, because if you're doing that, then you're not really doing your job as a healer, and you're not doing your job because you're using that time that you could be healing more intensly, on making sure you dont need to pot.

I have come across so many people who were in disbelief when I raided with them and topped the heal charts, most people dont realise the druids potential. When we focus on intensive healing, when you are fast and pre-emptive, druids can give any other healing class a run for thier money. :box:

Grynyr
07-29-2008, 10:25 AM
As a raid leader (and resto druid), I've had this conversation with many healers in the past after a raid. "So and so topped me on the healing meters", "so and so sucked on teh healing meters", "how come I have worse/better gear than her but she is way below/above me on the meters?"

A lot of those conversations are regarding mana usage and management.

They all boil down to a couple of things:

1) Healing assignments: Depending on your assignment (especially as a druid), you could have way low total healing or way high. If your assignment is something simple, like keeping HoTs on 2 tanks all night, your will use very little mana. If you are in charge of raid healing and using LB Rejuv and Regrow all night long you will have high mana usage.

2) Following assignments: Depending on whether or not you actually stick with your assignment can change your total healing and mana usage by a LOT. If you are assigned to HoT the tanks, and you spend every other GCD on raid healing you are going to move up on the healing meters, and use way more mana (and in turn, make the people assigned to raid healing look bad).

3) Spell selection: Druids, in particular, don't have a lot of burst healing abilities. But I could easily use a pot on every cooldown, my innervate on every cooldown, and use all my big heals all night long during a raid and blow every other healer out of the water on total healing. Conversely, if it's my job to heal the main tank, and I stick with that MT and only heal him, I could LB stack/rejuv her all night long and never go below 95% mana.

There are a lot of factors. Healing meters are really not useful in the way that people generally use them for. JoePriest tops the healing meters every night.... that does NOT mean that he is the "best" healer... The odds are favorable that he is stepping on everyone elses job and MrPaladin has low healing on the meters becasue JoePriest keeps healing his targets.

In the end, there is no "right" way for a Druid to heal. Going oom every fight and topping the meters? Great. Doing your assigned job only, having lots of mana left every fight and being way lower on the meters? Great.

Do *at least* what your raid leader assigns, and you are gtg.

Annikk
07-29-2008, 10:55 AM
That's a great post Grynyr :> Lots of good insight into the various factors that affect the outcome on the healing meters.

I would only like to add that, as has been noted numerous times previously on these forums, Skill > Gear > Spec


-Annikk

Magellan19
07-29-2008, 11:40 AM
That's a great post Grynyr :> Lots of good insight into the various factors that affect the outcome on the healing meters.

Yup. Well put.

In a 10-man, a Druid pretty much owns a healing meter. I feel kind of bad, actually, for the other healing classes. I'm not necessarily healing better than them, it's just that our HoT's are so strong and always present. In a 10-man, it is actually quite difficult to not top the meter.

In a 25 man, it varies, as Grynyr said. I can go from owning one meter to placing 3rd on the next in the same night.

If I'm assigned to HoT's on the party, then I'm typically not as high on the meter as the healer who is spamming their big heal on the MT for the duration.

Being assigned to the party is rather tough, actually. You have line of sight and distance issues all the time. And, let's face it, those within your healing range may not necessarily need as many heals as other party members within another healer's range. Of course, that healer will be above you on a meter.

I also run with another Druid. He has just a bit more healing than me, but he beats me on the meter every, EVERY time. He loves Regrowth and isn't afraid to use it. I love LB, Rejeuve and Swiftmend. We joke about the healing charts and how maybe, just maybe, I'll beat him someday (never gonna happen - he pwns ;)) But regardless of our healing differences, it works for the raid.

And as for pots? Hell ya, I drink'em. I drink lots of them. I also innervate myself if and when I need to. Otherwise, what's the use of it? As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the best darned Druid abilities available to us.

No matter where I place on a meter, the best reward as a healer is to hear your assignment say, "I'll be fine. Magellan's on me."

:thumbsup:

Cuba Apricot
07-29-2008, 11:59 AM
Why is everybody so focused on healing meters? Imo it doesnt make nr 5 on the list a worse healer then nr 1.. nr 5 might not be overhealing as much as nr 1 and may end up saving the raid as he doesnt blow everything asap.

Grynyr
07-29-2008, 12:19 PM
Why is everybody so focused on healing meters? Imo it doesnt make nr 5 on the list a worse healer then nr 1.. nr 5 might not be overhealing as much as nr 1 and may end up saving the raid as he doesnt blow everything asap.

That's close to the point I was trying to make. I guess I may as well be blunt.

In my experience, the healer who is always at the top of the healing meter (especially when there is a large gap back to the ones near the bottom) is the person who oversteps their boundaries on who they should be healing (i.e. going out of their assignment).

Many of these people QQ about how they are great healers and always top the meters. When in fact it shows clearly to an intelligent raid leader that they are in fact NOT good healers.

Those people who heal every raid member whenever they loose a little health, even if it's not their job can be looked at as poachers. Sure you have the ability to heal lots of people and feel good about yourself, but you are making that other healer in your guild look bad because you want to make yourself look good.

I had a healer in one of my raids that was doing about 30-35% of the healing during the raid when we had 8 healers. This person's healing assignment was to heal the Off-Tank. Everyone else was below 15%. Is that person a good healer? Maybe, but its pretty clear that he was doing something else to "pad" his numbers. Other healers were getting frustrated (and coincidentally very bored) because they didn't have much to do.

A good raid leader would tell that guy to back the hell off and concentrate on his job.

I would only like to add that, as has been noted numerous times previously on these forums, Skill > Gear > Spec

Add "experience" into that progrssion there and you'll have my vote. 8)

tlbj6142
07-29-2008, 02:07 PM
According to Resto4Life (http://www.resto4life.com/2008/07/29/more-beta-patch-changes/), in LK you will not be able to chain pots like you can today due to a new game mechanic called "Potion Sickness". You get this debuff when you use a pot and it doesn't clear until you are out-of-combat.

So, it looks like the snobby "I don't have to use potions or innervate" crowd will finally have their day.


FWIW, power regen (rage? energy, mana, etc.) will be continuous not in "2s ticks".

Raging Epistaxis
07-29-2008, 02:40 PM
Thanks for the posts Grynyr - it gives me something to consider.

I've only done 5-mans so far, and am just about to start Kara with my very casual guild. I could easily see how if I approached the raid situation -where I'm not the only healer- the same as a 5-man, I might be preemptively healing those assigned to the other healer(s) just to be 'helpful'. When really, it isn't in the raid's best interest to do so.

Now if the feces are hitting the fan, I understand it's a little different - I'll help cover. But otherwise, stick to assignments.

Annikk
07-30-2008, 08:50 AM
Poach healing is annoying. I have seen some healers who will do 1 small heal on every person in the raid just after they receive their stamina buff. The players get the buff, their max health increases but their current health doesn't - so they have around 1000 health missing, which the poacher then heals in order to climb further up the healing meters.

To be honest healing meters are really quite superficial. Everyone knows when a healer sucks - it's just obvious. If nobody is singling you out for criticism, constructive or otherwise, you're probably fine. :>


-Annikk

Eowynne
07-30-2008, 09:08 AM
This is so funny, and i agree 100% with what is said here. Other then my feral druid, i have a holy priest and she has been MH in my guild for over 2 years now.
Yesterday we went trought ZA and i had the company of a newborn druid healer and a still not so experienced shammy.
After the raid the healer meters were put up in RaidChat by our forwarding new druid, where he ended on top and i was 3th on the list :), i returned the favor and spammed the overhealing meter in the same chatbox, and a little silence followed......the overhealing was exponential with the healing done. Bottomline, i had spend all evening saving everyones but when both new healers were throwing heals around like they cost nothing, but forgetting there assigned targets.
MT's report showed healing done by me for 37% (shocking news...., i was assigned to raidhealing since we have some ability's to heal everyone at the same time).

I would only like to add that, as has been noted numerous times previously on these forums, Skill > Gear > Spec
This is so true

tlbj6142
07-30-2008, 10:09 AM
i returned the favor and spammed the overhealing meter in the same chatbox, and a little silence followed......the overhealing was exponential with the healing done.I didn't think HoTs generated overheals. Though I guess HT and Regrowth do have a direct heal portion.

FWIW, I've seen the same thing in our guild. We have warrior/priest husband/wife combo. She (priest) runs out of mana about 50-70% thru every boss fight. And, for the most part, she has been assigned just to heal a tank. My healing meters show an insane amount of overheals. Several of us have tried to say something to her, but she just won't listen.
:banghead_

She seems to think that if she keeps spamming heals we'll "win", but in longer fights that technique becomes counterproductive.

Grynyr
07-30-2008, 11:31 AM
FWIW, I've seen the same thing in our guild. We have warrior/priest husband/wife combo. She (priest) runs out of mana about 50-70% thru every boss fight. And, for the most part, she has been assigned just to heal a tank. My healing meters show an insane amount of overheals. Several of us have tried to say something to her, but she just won't listen.
:banghead_

She seems to think that if she keeps spamming heals we'll "win", but in longer fights that technique becomes counterproductive.

This is exactly the type of person that caused me to leave my old guild and start a new one with people who have some intelligence.

Remo
07-31-2008, 10:31 AM
Healing meters do not always take into account blooms either. I have been switching spells around and watching my stats closely to make sure I am improving instead of going backwards. We use wow web stats and in reviewing my logs it does not register my lifebloom blooms at all. To save mana I have been hitting people low on health with one bloom and letting it cook off; the final bloom is a significant figure not to be looked at.

Going by just meters does not give you a good idea of what is really going on. Keep your assignments alive, help out others in your range when things get tough and spam the heck out of what ever is left when boss "so and so gets" to 5% :icon_lol:

See ya,

Remo

Taiglin
08-01-2008, 01:25 PM
This sort of strikes me as an interesting aspect to the healing game that I hadn't appreciated. My initial thought is it isn't quite the same as a tank who is over stepping their assignments. My second is (and this isn't meant to be critical) if you have someone who is over geared for their assignment why not run with more DPSers. Any number of reasons why that may or may not work (particular boss fight, additional fights in the instance, etc).

It does seem to be a rather odd line to balance. Too much or too little focus on *just* your healing assignment and the raid can suffer.

Organtis
08-02-2008, 07:17 AM
The key is to figure out who is the most productive with healing alot with little overhealing. This will become very important come time to do ZA. There are a decent amount of "gear check bosses" in ZA and you dont want a wipe because all the healers are oom.

I met a druid who swore by spamming regrowth about 90% of the time. In the end he was 2nd on the healing meters out of 7, but he had twice the overheals of any other druid, about 15% to his 32%.... but yet he refused to listen and I wonder about his sucess in later progression. I wont know since within a week of joining our guild he left cause no one wanted to raid with him.

Zute
08-05-2008, 06:47 PM
I saw that a lot of "new" druid healers don't really use lifebloom enough. They're casting a lot of Regrowths. I wonder about them especially since they don't have the regen or total mana that I do, how they manage to make it through the entire fight. I suspect they rarely try to maintain a LB stack on anyone.

To me, running out of mana, guzzling pots, innervating, is acceptable if you're also healing efficiently. If you're being inefficient, then those things are just crutches and you really should learn how to heal properly for the situation because when the stuff really hits the fan, you'll run out of innervate and mana pots and be caught short.

Nellie
08-05-2008, 08:45 PM
I saw that a lot of "new" druid healers don't really use lifebloom enough. They're casting a lot of Regrowths. I wonder about them especially since they don't have the regen or total mana that I do, how they manage to make it through the entire fight. I suspect they rarely try to maintain a LB stack on anyone.

I'm still new enough to the healing game to remember a time when lifebloom wasn't even on my toolbars although that was my first attempt at trying resto in Sunken Temple. We were overpowered as a group so didn't really have too much trouble.

Without another tree to fall back on for advice and perhaps If I'd never found this site or the thread on elitist jerks I'm not sure it would ever have occurred to me to try and stack lifeblooms.

Without looking into the mechanics of how Druid Healing works Regrowth seems to be the obvious heal to use. It whacks out a nice big chunk of "flash" heal and ticks for a reasonable amount of healing afterwards, top that up with Rejuve and you've got enough time to cast a Healing Touch amirite?

Lifebloom? it does what? 100 (at the time if I was lucky) healing a tick how can that possibly compete against Regrowth that starts off with a huge 1500+ heal if it crits and then ticks for more healing.

on the one hand I'm quite happy that Blizzard is relatively vague about how classes work, it gives a reason for sites like this, elitist Jerks and TKAsomething to exist. On the other it's can be quite frustating to see just how badly (myself included on both my Hunter and the druid) people interpret what's the "best" course of action for their class to take before they find sites like this one.

To me, running out of mana, guzzling pots, innervating, is acceptable if you're also healing efficiently. If you're being inefficient, then those things are just crutches and you really should learn how to heal properly for the situation because when the stuff really hits the fan, you'll run out of innervate and mana pots and be caught short.

I agree with the first part definitely. Mana is there to be used. As to whether I'm healing efficiently that, I hope, will come with experience. right now "efficient" means we're all alive, the boss is dead and I've got a pot or Innervate, preferably both off cooldown ready to go.

We were trying Slave Pens heroic with a decent, but not overpowered, group when server maintenance hit tonight and after the first couple of groups I was sweating that I was going to have to swap to my T4 hunter and the Shammy was going to have to bring his Priest in because I was blowing rejuves and regrowths plus "999 heal" regularly on the first few trash groups. I guess that's the gear check element of the instance, after that we had no problems. we're working hard, sure. But I'm not spending mana like a lottery winner in a strip joint anymore and I'm confident that I'm geared for the place at least to the first couple of bosses.

I see the same from a hunter PoV "oh yeah I did a billion dps and only used 50% of my mana on that fight and I topped the damage meter". I'm not immune to wanting to be "good" at what I do, whether twanging arrows into things or putting healing down on to the tank, but finishing a fight with x% of my mana is the last thing on my mind. If circumstances demand it, I'll innervate, chug potions, run around applying bandages if that's what it takes.

But one thing I would be interested in hearing about is what I should be looking at, presumably on things like recount and WWS, to judge whether I'm an efficient healer or not.

Grynyr
08-06-2008, 10:46 AM
But one thing I would be interested in hearing about is what I should be looking at, presumably on things like recount and WWS, to judge whether I'm an efficient healer or not.

I'm no expert on digging through WWS and Recount, but with a little experience at casting the spells, you'll know how efficient you were on any given fight.

Here's a few quick numbers I use in my head:

(All numbers using my +heal and talents)

Lifebloom Stack = ~830health per second at 176mana. As long as I refresh it every 6 seconds, that's about 28health healed per mana.

Rejuvenation = ~1004health per 3sec at 332mana. As long as I refresh it just after it expires (not before) that's about 12health/mana.

Regrowth (non-crit) = ~2300health + 495health per 3sec at 540mana. About 10health/mana.

Regrowth (crit) = ~4600health + 495health per 3sec at 540mana. About 14health/mana.

In summary:
LB = 28hpm
Rejuv = 12hpm
RegrowNC = 10hpm
RegrowC = 14hpm

Basically, you want to keep LB stacks on people taking continuous damage and throw Regrows on everyone else. Regrow was recently changed to reduce the mana cost, but before that it wasn't use nearly as often. If a tank is taking more damage than your LBstack can handle, add one or both of the other HoTs on her.

Don't let your LBstacks bloom... ever. Having to re-stack it wastes a lot of mana and you loose valuable GCDs.

Don't refresh Rejuv of Regrow until the last one is completed (although it's not as important with Regrow since the ticks are smaller).

Don't use HT unless its an emergency and you use it in conjunction with NS. Non-crit HT is about 7hpm, which sucks.

Pick a rotation of spells and get used to them. I generally use every cooldown, every time when I'm doing 5mans or raiding. It's just a habit. I'm not saying you should do that until your mana regen can support it. Just mentioning it because I believe that Druids can get into a rythm when healing. Once you get that rythm, you'll be ultra efficient on total healing done.

Maximum healing done by a druid is really limited by time. There are only so many GCDs. That's why people are looking forward to the Gift of the Earthmother talent in the expansion.

If you are bored, read this thread (http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17783-druid_raiding_tree). At least take the time to read the first post.

Grynyr
08-06-2008, 10:47 AM
BTW... why do you call the NS+HT macro a "999 heal"? I've never heard that before.

Nellie
08-06-2008, 11:25 AM
UK Emergency services number is 999 :D And if I'm slow hitting it you'll need an ambulance.

I'm starting to get there, lifebloomer's helped me a lot to get more into a rythum of healing.

For tank healing I tend to:
1) Pref just before the pull, Apply a Rejuve
2) immediately start a lifebloom stack, on heroic+ I'll refresh this up to a full stack immediately rather than let each bloom tick down and then build to a 3 (does that make sense?)
3) If damage is still outpacing the healing I'll swiftmend the current Rejuve and immediately re-apply it
4) Then apply a Regrowth
All while keeping the Bloom stack going. Obviously there's a bit of leeway in terms of wether to swiftmend immediately or apply a Regrowth but I'm still learning which is situationally better to apply and when and I dont want to be the healer that can't keep the tank up in a PuG so I tend to err on the side of caution at the moment.

For wider healing I tend to be a bit sparing with regrowth in favour of liberally chucking around lifeblooms and letting them bloom especially after AOE damage or such like where there isn't an immediate danger of them taking more damage. Again it depends on circumstance but I also frequently apply and swiftmend rejuves for speed of casting.

I guess at the moment it still comes down to confidence, practice and to a certain extent gear, I'm sat on just shy of 300 spirit,9k Mana and just over 1000 base healing at the moment and just starting to make tentative forays in Kara as part of the 3 bod healing team while frantically grinding out pug 5 mans for gear and rep to get this improved.

Zute
08-06-2008, 11:47 AM
Healing for an instance is a lot different than healing for a raid. Oddly, I use a lot more mana healing for instances sometimes than raids, depends a lot on the group. And I always found ZA to be pretty brutal on mana too. Maybe in part due to the other healers on those raids.

I look at most druid heals as mitigation. If you anticipate damage then you don't have to rely on big, expensive heals to make up for it. For instance, when I see (because Grid can tell me, or omen) that someone has high aggro, I can get a rejuv or perhaps even a LB stack going before they finally exceed the limit. Or if a mage is sheeping and it breaks, I might keep a stack running on him.

And when you think of heals as mitigating damage then you can get really efficient.

I suppose I feel like healing efficiently is as much a meta-game as nailing the healing meter. :D

Nellie
08-06-2008, 12:39 PM
Damage anticipation is a good point and definitely something that I need to work on. Apart from the Tank, the bulk of my healing is definitely reactive at the moment.

All interesting stuff, thanks guys.

micaa
08-11-2008, 04:32 AM
I look at most druid heals as mitigation. If you anticipate damage then you don't have to rely on big, expensive heals to make up for it. For instance, when I see (because Grid can tell me, or omen) that someone has high aggro, I can get a rejuv or perhaps even a LB stack going before they finally exceed the limit. Or if a mage is sheeping and it breaks, I might keep a stack running on him.

thats basically it, druids in raids are there for mitigation as long as u are using a hot every global cooldown youre good, i cycle through the tanks and usally myself if its a fight with lots of raid dmg (muru for example) with only have 6 healers for that fight druids become essential tank healers for mitigating the dmg , i cant imagine doing muru without a druid or two

healing meters are a usefull tool in determining what you can be doing different to maximise your healing output, if theres another druid in the raid and there pwning you on the meter that means u need to make sure your using your global cooldowns, and that your healing people that need it, playing a druid isnt easy mode like chain heal shammy hax

if you as a druid have mana issues you need to evaluate your gear choices , if you look at my magelo by clicking my signature u can see how i stacked my gems and i only hafta potion on kiljaeden and muru

deathspookie
08-26-2008, 03:31 PM
Hai all, thanks for the replies!

I pretty much agree with what everyone has said lol.

In regards to people focusing attention on the heal meters, it is because in alot of raiding guilds, they judge you by where you are on the heal meter. It's true that it doesnt give you a 100% accurate reading because there are things it cant take into consideration, however it does give you a little idea of how well you are performing, and the readings shown on the meter aren't much different to what you end up seeing on WWS.

For example, we only ever raid with 1-2 resto druids, 1 of them is always at the top while the other is always lagging at the bottom somewhere (funnily enough, the one at the bottom was better geared, even though he was a holy druid while the other is a pure resto druid, ie: only wears leather >>). They take into concideration their gear and experience on boss fights as well as the heal assignments they were given when judging how well the person did. They also look at heal % + overheal (as well as compare the amount of HoT's cast between them), and only 1 of our druids is ever 1-3 (with usually only 1-2% heal difference) on WWS with an average of 15% less over heal between her and the next lowest, and on average a 30% different between her and the person with the most over heal.

In regards to heal poaching, it is pretty much (or atleast in my experience) expected of resto druids to not only heal their own assigned targets, but to keep HoT's on the raid when possible. To some this is an easy job, to others, it is not. Keeping 3 tanks HoT'd up while throwing rejuvs around the raid here and there. You can hardly call that poaching. Priests, in my experience are the poachers... lol. And besides, if youre a resto druid who's heal assignment is to keep HoT's on several tanks, that's pretty much all you need to do to make the raid healers (shammys mostly) sweat a little. >>

Micaa and Grynyr in particular gave some really good pointers.

Thanks all for your imput!

Annikk
09-03-2008, 10:42 AM
Priests, in my experience are the poachers...

Trufax.


-Annikk