***EDIT: Please feel free to move to "HELP" if that is more appropriate than here***


I have been busting my butt to get to LvL 58 so that i could get to MC. My guild has added a few more priests, and at the same time, lost a few Druids.

Last night, there was only one druid in the raid...so I was told: "Go Get JWK"

Last night's agenda was: Geddon/Shazz/Flamepacks/Golemagg

...

Anyway, I thought to myself "hey, you've got a 60 shadow priest that does quite well healing in here. A 58 Druid full resto should WTFPWN heal this place"

Man-o-man was i wrong

All night I felt like i was the little boy on the street trying to play with the big guys down the block. Luckily, I had a very good healing pally with me.

My party was:

Me - Druid
Pally - Very Good
Rogue - Very good, lots of experience, aggro mgt master
Rogue - new to the core
Hunter - good, lots of experience

They didn't give me a tank, mage, or lock

Anyway, all night long on the healing channel i kept getting: "don't worry JWK...I got your back"

Meaning, healers from other parties were having to throw out heals to keep my new DPS rogue alive. And my pally was big time helping me out.

I guess my question really is, healing strategies for MC. Do you start the fights throwing out rejuvination? Do you focus your HoTs on certain classes? Towards the end of the night (flamepacks leading into Golemagg), I just put up every single party and was just throwing out rejuvs. I felt like a total n00b spamming rejuv in hopes that it might help someone. On Boss Fights I was assigned to keep both HoTs up on the tanks and that felt comfortable.

In 5-man and 10-man parties...i've never had an issue. This is my 4th lvl 60, so spoiling him with gear has not been an issue at all. Every "Druid" BoE piece of gear that my other guys have ever gotten has been banked (lvl 33 druid with Sash of Mercy in the bank FTW)...as a result, i've been able to heal BRD, Strat, LBRS and UBRS pretty effectively.

How do you guys set up your rejuv? do you just spam it across your party and then hit the tanks and rogues up?

How do you stack your HoTs? Do you stack your HoTs?

Also keep in mind, I only had one other Druid with me and this was only his second trip to the core.

Overall, I didn't run out of mana too many times. I was a decurssing fool on Shazz. We did take down three bosses with only one wipe on Golemagg as it was our first time ever seeing him.

A big part of it is going to come down to gear and experience. It's not just on the healers to keep people alive, but on the DPS'ers to know when to back out and bandage and know when they can realistically expect a heal.

As to what I do in MC it really depends on the situation/group make up. My main heal is healing touch rank 5-7, in general HOT's are over-written by other healers. I still use'm... but only in certain situations... like an annilhator gone wrong. Bosses are another story. Healing a main tank, I'll use Regrowth if it's not already active and it will land if the tank is down 1.5~2k health (so the crit lands full). Rejuv towards the begining and end of my heal groups turn healing.

If you don't already have it, get CTraid Assist and use the emergency health monitor and the mana saver features. Both are good healing features, and raid assist is almost a requirement for raiding anyway.

Some thoughts:

The new rogue was probably pulling aggro too much and that's why he needed so much healing. Nothing against you at all.

I had main-assist rogue in my group one night in MC and could barely keep him up. Rogues who get aggro are just hard to heal, as the margin of error is very small (though bigger than cloth).

As for MC tactics, a lot has to do with playstyle. If you're a full resto spec, then it still depends a lot on your gear. For example, if your gear is:

+Healing -- then you can use lower rank (mana cheaper) HT most of the time. You'll generally want to use your top Regrowth to get the best pulsing out of it. Then again, Regrowth is mostly good for when you need a fast heal, but don't want to burn NS+HT to buy time to do the slow HT.

+Regen -- without the +Healing, you're going to want to use your best heal, and make sure you have CTRA set to interrupt heals (I set 80% for HT, and 90% for Regrowth).

+Int -- mostly the same as regen, except you're really only going to be wearing +Int for trash. For boss fights that are measured in minutes, not seconds, you need regen/spirit.

As far as healing goes, as I said, I use CTRA to interrupt heals. Even so, that'll just save me mana. I'm still responsible for picking targets -- CTRA won't give me back the 3 seconds before the interrupt.

Most of the time, we use Group->MT->Raid as healing priority, though for trash we (the collective healers) tend to switch to raid healing. For a full Resto, Regrowth to buy time or when anyone other than a tank gets aggro (if they don't shake the aggro, they're going to die regardless). I'll do Regrowth followed by Rejuv if mana is good. Just Rejuv if mana is not.

Rejuv is really mana inefficient, but it's still cheap.

CTRA healing interrupt is really important, unless you do it by hand (jump). Quite simply, if the health bar on someone starts to plummet, he's going to get multiple healers on him. More often than not, your heal will be 2nd or 3rd or worse. That means either you waste the mana or interrupt or learn to be proactive in your healing (an important skill for a druid). A lot of that comes with experience and how well you gel with the other healers.

As far as spec goes, for a resto spec, I'd say Imp. Regrowth is mandatory and Imp. Rejuv recommended. Currently, I'm feral/resto, so I'm going for +Int gear for a massive mana pool (about 9200 fully buffed), switching to spirit/regen for bosses. This makes me a decurse-bot. But I can only do this because we have a diverse healing population doing +Healing or +Regen or other things.

Now for your actual questions:

Rejuv is mana inefficient. Spamming it isn't that great a tactic, in my opinion. Also, if someone else with higher +Healing is tossing it around, yours will bounce. As the only druid, though, it's good for topping people off (which is a waste of a druid and something better handled by pallies). Rejuv *will not* save a life that has aggro. It will top someone off who got hit by AoE or briefly got tagged (annihilator, for example).

If you want to start a fight with an edge, PW:S and Regrowth the MT *before* the pull to buy time for him to build aggro without needing a heal.

If there's only one druid, the best place for him (you) is MT party, Regrowth/Rejuv to augment Pally and Priest.

For trash mobs, I'm typically using HT all the way, with the occasional Regrowth. If a rogue is pulling aggro and not shaking it, sad but true, he deserves to die (though we recently tried putting 4 rogues and a priest in a group and that worked nicely).

For bosses, a lot depends on if I'm on MT or not. If yes, then Regrowth/Rejuv to augment Pally/Priest. If not, then it's just like trash fights, except I'm wearing Spirit/Regen, not Int, so I manage my mana pool better.

+Healing -- then you can use lower rank (mana cheaper) HT most of the time. You'll generally want to use your top Regrowth to get the best pulsing out of it. Then again, Regrowth is mostly good for when you need a fast heal, but don't want to burn NS+HT to buy time to do the slow HT.Regrowth is useless unless you're dropping a quick 1k+ & regen on an MT. It does not receive the full +heal bonus and is your least used spell in MC.

+Int -- mostly the same as regen, except you're really only going to be wearing +Int for trash. For boss fights that are measured in minutes, not seconds, you need regen/spirit. This is entirely wrong. +mana/5 is the best gear you can have for MC. That is, unless you're MC nooblets and are still stopping to drink. We stop just long enough after each group for the combat flag to drop; Then we immediately pull the next group. The more often you have to drink when your flag drops the less effective your are.

Rejuv is really mana inefficient, but it's still cheap.This makes no sense whatsoever. Rejuv is instant cast and receives 80% of +heal. Instant cast ftw.

Rejuv is mana inefficient. Spamming it isn't that great a tactic, in my opinion. Also, if someone else with higher +Healing is tossing it around, yours will bounce.Rejuv bounce has nothing to do with +heal. The only reason it bounces is beacuase you don't have the Improved Rejuv talent. With a bit of +heal gear Rejuv quickly becomes more efficient than Regrowth.

If you want to start a fight with an edge, PW:S and Regrowth the MT *before* the pull to buy time for him to build aggro without needing a heal.Druids don't have PW:S. Also, Rejuv, while a shorter duration, heals for much more than regrowth per tick and is more efficient. With all the talk of efficiency you'd think that you knew that PW:S is crap for efficiency.

For bosses, a lot depends on if I'm on MT or not. If yes, then Regrowth/Rejuv to augment Pally/Priest. If not, then it's just like trash fights, except I'm wearing Spirit/Regen, not Int, so I manage my mana pool better.No, do not do this. Get your +heal up there. Keep rejuv on the tank. Continually cast HT rank 6-8. Cancel if you need but immediately cast again. If you get behind cast Regrowth and hope for a crit. That regrowth, along with your priest's flash, will bring most tanks out of the hole.

Xarq, your advice is extremely poor.

I have to admit....well said Create.

I am fairly new to MC, and all this totally makes sense and appreciate the advice.

Some of the main points seem to be:
-Get +healing gear up there.
-Use HT NOT Regrowth (because others can overwrite and it does not receive all the +healing due to it's quick cast time. Unless you need a quick heal.
-Equip mana regen gear, because you move quickly through MC which I find is very true.

Bulldoser
60 Druid from Spinebreaker
Denizens of Defilement

I have to admit....well said Create.
Some of the main points seem to be:
-Get +healing gear up there.
-Use HT NOT Regrowth (because others can overwrite and it does not receive all the +healing due to it's quick cast time. Unless you need a quick heal.
-Equip mana regen gear, because you move quickly through MC which I find is very true.


Half of the time I'm trying to convince the Creates of our raid to try Xarq, and half of the time I'm trying to convince the Xarq of our raid to try Create. What you have are two styles that are good at different things.

First, both agrees that regen is good in long fights, and there is a dispute on +healing and +spirit. My view is--depends.

+healing is good if you heal a lot, constantly. The more casting you do, the more effective +healing is. On the other hand, +spirit gives more mana back when you are not casting. So for a raid specializing in healing rotation, a good amount of +spirit is nice. Another thought is that, decursing (which you do a lot of in MC in some fights) does not receive any benefit from +healing, whereas +spirit may help a lot if you don't cast spell between the curses.

So spell spammer, go regen. Burst caster, go spirit.

Now, for a spirit setup support healer, regrowth/rejuv are actually quite good. You let the double HoT tick. They take a lot of mana, but then you can sit back and let HoT do its work while priest and pally stream constant life into the MT. During that time, your mana is outside the 5-sec rule and regenning. Again, regrowth/rejuv stacking lends itself to a burst casting style. It is also good for emergency casting. So the druid stand around regenning mana from spirit, and when an emergency hits, the big regrowth (with crit) would give the other healers a breather. So what if it doesn't get +healing gear? The spirit gear will get the mana back.

On the other hand, for a spammer, +healing/rejuv is the way to go with smaller heals. Regrowth doesn't get benefit of +healing but sucks up too much mana (which is in short supply). Regen5 gets you some mana back, but it is hard to cover big mana expenditure when you are a spammer because you never get to stand around using spirit regen.

Xarq mis-state the rule on rejuv bounce, but the problem is there. Actually, it's a bigger problem when it DOESN'T bounce. Often you will have a druid with LOWER +healing over-riding HIGHER +healing when they are both improved. Doesn't matter how efficiency rejuv is, if three druids overlaps their rejuv, you just casted the most useless spell. My solution is to pick out 1 druid with the highest +healing who is assigned the job of rejuving the entire raid during trash fights (and during some boss fights). Ultimately, rejuv is visible, and after a while the druids will learn not to cast on anyone with an active rejuv. But that's part of the learning curve.

A note on PW:S and Rejuv/Regrowth before combat--because you can drink before combat, efficiency doesn't matter much. And the mana bar easily refill to full even without water during the pull time. I would put a Rejuv on MT before a pull, but if I am not so lazy, I could put a Regrowth+Rejuv. With that and shield, I don't have to cast for another 15 sec, which is probably enough to get my mana back. The real reason for doing pre-emptive PW:S/Rejuv/Regrowth is for aggro manage during the first 15 sec of combat, when everyone is scrambling for target, and a mis-timed heal may pull adds from the OTs.

Rejuv is mana inefficient without +healing. Someone did a calcualtion which I can't remember but it is really good at +300 land. What you do is really dependent on your personal style, your gear option...etc. If you want to build a burst healer, think about Xarq. If you want to build a heal spammer, think about Create. A large part depends on your specc and what the rest of your raid is doing too. I personally like about 1 Xarq (for double HoT on MT and emergency regrowth) and 2 Create (1 for constant spamming MT, 1 for rejuv the raid) on our raid, plus a feral and a balance to do other things.

Spec, gear, style--there are many different ways to approach this, and I wish more druids on our raid would play with different combinations.

Love rejuv. With my current gear and 30/21 feral spec, (I have imp rejuv) my rejuv does 286 a tic. The resto druid in our raids geta about 315 per tic, very nice indeed.

I probably use regrowth way to much because it is not very mana effecient, but my mana pool is at 9303 raid buffed and I have not had any mana problems. That being said, dont use it to much :P.

Like others have said with good + healing and mana regen gear my rank 6,7, and 8 HT are my bread and butter. I ususally save my rank 11 HT (dropped off the first boss in AQ 20) when I need to hit someone with a NS heal to save their arse.

It will all work out for you once you get more experience in MC and you get better gear. Sounds like you are short on druids so you should gear up fast :)

i gotta start off here with a lil blurb about a previous post...creates ideas were pretty accurate. i agree with them for the most part. however, this site is not designed (at least as far as i know) to bash fellow druids about how their info sucks and is completely wrong. constructive criticism works a lot better than downing someones thoughts. also makes you look like less of a dick. :P

on a lighter note let me add my thoughts:

im new to the end game instances thing. so my experience is somewhat limited. from what ive experienced for the most part though is that druids do very littel healing on trash mobs. i spend about 90% of the time just popping rejuv on the people that appear in my emergency monitor.

regrowth is a waste of mana for healing specced druids. we sacrifice mana for healing power so unless uve got heart of the wild and like 9k mana stay away from it :P

the biggest thing to remember is there is no set place for druids in a raid. some people will argue different, but its all about finding ur place and adjusting to what ur raid needs. practice is all it takes. gl.

...constructive criticism works a lot better than downing someones thoughts. also makes you look like less of a dick.
soo true mate! /signed

:( mana conserv/heal interupt removed

Would like to add that good comunication among healers(and ofc among all in raid) are really useful, in our MC raids we have druid/preist/healadin channel (all classes/dutys have their channel), it really helps and with good comunication, and anyone feel they need assistance can ask for it.
Bottom line is, working with the other healers/raid is the key to success, not to get top 3 on the healing meter.(.. good players know this and wont over dps/aggro)

About regrowth I seldom use it, reju and HT makes the job as good with less mana, maybe with the interuptions removed Regrowth will come handy, not sure tho.

I like(ed) HT rank 4 as it is a 2.5 sec cast, with good gear (sash of mercy etc.) think this is really usefull precerving mana.

Even tho gear makes the trip smother, no epic gear makes a epic player, XP makes healing good, and ofc fun with your friends makes the trip much more rewarding ;)

Would like to add that good comunication among healers(and ofc among all in raid) are really useful, in our MC raids we have druid/preist/healadin channel (all classes/dutys have their channel), it really helps and with good comunication, and anyone feel they need assistance can ask for it.

This is very true. On our MC runs, we have a channel for every class, and then a channel for all healers. We work out healing assignments / strats etc. in our own channel, making everything much more smooth.

About regrowth I seldom use it, reju and HT makes the job as good with less mana, maybe with the interuptions removed Regrowth will come handy, not sure tho.

I use regrowth occasionally toward the beginning of a fight, and the priests know and expect that I am going to do this (b/c I told them in the healing channel), so they let the MT drop about 1.5k health so that I can get a full Regrow then Rejuv on him, while still keeping flash heals queued up in case of a crit or two. This damage Mitigation (approx 400 health every 3 seconds) really helps them out, as they can cast less, and depending on the situation I can step back for about 20 sec or so to regen some mana. Very rarely do I use regrowth outside of this. rejuv is almost always going though.


I like(ed) HT rank 4 as it is a 2.5 sec cast, with good gear (sash of mercy etc.) think this is really usefull precerving mana.

I primarily use rank 6HT, though that is a 3 sec cast. I'm gonna try out using rank 4 tonight in MC to see how that works. ATM I have about +250 to heals, which isnt that good, so I may have to stick with rank 6. And I still keep my NS and Rank 10HT on my healbar for those Oh @#*$ situations :cool: Thanks for the idea:)

It's odd how everyone develops diff approaches. You're also going to see very diff opinions from horde and alliance druids in a lot of cases because shaman and paladins have very different healing patterns.

I change my healing pattern significantly depending on how many other druids are in the raid and if I have a tank. The most common situation for me is only one other druid in the raid and I'll be responsible for an offtank. In that situation I generally drop regrowth6+rejuv4 on any dps in my group that takes damage and use HT 6 and/or HT 8 on my tank keeping up Rejuv11 w/ regrowth 9 ready to go if he spikes. As the number of druids in the raid goes up my regrowth use drops rapidly due to all the mana burning overwriting that goes on when people get excited and start clicking madly. For healing an MT that other people are helping with, not an offtank I'm responsible for, I just go nuts with HT4. If I'm not personally responsible for an offtank I'll generally use HT4 and/or HT6 plus rejuv 4 to patch up my group since everyone else can have more of my time.

If you're healing in a raid without click casting I strongly recommend you get WatchDog (and a 5 button mouse!)

Question for all you experienced MC healers: I am a main healer on the OffTank in our guild with another priest. We have 2 or 3 priests and a druid on our main tank. I rarely go OoM doing this, and I heal constantly through the fight (with the regrowth rejuv at the beginning then rank 6 HT tactic that I posted above).

I have been told that I am to only heal the OT, and conserve mana by not healing others. Supposedly Pallies and Priests Prayer of Healing are responsible for healing the others.

Is this how other guilds work? I see / hear of a lot of other people throwing rejuv's on other players etc, though I have been specifically told "only heal X warrior, pallies will take care of the rest"

depends on how much of an obsessive micromanager your guildleader/classleader is. When we're having good days/people are on their game the healers are pretty much left to run free and do what they please. If people start dying a lot (mostly when 24 or American Idol comes on =)) we crack down and assign more specific duties. Even when I'm on an MT I'll drop some rejuv4 around on rogues/mages etc whose group healer is bogged down.

Tell you what,
I busted out my +healing gear and am now up to +425. My guild has now fully cleared MC including Rag and we do MC on a regular basis now.

I took Create's advice and it works great. I seldom overwrite other druid's heals now and mainly use Regrowth only for quicker heals to stay on top of things. I am getting awsome heals from rank 6 and 7 HT and hardly ever use anything higher.

My mana pool is a little lower but having some decent regen gear keeps me hardly drinking at all and cruising through MC effortlessly. I do change weapons on boss fights starting with my high end INT weapons then changing to high spirit weapons / +healing off hand to stay in it for the long fight.

Awsome discussions.

PS. I was wondering if there is a good trinket for mana regen or + healing besides that DM libram trinket?

Bulldoser
60 Druid of Spinebreaker
Denizens of Defilement

For MC, I use rank 4 HT (for its 2.5 second cast and its 1k heal w/ my gear) and then rank 6 - 10 HT. On my raiding bar I also have rank 11 rejuv and rank 9 regrowth. In MC I like to wear a good about of mana rejen per 5 seconds and + to healing. Before boss fights I rejuv + regrowth the MT and keep the dots on him as much as I can. I use emergency monitior at a threshold of 90% to see who needs to be healed and what rank to use, and then I pull out the priest tab to check for innervates. My guild assigns specific healers to our tanks, and then has the rest of us on a party - > raid priority list.

PS. To Bulldoser's question on trinkets, in BRD theres one that reduces mana cost of a spell by like 100 for like 10 seconds, in ZG theres a trinket that regens mana per 5 seconds for 30 seconds, and also the Heart of Hakkar quest will give you the godly Zandalarian Hero Charm if you can get it.


--
Faldrien
60 Druid of Firetree
Redemption

PS. I was wondering if there is a good trinket for mana regen or + healing besides that DM libram trinket?

Best Mana regen in the game is in Dire Maul - Mindtap Talisman. Regenerates 11mana/5 sec. I am still trying to get this.