Updating for 4.2
Still working on section 4: Specs.
Introduction
Hello :) I assume if you are looking at this it's because you are interested in healing as a druid. That or you're really really bored. :D
Druid healing has changed vastly since Cataclysm and The Shattering. This is mainly due to the new Blizzard raiding style, where mana efficiency and conservation is now key to survival. Healing is no longer a "triage" battle against a boss, where one hit could be the end if every one is not topped off. Healing is now about survivability, where topping people off could harm you more then help you.
Honestly, I hated this new style at first. Healing was always fun because it was quick paced. Sitting there, waiting for 2 1/2 seconds for my Nourish to go off, knowing full well that to be a good healer and an effective one, I had to use it, was grueling. However, as time went on, I found that I adjusted to and enjoyed the new healing style because it forces me to think about what I use, how I use it, and who I use it on. There is a bit of a learning curve, and it's tougher if you have a group who is also learning, but patience is key and in the end, as a healer, you can feel rewarded.
- Intro: So you wanna be a tree (too bad)
- Abilities and Talents
- Stats
- Specs and Glyphs
- Gearing and Reforging
- Enchanting and Gemming
- How to Heal and Assorted Tips
- Other Resources and Blogs
Still working on section 4: Specs.
Introduction
Hello :) I assume if you are looking at this it's because you are interested in healing as a druid. That or you're really really bored. :D
Druid healing has changed vastly since Cataclysm and The Shattering. This is mainly due to the new Blizzard raiding style, where mana efficiency and conservation is now key to survival. Healing is no longer a "triage" battle against a boss, where one hit could be the end if every one is not topped off. Healing is now about survivability, where topping people off could harm you more then help you.
Honestly, I hated this new style at first. Healing was always fun because it was quick paced. Sitting there, waiting for 2 1/2 seconds for my Nourish to go off, knowing full well that to be a good healer and an effective one, I had to use it, was grueling. However, as time went on, I found that I adjusted to and enjoyed the new healing style because it forces me to think about what I use, how I use it, and who I use it on. There is a bit of a learning curve, and it's tougher if you have a group who is also learning, but patience is key and in the end, as a healer, you can feel rewarded.
Abilities and Talents
Abilities: While going through abilities it is good to make mental notes about how much each spell costs. You don't need to know the exact cost of every spell but it's a good idea to have an idea on how much each spell is in terms of mana cost, efficiency, and time taken to cast.
*Base mana means mana before extra talents, status enhancements from gear (+Intellect stats) and buffs.
- Rejuvenation: Your main HoT. It is 20% of your base mana. Rejuvenation isn't too expensive anymore, but if you use it too much (ie. blanketing all over the raid for funsies), you will definitely feel it's mana cost.
- Regrowth: 30% of your base mana.This is your most expensive spell, and also your quickest outside of instant spells. It heals for a small amount (about the amount of a Nourish) and leaves a small HoT.
- Lifebloom: 7% of your base mana. Lifebloom's big change is that it only is allowed on one player at a time. The other change is that it no longer costs a boat load of mana, with the promise to return it once it blooms. I recommend keeping it up on a tank, not only for the extra HoT (extra heals on tanks is always good) but also because of Revitalized (discussed in Talents)
- Nourish: 10% of your base mana. It's cheap. It's slow. It's effectiveness increases with every different HoT on the target. Because of this, it is important to use this
- Healing Touch: 30% of your base mana. Expensive, slow, but strong. It's your strongest spell, when Nourish isn't enough to heal.
- Swiftmend: 10% of your base mana. It requires Regrowth HoT or Rejuvenation to use. It consumes the HoT and heals the target for the amount it was going to heal over time. This move can be tweaked with talents and glyphs.
- Wild Growth: 27% of your base mana. Wild Growth is now a smart heal, so it heals people that have the lowest health first. It's HoT lessens as it goes, so it's good to use this after damage hits, not before.
- Rebirth: Rez during combat. 10 minute cooldown, but you can only use this, or Soulstone, once per fight.
- Tranquility: 32% of your base mana. This is now a huge Raid aoe heal. It is channeled, so make sure you have time to use it. It's a great emergency raid-wide aoe heal, but beware of it's threat (it does generate more threat then usual) and it has a pretty steep cooldown (8 minutes). This is clearly a situational and emergency heal.
- Barkskin: 1 min. cooldown. Decreases all damage taken by 20%. Can be used if you are stunned, incapacitated, feared, frozen or asleep. Also usable in all forms.
- Innervate: Causes the target to regenerate mana equal to 20% of the casting Druid's maximum mana pool over 10 sec. (Adds up to 2% of your mana pool every second.)
Talents
-After 4.2, Living Seed and Efflorescence has been unlocked, which is great, but with changes to critical heals, as well as still being tons of choices, the tree is still feeling incredibly bloated. I will go over what each talent does and some basic talent specs that can be tweaked to personal tastes.
Restoration Tree
Specialization:
- Swiftmend: Consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on a friendly target to instantly heal the target for 5229.
- Meditation: Allows 50% of your mana regeneration from spirit while in combat.
- Gift of Nature: Healing increased by 25%
- Disentanglement: The druid to clear all roots when Shapeshifting in addition to snares.
- Mastery: Harmony (Discussed later)
Must Have Talents
Heart of the Wild: 3/3 When maxed out, it increases your total intellect by 6%. A definite plus since intellect is important to us as a stat. It's an increase in not only mana pool, but also spell power and spell crit.
Naturalist: 2/2 Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch and Nourish spells by 0.50 seconds.
Natural Shapeshifter: 2/2 Increased the duration of Tree of Life Form by 6 seconds. The talent itself is meh, however, with ToL's time nerf, the extra 6 seconds is nice. The reason its required is because it opens up, through a link to...
->
Master Shapeshifter: 1/1 Tree of Life/Caster Form-Increases healing by 4%.
Improved Rejuvenation: 2/2 Increases the effect of your Rejuvenation and Swiftmend spells by 15%
Revitalize: 2/2 This is by far my favorite new talent. When maxed out, it has a 20% chance when your Rejuvenation or Lifebloom heals (whether its a cast or a tick) to gain 2% of your total mana back. This has a 12 second cd, but 2% of your total mana (not Spirit or base mana) is a lot. And it procs often. With as many heals as your Rejuvenation/Lifebloom can do, there is plenty of opportunity for it to proc.
But that's not all. Revitalize also gives the raid wide Replenishment (10 players) whenever you cast or renew Lifebloom. This is why it is imperative that you try to use Lifebloom in some way, shape or form; it now has mana regen raid utility.
The classes/roles that give Replenishment are: Restoration Druids, Shadow Priests, Retribution Paladins, and Frost Mages.
Empowered Touch: 2/2 Increases the direct healing done by your Healing Touch, Regrowth and Nourish spells by 10% and grants those spells a 100% chance to refresh the duration of your Lifebloom on Targets.
Efflorescence: 3/3 When you heal with your Swiftmend spell, you also sprout a bed of healing flora underneath the target, restoring health equal to 4/8/12% of the amount healed by your Swiftmend to the three most injured targets within 8 yards, every 1 sec for 7 sec.
-No longer linked to Living Seed and now a smart heal, it is safe to say that Efflorescence is an important talent to take. It is also affected by our Haste and makes the 2005 haste cap even more important to reach.
Malfurion's Gift: 2/2 Whenever you heal with your Lifebloom spell, you have a 4% chance to cause Omen of Clarity. After 4.06, OoC (Clearcasting) no longer procs from healing spells, only from Lifebloom if this talent is taken. 4% doesn't seem like a lot, and Clearcasting is restricting (Only used on Swiftmend, Healing Touch, and Regrowth) and sometimes can be wasted if you don't use it before it's time is up, but there's really nothing better to put your talents in (sometimes any extra mana conservation is worth it), and it does have increased benefits with ToL.
Wild Growth: 1/1 See Abilities.
Swift Rejuvenation: 1/1 Reduces the global cooldown of your Rejuvenation by 1 second. This ignores your haste, so it's a good talent to have so you don't have to work towards having enough haste for a second cooldown.
Gift of the Earthmother: 2/2 Increases the healing done when your Lifebloom expires by 15% and causes your Rejuvention spell to also instantly heal for 15% of hte total periodic effect.
Tree of Life: 1/1 Now a 3 min cd. It lasts for 25 seconds (31 with Natural Shapeshifter). It increases your healing and your armor, but the most important thing it does is that it enhances some of our spells. Regrowth is an instant cast (and a mana eater so be careful). Lifebloom can be cast on as many players as possible. Wild Growth hits two extra players. Wrath's (if your bored and dpsing) cast time is cut in half. It's definitely useful for healing intensive parts in a fight. Definitely don't pass it up.
Optional? Maybe!
Blessing of the Groves (2): Increases the healing done by your Rejuvenation by 2/4%
Perservance (3): Reduces all spell damage taken by 2/4/6%
Nature's Swiftness (1): When activated, your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 seconds becomes an instant spell. 3 min. cooldown.
-There's a lot of debate about whether this talent is optional or not. A lot of druids find it useful as an emergency heal, even when there is the steep 3 min. cooldown, and really no other utility. The argument is that it is only 1 talent point, and also that it is one of very few healing cooldowns we have (albeit a very weak one)
I spoke more about this spell on these two posts. 1 and 2
Living Seed (3): When you critically heal a target with Swiftmend, Regrowth, Nourish or Healing Touch spell, you plant a Living Seed on the target for 10/20/30% of the amount healed. The Living Seed will bloom when the target is next attacked. Lasts 15 seconds.
-Living Seed is no longer required for Efflorescence, which is a dream come true for every druid. However, the increase heal of healing crits makes this talent much more viable. I personally would test it, see how it affects your healing in different situations. If you find you are criting a lot, you might want to take it, especially if you are tank healing.
Nature's Bounty (3): Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth spell by 20/40/60%.
In addition, when you have Rejuvenation active on three or more targets, the cast time of your Nourish spell is reduces by 10/20/30%.
-It's far more useful in a raiding environment, but in a 5 man, it's probably has even less use. In general, its considered a weak talent, but it could find worth it, especially if you are using Regrowth a lot, have a lot of Rejuvenations going and use Nourish a lot too.
Nature's Cure (1): Empowers your Remove Corruption spell to also remove a magic effect from a friendly target.
-This could be considered optional if you are raiding 25 mans. However, if you do dungeons/heroics a lot or are in a 10 man, you might want to take this spell anyways.
Gift of the Earthmother (3): For the most part, you want to take this talent, but removing a point or two is okay if you are looking for other talents. Lifebloom's bloom has been nerfed a little and if you're using Lifebloom on the tank, there is a good chance it won't bloom often. The Rejuvenation on cast heal is nice as well, but a 5% decrease won't be noticeable in the overall picture.
Balance Tree
Nature's Majesty: Maxed out, this is 4% extra crit to your spells. With the changes to HoTs, crit is now a viable stat to get. It's important to take this so that you can reach Moonglow if you want it.
Nature's Grace: For every Moonfire, Insect Swarm and Regrowth you cast, you gain 5/10/15% haste for 15 seconds. It has a one minute cd, but the CD is refreshed when you hit Eclipse (which is completely irrelevant because you don't have Eclipse.)
This is actually pretty nice as a cooldown for extra help.The 15% haste helps us reach breakpoints we previously wouldn't have been able to. I go over these haste breakpoints in the Stats section.
That being said, once you use Regrowth, it's good to know when and for how long you have Nature's Grace so you can take advantage of it.
Moonglow: Reduces the mana costs of your spells by 3/6/9%
Nine percent is a really good reduction, so if you're having mana problems, I would go for this, as well as Furor. Math wise, Moonglow fully talented is better than Furor fully talented.
Genesis: Increases the healing done by your periodic spells and by Swiftmend by 2/4/6%
If you aren't having mana problems, or have an excessive amount of mana at the end of a boss fight, you can drop points from Furor or Moonglow to take this talent. This is pure throughput.
Naturalist: 2/2 Reduces the cast time of your Healing Touch and Nourish spells by 0.50 seconds.
Natural Shapeshifter: 2/2 Increased the duration of Tree of Life Form by 6 seconds. The talent itself is meh, however, with ToL's time nerf, the extra 6 seconds is nice. The reason its required is because it opens up, through a link to...
->
Master Shapeshifter: 1/1 Tree of Life/Caster Form-Increases healing by 4%.
Improved Rejuvenation: 2/2 Increases the effect of your Rejuvenation and Swiftmend spells by 15%
Revitalize: 2/2 This is by far my favorite new talent. When maxed out, it has a 20% chance when your Rejuvenation or Lifebloom heals (whether its a cast or a tick) to gain 2% of your total mana back. This has a 12 second cd, but 2% of your total mana (not Spirit or base mana) is a lot. And it procs often. With as many heals as your Rejuvenation/Lifebloom can do, there is plenty of opportunity for it to proc.
But that's not all. Revitalize also gives the raid wide Replenishment (10 players) whenever you cast or renew Lifebloom. This is why it is imperative that you try to use Lifebloom in some way, shape or form; it now has mana regen raid utility.
The classes/roles that give Replenishment are: Restoration Druids, Shadow Priests, Retribution Paladins, and Frost Mages.
Empowered Touch: 2/2 Increases the direct healing done by your Healing Touch, Regrowth and Nourish spells by 10% and grants those spells a 100% chance to refresh the duration of your Lifebloom on Targets.
Efflorescence: 3/3 When you heal with your Swiftmend spell, you also sprout a bed of healing flora underneath the target, restoring health equal to 4/8/12% of the amount healed by your Swiftmend to the three most injured targets within 8 yards, every 1 sec for 7 sec.
-No longer linked to Living Seed and now a smart heal, it is safe to say that Efflorescence is an important talent to take. It is also affected by our Haste and makes the 2005 haste cap even more important to reach.
Malfurion's Gift: 2/2 Whenever you heal with your Lifebloom spell, you have a 4% chance to cause Omen of Clarity. After 4.06, OoC (Clearcasting) no longer procs from healing spells, only from Lifebloom if this talent is taken. 4% doesn't seem like a lot, and Clearcasting is restricting (Only used on Swiftmend, Healing Touch, and Regrowth) and sometimes can be wasted if you don't use it before it's time is up, but there's really nothing better to put your talents in (sometimes any extra mana conservation is worth it), and it does have increased benefits with ToL.
Wild Growth: 1/1 See Abilities.
Swift Rejuvenation: 1/1 Reduces the global cooldown of your Rejuvenation by 1 second. This ignores your haste, so it's a good talent to have so you don't have to work towards having enough haste for a second cooldown.
Gift of the Earthmother: 2/2 Increases the healing done when your Lifebloom expires by 15% and causes your Rejuvention spell to also instantly heal for 15% of hte total periodic effect.
Tree of Life: 1/1 Now a 3 min cd. It lasts for 25 seconds (31 with Natural Shapeshifter). It increases your healing and your armor, but the most important thing it does is that it enhances some of our spells. Regrowth is an instant cast (and a mana eater so be careful). Lifebloom can be cast on as many players as possible. Wild Growth hits two extra players. Wrath's (if your bored and dpsing) cast time is cut in half. It's definitely useful for healing intensive parts in a fight. Definitely don't pass it up.
Optional? Maybe!
Blessing of the Groves (2): Increases the healing done by your Rejuvenation by 2/4%
Perservance (3): Reduces all spell damage taken by 2/4/6%
Nature's Swiftness (1): When activated, your next Nature spell with a base casting time less than 10 seconds becomes an instant spell. 3 min. cooldown.
-There's a lot of debate about whether this talent is optional or not. A lot of druids find it useful as an emergency heal, even when there is the steep 3 min. cooldown, and really no other utility. The argument is that it is only 1 talent point, and also that it is one of very few healing cooldowns we have (albeit a very weak one)
I spoke more about this spell on these two posts. 1 and 2
Living Seed (3): When you critically heal a target with Swiftmend, Regrowth, Nourish or Healing Touch spell, you plant a Living Seed on the target for 10/20/30% of the amount healed. The Living Seed will bloom when the target is next attacked. Lasts 15 seconds.
-Living Seed is no longer required for Efflorescence, which is a dream come true for every druid. However, the increase heal of healing crits makes this talent much more viable. I personally would test it, see how it affects your healing in different situations. If you find you are criting a lot, you might want to take it, especially if you are tank healing.
Nature's Bounty (3): Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth spell by 20/40/60%.
In addition, when you have Rejuvenation active on three or more targets, the cast time of your Nourish spell is reduces by 10/20/30%.
-It's far more useful in a raiding environment, but in a 5 man, it's probably has even less use. In general, its considered a weak talent, but it could find worth it, especially if you are using Regrowth a lot, have a lot of Rejuvenations going and use Nourish a lot too.
Nature's Cure (1): Empowers your Remove Corruption spell to also remove a magic effect from a friendly target.
-This could be considered optional if you are raiding 25 mans. However, if you do dungeons/heroics a lot or are in a 10 man, you might want to take this spell anyways.
Gift of the Earthmother (3): For the most part, you want to take this talent, but removing a point or two is okay if you are looking for other talents. Lifebloom's bloom has been nerfed a little and if you're using Lifebloom on the tank, there is a good chance it won't bloom often. The Rejuvenation on cast heal is nice as well, but a 5% decrease won't be noticeable in the overall picture.
Balance Tree
Nature's Majesty: Maxed out, this is 4% extra crit to your spells. With the changes to HoTs, crit is now a viable stat to get. It's important to take this so that you can reach Moonglow if you want it.
Nature's Grace: For every Moonfire, Insect Swarm and Regrowth you cast, you gain 5/10/15% haste for 15 seconds. It has a one minute cd, but the CD is refreshed when you hit Eclipse (which is completely irrelevant because you don't have Eclipse.)
This is actually pretty nice as a cooldown for extra help.The 15% haste helps us reach breakpoints we previously wouldn't have been able to. I go over these haste breakpoints in the Stats section.
That being said, once you use Regrowth, it's good to know when and for how long you have Nature's Grace so you can take advantage of it.
Moonglow: Reduces the mana costs of your spells by 3/6/9%
Nine percent is a really good reduction, so if you're having mana problems, I would go for this, as well as Furor. Math wise, Moonglow fully talented is better than Furor fully talented.
Genesis: Increases the healing done by your periodic spells and by Swiftmend by 2/4/6%
If you aren't having mana problems, or have an excessive amount of mana at the end of a boss fight, you can drop points from Furor or Moonglow to take this talent. This is pure throughput.
Feral Tree
Furor: Increases your total mana by 5/10/15%. This is nice if you are having mana issues, as it increases your mana pool, and Revitalize is based on your mana pool.
Stats
Intellect: This is now your "Spellpower" stat. It also increases your mana pool and spell crit. It's amazing. Embrace it.
Spirit: This is your mana regen stat. It is second in priority to intellect because intellect effects Revitalize and spirit is just a straight mana regen stat.
Haste: Haste makes all of our HoTs tick faster, and thus have the opportunity to get an extra tick. Because it takes a larger amount of haste to hit certain points at level 85, there are a certain Haste breakpoints you should focus on. This will help you figure out how much haste you should have, and then how much you can drop for other stats, like Mastery.
Here are some haste breakpoints, thanks to TreeCalc and Rank 4 Healing Touch.
5th Tick of Rejuvenation: 915 Haste
12th tick of Lifebloom: 1220 Haste
4th tick of Regrowth: 1423 Haste
9th tick of Wild Growth: 2004 Haste
13th tick of Lifebloom: 2440 Haste
14th tick of Lifebloom: 3659 Haste
10th tick of Wild Growth: 3746 Haste
6th tick of Rejuvenation: 3964 Haste
15th tick of Lifebloom: 4879 Haste
As you can see, the two breakpoints you want to focus on are 915 haste and 2004 haste. However, there is a large gap between these two. If you can't reach the 2004 haste breakpoint, it is ideal to reforge haste for Mastery, because a 12th tick of Lifebloom and 4th tick of Regrowth isn't that viable.
There is another set of haste breakpoints that could be viable for extra Haste. These are pushed forward using Nature's Grace proc (15% increase haste), which increases our haste. Just remember that Nature's Grace has a 1 minute cd.
14th tick of Lifebloom: 1512 Haste
10th tick of Wild Growth: 1587 Haste
6th tick of Rejuvenation: 1777 Haste
15th tick of Lifebloom: 2572 Haste
Mastery: Harmony: Your direct healing is increased by an additional 10% and casting your direct healing spells grants you an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 sec. Each point of Mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Perhaps the best mastery out there period. After hitting the haste point of 2005, Mastery is a nice stat to head for. It's value is slightly above crit.
Spell Crit: HoT's can crit, making this stat viable for us. Crit heals have also been increased from 1.5% of the original heal to 2.0. Crit then goes hand in hand with the talent Living Seed. However, with the changes to Mastery, it looks like Mastery is a little better, especially for 10 mans. Remember, you do gain some spell crit from Intellect.
Priority: Intellect -> Spirit -> Haste (915)-> Mastery -> Haste (2005) -> Mastery/Crit
If your gear allows you to hit the 2005 haste cap, go for it. Efflorescence now scales with haste, making 2005 important for most of our spells. That being said, if your gear will not allow you to hit the Haste cap, I would go for mastery after 915. Mastery is a flat increase to our healing and thus very potent. Once you hit the 2005 haste cap, I would focus on Mastery.
Specs and Glyphs:
Depending on what style of healing you prefer, as well as your gear, there are many different choices as far as specs and glyphs go. As I mentioned earlier, the talent tree for Resto is a tad bloated, with too many options. Yet at the same time, it's also restricted, since we have to spend 31 points to move onto other trees.
Although there are obvious talents that should be taken, the end result of your spec should be based on personal choice and testing. Here are some basic specs that serve different purposes. These are just recommendations.
Beginner's Spec
This is a safe spec. It has a focus on good mana regen and good throughput. It doesn't have the best throughput possible, but it will help you work with the gear you have, which may not be that good. I also recommend this spec if you are having issues in raid encounters mana wise.
This spec I recommend namely for raid healers. It powers up Rejuvenation, taking advantage of Blessing of the Grove and Gift of the Earthmother. I took Nature's Bounty because if you are raid healing I would assume you might use Regrowth a bit more. Also, the haste boost might be nice since in a raid, the chances of you having more than 3 or more Rejuvenations up is high. The last two points are yours to shift around. If you need the mana, move then to Furor. If you want the throughput, you can drop them in Genesis.
Here are some things to remember when tailoring a spec to your liking.
-I recommended that if you want to move points around, these following talents can be tweaked:Nature's Bounty, Living Seed, Blessings of the Grove, and Nature's Swiftness.
-Nature's Cure is all about raid composition. If you are in a 25 man, you can probably drop it, but in 10 man, probably not.
-If you are having mana issues, take Furor. If not, take Genesis for throughput.
Glyphs
Prime: Recommended: Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, Swiftmend.
For your consideration: Regrowth. They changed this glyph so that the HoT created by Regrowth would be refreshed on someone at 50% or lower health, but I still feel it's not worth what Rejuvenation, Lifebloom, and Swiftmend can do for you.
Major: Recommended: Wild Growth, Rebirth
For your consideration: Healing Touch.Personally, I do not take Nature's Swiftness but the decrease of your Nature's Swiftness cd can be appealing if you do. Innervate is really no longer viable because the amount of mana received when you Innervate someone else has been nerfed to the floor. However, if you are giving it to someone else, might as well take the glyph.
To be honest, most Major glyphs are incredibly meh. You can try Barkskin just to have a little extra protection, or Entangling Roots, for the faster casting speed. It's really up to you. The rest of the Major Glyphs are more focused on the other talents.
Minor: Recommended: Unburdened Rebirth. You should have this. There is no excuse not too. Mark of the Wild is also the only other useful one.
The third is up to you. There really isn't anything important left. Glyph of Dash is nice if you're like me and use Cat form in a pinch for extra speed.
There is also a nice Glyph of Treant for those of you who miss the old Tree form and are sick of being ridiculed by your guildies every time you pop it. Broccoli! (Oh...that's just me huh)
Gearing and Reforging
Because of Leather Mastery (hello 5% intellect increase) it is imperative that you strive for all leather now. Before many of our BIS pieces were cloth, but this has changed drastically.
When comparing two same iLevel pieces, one cloth, one leather, there will never be a stat on the cloth piece that will be worth losing the 5% intellect. So go for leather pieces. Blizzard wants you too. :D
Caster leather gear can be placed in two categories.
Restoration itemization with Intellect, Spirit, and a secondary stat.
Balance itemization with Intellect, and two secondary stats.
If you can only get a Balance item, that's okay. You can reforge stats to make up for the missing Spirit.
Some Balance items actually have Spirit on them because Spirit now offers Hit to Boomkins. (The t11 Balance pants actually have Spirit on them).
T11 Set Bonuses: The T11 4 set bonus is amazing. It gives you 540 Spirit for keeping up Harmony. The T11 2 set is also decent. It increases the Critical chance of Lifebloom by 5%. It's pretty meh compared to the 4 set. To achieve a 4 set bonus, you have to get at least one token from the final bosses in the two Raids (Cho'gall and Nelfarion); you cannot just simply buy all 4 pieces with Valor points. So keep that in mind when purchasing. Sometimes its good to focus on other pieces (Cloak, Trinket, Relic) before focusing on your set bonus. I don't really find the 2 set worth working until I can have a Helm or Shoulders token. There is a chance to get good 359 pieces for most of our T11 slots through boss drops (Magmaw drops a chest piece that I find better than the T11) so keep that in mind when spending.
Reforging: Allows for 40% of a secondary stat (Haste, Crit, Mastery) or Spirit to be reforged into another secondary stat. Costs the vendor price of the gear.
Reforging is a great way to use gear that you might not like entirely and make it more desirable. Use this ability to make gear itemized for Balance have some spirit, or help yourself reach a Haste breakpoint by reforging some Crit or Mastery.
Enchanting and Gemming.
Gems
Gemming for the slot bonus: You should only gem for slot bonus's if it gives you a nice 20/30 Intellect. After meeting your meta requirement, it is best to gem all Intellect because it not only increases our spellpower, but also our mana pool and Revitalize.
Meta: Ember Shadowspirit Diamond: +54 Intellect and 2% Maximum Mana; Requires at least 2 Yellow
Gems
Blue: (Going for slot bonus or Meta) Purified Demonseye (20 Intel & 20 Spirit). Try and use slot bonus's that are Yellow, so that you can reach your meta requirement.
Red: Brilliant Infernal Ruby: This is the main gem you will be using for every gem except for slot bonus's
Yellow: Reckless Amber Topaz (20 Intel & 20 Haste) or Artful Amber Topaz (20 Intel & 20 Mastery), dependent on whether you have hit the haste cap or not.
Enchants
-When gearing up, I would use cheaper enchants on your 333 ilevel+, so that you can remain viable. A good healer is a prepared one.
- Helm: Arcanum of Hyjal (60 Intel & 35 Crit): Revered with Guardians of Hyjal (These are now BoA)
- Cloak: Greater Intellect (50 Intel)
- Shoulders: Greater Inscription of the Charged Lodestone (50 Intel & 25 Haste); Lesser Inscription of the Charged Lodestone (30 Intel & 20 Haste) Therazane Rep (Have to quest in Deepholm!)
- Chest: Peerless Stats (20 to Stats); Exceptional Spirit (40 Spirit) or Mighty Stats (15 to Stats)
- Wrists: Mighty Intellect: (50 Intel); Exceptional Spirit (50 Spirit) or Greater Speed (65 Haste). Greater Speed is 65 Haste, but it's expensive, so Haste, (50) might be better; however, neither are as good as 50 Intel.
- Gloves: Greater Mastery (65 Mastery); Mastery (50 Mastery) or Haste (50 Haste)
- Legs: Powerful Ghostly Thread (95 Intel & 55 Spirit); Ghostly Spell Thread (55 Intel & 45 Spirit)
- Boots: Lavawalker (Increases movement speed & 35 Mastery); Haste (50) or Mastery (50)
- Weapon: Power Torrent (Chance to increase Intel by 500); Heartsong (Chance to increase Spirit by 200)
- Offhand: Intellect to Offhand (40 Intel)
Professions
-If you are Min/Maxing, then Blacksmithing and Enchanting are basically the best two professions.
-If you are Min/Maxing, then Blacksmithing and Enchanting are basically the best two professions.
- Enchanting: + 40 Intellect to both rings = +80 Intel.
- Tailoring: Darkglow (Increase your spirit by 580 for 15 seconds) or Lightweave Embroidery (Increase Intellect by 580 for 15 seconds) to cloaks
- Leatherworking: +130 Intel to bracers. With the addition of a Enchant Intel for bracers, this is no longer incredibly op compared to other profession benefits. It now equals an extra +80 Intel
- Blacksmithing: Add two additional sockets to gear, one on gloves and one on bracers. With two Intel gems, that is an increases of 80 Intel.
- Jewelcrafting: Use of three Chimera Eye gems, which are each + 67 Intel. Equal to +81 Intel. (Can also use other gems, like Spirit, Haste or Mastery)
- Engineering: Synapse Springs to Gloves, which increase Intellect by +80 for 10 seconds. Also has access to Camouflage Bio-Optic Killshades which can have +208 Haste and Spirit.
- Alchemy: Mixology, which doubles the time on a flask. Also has access to Vibrant Alchemist Stone at level 80.
- Inscription: +130 Intel and 25 Haste to shoulders. Equals out to 80 Intel when compared to the Therazane Inscription.
- Mining: Toughness: Increases Stamina
- Skinning: Master of Anatomy: Increases Crit
- Herbalism: Lifeblood, does a small HoT and Haste increase for 20 seconds.
How to heal and Assorted Tips
For tank/single target healing:
Keep Lifebloom stacked on the tank (or a tank). Not only is this an effective HoT, it is also a huge source of our mana return, causes Clearcasting to proc. It also gives Replenishment to the raid. Isn't that nice of us :D
Use Healing Touch and Nourish when necessary. If you are healing minimal damage, use Nourish. If you need to heal a high amount of damage (or have a OoC), use Healing Touch. Remember these also refresh your Lifebloom.
Rejuvenation should be used as a non-emergency heal. Use this to get people up if they aren't topped off. However, remember that, Rejuvenation is not a bubble. A druid who spams Rejuvenation on every single player all the time is causing a lot of unneccesary overhealing and mana use. Rejuvenation does not act like a bubble. Yes, it helps minimize damage like a bubble, but it's not an absorption and like a bubble, you need to be smart about using it. Rejuvenation doesn't have the long duration either, so you will constantly be spamming it with this thought process. And remember, with Gift of the Earthmother, Rejuvenation gives out a small heal upon instant cast. So utilize this.
Regrowth is your spot heal. If you notice someone took a decent amount of damage and you need to heal them fast, cast a Regrowth. Regrowth is a decent heal, has a high crit chance (with Nature's Bounty), and is fast. Be warned that it is fairly expensive, so don't always use it when the damage can easily be taken care of by a Rejuvenation (also expensive, but can proc Revitalize). However, if you have a Clearcasting. take advantage and remember that it proc's Nature's Grove.
For AoE healing
Use Swiftmend intelligently. Not only does Swiftmend heal a nice chunk, Efflorescence is a great heal for multiple players. However, it's not that great if you're standing by yourself in a corner. I particularly like using it on the tank, when melee are around, or if a bunch of casters are nearby and one (a clothy) needs a serious heal. The cd is fast (15 seconds) and some talents reduce it even further. It also procs Harmony.
Wild Growth is a great aoe heal. Because of its smart heal mechanic you no longer have to be overly aware of where you drop it. The most effective way to use Wild Growth is to drop it after damage hits because Wild Growth loses potency with every tick. This is why it is important to know when damage is about to hit (see below: Watch boss cds.)
If you get stuck in a tight situation, Tranquility is there for you. It is now raid wide and incredibly powerful. It's cooldown can be lowered to 3 mins through talents.
Other Tips
Watch boss cds. Use Deus Vox Ecounters, BigWigs or DBM, or other boss alert type addons. You can then time spells like Wild Growth and Swiftmend/Efflorescence and prepare for heavy AoE damage.
Invest in a healing addon. I know some people might give other's crap about using a healing addon, but honestly, your heals and reaction times will be better. I recommend VuhDo, Healbot, or Grid/Grid Click Set.
Tryout a spell alert. While spell alerts ingame aren't bad, they have extremely limited customization. Below is my UI. Although it seems really busy, i know exactly what is available, what I can use, and how long I have to use it. I use PowerAuras as my spell alert addon.
Other Resources
Hamlet's EJ Restoration Post
Blogs you should read
Falling Leaves and Wings
Rank 4 Healing Touch
Tree Bark Jacket
Restokin
If you have any concerns, comments, or questions, please feel free to ask me, in game or out. I also appreciate any feedback. This is my first guide. Thanks :D
Covington
(Aenerys @ Deathwing-US)
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