Druids have 3 primary healing spells: Rejuvenation: Instant-cast healing over time (increased healing with talents) Healing Touch: 3.5 second cast large heal (3.0 seconds with talents, lower casting cost with talents) Regrowth: 2.0 second cast moderate heal and moderate healing over time. HoT stacks with Rejuvenation (large crit rate with talents).
With that being said, I never use Regrowth. Why? Because the mana efficiency is terrible, and it's too hard to anticipate a party member's needs with it. To make things even worse, the Regrowth talent crit ONLY affects the first half of the Regrowth healing, not the HoT part. The only time I would use Regrowth is if I absolutely needed to heal someone ASAP, and already burned my Nature's Swiftness.
I have max Rejuvenation 10, Heatling Touch 10, Healing Touch 6, and Healing Touch 4 on my hotbar. This is the role of each spell: Rejuv 10: HP topper, something I can quickly cast on multiple party members in a row. Healing Touch 4: this one actually is .5 seconds faster to cast than the higher levels. It is very cheap and I consider it a freebie. Healing Touch 6: my main spell. Generates little threat and heals ~1000-1200 HP, making it easy to time. Healing Touch 10: the big heal for when someone takes a lot of damage. Also the only thing used with Nature's Swiftness.
The most important part of being a healer is sensitivity to party needs. It's anticipating who will take damage when, and how early to start healing. Since Healing Touch takes 3 seconds to cast, you have to know how early to start casting it.
PROTIP: Let's say I'm healing Galtar, and punch Healing Touch 6. While I'm casting HT6, I switch targets to Kriala, who has suddenly taken a lot of aggro quickly. The MOMENT that HT6 finishes on Galtar, I can immediately punch HT6 again to start healing Kriala. I call this "pre-targeting." to make a long story short, change to your next healing target during your casting time, so you can immediately hit your next spell ASAP.
Nature's Swiftness: NS makes your next Nature spell instant cast. You can insta-root and insta-hibernate with this spell, but the main use for it is Healing Touch 10. If someone takes a lot of damage quickly, and I believe they will not survive the 3 second casting time, I punch NS, HT10. Ideally, you will never have to use it, but realistically, I use it a couple times per raid. I have placed HT10 next to NS on my hotbar for this exact reason.
Innervate: Innervate greatly increases your spirit mana regen. It's awesome for long battles. Since you can cast Innervate on anyone, make sure to target yourself first by hitting F1 or by clicking on your icon in the upper left. You can also Innverate a friendly priest if you think he's a better healer than you. Be careful, as every druid has a story about accidentally Innervating a warrior.
Druid ressing: This one is a doozy. Since druids have a 30-minute cooldown combat res, they cannot really save wipes. Hence you should generally group with a primary resser like a paladin, priest, or shaman. I use combat res when someone has died prematurely in a battle, especially a MT or healer, or as a last-ditch effort when we're about to wipe. Combat ressing a warrior to finish a boss fight is extremely satisfying, especially when the rest of the party wiped and would have had to start over.
Mana management: Druids have slow-casting heals, meaning they are essentially going to constantly be in a state of casting. This makes spirit-based regen useless in long battles (unless Innervated). To this end, I have about 43 mana/5 sec of mana regen on Jaana, often at the expense of INT and SPI. While Jaana has ~4000 mana unbuffed, the mana regen more than makes up for it. Jaana rarely need more than 5 water in any instance, and often can regen full mana just by sitting down between pulls. Most importantly, that mana regen works during casting, which spirit-based regen does not. This keeps the healing coming during battle, even without Innervate. For those who are curious, Jaana has Jelkik's Talisman, Abyssal Leather Boots, Gloves, Belt, and Pants of Restoration, Archivist Cape of the Eagle, Band of Rumination, Lorespinner, Milli's Lexicon, and +4 regen enchant on bracers for mana regen. I'd love to get a Mindtap Talisman, as that would bring me up to 54 mana/5 seconds.
Aggro management: I highly recommend taking Subtlety, and always asking Paladins for Blessing of Salvation. Since my mana regen is already excellent, I prefer Salvation over Wisdom. This will allow you to overheal a little without taking aggro away from the MT. Regrowth seems to generate the most threat, while Rejuvenation seems to generate the least. Healing Touch 6 generates relatively little threat in comparison, which is another reason I use it so much.
PROTIP: Faerie Fire doesn't break sheep, sleep, sap, shackle, or freeze. Help out a bit when things slow down, will ya, the spell is virtually free.
Plus healing: For a healer, +healing gear is more important than +spell crit gear. The reason being that healing should be based on your estimate of the HP you heal. Crits throw this off a bit and are unreliable. I would worry about stats and mana regen before worrying about +healing and +spell crit. Since most +healing gear has terrible stats, I wouldn't really focus on it until you can get really good +healing gear that has good stats as well, such as Bracers of Prosperity, Cyclone Spaulders, Rod of the Ogre Magi, or purples. That being said, I probably should have chosen the Mark of Tyranny over the Eye of the Beast.
Typical raid sequence: If the MT is the bow of the party ship, the healer is the anchor. The MT's job is to pull by shooting or charging, while the healer's job is to bring up the rear while holding the party back if he/she runs out of mana. Normally what happens is the tank pulls, I cast Rejuv on him to offset initial damage. I watch people hack away from afar. I might put Faerie Fire and/or Insect Swarm on the MT's target if I have room to fudge with mana and aggro, but that should always take a backseat to healing. I stay as far back as possible, to avoid unpleasant enemy effects like silence. If one person is taking most of the damage, I punch HT6 or HT10 as appropriate. If many people are taking a little damage, I spread Rejuvs all around and watch for those taking bigger damage. I'm staring at everyone's lifebar the whole time, since that is my job, mostly throwing out HT6. HT10 if someone gets hurt fast. As the pull finishes, hopefully everyone is still alive, and then I throw around Rejuvs and HT as appropriate to top people off. If the pulls are going to be tight (such as Abominations in UD strat), I start drinking immediately when my water icon lights back up. If not, I sit down and wait for everyone to do their things, while my mana creeps back up slowly. I urge the MT to keep moving until I say stop. I only cast damage spells and poke with my weapon if there is very, very low risk of anyone dying.
PROTIP: Hit "V" to bring up enemy HP. Just do it. It's most useful in instances, but it also has the side benefit of exposing the real Jandice Barov.
The most important thing to remember about being a Restoration druid is anticipation. You need to anticipate party needs, and constantly be doing something. You don't have the benefits of shield, fade, or flash heal, so you have to be more creative with a smaller spellset. However, with some practice and timing, you can easily outheal many priests. Remember, tanks and rogues are counting on YOU, and enter into harm's way assuming that YOU will take care of them.
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Forgot to mention Written by Lydia on 2006-05-30 07:04:21 About mana regeneration, only succeeded casting starts the 5 sec rule, so you can start casting a heal and interrupt it and still have full mana regen. Oh, and sitting down dosent increase regneration, lots of people seam to think it does before they actually try it, in some other multiplayer games it does, and gues the habbit is from there :) | Some corrections Written by Lydia on 2006-05-30 04:21:09 Nice article, but i would have few corrections to it. Firstly, overhealing does not cause aggro. This can be easily tested by letting a low level mob hit a test target that has little aggro on it, and then just spam heal him until you are satisfied that you cant pull the aggro by overhealing. Secondly, lover level heals or diffrent heals dont cause less aggro as it is. or well... they do, but its just because of the lesser amount of healing done. Then on general point, your advise on using mainly HT is ok, and thats the way it is on the lover level instances where damage is usually slow and mana efficency more important then time. On raid instances and some other higher level instances it allthough changes. Time becomes more critical and with better gear mana becomes less of on issue. Regrowth isnt as mana efficent as HT but it isnt terribly inefficent either. whats most important it has 1 sec faster cast, 1,2 with tier 2 set bonus that really saves lives. It can be cast quite early and the hot part keeps slowing down the hp fall while you heal others. In many cases trying to be too mana efficent just ends up getting a person or group killed while you are still on half mana. Well, but this guide is most likely directed to people starting a druid, so i basically agree on trying to use HT mainly. |
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