[Resto] WoD Alpha Notes for Druids

[Krazyito 521]

Druids have seen a few significant changes. The loss of Symbiosis (see Ability Pruning above) will primarily impact druids’ survival, as many of the abilities received through Symbiosis were defensive cooldowns. To compensate for that change, we buffed Survival Instincts significantly and the ability is now available for all specializations.

• Survival Instincts is now available to all Druid specializations. Survival Instincts now reduces damage taken by 70% (up from 50%) with a 2-minute cooldown (down from 3), and for Feral and Guardian specializations can have up to 2 charges (up from 1).

YES YES YES, THIS, AND YES. THANK YOU.

 

I don't know about you, but I fucking love big survival cooldowns that are on a low CD. I will happily take this over my IBF or Fort Brew that I usually take.  And it makes me excited for Feral and Guardians because that is such a huge thing to have 2 charges.  Its amazing. (think of it 70% reduction for 12 each charge, omg)  

 

And to make it even better, there's a glyph that reduces the cooldown by half (1 min in this case) but makes it last half as long (6s in this case) THINK OF ALL THE SOAKING, ESPC IN BEAR FORM.

 

Tranquility has an amazingly strong effect (pour a ton of healing into the whole Raid/Party), but had excessive complexity for a relatively simple task (5 different targets per tick, a short HoT, stacking, varied strength by raid size). So, we simplified it significantly. It still will be used just as it always has been.

• Tranquility now heals every Party and Raid member within range every 2 seconds for 8 seconds. It no longer places a periodic effect on each target. The total amount of healing it generates in Raids should be approximately the same as before this change.

This isn't a big change, but as it stands it means that Tranq will probably heal players more evenly and more directly.  No more Tranquility hot breakpoints (like we even need it anymore with all the HoT/DoT changes).

 

I think that with this change people that need healing will get a more upfront heal which allows the spell to target other people that might need the healing (instead of putting a HoT on them that might overheal a bit by the end of the spell)

 

Restoration Druids got a few changes as well. In Patch 5.4, a Glyph was introduced where you could choose to attach your Efflorescence to Wild Mushroom, instead of to Swiftmend. That was a rousing success, taken by nearly all Restoration Druids, and felt like a much better situation to us, so we decided to remove the glyph choice, and bake it in permanently. Secondly, while we are fine with the playstyle where a Restoration Druid blankets their Raid in Rejuvenations, the Swift Rejuvenation passive made that too strong, and also limited their scaling with Haste. We removed that passive, to encourage using other spells more, but still allow Rejuvenation blanketing as a playstyle choice.

• Swift Rejuvenation has been removed.
• Swiftmend no longer causes Efflorescence. Instead, Wild Mushroom (Restoration) now causes Efflorescence to appear at the mushroom’s location.

 

I love that they did this.  There may be some druids that don't but this makes me happy to see that they noticed it was something we loved and worked well and not "overpowered".  Being able to place Effo is just amazing way to direct our healing.  Very happy to see this going through.  

 

I do hope that they add the opposite as a glyph though.  There was one time this tier that I did not have it glyphed and that was on Heroic Sha of Pride.  Our 25m was so spread out (and we basically never were together) that I was at a loss for where to put my mushroom.  That fight was so bad for me that it barely did any healing.  So I unglyphed it for that fight specifically just so it goes under some players at least. lol

 

Swift Rejuvenation When looking at how the other classes are being changed, I can deal with this.  Its not a nerf really since the rest of the healers are being streamlined like this as well.  I'm assuming that with the change to haste breakpoints and such that we will find haste to be somewhat undesirable since we can still spam rejuv on a 1s GCD.  Doing this makes use have to get haste to a GCD threshold.

 

TALENT CHANGES:

 

Basically it seems that the biggest change for us is that we wont get that amazing passive 6% int and stam.  That was pretty nice.  I think we still keep the 25% healing boost, but thats not enough as a 6m CD =/

 

We don't use DoC, dont even talk about that... And NV densest seem like it really changed.

[ClaytonMcKown 4]

long story short druid will go up to the top of the totem poll when it come to healing

[Kazistrasz 216]

Honestly, half the time I'm taking Heart of the Wild, I'm not even using it for the 25% buff - I'm usually using it because I like the passive 6%, don't need another cooldown, and can benefit from contributing to damage. I'm actually using it right now on Garrosh to help during the first transition and the push through phase three.

 

I really would like to see Dream of Cenarius get a big buff to actually be usable from time to time.

[Paloro 39]

DoC needs tweaked for all specs because right now it would be a terrible talent compared to the other 2.

[Krazyito 521]

But what does HotW even bring now in the WoD version? All I see is a 25% healing buff and a outside role buff for 45s.  Doesnt seem useful now.

[Paloro 39]

HotW is still useful for different situations (spot tanking/healing), but the go to talent will be NV now since it will be the only one that adds damage.

[Krazyito 521]

You mean healing. GO MAKE YOUR OWN FERAL THREAD PALORO. =P

[Kazistrasz 216]

Does DoC not retain its functionality for kitties (didn't bother reading feral)?

 

HotW is the longest healing cooldown in the game. Consider any fight with minimal healing requirements until the end (Norushen, Sha, etc.). 25% for 45 seconds at the end is more useful than 12% for 30 seconds every 90 seconds of the fight.

 

Also, like I put before, sometimes you don't need the extra CD and can use it to help with a part of the fight where you really need to burn the boss. 

[Krazyito 521]

I don't know.  I still feel that the 6 mins is dumb as a healing talent.  I see 2 things that could fix it or make it better

1. Just put back at least a 3% bonus passively.  Doesn't have to include stam it can just be main stat.  To at least give something other than one thing you use every 6min
2. Make the active last half as long but give it 2 charges on a 3 min CD.  With that at least I can use the healing buff more often or use the DPS buff more often. (with the charges adding to the duration if i want to use both at once)

I think like the idea of it having charges at least, casue thats a 25% boost for 24.5s. Hell, id take a slight nerf to either the duration or the power if they gave it charges.  Id say 25% with a 20 duration is more than fine.

[Kazistrasz 216]

They already gave us a shorter-CD, though. That's what NV is. Otherwise you'd be making NV mostly redundant. The idea behind talents is for them to be situational. I would like to see at least 3% int/agi back onto it or something for passive, but this is all ALPHA. It's not even beta. Almost everything we're reading today will change before live.

[Paloro 39]

DoC now has no damage increasing component.  That means feral gets no 2 next abilities increased, balance gets no bonus power in the next eclipse and guardian gets no increased crit chance on the next mangle.

 

As Kazistrasz said, HotW can be used to help further push those damage checks.  Is 6 minutes too long, I think so, especially because it doesn't sync with the cd of non-resto tranquility. 

[Kazistrasz 216]

That's a good point, Paloro.

[Kazistrasz 216]

DoC way over-complicated feral to use. I feel like the new version is terrible.

 

Edit: sorry double post.

Edited April 4, 2014 by Kazistrasz

[Kazistrasz 216]

• Innervate has been redesigned to now have a 2-second cast time with no cooldown, and causes the Druid to gain 2.5% of maximum mana every 4 seconds for 8 seconds. Spending any mana on a healing spell will cancel this effect.

• Innervate is now available only to Restoration Druids. has been removed. Mana costs for Druids have been adjusted accordingly.

 

Interesting new change today for us. Some basic math for you:

 

Currently, at 12k mana (most resto druids run 12k-13k at high level), we get 20% of our mana back from Innervate every 3 minutes, which is the standard amount Innervate has always given us until 5.4. Every cast of this spell gives us 5% mana, meaning we will need to cast Innervate four times per three minutes to keep the same.

 

2 seconds per cast in cast time plus 8 seconds of being useless after is 10 seconds per cast (before haste). That works out to 40 seconds per 180 seconds, or 22.2% of the time standing around. With haste to reduce the cast time (not sure if it will affect the mana gain, but I'll assume not at this point). We're probably looking at getting this down to about 20% downtime, realistically speaking.

 

That said, it says you can't spend mana on healing - so consuming OoC should be viable. With the level 100 talent to turn OoC into a 5-second LMG proc, if we can use SotF+LB to start fishing for procs before we start casting Innervate, we may be able to still provide healing for up to 5 seconds out of that 8.

 

However, we're going to go to the way holy paladins used to be with Divine Plea and warn the other healers whenever we're going to use Innervate or try to get as much in during any light-damage phase a fight might have or any part of a fight that might have downtown.

[Arctodus 1]

The most important thing about the Innervate change is that when you are using it, you cannot use Healing Spells, but you can use Offensive and Neutral spells.

Wrath, Moonfire, Defensive CDs, Movement Skills (Cat Form...), Potions...

 

I don't thing that the Innervate change is a good one... because druids needs to maintain their HoTs and 8-10 seconds without using them is like starting the combat without any hot, you will lose another 3-4 seconds to heal normally.

A posible option is spend only 4 of the 8 seconds without healing, Weak Auras or an addon will be needed to ensure that you are obtaining the first mana tick.

In 4-6 seconds you can use Moonfire and some Wrath, so, it isn't totally a lost if blizzard makes that spells more cheap.

Mushroom now have a big mana cost, if blizzard counts that as healing spell it will hurt, if you can move the mushroom or even explode it without wasting the innervate effect, it can be really nice, but i doubt that it will work.

[Kazistrasz 216]

The change to Innervate and other healers' mana regen will introduce more skill into being a healer. It may become beneficial to occasionally stop after the first tick, but likely that will be situational. I am betting on using SotF to fish for clearcasting provable with the new 100 talent that makes it work like the meta gem.

 

Mana cost adjustments from most recent Alpha build:

 

 

• Healing Touch now costs 11.5% of Base Mana, 
  down from 18.5%.
• Lifebloom now costs 5% of Base Mana, down from 7%.
• Rejuvenation now costs 10.5% of Base Mana, down from 17%.

Talents

• Cenarion Ward now costs 8.4% of Base Mana, down from 14.1%.
• Pulverize now does 290% weapon damage, down from 500%.

Restoration

• Lifebloom now costs 5% of Base Mana, down from 7%.
• Regrowth now costs 23% of Base Mana, down from 37%.
• Swiftmend now costs 7.5% of Base Mana, down from 12.5%.
• Tranquility now costs 23% of Base Mana, down from 25.5%
• Wild Growth now costs 14.5% of Base Mana, down from 16%.
• Wild Mushroom now costs 27% of Base Mana, down from 30%.
• Wild Mushroom: Bloom now costs 33% of Base Mana, down from 37%.

 

Even our inefficient spells are getting mana cost reductions. This is good, as it will reduce the amount of spellcasting we'll need to dedicate toward Innervate. Can't know for certain until beta, but I would expect to only need probably in the range of 10% downtime for Innervate now, which may or may not be manageable depending on the above suggestion.

[Pinkis 12]

Hi guys. I've heard some changes about incoming healing system, that one of the aims is to reduce amount of instant cast heals in game, so that healers would have remain stationary while healing. At least that's what I've read in one of the early WoD announcements. As I've read in the same annoucement for resto druids only Wild Growth would change, but some of my guildies have made me doubt on that. I'm worried that i'd have to cast more stuff than I have to do now, and casting such thing as Rejuvenation is my worst nightmare... Could you please provide some more info (if you're aware of such) about this matter for resto druids? Thanks in advance.

[Krazyito 521]

Only thing I'm aware of is the world growth change. 1.5s cast.

Let's look at what we have as instant now and what may change

Rejuv

Wild growth

Swiftmend

Nature's swiftness

2pc healing touch

Really, out of those we are only losing 2 of them as instants, we're still going to be the most mobile healers out there.

[Kazistrasz 216]

WG is the only announced change of this sort, and I do not foresee any more coming our way. Mobility and countering constant incoming damage have always been the resto Druid niche. They can't change that without fundamentally changing our identity as l a class.