Resto Druid

S

Soulreaver

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2008
Messages
420
Reaction score
0
My druids dual-spec is resto. Can anyone give me a few tips regarding healing 5 mans, 10 mans and heroics? Such as rotations (use which spell for what situations)
 
I'm not an expert, but I did do some heroics as a resto.

I usually start off with Rejuvenation on the tank as soon as the fight started to keep his health up. I use Nourish or a glyphed Swiftmend when I need a bigger heal. I also use Wild Growth regularly and use Rejuvenation whenever one of the other players take some damage. And only use Healing Touch with Nature's Swiftness.

I try to use hot's to keep the tank's health up, and use bigger heals for when he takes a big hit. So I start off with Rejuvenation, and use Regrowth if I need more. I'll use Lifebloom instead if I need a faster hot.

I use Vuhdo mod for my healing. I'm not sure if it's better than Healbot, but it works nicely.

A tip I got from the druid forums on wowhead is that when you want to practise healing, go to the bg's or WG. Nobody expects to be healed there so you don't get players screaming at you when you make a mistake.
 
Talents wise, I'm using

http://eu.wowarmory.com/talent-calc...000000000000000000230033312031501531053313051

and it's served me very well in 5 man & HC content. I don't know if anything should change for 10man+ content, but anyone who knows better, or who would like to point out any stupid choices I've made, is welcome to comment.

Glyph wise I'm currently using Swiftmend, Lifebloom & Rejuv as major glyphs, with Healing Touch being another option. I've not tried that one yet, so I can't say how it works, but I'm not crazy about the 50% reduced effect, even if the cast time & mana cost are lessened. Undurdened Rebirth is the only resto oriented minor glyph I know of off-hand, so again, anyone who has suggestions for that is welcome to comment.

In terms of gear, stats like spell power, mp/5, spirit, & crit are your friend, and I'd load them in that order, and you can quite happily ignore hit.
Gearing up, there's some nice ilvl 187-200 drops in regular 5 man & HC content, and don't be shy to take cloth items that drop, especiially if it has MP/5 on it. Be sensitive towards the cloth wearers in your party, especially if there's some question about it being a healing or dps item (look for MP/5, that's healing gear, & +hit is dps, with gear without either being "utility" gear) but if it's an upgrade for you, roll on it.
ToC 5 is a very nice instance to get gear from, for all speccs, though the HC version can be more than a little troubling to heal if your gear is on the low end of the spectrum, so try to have at least most of your items ilvl200+ for that. The Tournament is also a nice place to get a decent starting weapon, with the Dagger of Lunar Puirty being pretty nice for the effort it takes to get it. I prefer the ilvl200 mace from Nexus for healing, but there you're faced with having to wait for it to drop, & then rolling against anyone else who decides they want it, while the dagger is a guaranteed item for you, and you'll make money from the dailys while earning it. The crafted weapon is also an option here, but again you're looking at expensive mats compared to a solid and free weapon from the tournament.
Crafting wise, you can pick up the Earthgiving legs & boots from a leatherworker for some fairly modest mats, and the Moonshroud chest & gloves from a tailor, though the mats for the Moonshroud items will likely cost you a fair bit.
The badges you earn from doing HC instances make getting a very solid set of gear pretty trivial, just a matter of time really. And with the upcoming patch 3.3 when HC's will start dropping the triumph badges this will become even more the case. In terms of "gear checks", HC's you can manage fine 800-1000 SP, and entry level for Naxx 10 for a drood is around 1200 SP or so, but unfortunately you'll battle getting into PUGS for anything more than HC's without your Epic achievement, if your server is anything like mine. Regen I'm not too sure about, but I have around 450-500 or so, and that's seen me fine through HC's & Naxx so far. In HC's I'll often regen more mana than I use during boss-fights for example.

In terms of spells, I love lifebloom. Stack it on your tank to 3 applications & just refresh it when you need to. Many will tell you that it's mana inefficient, and it really has taken a beating from the nerf-bat over time, but I find that it still works really well for 5man content, and the times I have mana issues are very few & far between. LB is especially useful for spot healing of DPS, you don't even need to stack it on them, just pop one on them, & the bloom at the end usually is enough to fill up their health bar, unless they've taken a pretty big hit.
Rejuvenation is evidently the HOT of choice in terms of healing done for mana cost, but I find I like the more rapid ticks of LB more. Generally I use it for those times the tank is taking just that little more damage than LB can keep up with.
Nourish is another great top-up spell for those bigger hits, and Healing Touch for the really big ones, but that's pretty slow to cast unless you're glyphed for it. You *have* to set up a macro for Natures Swiftness & Healing Touch though, it's essential for those "OH #&%!!!" moments where the tank is about to go splat & you need a big heal in a hurry.
Regrowth is another nice spell, it can give you a nice big initial heal, & the HOT component is very handy. I find I use that most on DPS that take a solid hit, but don't have a mob actively beating on them, so you can afford to let the HOT component get them up to full health again.
So in short, my prio is LBx3 & refresh when needed, Rejuv for when you need a touch more HOT effect, then either Nourish or Regrowth (Swiftmend makes these rock btw) for the bigger hits, and finally HT / NS for the panic moments.

Mods wise, Grid is the one I know & use and it works really well, especially when you configure it properly, but there are others out there so look around & find the one you like most.
The best advice I can offer is just get out there & heal. Start off with lower end instances, boosting friends & guildys if you want, but you can likely jump straight into regular lvl 80 5 man content and learn the basics in a few hours, and after that it's just experience. The way people are so drastically overgeared for HC's these days makes healing those very trivial too, and I'll often find myself web browsing on my second monitor for something to do during instances, just popping HOT's where needed.

I hope this helps, & that you enjoy healing on your druid as much as I have on mine :)
 
Thanks for the posts Endev and Isankey. lastnight i healed nexus and i must admit i never thought healing could be so much fun - though it is a bit more stressful. luckily we only killed trash because i stil had 3-4 green feral pieces.
 
Hi there, I'm afraid isankey dont know the druid class to well atm, so I'm going to help you out a bit, as I still have to helpout allot of resto's as I review guild apps.

There is however a few good things you can take from isankey's reply, like making some craftable items and collecting gear etc.
Why am I saying he is wrong on things and you should read what I'm writing?

Well I really dont want to 'brag' or talk about myself, but I am in a more serious raiding guild. I review new druid apps for the guild & they pay my wow subs when I raid.
I have been on a 3 month raiding break from WOW due to RL, but before I left I did all the U10 Hard modes (rusted proto drake), almost all the 25 man HM's (would have it now also if not for RL :( ), Have killed Algalon etc. Missed the 'new' TOC things thou for reasons stated already.

I'm just going to go on as things come into my head, so here goes.

About gearing, Spell Power is your no1 stat as a resto druid, then haste and these days when u look @ the T9 gear crit also (but it will change again to some extent in the next patch)
Later on as you gear yourself mana regen should NOT be a problem as a resto druid, so you should NOT stack spirit (spirit druids = bad druids) as you will get more than enough from Gear. Don't forget gear with +mp5 on and no spirit is most of the time beter than spirit gear.

So always enchant SP on items where you can and gem SP. If an item with a blue stocket for instance gives you +4 crit, ignore the socket bonus and still gem a SP only gem.
Only gem to get the socket bonus if you need it for your META gem (head - Ember Skyflare Diamond is best) or if the socket bonus will give you +7 sp.

Btw, I'm mostly speaking looking @ raiding when you have better gear, so as you gear u might need a bit more regen etc etc.

Your aim later when looking @ gear when raiding and collecting more is to get Haste gear untill you atleast have 359 Haste rating, as that is your haste soft cap. It will give you a 1 sec GCD (globel cool down) that u want. More haste is oc alway a bonus

Regarding healing itself, this is where people see the difference as any1 can have nice gear these days. Its all about skill and know what to do when and how to do it effectively.

Healing heroics and raiding (25 man for me mostly) is totally different thou.

I still do some HC's but with my gear level and the tanks we got not much healing is needed really, so I mainly just do rejuv & wg BUT for you its different and I still remember how I healed HC's @ 1st, but it was a long time ago and its a bit differnt now
In a HC you are ofcourse the Tank healer.

So hc's: I usually pre-hot the tank with Rejuv & then start casting Regrowth as he starts tanking the boss (you might wanna pre-hot him with that also if needed). Then you can do LB stacks on him if healing is needed, probly 2 stacks and let it bloom nowadays, or you can just keep it up if your mana is ok in 5 mans, BUT now when raiding.
(in my day LB was not nearly so expensive and we just kept 3 stacks up @ all time. these days its to expensive mostly and u need to let it bloom mostly)
Never, ever heal the raid with LB!
Fill in the gaps or big hits you gets with Swiftmend etc & Nourish (a reason to glyph it)
Group healing most of the time can be sorted with Rejuv & Wild growth, but you can just as well just do a quick Nourish on them, probly needed when you have lower sp.
Mostly thou, you do what the situation requires in HC's

In a proper raid (25 man) you will 99% NOT be the tank healer & this is where Duids shine and its very different from HCs'

You will have 2 main spells and this is the best Druid spells by far! Rejuvenation & Wild Growth! (get the glyph! 1 extra target is great in raids)
You will be a raid healer and you will cast Rejuv on every raid member that needs healing, You can have like 15 ppl with rejuv ticking on them @ any one time.
Use WG whenever multiple healing is required and as often as possible, its an awesome spell.
Use your SwiftMend on targets that gets big hits, or the tanks when they get low. Its only a 15 sec CD, so I use this allot!
And ofcourse you use Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch in emergensies as it has a long CD
One really dont use Nourish all that much, just when real spamming is needed sometimes, like certain constant big dmg spells on some1, like Napalm wen you fighting Mimi 25 Hard mode in Ulduar.
Ofcouse sometimes the Raid leader will ask you to also Hot the tank whenever you can, just to help a little. That means Rejuv and/or Regrowth if u have a sec to do that. That also means u can quickly SM then when needed. You can drop some LB's on there also if your mana is always good.
The thing when raiding, specially with a orginised guild is that each person has their job, and every1 tusts the other person to do it right, thus for the most time I will not step into their healing space and just cause overheal.

For more info and Theorocrafting have a look @ http://elitistjerks.com/f73/

isankey's talent build is fine, but not the glyphs, Major Glyphs to use
Glyph of Wild Growth (with raiding mind 10man+)
Glyph of Swiftmend
Glyph of Nourish (helps these days more with the crit idea blizz wants)

Regarding addons, I used to use Healbot & some of our other healers use Grid etc. but lately I've moved over to Vuhdo also. Very nice addon imo!

Its early morning and thats all I can think off now, Feel free to Skype me if you want to chat a bit more.
 
I use HealBot (I know, "Clique and Grid is the bomb yo", but HealBot is way easier)

My rotations are usually always the same, depending on how fast we're going down. Here's mine on the tank:

Regrowth - Rejuve - Lifebloom

Now I let the Lifebloom tick off to return Mana to me if the fight isn't serious otherwise I'll do a Nourish and another Lifebloom before the old one ticks off, then I'd let it tick again. If everything's fine I let it go to return the mana to me.

During this time I keep popping Wild Growth which bounces to 5 or so people. If I need to heal any other party members I usually do Rejuv and Lifebloom on them. That prepares me if there is a huge knock on one of them (like with ToC's boss) where I can then cast Swiftmend/Nourish with some bonusses.

It's only on rare occasions that I frantically have to heal. I have my Natures Swiftness/Healing Touch on standby in case the **** hits the fan.

Also, I don't often go OoM. But if I do I pop innervate instead of the potion which generally gives me back enough to keep on going. If the fight is till not over by the time the CD is over, and I still need mana, I pop that again. Pots are used ONLY if there's some kind of monster sapping my mana (I had that before and couldn't understand why I OoM'ed so much, bastards)

All in all, I healed my first Herioc a month or so ago, and I thought the one shaman was helping to heal (some of the totems did help though) but found out later I was the only healer and the shaman did DPS

I was chuffed no one died except a mage (We did Nexus and he couldn't "hug" the one boss because of the range he needed to cast) even though I kept him alive pretty well it was a bit hairy. Revive FTW :p
 
Sadly im a poor druid (flying and dual-spec doesnt come cheap) and thus i cant afford crafted items. what i am doing is buying the rep items. yes some are only lvl 78, but atleast they are an upgrade to my healing set (which consists mostly of feral gear)
 
Do dailies. Do Hallows End. You'll get at least 2-3k gold for just doing that
 
I think all of the rep items are level 80, or at least the ones that need exalted with the faction. Only reasonable gear that is 78 that I can think of is the leatherworking set.

If you're lvl80, then getting money shouldn't be that difficult. Doing dailies should net you about 300G and then selling items from your profession can easily get you another 200G at least. Doing that should give you enough money for some gear off the ah, unless you're planning to buy some bop stuff that drops off Ulduar and ToC raid, as those usually go for a couple of thousand gold. Things like Earthgiving legguards are a lot cheaper and is the good enough to start raiding with.
 
You could run Heroics in PUG as well for some nice upgrades, something I hate doing because if the tank sucks it's usually a ****up and nobody blames the tanks...always dps or healers to blame

Also, if you're a tailor, you could get some extra drops of frostweave off of mobs which comes in handy to make frostweave bags for cheap.

I usually sell mine for about 60-70 gold each depending on the market and if you do PUGS then it's usually secondary to sell some, made 1000 gold like that easy...

Jewelcrafter/Enchanting is a great combination to have as well
 
The exhalted items are lvl 80, but the items that need honored or revered reputation is lvl 78. what is the minimum amount of mana and spell power needed for heroics?
 
Ish ye thats a bit hard to remember seeing as its been about a year ago that I started healing 80 hc's.
I think I started healing hc's @ around 1200-1300 SP
Mana, well aslong as it lasts :p Seriously thou, when u have that sp you should have enough mana also.

BUT it also depends on your tank, and these days that should not be a problem @ all.
Ow and start with the easier instances 1st :)

Make some items, legs, feet, ring etc (they cheap) and buy some cheap Naxx25 BOE drops and you will be sorted. Have a look @ something like mmm lemme find link...
I know you say you are poor, but these things are cheap now and I'm sure you can find some time to farm as you go along... :)

http://www.wowwiki.com/Wrath_healing_equipment_(leather)
http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t37554-resto_pre_raid_gear/

GL
 
Last edited:
As i mentioned above my other spec is feral. as a bear tank, how much HP/Armor do i need to start tanking heroics? currently have 20k of each with most green gear. the reason i ask this is that tanks and healers are difficult to find.
 
I have a Druid tank, If you have +-5000AP and about 22K HP you will be fine. You need loads of AP.

I'm sitting on 6000AP and 38k HP, with about 39% dodge.

Ps. Goodluck tanking ^_^ Druid tanking was not easy at the beginning for me.
 
So if i can do both, then ill have a better chance to get a raid spot. So what i am doing now is make sure im the only druid/rogue in my heroics so that i can take all the leather.
 
The only HC I would not take a Druid/Rogue is TOC HC, all the rest you can take any class as the drops are so few and the badge gear is way better anyway.
 
Ok i dont see the point in making another thread named "feral druid", so a few tanking tips would be appreciated. such as rotation on boss, how to keep agro with multible mobs and which stats to stack.
 
Well, as far as I have it, it depends on what kinda mitigation you wanna go for. 1) you can stack stamina like mad. 2) You can go full Agi and AP. Both of these are good.

Druid tanks are best with Boss fights(one on one). We have a hard time with group aggro as swipe is not that good in keeping aggro, but not to bad either. I know I had aggro problems when I started of cause most of the guys I played with out geared me then and that was a huge problem for me on AOE aggro.

Basic what you do on boss fights is get 5 stacks of lacerate on the guy(and keep it up), then mangle, then maul, then swipe, when mangle is up us it, and if you have rage use maul.

On mobs, I use swipe, maul, then hit tab to move to next mob, then swipe and maul again. I keep that rotation up. On some of the mobs replace maul with tenacity.

If there are more than 3 mobs, I use the talent that makes mangle instant for 10sec(last talent in feral tree), it strikes 3 targets at once, till then 10sec is up up, then repeat the 1st rotation above.

Druids are the same as Warrior tanks, but of all the tanking classes for me the hardest. You get hit hard at the beginning of a fight, but then evens out over time.

Keep thorns up on yourself all times as well.

What I did was got my feral set and gem'ed for stamina and agi. I do using tanking rings and trinkets.

Well that is my 10c worth ^_^ but sure someone here knows more than me ^_^.

PS. I would rather go healing ^_^
 
Last edited:
What's tenacity? The only tenacity I know is Primal Tenacity and that's more of a PvP talent for cats mostly.

The last talent you're looking for Berserk. Very nice and probably something you should probably use on boss fights alot. That should give you a lot of threat to work with :p

As for stats, I see nobody mentioned hit and expertise. Is it because it's not important or are you assuming he already has enough?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X