Topic
Do resto druids suck all around?
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I realize resto druids have pretty terrible in PvP (witnessed that first hand) but are they bad in PvE? I wanted to go PvE on my resto druid but don't wanna put the time and effort into it if they're horrible in PvE as well. I wanted a class that's good for AoE healing (dislike priests).
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Bring the player, not the class. If someone doesn't research or practice their skills, they'll suck at it, even if they're the FotM healing class (or dps or tank.) We do very well in PvE. |
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Agreed, thanks. |
They put out competitive hps but have god awful cooldowns when it comes to doing difficult content. When pushing progression fights, you generally rely heavily on DR cooldowns over throughput ones which mean that druids fall behind other classes. This is unless the fight mechanics heavily favor the druid skillset like firelands did. Considering you have no normal mode raid experience and probably (due to that) have zero to little chance of doing heroic modes before they are nerfed to the ground, I wouldn't worry about it one bit. Druids will be perfectly capable, possibly even exceptionally strong for what you need them to do. |
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I used to shammy heal and switched over to enhancement, I now heal on my druid alt. I really haven't found myself saying "Man I wish I had this or I wish I had that." More often then not I find myself having fun trying to get the whole 10 man raid up to 2-3 stacks of lifebloom while in tree form. I think in the end you just have to break it down into what kind of role as a healer you want to play.
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No they don't.
Druids are the foundation and keep everyone stable. You are not going to single target burst heal as well as other healers. 10 man they are very strong, 25 they are on par with everyone except paladins. |
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Edited by Kamiya on 2/20/12 12:26 PM (PST)
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-6g6bwijok9zepzlu/sum/healingDone/?s=9686&e=10569
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-6g6bwijok9zepzlu/sum/healingDone/?s=4610&e=4914 http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-z5tz89mmj9x5s32l/sum/healingDone/ Who said resto druids suck? :p During heroic DS progression it was rough. It was between me sitting for DPS checks, and sitting on spine for hpals. (I'm my guilds second resto druid, other is healing officer). It's a little unsettling that blizzard has taken so long to finally give us a cooldown. We're great at stabilizing. We often tank heal in between keeping the raid healthy. But in a given situation (H. Blackhorn) we usually leave the shockwave healing to hpals, then me and our other resto druid focus on tanks. |
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Edited by Stratis on 2/20/12 1:18 PM (PST)
The lack of a tank cooldown or any mitigation was noticable dealing with impale and elemental adds on deathwing. I ended up switching to my priest so our guild could down it more easily. The lack of burst healing is also noticable dealing with spike damage, especially when 2 healing 10 man. If we have time to heal everyone up and other people provide the neccessary cooldowns, then there isn't an issue.
The only advantage a druid seems to bring is mana regen. The difference between 10 man healing and 25 man healing is rather large as a druid. WG and Effl are target capped and rejuv spam can be complicated with so many raid members. Disc and druid are the only healers missing raid wide aoe heals and druids are the only healers that have no spammable aoe outside of rolling rejuv before aoe damage actually happens. |
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the only healers that have no spammable aoe outside of rolling rejuv before aoe damage actually happens. Kidding? 10 sec cool down on Wild Growth leaves it very spam-able, you just pop it every time its off cool down; and pop efflo inbetween. |
You seem to be confused about what spammable actually means. Being used on cooldown is not the same thing. Even having a cooldown means that it is not spammable. CH, PoH, and holy radiance are the spammable aoe heals, while holy word: sactuary, healing rain, and holy radiance (also thier spammable heal but very mana restrictive) are the raid wide heals. The only thing keeping raid wide heals from being too overly strong in 25-mans is DR on 25 people. Aoe heals on a short cooldown are a different category and include WG, efflo, CoH, and light of dawn. Druids cooldown aoe heals have full effect since they are target capped and to deal with incoming aoe that requires quick aoe healing druids have to begin rolling rejuvs before the damage even rolls out, and they then haphazardly rejuv select people between WG/Efflo while keeping lifebloom rolling and mastery active. However, DR on raid wide heals are not significant enough to compensate for healing an entire 25-man while stacked. Druids are better for 10-mans, but still lack reliable burst and cooldowns for tanks that other healer or raid members are often looked to for. Druids are becoming more of a tank healer in 25-mans, but it would be better to just use a disc priest for that. |
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They feel a little weak to me atm. But going to a new expansion as the weakest healer is not a bad place to be, they are much more likely to get meaningful changes then if they where the strongest healer. Instance design makes a difference as well and ds is not suited to druids.
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I thought so, but I could have sworn there was a priest claiming that it did. |
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Edited by Felade on 2/21/12 1:04 AM (PST)
Druids are fine. My undergeared Resto Druid does some pretty amazing healing, I can't imagine how good he'd do if I actually had heroic gear on him.
Efflo is still pretty powerful for stacking, or even just tank healing, especially if you can time it right and snipe heals out from under a healing rain or a HW:Sanc. Efflo is actually kind of bursty, which is different than the other two ground AOEs. If you read the tooltip, HW:Sanc is supposed to have DR. But there's a bug they apparently decided to just leave alone that causes it to keep right on truckin (even though the individual ticks are like little neutrinos of healing) after 6 targets. |
I have both a Resto druid and a Disc/Holy priest. Resto druids are fine. The play style is certainly very different and in raids the goals are usually very different, but this is not at all to say that Resto druids suck or are in any way non-viable. I raid on both toons. Resto druids are fine. They are competitive; they still crank the meters; they have adequate utility in the form or brez, treeform, tranquility, and targetable DR. And, for people for whom simplicity is important, Resto druids have a pretty simple play style. Nobody wants to be a tank healer/single-target healer anymore and I presume this is because AoE healing gets you higher on the meters. Numbers matter to people even if they don't really matter very much in practice. So if you want to be an AoE healing specialist, which works really really will in DS where almost all of the healing is AoE, Resto druid is a perfectly suitable, appropriate, and viable choice. |
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No they don't suck. There's a resto druid in the same raid team as me and he's badass.
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I'd say the druids are kind of weak and niche-y right now, but since you want to fill that niche anyway, go for it.
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Do hammers suck all around? I can't nail screws into wood with them very well, I can't put lug nuts on tires with them, and I can't to clean glass with them.
Hopefully my sarcasm is not lost on you. Druids - HOT/HOT AOE healers Strengths - healing groups that are some what spread out and/or not standing still a lot through tranquility, rejuv, and wild growth. Other spells are available but are not strong spells of the class. In Dragon soul, this is not the first 3 bosses, but druids start shining on hagarra because of all the movement and separation for trash and boss. Raid mechanic stay more this way for the rest of the encounters after Ultraxion too. Weakness - single target heals at best you are praying your delivery is larger than the incoming damage, to offset them you want to rejuv and swiftmend the tank every time SW is off cool down. Unfortunately, efflorescence is the 2nd smallest area effect, only bested for smallest by the paladins holy radiance. It will cover most melee and ranged on average sized bosses however, larger bosses you may be better off to swiftmend a melee dps to ensure good coverage as the tank may be far enough away to not be in it on say raid bosses like the first 3 Dragon Soul bosses, for instance. I can cover both tank and melee dps on my priest and shaman but not my druid or paladin, you are forced to choose tank or melee dps on these, and you will get more benefit using it on the larger group [read melee dps or ranged if they group up, most are not smart enough to do this however so be warned on ranged]. However, if your soul responsibility is the tank then use it on the tank because without this you'll quickly learn just how weak your single target heals really are. Conclusion: Your all about HOTs, and AOE HOTs. This is where you shine, soak up the sun and don't go standing in the shade, unless its all that's available. Mana management, you have some of the best mana management in the game a key to keeping your heals better is to keep this in mind and not over spirit [like I pretty much am right now course hes retired from raiding and just collects stuff for me as we needed the 5% haste from shaman totems in 10 man so I switched and is probably in feral gear anyway] You should NOT be ending fights on a full mana bar, unless you innervated while the shaman dropped mana tide and the priest hoped at the same time near the end. Any mana you have left over is wasted heal throughput. While you'll never get it perfect if your ending with more than 50% of your mana pool, you may want to consider gear, reforge, and/or re-gem for less spirit and more HPS. You want to know if your useful, here is worlkd of logs http://www.worldoflogs.com/rankings/players/Dragon_Soul/hps/ No question you are weak on say Ultraxion and maybe mor'chok, but check out spine of deathwing too, who rules that fight? Why? You have to spread out. Ultaxion is the only fight a druid does not make the top 10 healing and if you look priests and shamans are in the same boat as you there. Its because you all stand on the tanks in that fight and he has sucha big hit box any break o swing weapon to regen mana, so the excessive healing from holy radiance is clear in the rare occasion the raid is all in one area, go ahead click the players notice they all have holy radiance as their top heal spell for that fight? Learn to play the strengths of your healer class and you'll do fine, if you wish to keep up PVP think multi target healing not single target stay out of small skirmishes like WG and 2v2 and go for mass assaults like 5v5 and AV, you'll do much better there just to the nature of your healing style. Yes there are 10 people in WG but the ground area is so big you really never have more than 2 or 3 in the same area. AV with 40 your almost guaranteed to have a 10+ man main assault team where you can rule the roost with WG, rejuv and tranq. Happy healing, and if you decide you want a different healing style to play do yourself a favor and: 1. read the respective forum. 2. check out world of logs 3. Level as a healer in instances. 4. and learn what your strengths and weaknesses are before you condemn a tool you are simply using improperly. No one debates a hammer is the best tool to drive in a nail [ok nail guns aside for mass production], but no one uses them to take the lug nuts off their tires either [at least not just a hammer you may have to hammer the 4 way lug wrench though ><], there is a reason for that. Good luck and have fun. If you're not having fun consider a different character class, but don't make the mistake of thinking druids suck and you never want to have them in your groups either. It's simply not the case they may just not fit your play style. |
