Resto Druid Healing by Niddhogg

******Restoration Druid Healing******
By Niddhogg

This entire work is for those who do not know how a restoration, particularly a Tree of Life Druid, work and his purpose and role in a raid setting (As in my position and what I do in the raid).

I am not trying to bash anyone on their play style or gear, I am simply making points to argue my play style my position in a raid environment to help optimize the raid for better raid progression.

Here is where I learned on how to heal as a Tree of Life Druid
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17783-druid_raiding_tree/
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.h...&sid=1&pageNo=1

The 2 above are guides on how a Tree of Life Druid works and how to optimize them. The rest of the post will deal with primarily my position in the raid and how to position me in a raid.

I will first start with a couple of comments that were made to me during that nights Tidewalker attempts, I will not be naming names

“Lifeblooms don’t cut it, cast a Rejuvenation on them”
“Sorry but your going to have to actually heal them instead of just casting a lifebloom”

Lifeblooms do cut it, here is the math on what exactly I was doing before this comment was made.
Lifebloom stacks on Main Tank, when there were no Murlocs around I was also casting rejuvenation and Regrowth on the main tank. When there were Murlocs I was switching my focus to keeping 3 stacks of life blooms on the Main Tank and the 2 Tanks tanking the Murlocs. By doing this I was creating not 1 “buffer”, but 3 “buffers”.

Here is why I was doing it: Tests were done with 1501 +healing, No Raid buffs, and no Tree of Life
Lifebloom ticks every second, unlike its other predecessors which only tick every 3 seconds. Lifebloom is also the highest HPS spell a Restoration Druid has at his or her disposal. In my case, Lifebloom ticks for 589 every second which translate directly into 589 HPS. Rejuvenation ticks for 781 every 3 seconds making its HPS 781/3 = 260.33. Regrowth hit’s the target for 1997 and then ticks for 398 every 3 seconds making its HPS on the hot portion 398/3.

Simple Version: No crits as at the time I had no additional talents into the Regrowth crit talent.

Lifebloom tick 589/1 = 589 HPS.
Rejuvenation tick 781/3 = 260.33 HPS.
Regrowth tick 398/3 = 132.66 HPS.
Regrowth as a whole [1997+398(7)]/21 = 227.76 HPS.
Swiftmend (Rejuvenation) 3124/15 = 208.26 HPS.

As you can see, according to the math, Lifebloom in itself is a far superior spell, Doubling every other spells HPS. Now together, I pull out 1285.02 HPS assuming I am keeping a full stack of life blooms on the Main Tank with Rejuvenation, Regrowth, and Swiftmending every 15 seconds when its up. By keeping 3 full stacks of life blooms up on 3 different targets, I am pulling out 1767 HPS.

Simple version:
3 full stacks of Lifeblooms on 3 different targets = 1767 HPS.
1 stack of Lifebloom accompanied by Rejuvenation, Regrowth, and Swift mend = 1285.02 HPS.

The next comment that was made to me, and this was more recent is:
"80% of your spell casts is Lifebloom, yeah its mana efficient but its not going to cut it most of the time"

Yeah, its going to be that way, here is why (ill be using 600 as a baseline number)

Lifebloom ticks every second for 6 seconds, on the 7th second Lifebloom "blooms" giving out a burst heal, if you let that Lifebloom "bloom" you will end up having to spend another 4.5 seconds casting another full stack of Lifeblooms on whoever you are putting them on. Lifebloom is only the highest HPS spell in the game when you are keeping up with the "Rolling Lifebloom" system. A full stack of Lifeblooms will cost about 528 mana to get started, and then 176 mana to keep going. How the Rolling Lifebloom system works is that when Lifebloom is about to burst, which is at either 1-1.5 seconds life on the ticker, you simply cast another lifebloom refreshing the hot portion at 3 stacks, with this method one can easily maintain 600 HPS on the Main Tank with little mana cost.

Now for the comment part
Lifebloom is refreshed every 6 seconds
Rejuvenation is refreshed every 12 seconds
Regrowth is refreshed every 21 seconds

While Lifebloom is our highest HPS spell in the game, it also has the highest maintenance required for it to be our highest HPS spell.

Compairison between Paladin/Druid healing

Rolling Lifebloom on 1 target - 600 HPS
Paladin Flash of Light spam on 1 target (average is about 1500) - 1000 HPS

As you can see A Rolling Lifebloom is a 6/10 as effective as a Flash of Light spam on a single target, now keep in mind that this is only 1 of the druids primary healing spells

Now to more focus on a single part of that comment

"yeah its mana efficient but its not going to cut it most of the time"

Lifebloom is amazingly mana efficient, 176 mana to maintain a 600 HPS spell is to die for.

Comparison of the mana efficiency of Tree of Life's primary healing spells in Tree of Life form

Lifebloom - 528 mana to get going taking 4.5 seconds to get going using about 117.33 mana a second, 176 to maintain every 6 seconds using 29.33 mana every second (MAS)
Rejuvenation - 332 mana to get going and takes 1.5 seconds to get going (as it uses your global cooldown) using 221.33 mana a second, 332 mana to maintain every 12 seconds using 27.67 MAS.
Regrowth - 540 mana to get going with a cast time of 2 seconds using 270 mana a second, 540 mana to maintain every 21 seconds assuming you start casting at 2 seconds left of the HoT using 25.71 MAS.

now maintenance cost to MAS also going back to original numbers
Liebloom 589 HPS:29.33 MAS
Rejuvenation 260.33 HPS:27.67 MAS
Regrowth 227.76 HPS:25.71 MAS
All together 1077.09 HPS:82.71 MAS

Mp5 while casting : 222:44.4 MAS

MAS - 38.31 Self Buffed

Raid buffed I hit about 360~ Mp5 while casting.

MAS Raid buffed - ~72 recovered.

So fully raid buffed single healing a target, I use a whole 10.71 MAS, So during a 6 minute raid encounter of me single healing the tank, I use 3855.6 mana

As you can see, Lifebloom takes more MAS to maintain, about 1.66 MAS more then Rejuvenation, and 3.62 MAS more then Regrowth. 35.46% of the whole MAS but 54.68% of the whole HPS

Reason for why ~70% of my spells are Lifeblooms. Lifebloom is the highest HPS spell druids have as long as they keep with them rolling, so in all reality over a 1 minute fight, lifebloom is refreshed every 6 seconds or 10 times a minute, while rejuvenation only needs to be refreshed every 12 or 5 times a minute.

Lifebloom casts: 10/minute
Rejuvenation casts: 5/minute

Or

Lifebloom casts: 66.6%
Rejuvenation casts: 33.4%

When we throw in Regrowth, which has to be refreshed every 21 seconds.

Lifebloom casts: 10/minute
Rejuvenation casts: 5/minute
Regrowth casts: 3 (rounded)/minute

Or

Lifebloom casts: 55.5%
Rejuvenation casts: 27.78%
Regrowth casts: 16.67%

Now this is just keeping your HoTs rolling on a single target and because of this there is a lot of dead time. Lifebloom should be cast more because it heals for a little bit less then a rejuvenation, but does it in a shorter period of time making it a much more effective spell.

*****NATURE OF HEAL OVER TIME SPELLS*****
HoTs are extremely interesting spells with all the mechanics that it follows.

1. HoTs have to warm up, I.E. They take a small amount of time before they get into full gear and start actually healing.

2. HoTs do not tick if the target is at full health, if the Main Tank is at full health, Lifebloom will not tick. The problem with this is on spells like Rejuvenation that have a 3 second tick, if the target is at 100% health every 3 seconds before Rejuvenation would normally tick, Rejuvenation will never tick.
http://wowwebstats.com/mwcllugqr3rme
This is a link to the Statistics of the raid performance on March 28th. As you can see, my complete effective heal is rather low with only 9% over heal, while the other healers average 32.6% over heal. This shows the primary problem with HoTs, that when the HoTs would normally tick, the Main Tank, or the multiple tanks, were at 100% health preventing my HoTs from ticking. Now this is not a bash at other healers, if my effective heal is low, that means you guys are doing an amazing job and the “Buffer” that Tree of Life Druid are supposed to provide was not required for that fight (you will know this if you read any of the Restoration Druid guides).

3. HoTs are mana efficient, in Tree of Life lifebloom is only 176 mana to cast, and to maintain it, every minute for 15 seconds, that cost is reduced by 22 making Lifeblooms a whopping 154 mana to cast and to maintain.

*****Placement of the Tree Druid*****

This next section is about my placement in the raid setting as a Tree of Life Druid.

I will first start out with my position in the raid, as in which party I am supposed to be in with. Currently how the groups are set up is I am with the healers, and the other Restoration druid is with the Tanks, which the group make up looks like

Druid (not me)
Main Tank
Off Tank
Warlock
Paladin

Now this is one of the most optimal group make ups possible for a raid. Paladin giving Devotion Aura, Restoration Druids giving their Tree of Life Aura, and Warlocks giving the additional stamina bonus. This is why I am arguing this point. Currently I have 488 unbuffed spirit, the other druid only has 417, this is relevant because:

1. Tree of Life Aura functions entirely based on the amount of spirit the Druid has. Here is what Tree of Life says:

Shapeshift into the Tree of Life. While in this form you increase healing received by 25% of your total Spirit for all party members within 45 yards, your movement speed is reduced by 20%, and you can only cast Swiftmend, Innervate, Nature's Swiftness, Rebirth, Barkskin, poison removing and healing over time spells, but the mana cost of these spells is reduced by 20%.

The act of shapeshifting frees the caster of Polymorph and Movement Impairing effects.

I currently have 61 more spirit then the other druid providing 15 more healing done to the people in my party, during the Tidewalker fight, the other druid was not only not in Tree of Life form for a majority of the attempts, he was also too far away from the Tanks to give them the aura bonus. I also have an additional 130 spirit every 2 minutes for 15 seconds because of another trinket that I have. Meaning for those 15 seconds, the tank gets an additional 32.5 additional healing done to him or her.
“But Niddhogg, how is your position in the raid relevant?”
It is because auras, like totems, do not effect the people outside of their party. My position with the healers is a complete waste because in most settings, the healers should not be taking damage, and if they do it usually means they are dead.

2. I am always in Tree of Life form, I have yet to leave Tree of Life form during a raid encounter, our other druid does not always stay in Tree of Life form, thus making his position in that party completely pointless. And even if I do Disconnect during a raid encounter, my character stays in the game, giving the Aura bonus even though I am still working on logging back in.

*****Current System for Healing*****

The current system I use for healing is a set of macros designed to use my trinkets whenever they are up, cast Lifebloom, and target people individually.

#showtooltip
#show Lifebloom
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/target (name of tank)
/use Lower City Prayerbook
/use Bangle of Endless Blessings
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/script UIErrorsFrame:Show()
/cast Lifebloom

With this system I can keep 3 Lifeblooms going up on 3-4 different people without doing much work. This system is also set up so that every time my trinkets are up, it uses them, meaning I do not have to lose any time to activate my trinkets, creating a complete optimal use of my gear and healing spells. Some people prefer to use different mods like Healbot and Click2Cast, which work fine, but I prefer my system.

You can also edit this macro to get rid of the /Target portion and make it your regular lifebloom. This is what I did in cast I am not just healing the tanks, but other people as well and still maintain the most use of your trinkets.

#showtooltip
#show Lifebloom
/script UIErrorsFrame:Hide()
/use Lower City Prayerbook
/use Bangle of Endless Blessings
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()
/script UIErrorsFrame:Show()
/cast Lifebloom

Only issue I have with this is I can not Alt Heal myself which means if I hold the alt button down on my key board I will not automatically heal myself instead of what I am targeting