[Stoutbeard]

So my friend has just leveled his druid to 80 and specced resto. We've been looking at gear to farm from heroics and we've become quite confused. I play a holy priest so I lack knowledge of the finer aspects of druid healing. He's confused as to which stats he should be stacking and where to get them.

He has come to the conclusion that haste is useless for his since druids use mainly HoTs anyway. I think that it may benefit him more than he thinks. I don't know how much druids use Nourish and Healing Touch while healing or whether haste might help in respect to the GCD.

In short, my question is basically should he avoid haste and shoot for other stats or is haste as good for resto druids as any other healer? Should he gear similarly to how a holy priest gears? Excepting of course the benefit of crit for holy priests.

Any help would be much appreciated. A list of gear and maybe comparison between heroic dungeon gear would be very helpful.

[Chosenx]

While I am only just getting around to leveling my resto druid from 70 (73 atm) I will post what I found useful at lvl 70 and maybe that will help.

First of all, it depends on his build. If he has gone a glyphed healing touch build, or for bigger heals, then haste would definately be useful. However, Druids are usually more suited to a HoT style build, which your friend probably is, and haste won't be as useful (it is still nice though).

I personally rarely use healing touch when I am healing. Unless it is a natures swiftness + healing touch. And at 80, the only reason you would use nourish is if someone was taking really big chunks of damage that your hots and regrowth couldn't keep up with.

If you spec right, regrowth is a great heal, as it will almost always crit. not to mention it leaves a hot on the target as well.

Anyway as to stats your priority should be Spell Power > Spirit > Intellect > Haste > Crit. Something like that anyway. Spirit is great now as it boosts your spellpower and mana regen (I think, I havnt played my druid much since 3.0).

Hope that helps a bit, though I am not the best person to inform you at the moment.

[blackhand]

Just posting to agree with Chozenx but right now nurish is only going to be better than a glyphed regrowth if you have the 4T7 bonus so stick with a glyphed regrowth for now as your big heal besides glyphed swiftmend and NS into Heal Touch. Also since we get a 20% cool down reduction from talents on our HoTs you're better off stacking spirit as you gear up. Take the haste if it's on an upgrade but you don't need to look for it for now.

[grakos]

Chosenx has it right, no matter what lvl, druids main stats they need are SP > Spirit > Int in that order. But haste can be somewhat effective seeing as how druids have regrowth and nourish, which in some cases is better of using rather than lifebloom stack like in the old days.

Really anything with spirit and SP (or mp5, same thing as spirit) is needed for a druid. If a chest has 16 mp5 and 110 SP no way your gonna turn that down.

But thats just for gear, thats the easy part about healing. Once you get the gear with the right amount of mp5 and SP, now you just g2 think of a spec and strategy to keep your mana up in raids (seeing as you will be spamming wild growth alot until the nerf comes)

[Hotfix]

EJ forums have an amazing amount of info on them you should look there before asking any questions now that you know about it.

Resto (PvE) Healing Discussion. - Elitist Jerks

[Chosenx]

Source: Hotfix EJ forums have an amazing amount of info on them you should look there before asking any questions now that you know about it. Resto (PvE) Healing Discussion. - Elitist Jerks

While it is helpful to send someone there, the purpose of creating a healing section in tankspot was to foster a community to provide discussions HERE rather than sending people to elitist jerks before answering questions here.

I think tankspot is a better spot for questions where you can get simple answers, and elitistjerks is more of a place to head to if you are after more in depth information.

That being said, go ahead and check it out, it is a good read if you have the time.

[Lythyum]

Source: grakos (or mp5, same thing as spirit)

I'm going to have to, respectfully, disagree

Spirit > MP5 always, for a druid. Unless it is a lot more mp5, I would rather stack spirit. As Agility is to a rogue, Spirit is to a druid. Mp5 gives you just regen, spirit gives you regen and SP, AND it effects your innervate, whereas mp5 does not.

I suggest stacking Spirit and SP, Intellect will be on any good gear.

[CreatureDYFO]

Atm Im stacking Spirit > Int > Spellpower > Raw Mp5 > Haste > Crit

With a 20K manapool
1950 Healing
600 Mp5 (While Casting)

Raidbuffed

I

1) Usualy never go oom
2) If I go oom I can just use Innervate (wich I rarely do) and it wil take longer than 6 Minutes to get oom again.

[Cadran]

Starting out a druid should always stack as much spirit as possible. 800 spirit is a very comfy range for starting raids. 1k for starting to become raid geared.

As for haste the majority of a druids spells are instant HoTs and haste lowers the GCD which is extremely useful. Since gift of the earth mother provides 20% GCD reduction this means druids haste caps at 350. After getting a good chunk of spirit and 350 haste go for spell power. Crit is a very weak stat Id choose anything over it. The first 350 haste is very critical to a good healer though.

The two crafted leather epics are extremely good compared to heroic drops. The badge cloth healing gear is amazing compared to the leather one. Anything you can grab with spirit and mp5 double stacked is first choice. The trinket from the quest on wyrmrest is the only spirit trinket before naxx and worth grabbing. The mp5 mace rep reward is a solid weapon choice with badge offhand. A helm with a meta and the mana regen metagem is a must. The badge healer trinket is a complete waste for druid healers avoid at all costs. The best mana regen trinket in the game for druids is the JC trinket. If you arent a JC the best is the spirit world glass.

[Petninja]

Charts I've read in the past indicate that the best MP5 you can attain since the changes that allow INT to affect spirit is a 1:1 ratio. Not taking the spell power buff into consideration, that would lead me to believe that for mana purposes if you have 600 spirit you should also try for 600 int. It also happens to support a Dreamstate spec nicely, and I'm sure I'll be publicly flogged for uttering the name of that spec in the presence of other healing druids.

[Cadran]

Int really isnt that great and automatically comes on gear that has spirit. Stacking spirit over int is better. I've seen alot or poor theorycrafting and math and graphs.

The only reason the dreamstate spec was viable at level 70 was lifebloom was a very overpowered spell meaning you could do filthy amount of healing without being resto spec. Now that its fixed its not a good spec.

[Eide]

I agree with Cadran here. Just about all Caster gear has Int on it. Not all Caster gear has Spi on it. That effectively means that you're better off stacking Spi, because Int will almost automatically stack from that as well. Obviously that means that you'll encounter upgrades which lower our overall Int as well. Too bad.

I am currently levelling my Druid. We decided to level some alts together as a distraction, and I found a newly sparked interest in healage (I was feral for most of Vanilla and all of TBC, rerolled to a Warrior as my main). I did 70-77 as Moonkin, although I spend ALL my time in instances healing. At 77 I respecced Resto, and did Normal HoL, HoS, CoT and Oculus before I reached 79.

I haven't been working on balancing and/or stacking stats so far, but the above instances and questing have brought me to 1214 Spellpower in Tree, 685 Spirit and 670 Intelligence. I regenerate nearly 700 mp/5 while not casting and 199 while casting. This is at 79, without actively grinding gear and balancing/stacking.

The purpose of this is not to stroke epeen, it's to show by just collecting upgardes you'll find that you'll already balance out resonably well. When you start gaining gem slots at level 80 you'll be able to finetune more with the gems you have available. I mostly use the SP > Spi > Int > etc formula mostly for deciding if I roll on items which DPS is also rolling. Otherwise I'm not to worried about stats, my expereince is that it pretty much balances itself nicely, and only a few slots need extra consideration.

[cyraga]

As a new resto-druid (rolled hunter from beta to last month or two of TBC) I had many of the same questions you have. I've searched forums, and discussed it with other druids in my guild, and all and all I have found it all comes down to what you feel you need. Here are a couple things I've found useful in my journey so far. (btw i will never go back to hunter, i love resto-druids so much now!) {also side note, sry about length, and when i talk about stats, assume only MotW for buffs to make it easy}

1) A rule of thumb i read somewhere (probably EJ) was that if you are finishing fights with less than 20% mana, you probably need more regen (spirit) if you end with more than 20-25% mana, you probably have too much and could stand to lose some for other stats like spellpower/haste/crit etc. Int/spirit are probably the most important... if you are oom b/c you dont have enough int or regen... you arent healing... no amt of +SP will save you now! i have 16821 mana 268mp5 while casting w/ only motw and mana doesnt seem to be much of an issue. id say if your regen is around 250 while casting, and you go oom, get int.. if you have less than 250mp5 while casting, get spirit?

2) I have 308 haste (would like around 300-350?). i would not try to pass off haste. I personally feel its a very good thing to have. I should also note that I am spec'd 14 balance 57 resto, and use glyphed Regrowth as my primary heal. it crits 60-70% of the time, sometimes 12 times in a row! with regrowth glyph, and 3pts in Natures grace, my heals fly out so fast 1.3sec regrowths that heal for 7-8.5k plus a HoT? thats neat!

3) i dont reallllly care so much about crit, its on gear, so i have it, but i sit around 19.45% crit w/ MotW. Id say haste>crit (if haste<350 ?)

4)Spellpower. it seems to me that this is the healers bread and butter, you know? while gearing, i had gemmed for spirit/int and such when mana was a problem, at the expense of SP... but as i got more comfortable with raid healing and knew what my mana situation was on each fight, i started regemming for SPellpower. You cant really neglect it, but id say STARTING OUT, its less important that having mana... look at observation 1) if you are in that range, probably time to start looking at SP more imo. i have 2027 - SP with MotW in tree.

So i guess in summary, i dont feel theres only one way to go, it all comes down to what gear comes your way (you gotta work with what you have) and how you play druid. Get a feel for your char, and go with what you feel you are lacking on. Get recount too, it really breaks down whats doing the most healing for you, and for me is a useful tool. Finally, i want to admit, i am not really a seasoned druid. Im usually #1 or 2 in my guilds raids, but druids are haxx, that doesnt mean im spec'd/geared ideally =P. i rolled druid at the end of TBC and got in on hyjal/bt/SWP for the last month or 2 of TBC. That being said, i hope this post keeps this thread alive, and helps get more discussion going b/c finding good discussion is hard to find out there (except for here and maybe sometimes EJ imho). Again, sorry for being longwinded, if you wanna check my spec/gear here is my armory link, and good day to you all!

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Daggerspine&n=Cyraga

[Paramount]

my brother plays a resto druid and he recently did a bit of research on int.

He told me that int can be valuable for resto druids if you have a replenishment in the raid. If you do have a replenishment, then int actually becomes a fairly valuable source of regen because it will increase the effects of replenishment (because replen is percentage based). This actually makes it much closer to being on par with spirit. Not sure what the point is where you stop stacking spirit and go for int when you have a replenishment though.


Here is my bro's armory, not saying you should gear like him, but as a tank I love the way he is geared. It allows me to chain pull with little regard for how much mana he has. The only fight he goes oom on is the 1st boss of OK...and that's because we don't have anyone to cleanse the disease usually:

The World of Warcraft Armory

He has told me that he is at a point where he can sacrifice spirit for int/SP. He did have over 1k spirit before he started to itemize differently. In my opinion (though slightly biased), he is one of the best healers I have grouped with. He can keep me topped off and he hardly goes oom.

Other than this little tidbit of knowledge I have little more to offer on the subject.

Oh yes...and after scouring the internet for a good source of information for resto druids, my brother found this site, hope it helps.

Resto4Life

[Blacklac]

IMO, ditch the haste, its a boomkin stat, stack SP and Spirit. Since druids are very mana ineffective for big heals, if your gonna be doing more than mainly hots, you should grab as much spi and int as you can. Druids get a SP benefit from spirit as well as 30% or some such number mana regen while casting.

[Cadran]

Blacklac haste is a very important stat as it lowers the global cooldown on instant hots. This allows a druid to get more HoT ticking on the target faster which makes it very important for their healing style.

Cyraga the problem is you only need so much mana regen before you basically never run out. Haste lowers global CD on instant hots until you hit ~350 haste (10% on tooltip) and then it only applies to spells with cast times. At this pt basically haste = crit but both are bad stats. Id say the best pieces to look for as a druid heals are the rare spirit/mp5 pieces.

I would definitely not use mana leftover at the end of a fight as a rule of thumb for mana regen. Some fights are more healing intensive. Some fights last a long time. Your other healers may perform poorly one fight or die making you pick up slack. You may wind up in a raid with a different healer who doesn't perform as well. If you have a full mana bar leftover one fight you may need it the next.

[CobaltFire]

I have seen a lot of Druids underestimate both Haste and Crit. I am sitting at ~850 Int, ~1200 Spi, ~1975 SP, ~350 Haste, ~9% Crit as a Tree. For Raid healing, current practice is to simply keep Wild Growth up. I find this is usually sufficient, but will cease to be so next patch (6 Sec CD). To remedy this future issue, I have been trying out a different Raid Healing style. The one that has come to forefront is Regrowth. A Short Cast (1.3-1.8 Seconds), 60% Crit, and a 28 Second HoT are all VERY good things. Utilizing this mecahnic I can rely on Wild Growth to heal the targets that are taking relatively insignificant damage while focusing more of my time on those who are taking heavier damage. This tactic DOES require a bit more regen, and I would not suggest it until you have achieved 2-Piece T7.

Now, where does Haste and Crit fit in? Crit is actually a ridiculously powerful stat in the event you are casting Regrowth. Until you hit 50% Crit (100% for Regrowth), you will still be gaining a significant amount of Haste via Crit. This is due to the Nature's Splendor talent. If you stop stacking Haste @ ~350, your Regrowth will take 1.8 Seconds to cast, 1.25 if you have procc'd Nature's Splendor. This is a straight reduction of 0.55 Seconds in cast time, or ~30%. My question is this: Given current itemization we have to choose a 5th Stat on most gear iLvl 200 and up (Sta/Int/Spi/SP + 1). What are you going to get the most use out of? If you are effectively capped on Regen, then that is pointless. If you are effectively capped on Haste (as mentioned, ~350 for Druids), then that is pointless. Why NOT Crit? Although more Haste WILL drop Regrowth and HT's casting time by a fixed amount, it has a built-in DR effect. The hasting effect from a Crit does NOT, nor does it cause much of one to the ~10% haste you would have already (~0.5% or so at most).

Now, with all that said, for those still gearing up in blues, Regen is your FIRST priority. Haste should be second, with crit following. In reality, that should allow your primary stats to climb without you worrying too much about them.

Once again, we are all individuals. This is just my take on the relative value of certain stats for a Resto Druid.

[Kaysa]

Well i thought i might add a bit of my findings here. when i started into resto i wasnt sure what i needed or where to find the info.. i read EJ and Restoforlife places like that around... looking to see if maybe i could find a Shadowpanther for druids (rogue before expac) but there wasnt that i could find so after a few posts of info i just went for it. We are 25 man raiding now and clearing Naxx and sarth and working on Maly (only have tried it once so far, what a fun fight lol) and for me this is how i go for gear.

Like most its Spirt > Int > Sp > Haste > Crit

My glyphs - Swiftmend, regrowth, LB

My stats self buffed in tree - 1118 Spirit, 926 Int, 2000 SP, 307 Haste (814 when trinket procs), 14.52% Crit, 971 Regen (307 while casting) ** They broke my trinket in the last patch - Majestic Dragon Figurine so im using Spirit-world glass for now so tech my spirit would be even higher = more sp and mana regen as long as i refresh something every 9 sec, i hope the fix it soon lol**

My rotation is - Before Tank pulls i regrowth the tank twice (maybe 3 times to get the crit to proc) and put up a living seed then 3 stack LB and rej... Tank pulls. from then on i do my best to keep the hots up on the MT, OT as needed and look to the raid and start raid healing. My main heal is Regrowth, ill spam it if needed cuz like ppl said its usually a 1.4 if not 1.2 sec cast and crits almost always and for around 8-8.5k plus hot, im sorry but it doesnt get much better then that in my book lol. if someone takes spike dmg i Rej swiftmend them Bam 10k heal and i still have my OH Crap button of nautre swift HT incase i need to get a tank up. Also i wildgrowth too and since the patch i try to keep it up on the group that take dmg regular depending on the fight (actually i was already doing this but now i just cant spam it on 3 diff ppl an hope it spreads around lol) or throw a rej/LB on someone if my wildgrowth is on CD.

And to be honest i dont mind my hots falling off sometimes since Regrowth is such an effective heal ( Resto4Life» Blog Archive » Direct Healing in Wrath ) and maybe can be a more effective healer mana wise if i choose one spell say LB over Rej for minor dmg or whatever but really i dont have mana prob. When the raid is over and i look at my recount im usually number 1st or 2nd healing and like 5th or 6th on overheal, and about 50% of my healing is Regrowth, then 25% rej/wildgrowth (here some Recount pics of our guilds first 25 man naxx from 4 horseman trash to KT kill..Healing and overhealing, Resto Healing pictures by Knightspiral - Photobucket )

I have 4pcs val and to me nourish= Balls.... just not worth it to me over Regrowth, i tried using it like on patchwork, keep all my hots up and dump nourish into him but really... spamming regowth works way better for me, maybe ppl will bashme for it... maybe there are way better healers out there but for My healing style Regrowth is awesome, hot are just my buffer for another Regrowth or to let me regen a bit of mana since raid buffed i hit around 2100 regen not casting.

I read that a resto druid only really needs to get about 1000 int so i always grab the bigger spirit when i can (if there isnt some stat that there is a ton of like if i gain 30 sp and lose a bit of spirit.. im fine with that lol) and only stack int up to and around 1000 give or take then start to worry about gemming SP. At around 850 mana regen not cast self buff i started to gem more for sp over spirit/int but this is where you have to start balancing it imo ... i found my self from never needing to innervate ever, Except for like a select few fights (patch work), To where i started needing to innervate a bit more...that how i judge on weather or not i need to get a bit more spirit or not
btw not sure if i was seeing incorrectly but last night i put on all the haste stuff i had in my bank and bags and i didnt see my regrowth fall below 1.2 so not sure if thats the lowest it will go or not.

here is my armory (hopefully i dont have my feral gear on lol)
The World of Warcraft Armory

Well i hope that helps someone out there and good luck with your Resto adventures

Kaysa

[Audy]

Source: grakos Really anything with spirit and SP (or mp5, same thing as spirit) is needed for a druid.

I agree with everything Grakos said except that spirit and mp5 are the same thing. Even though they both provide mana regen, upon close examination they aren't the same. Each affects the mana regen mechanism differently. Additionally, if you spec for Improved Tree of Life, then you get 15% of your total spirit added as +healing spell power when in that form. Some druids also effectively stack crit/haste (see prior post.) I suggest searching for articles specifically comparing spirit vs. mp5 which explain the FSR as well. You should also look for articles on the anticipated spirit nerf coming with version 3.1 as well which could have us all placing a higher priority on stacking +int instead.

[Anaire]

Sweet and simple, soft cap for haste is around 500. You GCD is 1sec then. Go look at your talent tree, Improved Tree of Life increases your SP 15% of your spirit.... Well, spirit =bonus heals, more sp, and mana regen. I rarely roll on gear without spirit. I socket spirit/haste and enchant mostly sp because it is more readily available to me.