corinalbria
New Member
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=5010239&p=1&tmp=1#post5010239
Oh the joy!
I recently specced to resto build for my druid and although i think it has helped; really the ONLY talent that i really value over my swiftspec is improved regrowth with it's crits. That makes regrowth reasonably mana efficient if i have to spam it a little bit. Unfortunately, overall healing hasn't really changed much beyond that.
With 1.8 though, at least on a theorycraft level looking at those trees - druids really do have 3 viable trees now.
So here are what looks like some of the potential builds now:
Healer Builds -
Heavy Restoration - this won't be much different than the current raid healing builds. There's some overall improvements to healing like faster HT and increases to amount healed, but overall the same.
Restoration: 31+ (Innervate, Improved Regrowth, Nature's Swiftness)
Whatever else you want
Regrowth spam - Build up to Imp Regrowth for the crits, and then with Nature's Grace, you spam low level regrowths then with crits and NGrace, allows for fast 2.5 second Healing Touches. The reason this could be nice is cause in raids, you end up spamming regrowth anyways to keep up with damage at the cost of efficiency. Now though, whenever they crit (which is often (55%+ crit rate), you get a fast cast HT for better efficiency. OOC encourages you to melee (barring bad AoE) and utilizing free heals from clearcasting.
Restoration 30 (improved regrowth, Nature's Swiftness)
Balance 21 (OOC, Nature's Grace)
Efficiency Build - Rely on Rejuv and Healing Touch as your bread and butter with super efficient heals. Moonglow reduces mana cost by 9%.
Restoration 27
Balance 24 (OOC, Nature's Grace, Moonglow)
Balance spec -
High End Balance dmg build - This build require lots of +dmg (400+) and crit (15%+) gear to be viable. Basically with the talents these are your dmg spells:
Wrath: 1.5 second cast, -9% cost, +10% dmg, +3 to 5% crit, 100% crit dmg.
(with +400 dmg, this is roughly 300-400 dps by itself without crits)
Moonfire: -9%cost, +20% dmg (maybe only on initial hit), +13 to 15% crit, 100% crit dmg
Starfire: 3 second cast, -9% cost, +15% chance to stun, +10% dmg, +3-5% crit, 100% crit dmg
(with +400 dmg, ToEP, and Warlock curse of shadows, I've seen pics of crits for 3200+)
I've seen Druids decked out in +dmg epics maintain 350-400dps with this type of build in 1.7. This is often considered to be the best end game PvP spec if you ahve access to epic quality items.
Balance 31+ (ideally all talents that modify dmg spells)
Whatever else you want
Feral Specs -
Modified SwiftSpec, the original swiftspec is dead since swiftshifting is gone, but this is built along the same lines.
Restoration 21 (nature's swiftness)
Balance 14 (omen of clarity, Natural Shapeshifter)
Feral 16 (Feral Charge, Feline Swiftness and Sharpened Claws)
This is really a hybrid healing/feral build.
Feral PvP 1 - This one is working off the Omen of clarity talent to boost burst dmg.
Feral 31 (Whatever you want)
Balance 14 (OOC, natural shapeshifter)
Restoration 5 (furor)
Feral PvP 2 - This sacrifices a little dmg to boost the viability of healing a bit while taking dmg.
Feral 31 (Whatever you want)
Balance 8 (natural shapeshifter)
Restoration 10(furor, nature's focus)
1 pt leftover
So now, there's a few big questions now for druids.
1) How important is Nature's Swiftness? Is it a crutch? (ie. do I NEED to have 21 pts in resto)
2) How much restoration can i sacrifice and still be a good healer in instances/raids? (ie. is innervate required? is improved regrowth required?)
3) are the increases in dmg in balance and feral and the 31 pt talents in those trees of enough benefit to groups that having a hybrid that can heal is more valuable than a healbot.
Sorry this is a long post - if you're still reading here... especially considering that very few of you are actually druids... wow.
I guess for me, I'm a hybrid at heart. I've always been in all the MMORPGs I've played. So the feral builds are very tantalizing to me (just like shadow priest is as well), however, I also like to be useful to groups. It's hard to tell whether skill and gear can make up for a loss in Restoration talents. The poll is up for the current builds I'm considering. Feel free to leave your opinion!
Oh the joy!
I recently specced to resto build for my druid and although i think it has helped; really the ONLY talent that i really value over my swiftspec is improved regrowth with it's crits. That makes regrowth reasonably mana efficient if i have to spam it a little bit. Unfortunately, overall healing hasn't really changed much beyond that.
With 1.8 though, at least on a theorycraft level looking at those trees - druids really do have 3 viable trees now.
So here are what looks like some of the potential builds now:
Healer Builds -
Heavy Restoration - this won't be much different than the current raid healing builds. There's some overall improvements to healing like faster HT and increases to amount healed, but overall the same.
Restoration: 31+ (Innervate, Improved Regrowth, Nature's Swiftness)
Whatever else you want
Regrowth spam - Build up to Imp Regrowth for the crits, and then with Nature's Grace, you spam low level regrowths then with crits and NGrace, allows for fast 2.5 second Healing Touches. The reason this could be nice is cause in raids, you end up spamming regrowth anyways to keep up with damage at the cost of efficiency. Now though, whenever they crit (which is often (55%+ crit rate), you get a fast cast HT for better efficiency. OOC encourages you to melee (barring bad AoE) and utilizing free heals from clearcasting.
Restoration 30 (improved regrowth, Nature's Swiftness)
Balance 21 (OOC, Nature's Grace)
Efficiency Build - Rely on Rejuv and Healing Touch as your bread and butter with super efficient heals. Moonglow reduces mana cost by 9%.
Restoration 27
Balance 24 (OOC, Nature's Grace, Moonglow)
Balance spec -
High End Balance dmg build - This build require lots of +dmg (400+) and crit (15%+) gear to be viable. Basically with the talents these are your dmg spells:
Wrath: 1.5 second cast, -9% cost, +10% dmg, +3 to 5% crit, 100% crit dmg.
(with +400 dmg, this is roughly 300-400 dps by itself without crits)
Moonfire: -9%cost, +20% dmg (maybe only on initial hit), +13 to 15% crit, 100% crit dmg
Starfire: 3 second cast, -9% cost, +15% chance to stun, +10% dmg, +3-5% crit, 100% crit dmg
(with +400 dmg, ToEP, and Warlock curse of shadows, I've seen pics of crits for 3200+)
I've seen Druids decked out in +dmg epics maintain 350-400dps with this type of build in 1.7. This is often considered to be the best end game PvP spec if you ahve access to epic quality items.
Balance 31+ (ideally all talents that modify dmg spells)
Whatever else you want
Feral Specs -
Modified SwiftSpec, the original swiftspec is dead since swiftshifting is gone, but this is built along the same lines.
Restoration 21 (nature's swiftness)
Balance 14 (omen of clarity, Natural Shapeshifter)
Feral 16 (Feral Charge, Feline Swiftness and Sharpened Claws)
This is really a hybrid healing/feral build.
Feral PvP 1 - This one is working off the Omen of clarity talent to boost burst dmg.
Feral 31 (Whatever you want)
Balance 14 (OOC, natural shapeshifter)
Restoration 5 (furor)
Feral PvP 2 - This sacrifices a little dmg to boost the viability of healing a bit while taking dmg.
Feral 31 (Whatever you want)
Balance 8 (natural shapeshifter)
Restoration 10(furor, nature's focus)
1 pt leftover
So now, there's a few big questions now for druids.
1) How important is Nature's Swiftness? Is it a crutch? (ie. do I NEED to have 21 pts in resto)
2) How much restoration can i sacrifice and still be a good healer in instances/raids? (ie. is innervate required? is improved regrowth required?)
3) are the increases in dmg in balance and feral and the 31 pt talents in those trees of enough benefit to groups that having a hybrid that can heal is more valuable than a healbot.
Sorry this is a long post - if you're still reading here... especially considering that very few of you are actually druids... wow.
I guess for me, I'm a hybrid at heart. I've always been in all the MMORPGs I've played. So the feral builds are very tantalizing to me (just like shadow priest is as well), however, I also like to be useful to groups. It's hard to tell whether skill and gear can make up for a loss in Restoration talents. The poll is up for the current builds I'm considering. Feel free to leave your opinion!
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