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Druids: Enhancing ToL healing (EJ thread)

Last post 11-06-2007 1:39 PM by Earthshaker. 8 replies.
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  • 11-04-2007 10:43 AM

    • Vineya
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    Druids: Enhancing ToL healing (EJ thread)

    Take a look at this thread for a good discussion on maximizing Tree of Life healing. Non ToL specs might find it useful as well. Note references to changes coming in 2.3 that may alter how we play and spec.

    http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t17783-druid_raiding_tree/

    People joke about how easy it is to play our class sometimes however I believe to play it well, it takes a fair amount of attention to the nuances of our abilities and some degree of skill. I for one have room to improve. Maybe others will see some places to add to their healing output as well.

    Please comment on the thread and make any additional observations about how we can do a better job keeping our teams alive.

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  • 11-04-2007 12:33 PM In reply to

    • Inso
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    Re: Druids: Enhancing ToL healing (EJ thread)

    Vineya:

    People joke about how easy it is to play our class sometimes

    Oh please :) don't tell me it's the warlocks!! ;)

    Anyway, I read the thread, very well put, but i found nothing new in it to be honest, and i'm really interested in seeing someone discussing the HT build, people seem to underestimate it so much, frankly i don't know why.

    Most of the healing now depends on what kind of gear your tank has while tanking a certain boss... for example, if your tank is using his stamina gear, a paladin or ht druid would be the best healing done to him, if your tank is using his avoidance gear, no one can heal him better than ToL druids... I am curious, for i haven't really healed a MT being a ToL druid, can u normally keep him topped while being in Tree Form? 

    Concerning healing as a druid, regardless of spec, I have a 70 human paladin and i have my friend's priest as well, so i healed on all these 3 classes, and would pick healing on a druid anytime over the other 2 classes, simply coz on a druid you would never run out of options, or "OH ***" buttons. Even when a druid is only healing the MT he can afford to switch and HoT 2 or 3 other targets and get back to his tank without any fear.

    If people are curious about the healing variety druids bring, they only need to check our wws and compare the spells used by our 3 healing druids. Each one of them doing his job with different use of spells and combinations, whether it be raid healing or single target focus.

  • 11-04-2007 1:03 PM In reply to

    • Vineya
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    Re: Druids: Enhancing ToL healing (EJ thread)

    It may not be new to you my good friend, but there is some good stuff in there, and not everyone is as freakish as some of us about researching the details of our class.

    After reading this, I am going to mess around with my Staff of the Everliving and innervating. 30 more spirit will result in more mana regen.

    I also know that I would improve my healing stats if I was faster. (This is actually what got me in search mode.) I heal people who are already being healed way too often. On that note...others appear to ignore HoT ticking which leads to overhealing. "If its tickin, stop that clickin!"

    My goal is to be better than I am now. If reading this tired old stuff (as you say it is) helps me do that, then allow me to indulge. If it helps someone else to glean some tidbit that improves their output, then I am doubly satisfied.

    Wink

    As far as your HT build goes, the numbers speak for themselves. You kick ass. Anyone who thinks you are somehow gimped is silly.

    And to answer your question, I can keep often enough HoT's up on MT to keep them topped off (or nearly so) when the fight allows me to be fairly stationary and there is not a lot of spikey damage. We rarely assign just one healer to MT, so it is not always easy to see this.

  • 11-04-2007 1:34 PM In reply to

    • Inso
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    Re: Druids: Enhancing ToL healing (EJ thread)

    Vineya:
    My goal is to be better than I am now. If reading this tired old stuff (as you say it is) helps me do that, then allow me to indulge. If it helps someone else to glean some tidbit that improves their output, then I am doubly satisfied.
     

    In no way did i mean to diss the info posted in that thread, or your post, at all :)

    Look at it this way, you had the balls to take the change brought to the Druid Class and make amazing use of it - (Lifebloom/ToL didn't exist pre TBC, and Swiftmend was introduced in 1.6 i think?!? i don't remember, i remember fighting the Twin Emps before or exaclty when Swiftmend was introduced) - when i am still stuck with old content healing and trying to max it out.

    It's amazing tho, how 1 class, with 1 foucs (healing), can have 2 (actually 3) different healing schools, with totally different focus on gear and stats. 

  • 11-04-2007 2:00 PM In reply to

    • Vineya
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    Re: Druids: Enhancing ToL healing (EJ thread)

    No worries Inso.... I just did not want people to pass over the article. Prior to TBC, I pretty much sucked at healing. Civ carried me I think because I was relentlessly reliable, not because I topped the charts. I accepted that if I wanted to keep raiding in the new content, I would have to learn how to play. I am still not the most talented or learned, but at least now I can contribute enough that Gurruk keeps sending me invites.

    Smile

  • 11-05-2007 8:58 AM In reply to

    • Vineya
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    Re: Druids: Enhancing ToL healing (EJ thread)

    One of the things I want to improve is reducing over heals, both to keep heals focused where they are needed and to conserve mana.

    Earthshaker, you are often around 15-20% over healing when everyone else is quite a bit above that. Could you explain how you do this? Also, please share any other techniques you use that keep you at or near the top of our healing charts night in and night out. You and I have chatted before about this, but it has been a while.

    Thanks in advance for your advice and input.

  • 11-06-2007 12:18 AM In reply to

    Re: Druids: Enhancing ToL healing (EJ thread)

        As far as how I keep my over healing to a minimum, I always cancel healing spells if the target gets healed to full or almost full before the cast lands.  Of course, all healers do that.  I'm not really sure how to explain how I get lower than all or almost all healers, though, because I do not personally know how other people heal.  I think explaining my techniques may help explain how my overhealing is lower than normal.

     

        I look at healing as a competition, so I heal aggresively.  I fight for landing the first heal when I can, but always make sure I save the mana if someone else beats me.  I don't use healing meters though, I never think that the best healer is the one who tops the meters, or even the one who has the lowest overhealing.  Generally, for trash, I try to keep swiftmend on cooldown each time it comes up and use natures swiftness when I think it is necessary.  Sometimes that is harder than others when you only have a split second to make your decision.  Regrowth is my favorite tool for trash healing.  It has a 2 second cast, and crits half of the time if you have talents in it, so it is awesome for a fast, big heal, AND you can use it for swiftmend.  The drawback is that it costs a lot of mana for one healing spell, but generally that won't matter because we can drink right after the pack is dead.  In some cases though, (Hyjal Trash for Az'galor) we can't drink, so I try to limit my spamming when possible.  When people only need to be healed for a small amount, I use lifebloom because its cheap, heals fast, and if they take another hit of damage, I can throw on another stack or two to help heal them.

        I try to "race" other healers to a damaged target.  Like I said before, just because I heal aggresively, doesn't mean I try to win at meters or anything.  But this racing helps heal the raid faster and maximizes my healing effectiveness in my opinion.  If we are in a situation where people are taking spurts of damage, like 3k or so, and one person takes damage first, then others begin taking damage almost immediately after they do, I will often stop healing the person who took damage first to heal others that just took the damage.  The reason I do this is because I know some healers are already casting heals on that target, and there is also less competition currently on that freshly damaged target.  I often use natures swiftness to beat other healers to my target and throw up rejuvenations on raid members to swiftmend them.  I do not normally use rejuvenation as a healing spell for trash unless I want to swiftmend them or I want to put it on the tank so I can instant heal him if he takes a burst.  There may be other rare occasions that I use rejuv, like when I know other healers are not going to be healing my target and I am sure he or she will be fine with a slow hot ticking.

        Boss fights are usually not the same technique as I use for trash, I don't think there are any two bosses where I do the same exact type of healing.  I do whatever I am assigned to or needed to do.

         I think my style of aggresive healing is very effective.  Of course, I don't purposefully go out of my way to top meters, and as I said, I don't use meters of any type, and I don't get argry if I ever don't perform well compared to others or if they are catching all my heals before me.  Hopefully that explains how I manage to have a low overheal compared to others.   If anything is unclear or if anyone has any questions about how I heal, feel free to ask, I'm sure I made a large handful of typos and had several ramblings that didn't make sense in this gigantic wall of text.

  • 11-06-2007 8:53 AM In reply to

    • Vineya
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    Re: Druids: Enhancing ToL healing (EJ thread)

    Thank you Earth! That is exactly the sort of explanation I was looking for.

    Do you macro any casts? I assume you have keybindings on everything, as opposed to clicking.

    I have druid casts set up on Grid so I can see if there are HoTs ticking. I also have a corner of Grid set up to tell me if a target is receiving a heal, which helps me move to someone else when we are on 'whack-a-mole' duty.  I use Quartz to see how long casts have to run. (Essential imo for rolling Lifeblooms and HoT stacking)

  • 11-06-2007 1:39 PM In reply to

    Re: Druids: Enhancing ToL healing (EJ thread)

    Vineya:

    Thank you Earth! That is exactly the sort of explanation I was looking for.

    Do you macro any casts? I assume you have keybindings on everything, as opposed to clicking.

    I have druid casts set up on Grid so I can see if there are HoTs ticking. I also have a corner of Grid set up to tell me if a target is receiving a heal, which helps me move to someone else when we are on 'whack-a-mole' duty.  I use Quartz to see how long casts have to run. (Essential imo for rolling Lifeblooms and HoT stacking)

     

    Doh, I forgot about addons.

    No, I don't use any macros for healing, except a macro to activate my trinkets.  And yea, I use keybindings for almost all my keys except the ones I don't use very often like Tranquility and Innervate.

    I also have my grid setup so that I can see hots ticking.  That is very important in my opinion, because it lets you see targets that can be swiftmended.  I also use Quartz for the buff timers as well.

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