I haven’t played much WoW recently so I’ve not got round to doing anything about the Resto tree yet but a Resto Druid who I did a 5-man with today (hi Natora, if you’re reading) got me thinking about it so I figured I should put something up about being Resto in 3.3.
The main concern or change is with haste, due to the changes to Gift of the Earthmother.
- Pre-3.3: Reduces the base global cooldown of your Rejuvenation, Lifebloom and Wild Growth spells by 20%.
- Post-3.3: This talent now increases spell haste and reduces the base global cooldown by 2/4/6/8/10% instead of its previous effect. Now also reduces the base cooldown of your Lifebloom spell by 2/4/6/8/10%
I make that 10% off Lifebloom, a 10% haste increase and a 10% nerf to our base GCD, don’t you?
Personally, I wouldn’t worry about it. At all. If you know how to play your Druid well then you’re not going to have a problem. Some people have been dropping points in Resto to spec into Celestial Focus. This gave me a 0.04 second reduction in the cast time of Nourish. 0.04 seconds. At the moment we have about 5x that just in server lag. Maybe more. Plus, the amount of haste on the gear in Icecrown Citadel should keep everything covered.
My advice would be to spec for your role, as always. And to pick up the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation.
I’ve tweaked my spec a little bit since the post I did on 3.2, I’ve removed Nature’s Grace because I’m doing more raid healing and not using Nourish as much. This leaves the only other non-periodic spell critting spells as Swiftmend (I only use it in emergencies) and Regrowth, which is cast once every 21 seconds. Do I need a 20% cast speed increase which isn’t certain every 21 seconds? Probably not.
I’m still sticking with my 5 points in Tranquil Spirit. I don’t know about you, but I like having mana. That little blue bar makes me think of blueberries. I like blueberries so I want as much of that as I can get. No blueberry in my bar makes me sad. Mana regen and useage isn’t really a problem but it’s less of a problem if you have 5 in Tranquil Spirit.
I then struggled to think where to put my last 4 points. Living Seed, I know, is very popular among Resto Druids but I thought back to my role within our raids and I’m only really casting a seedable spell on the tank once every 21 seconds (I very rarely Nourish the tanks) and it’s not guaranteed to crit. So, like the 20% cast speed increase…do I really need it? Probably not.
Do I want 3 points in Natural Perfection? Do I need 3% crit? What’s critting now? Nourish, not really using it and I already have a 25% increase in crits for Nourish and Regrowth from Nature’s Bounty, so do I need another 3%? Regrowth, meh, see previous sentence. Swiftmend, only when I’m desperate. Lifebloom’s bloom, no; whenever my Lifebloom blooms about 80% of it is overhealed.
Strangely, and I know all of this is potentially controversial amongst us Druids, the most useful for me is probably Revitalize. My two most used spells at the moment are Rejuv and Wild Growth. As a raid healer I have the Glyph of Wild Growth and now the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation so having something that works with these is pretty handy. I know it’s not a massive amount but it’s free! And free…whatever you have on your bar, is never a bad thing. I suppose some could argue that having certain spells means free heals but I’ve got lots of other spells that do that.
I say this, but to be honest I’ve only got Revitalize for the pretty graphic when it goes off. Thanks, Marmite 
<3
Shadowpaws’ Spec in 3.3 – Unless I feel the need to change it, but I’ll tell you if I do!
Filed under: 1013, Druid, Gaming, WoW | Tagged: 3.3 build, druid, gift of the earthmother, haste, resto, restoration, World Of Warcraft, WoW
If I could take 0.04 seconds off my latency, then I would do that too. I don’t understand how that negates the importance of CF when haste is the most important stat that geared (25 ICC) druids could possibly stack, even above spellpower — up to soft cap at least.
Speaking of soft cap, CF alone brings the haste cap requirement down to around 700, which opens up a lot of itemization budget for other stats. You need to consider the oportunity costs.
And if you regrowth heal, CF is even more pronounced. Obviously, you don’t. But a lot of druids are going back to it. Nourish is great for stacking your TotalHeals by ninjaing heals from your raid members. But if you get into crazy damage situations and use BOTH Regrowth and Nourish, with a focus on regrowth, I bet you would see your total healing skyrocket when it counts.
Hi Burrich, thanks for the reply, sorry for the delay in getting back to you.
Haste is never something I’ve ever thought I’ve needed. I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve been wanting to cast quicker or more often. If I have it’s because someone’s done something silly and it’s not a regular thing.
For my role I’ve never had the need, but it’s something I’m always looking at info about. I’m running about 360 haste at the moment (if my staff drops from ToC then that’ll jump up by 100 or so but I’m not lucky with drops) and as far as I’ve measured, my GCD is about 1.28s – crude measurement though.
I personally don’t buy into this whole “ninjaing healers from raid members” thing. Healing isn’t a competition or about stealing heals surely? It’s about healing who needs healing. Surely you could argue that I do more overhealing than I do effective healing because priests, shamans and paladins ninja heals off me?
If I need more hots on a target I’ll pop a regrowth but, again, I’ve never really felt the need to. If someone takes a bit of spike damage I’ll pop a nourish to boost them back up (they’ll probably have WG and Rejuv on them anyway) as the spikes aren’t continuous, so I don’t feel the need to have that instant heal from rejuv to cover the spike, then another HoT doing diddly squat because they’re not taking damage.
However, as you say, in crazy damage situations I’d use regrowth more. I change my heals and choose my heals according to the situation. For the most part though, in none of the situations I’ve ever been wildly spamming heals enough to notice a lack of haste. More often than not I’m waiting for heals to run out so I can refresh them.
It’s frustrating that I’ve not had a chance to properly see the ICC fights as we’ve had some guild problems and they’ve wanted me on my hunter recently. I miss my tree!