Healing advice with a grain of salt, from a bitter tree.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Need a light?

Ok just a quick firelands update. seems like bugs have minimal so far, planning on hitting the raid tonight and will get to see how that goes.but some quick notes so far

  • You only need around 80/115 of the hyjal quests to do the new dailys, which saved me about 2 hours of mind numbing quests.
  • The new patterns and BoE's have starting hitting the auction house. don't get too excited unless you have 40k sitting around.
  • The new quests have a decent bit of lore too them, but you'll be too busy avoiding horde to notice. i feel for anyone on a pvp server. mind your aoes
  • Doing the first call to arms on the hero board will net you a free mid grade cape. handouts are always good, and i like the purple look of mine.
  • Zomg stop reading and go play, just know the quests and dailys will limit your first day to a hour or so if you try hard. stupid blizzard making us work.
  • oh and most of em are rather easy, even in resto spec, so ya know, thanks blizz


more to come as i unlock it! see you in the firelands

Monday, June 27, 2011

Firelands today!

After a long wait, we finally get firelands today. Excited? you should be, also be excited for the multitude of bugs and hotfixes we'll be seeing, and don't forget to update all your add-ons cause they won't be working for a while.

So lets start with our goodies. I had previously mentioned our new armor look. that hasn't changed and we finally know for sure what our Tier bonus is
Restoration

Pretty good stuff, it'll be interesting to see how it changes when we use healing touch, but it'll be awesome for aoe damage and such.

So now we know what bonus we're shooting for, whats the wonderful armor we must acquire you ask? well some of this goodness.

Chest- Obsidian Arborweave Robes: Spirit and haste? so nice of you to give us spirit on our chest this tier

Dome- Obsidian Arborweave Helm: spirit,mast,and a int socket bonus, oh yea it looks badass too.

Shoulders- Obsidian Arborweave Mantle: if your not drooling by this point you should be, bliz took care of us this tier.

Pantaloons- Obsidian Arborweave Legwraps: awesome fancy pants, mastery and more red sockets then you can dream of

Hands- Obsidian Arborweave Handwraps : eww crit strike, got a feeling most people will opt for different gloves, but still rather nice.

It's all got that fresh piney tier smell don't it. I can't wait to dig into firelands, not only do we have this armor to look forward to, the whole dang tier takes place in our house. Hyjal is a cool place, kinda like the motherland for druids, so get out there and rep the best healers ever.

P.S. sorry for the hiatus guys, got busy with RL and such, have a whole week of content in honor of firelands coming out, daily review and guide coming along with boss strat for us.

Monday, June 20, 2011

Resto Druid Pre-firelands BIS

Let Me know what you guys think of the new look!

Ok, so i said it was pointless to do one of these, but i still found myself typing it out. This is  best-in-slot list for heading into firelands. I'm linking the 359 gear, but go ahead and assume that the 372 heroic gear is better. At this point you should be sitting with plenty of spirit, and haste to hit all the extra ticks. With the new mastery reforging spirit or haste might be more beneficial, i'll update this to reflect that after the patch goes live, until then just save your Justice points and run BWD one more time if you are still missing gear.




Helms
Stormrider's Helm- BIS, esp when it completes your 4-piece bonus
Helm of the Blind Seer-Great sub until you are able to grab a head token

Necks
Valiona's Medallion- Offers haste and Mastery, use this if your comfortable with your spirit, if not use Wyrmbreakers Amulet.

Back
Drape of the Twins-Great stats, but all of the 359 capes are very good, the true BIS will depend on your other gear.

Shoulders
Stormrider's Mantle-Obviously awesome shoulders are obvious. haste,spirit, and a four piece bonus.

Chest
Scorched Wormling Vest- Considering our Tier chest doesn't have spirit, this is our bis, but use the tier chest if it is the difference between getting your 4-piece bonus or not.\

Wrists
Manacles of the sleeping beast- Only leather wrists with spirit, and they drop off the heal check that is chim

Belt
Lightning Lash
Easily obtained from The AH or a leather worker, Al'Akir has a drop chance on a "of the undertow" belt, it offers a slighlty better mix of stats  but is much harder to obtain.

Relic
Relic of Eonar-Choose between which valor relic will fit your gear better, i like this one.

Trinkets & Rings
DC:Tsunami-Awesome for almost every healer, but they can be a little pricey, watch for that to change with the new patch
Fall of Mortality-Core of Ripeness I like any other trinket that has int and spirit on it, the automatic procs and used procs equal out the same, just depends on if you want to control the up time.
For rings grab whatever you can, they are a great spot to cut spirit if you have enough and pick up more haste & mastery. avoid hit and crit if possible.

Main Hand
Andoros, Fist of the Dragon King- Running MH/OH as opposed to staves currently nets us about 30 more int for a equal bit of secondary stats, only use staves if moving from 346.
Incineratus- Easily obtained from magmaw, great alt to andoros.

Off-Hand
Scepter of Ice- Looks cooler then heart bound tome, and alot cheaper then farming the AH

Shoes/Gloves/legs-obvious choices for these three, if you don't have them already get em
Fading Violet Sandals
Stormrider's handwraps
Stormrider's Legwraps


*Do note, this is a rough guide, always work with what you have to get the best output. This is a rough guide and should only serve as reference. All of the gear that costs valor ATM will cost JP next patch, so cap out.

Looking Good

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Happy Furion day

Taking a lazy day for the holiday, all druids should stop by hyjal and say thanks to malfurion stormrage!
man loves his sheep

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Preparing for change


Afro tree, he makes my eyes bleed
Oh change, us resto druids are used to it. Sometimes it's good, like buffing tanq in 4.1, and at other times, not so much (see picture). One thing is sure, our class and play style is always changing. We're still healers, still stack life blooms, but i have a itsy bitsy feeling that 4.2 will drasticlly change our stat priority, and heal rotation. Blizzard is making a huge effort to make our Mastery usefull with this patch, and all healers will be re-contemplating crit as a usefull stat, bliz is making our critical heals 200%, up from 150%. So Everyone throw there hands in the air like afro-hot over there and celebrate 200% crits, even you priests and pallys. 


 most mages when facing change.
Ok so healers are getting buffs, and us druid are getting the cherry on top with a new mastery. /Dance your ass off cause the next bit stings. All of our stat priority and BIS gear will be cluster fucked. Oh, we're you stoked about just getting your scepter o ice And how epicly-epic it is? and your BIS cape  from the twins?  Tough shit furry, until tree calcs come out your going to be flying solo, and god forbid, making your own decisions about gear and stat priority. "Oh shittith, i must make my own gear decisions" Yup, but it should be easy as cake for us, why? Leather, and spirit, no one, mofo'ing no one, uses spirit leather, cept for maybe that bastard critchicken who will try to need roll on your gear. Fuck him, those are YOUR your boots. If your GL doesn't share that sentiment, time for a new guild.


^ Just spent 12k on valor boots,
then was told they'll cost JP next week
Every new Tier brings the same anger. Your 359/372 gear will no longer be the hot shit come Tuesday. Raid leaders will quote Elitist jerks while inspecting you, not realizing no one has updated it yet. Hell some shammys will probably get smart and think there better then you. Screw em, we're resto druids, not only the most op class in the game, the most op spec of the most op class in the game (excluding mages). With any luck the new raids will be a hair easier then tier 11 was when it first it, not that it was all too hard for me or others. Should be safer then a nerf fight after we figure out the insta kill mechanics and healing assignments. Oh, and that whole how to play our class thing, that'll be fun figuring out, keeps the game fresh, just don't get comfy until all the hot fixen is done.


Lore, the mighty fro bearer from Tank spot has said 4.2 is slated for this Tuesday, bringing with it a quarter-ton of change, new content, and a whole fricking new Tier. Could be an additional week, but either way, it's a coming. If after 4.2 we get nerfed and actually have to try to heal, well, we're druids, I personally have thought of a aquatic form re-spec, but critchicken is there too for the healing impaired.


old TOL sees the change coming,
 his face should tell us all we need to know.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Hey Mages

Know Your Role
p.s.
20kdps or gtfo

New 4.2 notes

Hot off the ptr and blizz's website is the new 4.2 changes.

Round of applause please. Thanks bliz!

So, the long awaited mastery change. Harmony is sounding pretty dang impressive to me, considering how many times we cast HT,nourish, and regrowth. oh whats that, still helps the hots? would not be surprised to see it nerfed a little. This is going to change a lot for us, or at least in spell priority and our rotation. Persona''y i can't wait to see how this works out for us. Lets not forget we're getting 200% critical healing in 4.2 also, i would not be surprised to see druids going through a major stat rebuild. mastery and crit, our two "worst" stats, are both getting a huge boost. I personally can't wait for firelands, rumor is this Tuesday we'll get to see it go live, to be followed by numerous hot fixes. 
CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE!
Symbiosis (Mastery) has been removed and replaced with Harmony. Harmony increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Raid healing in 4.1, 10 man vs 25 man

When people talk about raid healing as a resto druid on forums, those people are almost always playing the content in the role of raid healing 25 man content. In that role, stacking haste over mastery makes the most sense, while your dropping hots on your dps and healers, you want the most ticks as possible. Almost every guide says that is THE only way to heal in a raid, but i beg to differ.

With great success i have been running 10 man regular raids, with out stacking haste to the magical 1600/2200 mark, how? Tank healing and dividing up hast and mastery. Our "horrible" mastery is useless in the role of healing 25 people with one HoT, but in the role of healing a single tank (hopefully a pally) we can use the true potential of our mastery. lifeblooms, stacked with our other two HoTs, regrowth and and rejuv, offer maximum healing per tick. ideally you would stack haste to the 1600 mark, with buffs, and then focus on mastery. this gives us the most ticks off of our hots, and allows us to gain 25% or more healing from each with our mastery. This set up also allows us to cover our group with wildgrowth and rejuvs when needed, as long as the player makes sure to STACK his spells, casting them one at a time wastes your mastery.

I found that set up the key to defeating nef. In the fight i was assigned to the add tank, and being able to get 25% more healing effect while stacking my spells saved my ass. Having an exceptional tank didn't hurt either. From attempt to attempt, i found splitting my hast and mastery to offer more mana to help out the raid with, and still keep your tank up. oh, and 8 other good people helps alot too.

Druid Tier 12 armor Preview



After patiently watching EVERY,SINGLE,CLASS, get there armor preview'd before us, we finally know what our tier set will look like in firelands. Personally, I'm digging the shoulders and wooden theme, the off-set charms really sell me on it, and i'll take it all day after staring at my sparkle feathers for the last few months.
armor bonus for four piece is still in development.


Welcome to the Restless-Resto!

The Restless-Resto is a haven for resto-druids in World of Warcraft, Bringing you the newest patch notes and theory craft involving the best healers in blizzard's wonderful game. Look forward to firelands previews and raid theory.