A GM of another guild on the server with whom I regularly converse with was talking about recruitment as one of his healers had decided to stop raiding.
Sarindre said that she was listening to FinalBoss #78 where Affinity and Jarre were talking about resto druids in end game (mythic) and they talked about a lot of things, mostly lamenting that by end game, holy pallies and disc priests negate the need for a resto druid. In heroic they're good but the absorbs scale a lot by end game, making them nearly a necessity to a raid. A shame really, and I could see that happening if we moved to harder content.
Germination was also something that I find particularly mana draining - I actually much prefer Moment of Clarity because of the mana conservation that I get especially in Challenge mode - but I spend a lot of time spamming regrowth when it procs so you can get 4 regrowths out which is really quite decent. But I must be the only one who likes it. I must switch to germination sometimes and see what my mana and healing compare. And double germ must be so crappy when there are disc priests around!
They also spoke about current 4 piece tier, which Yuuda and I have discussed - and the 4 set is truly horrible. I have tried doing it, but it has no place in the times I'm using it - when I'm spamming Healing Touch it's for a few targets getting damage, but once I need to use wild growth I wouldn't be using Healing Touch at all, I'd be going rejuv and a swintmend then a wild growth. One amusing comment for what would be more useful would be if the 4 piece bonus was "When you cast 2 sequential Healing Touch spells, the next spell is an absorb" or something hilarious like that. I think it would be more useful if it worked with a spell that would go well with healing touch, like using a damage reduction such as ironbark. Maybe "When you cast 2 sequential healing touch spells, your next Ironbark will reduce damage by 40% for 10 seconds". Well, I'd have to think about that really.
So, what do you think? Resto druids - are they the worst healers for raids?
"Do you want a resto druid?" I said jokingly. "Because I have lots of those."
"Nah," he said. "Resto druids are pretty weak in heroic. I'd rather have a monk or a shaman. At the moment we have a disc, holy pally, monk and a shaman."
Of course I laughed at him. We have been running two to three resto druids with one other healer for most of our BRF encounters. Sure, it's a bit of a struggle sometimes especially on tank healing but we can do it, but it's not that easy.
I didn't think much more of it until I ran across another blog of someone who started following me on Twitter. Sarindre writes at Through the Eyes of a Tree and has been blogging for as long as I have - her blog goes back to 2010 - and in her last post she wrote about how people are saying that Resto druids are not an essential healer.
In my current guild, we do not have many options and are running with three Resto Druids ... and a Holy and Disc Priest... Are we the reason we have only downed 2 bosses in BRF and 4 in Highmaul? There is always the excuse that “oh the tanks are taking too much damage” or “we do not have enough DPS” but what if the real reason is “we do not have the right kind of healers.”This is similar to our guild, where we reliably run with three resto druids, and holy paladin and a holy priest who are there at least 2/3 of the time. I know that it isn't great, but we work with what we have. Obviously there are times we are STRUGGLING and would love to have a paladin or disc, but we have managed. It's on Blackfuse that we are really wanting those paladin heals though. (And remember, we are only a heroic guild, not a mythic one)
Then we moved onto Operator Thogar. We are doing pretty well on the fight but seem to lose it on the raid splits. I am the one chosen to follow the tank over to the one side and heal them. Normally I believe this roll of single tank healing would fall to a Pally, someone with great burst healing that will not let the tank die while he is being smashed in the face by a boss and tons of mobs. I am able to do it, basically I HoT the tank up and Regrowth/Heart of the Wild spam, but as I think about it, it would be way more effective for a non-HoT healer with great single heals to do this role.This is true but it's not impossible. We do Thogar and when I am on solo tank heals, you hope to high hell that your tank hasn't taken the boss AND all the adds because that means deaaaatttthhhhh. I do the same, full HoTs rolling on the tank, mushroom, and get a swiftmended rejuv on them and then spam regrowth on them and chuck an iron bark and then yell for them to use a cooldown if it gets ugly. Not the best thing ever, but I do some wrath healing as well when it's not too stressful.
Sarindre said that she was listening to FinalBoss #78 where Affinity and Jarre were talking about resto druids in end game (mythic) and they talked about a lot of things, mostly lamenting that by end game, holy pallies and disc priests negate the need for a resto druid. In heroic they're good but the absorbs scale a lot by end game, making them nearly a necessity to a raid. A shame really, and I could see that happening if we moved to harder content.
Germination was also something that I find particularly mana draining - I actually much prefer Moment of Clarity because of the mana conservation that I get especially in Challenge mode - but I spend a lot of time spamming regrowth when it procs so you can get 4 regrowths out which is really quite decent. But I must be the only one who likes it. I must switch to germination sometimes and see what my mana and healing compare. And double germ must be so crappy when there are disc priests around!
They also spoke about current 4 piece tier, which Yuuda and I have discussed - and the 4 set is truly horrible. I have tried doing it, but it has no place in the times I'm using it - when I'm spamming Healing Touch it's for a few targets getting damage, but once I need to use wild growth I wouldn't be using Healing Touch at all, I'd be going rejuv and a swintmend then a wild growth. One amusing comment for what would be more useful would be if the 4 piece bonus was "When you cast 2 sequential Healing Touch spells, the next spell is an absorb" or something hilarious like that. I think it would be more useful if it worked with a spell that would go well with healing touch, like using a damage reduction such as ironbark. Maybe "When you cast 2 sequential healing touch spells, your next Ironbark will reduce damage by 40% for 10 seconds". Well, I'd have to think about that really.
So, what do you think? Resto druids - are they the worst healers for raids?