Nerf Druids :(
Well, no, not really. I don’t like seeing anyone nerfed but tonight I had a bit of an eye opener. Let me not get ahead of myself, though.
Setting the Scene
It was a warm and sunny afternoon in Dalaran when a plaintive cry was heard in the officer channel of Lightwalkers. “We’re short a healer.” “Bleh I dun wanna go to Naxx(10) on my shammy QQ” *pause* “I can respec resto on the druid, though?”.
Ok, so maybe not quite like that but you get the gist. A healer was called for and I decided to offer my druid. 20 minutes before raidstart. When I was still specced and glyphed for feral tanking… and only had gear I had grabbed whilst levelling. Cue mad dash and frenzied crafting over 4 different alts.
I fired up my browser and scrambled through my druid bookmarks to find:
- Resto4Life’s Pre-Raid Gear Lists, Part I and Part II.
- Tree Bark Jacket’s guide to setting up Grid for HoT Tracking.
30 minutes later… (yes, I was late, they let me off with it on account of the respeccing and whatnot) I was standing inside Naxx trying to configure Grid and find an unbound button for nourish, wild growth and nature’s swiftness.
My Résumé
I note here that I have never raid healed more than once on Jhai and have instance healed only twice. Ever. Go me. Still, I was fairly confidant not totally panicking as I am not new to healing itself, knew what kind of damage to expect and healing tactics for the boss fights for non-shammy healers, and had been reading some of the three million resto druid blogs out there. This was not entirely spur of the moment thing, either, I had wanted to give tree-druiding a shot for a while and this just seemed like the perfect jump-start chance.
So, after those 30minutes, I had scraped up this kit:
[Earthgiving Legguards], [Earthgiving Boots], [Sun Rock Ring], [Blood Sun Necklace] (yes, I had no better jewellery /sob) were crafted by Jhai and Aurik, [Sash of Jordan] was promptly bought from the guild bank (which reminds me I need to actually put the payment in, forgot after the raid, whoops!) and Avarix sent over a pile of enchantment scrolls. Although my tailor did make some leg-patches I managed to forget to grab them from the mail before being summoned to Naxxramas. Bugger. On top of that, although I had a [Ymirjar Physician's Robe] in my bags I forgot to equip it all run. Double Bugger.
I had five TBC items and two very-low-level Wrath items on for the majority of the run.
I did not expect to see this at the end of the night:
Really. Both of the other healers outgeared me by far – both in mostly Naxx(10) level gear. I haven’t raided much with Griz but I’ve healed alongside Valeris plenty and her numbers are usually not far off Avarix’s in terms of output – I know she’s an excellent healer, despite her claims to the contrary.
Oh… and I dps’d one fight and was dead for half the other.
What in the nine hells? Why is it that a resto druid in not-very-good gear can outheal a resto shammy and paladin in much better gear? It’s not skill, I don’t have any. I forgot I could go into tree form for the first five minutes of the instance (i’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on, to be honest).
As you can see, it wasn’t just that I was mindlessly spamming Wild Growth – it is my highest heal, but only barely. I did not have many mana problems, though I did keep my innervate for myself and we did have replenishment from one shadow priest. Usually I suffer horribly on Naxx(10) as my shaman – if I’m not guaranteed good uptime on replenishment I end most fights gasping for water or strudel.
I am confused. This doesn’t seem fair. Do druids scale worse with gear or something? If not particularly I’m beginning to see why spirit regen might be getting nerfed a wee bit…
I know meters are not the best guage of healer skill or ability but nonetheless they show ability to output vast oodles of healing – more, in this case, than seems ‘fair’ for being so undergeared. Ah well.
I snagged a few upgrades (I tried to pass on everything spellcastery as it’s still my offspec but some pieces would have been sharded otherwise) and ended up with a little more healthy stats at the end of the raid. This also includes a few ‘goodies’ I snagged myself off the auction house once ‘d had the time to sit and poke at R4L’s lists again.
Druid vs. Shaman
I found the change in style rather odd. The most noticable was on fights like Heigan where I usually can’t heal during running except riptide and the occassional Lesser Healing Wave (oh and I don’t die from one hit of the fire on my shammy *ahem*). On four horsemen I tanked a boss easily – I could not do that on my shaman as, when I tried, I was taking too much damage whilst running which I couldn’t outheal.
It took me a little while to get used to stacking hots before damage hit but I got into the swing of it eventually – though I had to train myself not to abuse the instants so much as I felt they were running me out of mana too quickly.
Some things felt similar, though – I have at least one familiar button in Nature’s Swiftness and the mix of tank and raid healing abilities was present – if skewed in the other direction slightly.
I cannot wait for dual-specs – I love feral tanking spec as my druid and it will always be my ‘first love’ druid-wise but I did rather enjoy sitting back, chilling, and throwing some hots. Even if I did feel horribly OP.
Randomly…
Male draenei look ‘interesting’ in little black dresses. Screenshots are in the works along with a few other, interesting, Valentines themed pictures. *grin*
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Sounds pretty awesome to me! :D
Face the facts Aurik – you’re simply an excellent healer (player), regardless of the class you currently play ;)
(and you will NOT publish those screenshots *threaten*)
No! Don’t nerf druids! D:
I’ve been running similar experiments with my druid alt and have come to the same conclusions as you (though my druid healing is definitely rooted in BC; <3 lifebloom). Remember, druid mana regen will be getting hit with the nerfbat in 3.1, so enjoy it while you can. Shaman will be largely unaffected.
Nice work :D
I have a full complement of alts, except a druid. I still have a slot left….
If only the Horde had two classes that could play druid. /sigh My cows all die horribly in their early teens.
@Softi: Filthy druid! ;)
@Indi: As much as I’d love that to be true, I can’t come to the same conclusion given that I know you’re an absoloutely excellent healer on whom I relied when I first started healing as a shammy and my druid was so much lower in gear I shouldn’t have been able to over-output you regardless of (my lack of) skill.
/hugs for being so awesomely nice to me all the time though. You know well how to handle a temperamental healbot ;)
As for the screenshots, I make no promises!
@Salanthe: Yeah, I have to say I’ve always been envious of spirit regen oo5sr – my non-casting mp5 is only about 150-200mp5 more than when I am casting.
@Keeva: I thank your guide for making sure I didn’t get entirely lost when it came to setting up grid for Lifebloom!
@Shawndra: I love moo’s – my first druid was a tauren and I have always loved big, fluffy cows as a playable race. Wtb Tauren for the alliance!
Why didn’t anybody suggest the possibility that the other healers just suck? :P Not that I’d truly believe that.
The causes could be the style you healed in or amount of certain spells cast (wild growth, for example). The amount of healing done isn’t really a very good indication of how well you healed compared to other healers due to druid healing being considered just spike damage buffer by some.
As for the spirit nerf I’m quite upset. I don’t just regen mana with spirit… I get spellpower, too. They’re nerfing druid healing as a whole… not just mp5. And all because other classes are providing too much replenishment? Unacceptable.
P.S.: I NEED those screenshots.
Kagrra: As I mentioned, I’ve healed with Valeris before and she does not suck – in fact, despite being an alt now, she can often outheal some peoples mains :o!
I’m in total agreement that healing done does not equal skill in healing but I am amazed at having so much output with a low level of gear.
re: The spirit nerf, it should not hurt your healing from spirit at all, as I heard. All they are doing is reducing the amount of mana you will gain outside the 5sr with the same amount of spirit whilst boosting it slightly within combat – essentially making it closer to mp5.
I could also turn it around and say why should replenishment specs not be welcome in raids because healers can regen too much mana? ;)
Don’t take it too hard, Kaggmoo, I don’t want to see anyone nerfed I was just really surprised at the amount of output a druid healer could do with such low gear, as I said.
Screenshots shall be up within the hour! :3
I must admit that post came as a shock to me – I mean I saw you cursing us on Twitter, but still! Personally though I could still be set in my TBC days. My healing tends to go along as “LB, LB, LB, ooh bit o’ damage there! Regrowth! AMG TANKSGONNADIE!! Instant HT BOOOOOM!”
Notice the lack of Wild Growth or Nourish in there? ;) I also don’t make as much use of Swiftmend as I should. That being said I usually come down second or third of our Naxx healers – but it’s also worth pointing out I’m the worst geared by FAR.
So yes, that’s my input on the subject :)
@Rosi: I’m a shammy first, so my instant reaction to raid damage is to fire off AoE healing ^^; I wasn’t spamming AoE healing but Naxx does have enough of it that WG ends up being really useful – especially if you don’t have a priest with you.
Nourish I really wasn’t sure about – I knew it wasn’t *that* mana efficient but I found it better to use than (unglyphed) healing touch as it healed for the ‘right amount’ and I was o5sr faster using it. Swiftmend I keep forgetting, too – I need to get myself powerauras or something to prod me to use swiftmend ^^;
To be fair to all you druids… I’m going to post a similar thing about shamans when I can next get some Naxx numbers. *goes off to see if he can find a WWS parse*.