You lucky people (hehe).

So got dragged (kicking and screaming) into Heroic VH last night – Ok I organised the group so kicking and screaming may not be the correct words I felt the time was right to test out the mana regen and see whether the druid healer is as bad as some people are suggesting.

Quick answer – we are still very good.

Lifebloom has been hotfixed already (thats pretty impressive – wish they’d fix all bugs that fast) so there was no “instahela” available for our tank – the party was 3 guildies and a couple of pugs – and it was “squishy city” 1 DK (tank), 1Druid (me), 2 Shadow Priests & A Mage – so any mobs slip the tank and we had a potential healing nightmare – fortuantely it was one of out guild MT’s so we were covered nicely there. I was suffering with lag (around 400ms) so I started with a suitable apology if anyone died.

In all fairness it’s not a particularly challenging instance, but the 2nd boss can be a little tricky (Zuramat the Obliterator) and we had a 100% survival rate which I was happy with. Lifebloom is still usable but the bloom is often overhealing (but essential to get the mana back) I found stacking this on the tank only with a rejuv was more than enough to keep him topped off – with the occasional need for a nourish (which I still need the glyph for) and a Regrowth now and then. The “clothies” when they managed to pick the aggro (it happens when they aren’t watching the tanks target lol) they were losing 1/3 health a hit so had to be fast on the Wild Growth (instant health back) then following up with Nourishes.

A smooth run even with occasional lag spikes, no deaths – which always makes me feel good, and of course Emblems which I need only three more to get my off hand item…… The Handbook of Obscure Remedies.

All in all I do want to do some more testing, but seems 3.1 aint that bad but as always I love to hear your thoughts and comments

Buel

morning all, well 3.1 has finally landed and with it comes all new shiney goodies……

Wow what a patch, caused a little controversy what with the mana regen “nerf” and then the lifebloom mana issues, it seems our tanking brothers and sisters (druids) have issues with the HP loss, this is you hosts look at the patch and what it means to me (us?).

Now for those who know me – i’m not gunna list of massives amounts of stats & figures, theres places around better at that than I am, I’ll stick to my findings and experiences. lets start with my spec, I did my exact build as before – theres a couple of renamed talnets in there but generally it’s the same goodness inside the tin no matter what the lable says (analagies this time in the morning) on the whole this build suits MY playstyle (your thoughts are always encouraged) I did indeed grab myself the dual spec and go for a rather pleasant Boomkin Spec which I am currently using for solo play (things actually die after one or two hits now rather than 9 or 10 hits). I grabbed myself a friendly warlock guild friend (Sebista) very useful for Life Tapping then I can watch the heal’s going on to check the ticks and the mana issues.

Mana Regen……. Yes it’s down on previous figures, before I was clocking about 1k (buffed) now I’m around the 550 which is as we all expected Intensity has been buffed to give an additional 20% mana regen whilst casting so to be honest it’s the out of combat thats the worst mana regen – but we can always drink then very easily, not saying that in casting isn’t affected, it is but it means we have to be a little more careful with our spell usage, and we still have innervate to fall back on, it gives about 3/4 of a bar back now (about 11.2k mana) which isn’t to be sniffed at.

Lifebloom……. I honestly cant make up my mind on this one, yes I know why it had to be changed – frankly it was a little overpowered we could keep this up constantly, it was cheap to cast and if the target needed the extra boost, we just let it bloom, hey it was cheap enough to simply recast it again, well now at 28% of base mana to cast (on me thats about 785 mana – including the 20% discount for being a tree 980 mana in Tauren form) it’s a costly number however it has benefits, rather nice benefits. Take this scenario, your healing away, keeping a LB up on the tank (3 stacks) in a raid situation, the other healer has stopped either oom, died, DC’d whatever it’s down to you to save a wipe, this spell now has a bloom on dispel/removal not just when it ends, so the tank can right click to remove the spell aura, or heck you can provide a nice removeaura macro (theres loads already floating around) that removes LB and causes the bloom, yours truly tested this last night it was blooming between 8-12k thats an outstanding “instaheal” and guess what we get half that mana used back (1175 mana) thats not to be sniffed at – sure we have to recast and reapply 3 stacks but it does seem quite a good alternative healing pot, or healthstone…… might just be enough to save a wipefest? See wht I mean about I cant make my mind up on this one? Sure if you get a PUG tank who cant stop clicking it, then it’s gunna get costly, and time to stop giving it to them. Not sure if it’s gunna be my #1 spell or rejuv will be back in that spot

The Argent Tournament…….. honestly I’ve not laughed so much trying to ride a chicken whilst thrusting a lance into things – it took me ages to actually win a dual cos I couldn’t see straight with tears rolling down my face….. it does however seem this could be quite a good “world event” theres some nice loot in there, and again another place of refuge from pvp if you should need it. I’m not currently doing any other dailies so I might try sepending a little time up here.

On the whole I quite liked the patch, it’s gunna make healing harder and make us think more about healing rather than just throwing spells around “willy nilly”, I”m yet to get my first taste of healing in anger but I’m sure that will come over the coming weekend as I strive for yet more Emblems to get my epic offhand.

More to come this week…… Featured Site of the week (probably later today).

Buel

My first post which looks at mechanics of the druid rather than aimlessly rambling.

The upcoming changes in 3.1 indicate a nerf to Lifebloom.

Lifebloom: Mana cost of all ranks doubled. When Lifebloom blooms or is dispelled, it now refunds half the base mana cost of the spell per application of Lifebloom, and the heal effect is multiplied by the number of applications.

Looking around at the official forums and the not so official forums over at elistist jerks, mmo-champion etc there seems to be alot of Nerf shouts, now I’m new to a druid, and new to healing so my comments don’t carry years of experience but my initial thoughts are with the upcoming spirit based mana regen nerf and innervate will recover potentially 75% of a full bar (compared with currently 125% of the bar) this would seem to be quite a hit, with my limited healing experience I have used LB quite intensively so double mana will make me think twice about throwing them around with reckless abandon (which ultimately is what the devs are trying to make us do).  It would seem it’s not all bitter, on bloom or dispell it refunds some mana (always nice to have a little back).

Now I also noted that there is some lovin’ for Intensity:

Intensity: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting

Thats up from 10/20/30 currently, so in all fairness it’s no all bad news.

I appreciate that of late we (druids) seem to be getting a rough deal, I dont think we are particularly underpowered, but other classes do seem OP compared with us (DK’s, hunters to name 2). For me it’s not worth re-rolling over and it should be said that this is only PTR and will change another 10 times befor release it’s all one big learning curve for me, and this will just add to the fun and frustrations.

As always these are my random thoughts, and if you disagree – well thats good, leave me a comment and we can discuss.
L2Heal