**EDIT: I did an update to this post recently that more accurately reflects what you should know about Druids. Read it here if you like!**
I’m often surprised at what people DON’T know about the healing Druid. Having played one for so long, as my main, I sometimes assume that everyone understands our strengths, weaknesses and abilities. Time and again I’m reminded that that plain isn’t true. Just because everyone has driven in a car, that doesn’t mean they’d now how to drive one. With that in mind, here are five things you should know about your leafy resident healing Druid.
1) Our CC and Buffing Abilities are Limited
We aren’t your typical healing/utility class. When you get down to it, Druid Healers are basically a One Trick Pony. We only have 2 buffs that can be cast on other players that are useful at all, and for the most part we only really use one. Mark of the Wild. It’s a buff that makes sense with the Druid class, as it doesn’t have any one strength as a buff, it just sort of helps everything. Still, our ability to buff ALL of your resistances, stats and armor is nothing to sneeze at. **Doh! Forgot one, thanks Another Tree! -Pummra** We do also have the Tree of Life aura, which increases healing received by group members by 25% of our spirit. This means Druids LOVE to stack spirit and we often find a place in the same group as the main tank in a raid situation.!
As far as CC goes, yes, we do have some CC. It’s just nearly useless. Entangling Roots can only be used outside. Cyclone can be cast anywhere, but it’s duration is pitiful and useless. We can also put beasts to sleep, but how often are we asked to? Not very. Don’t rely on us for CC, even if we are in a situation where it’s useful, as there’s a good chance we’re out of practice with it. Expect to hear, “Ok, let me find it and put it on my bar.”
2) Utility Spells We DO Have
On a positive note, don’t forget that we can cure poisons and remove curses. I often hear “Druids can DeCurse?” Yes, we can. We have to pop out of tree form to do so, but we can.
3) We Won’t Rez You
It’s not that we don’t like you. We’re not messing with you because of that smart remark about our sister last week. We just can’t do it. I’m still shocked when I hear that people don’t know this, or forget. If a druid is your only healing type around, expect to run back after wipes. Our rez is on a 20 minute cooldown, so we generally save it for “need” situations. Trust me, you’ll be glad you have us when you pull aggro on the boss fight and go down in 2.3 seconds, only to have us bring you right back up. If you’re nice to us, that is.
4) Spike Damage is the Bane of Our Existence
You know how I mentioned that time you pulled aggro on the boss fight? Yeah, don’t do it. While we have the best HOTs in the game (and I’ll get to those in a second) we have the hardest time of any healer with spike damage. Our big heal is slower than any other heal, and we have to pop out of tree form to use it. Our only avenue for a big, instant heal is Nature’s Swiftness, which has a significant cooldown, and Swiftmend if specced for it. Nature’s Swiftness is only good for once fast heal, and Swiftmend just doesn’t compare to a flash heal or the like.
Basically, don’t pull aggro, because chances are we can’t keep you up, especially if we’re in a heroic, and you’re wearing cloth. We won’t even feel bad about it, as there’s really nothing we can do about it. Omen is your friend!
5) HOT, HOT, HOT
We do, however, have the best selection of HOTs in the game. Any tank worth his salt loves a good Resto Druid, and his stack of 3 Lifeblooms and a Rejuvenation. You know those times when it seems like the tank isn’t taking any damage? Look around for your druid and thank him. Our great HOT selection is what makes us so revered in the raiding environment. They way some of those bosses hit, you need a constant stream of healing, and a well-geared Resto Druid can bring just that.
As I see it, we have two strengths in the raiding environment. One, we make excellent raid healers. While a Shaman can heal multiple targets with one spell, a Druid can throw out five or six HOTs in the blink of an eye. A single Lifebloom is often enough to top off any spray damage the raid might take. Our second strength is rolling HOTs on boss fights. Though you might want to assign us to raid healing, make sure you take advantage of our true strength on boss fights. A triple stack of Lifebloom ticking for 600+ every second, along with a Rejuv ticking for 600+ as well is a glorious thing. Don’t forget to use it.
There you have it. Some of these things seem trivial to bring up, but you’d be surprised at what people don’t know. 
Some other Blog Azeroth bloggers have similar posts if you’d like to read them. Anna of Toomanyannas.com wrote about Shaman, and Aos over on Flux wrote about Tanks. Enjoy!
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I finally decided to write a comment on your blog. I just wanted to say good job. I really enjoy reading your posts.
Tina Russell
I’ll have to point my new friends to this. They’re clueless about trees. You missed a buff though. We have Tree of Life aura and non-druids forget that it buffs healing RECEIVED. Put the main tank in the resto druid group even if the druid is raid healing.
Buffs and CC – Our CC ability is very limited, I agree. However, such raids as Zul’Aman and Hyjal are outdoors and Entangling Roots could serve a purpose in a pinch. I think Cyclone is only good for saving your own ass in a heartbeat and unfortunately, it doesn’t work on every mob. Also, though it seems minimal, Thorns is good for additional aggro on your tanks. We also offer Faeire Fire as a debuff, which in turn helps the group/raid and works great on the 3rd boss set in Magister’s Terrace, preventing the rogue from stealthing and destroying the group.
Utility – Remove curse, cure poison (multiple poisons with one cast), being immune to Polymorph, still having cat form and the ability to stealth and even having a stun (when in Bear).
Rezzing – Yes, 1 rez every 20 min is not for bringing up lazy people. It is for bringing up a dead dps when the boss is near death, bringing up another healer to help keep the raid alive, or in extreme cases, bringing your MT back. I know alot of Resto Druids who took on the Engineering profession just to get another rez possibility with the Goblin Jumper Cables XL.
Healing – I’ve always looked at Druids and Priests as great group healers and Pallys and Shaman as the better Tank healers. Though, I did know one Resto Druid who was a fantastic MT healer, even in places like Kara, Gruul’s and ZA.
HOTs – My first true love for Resto HOTs came when I saw that our druid could heal the victims of Moroes’ garrotte through the ticking damage with the greatest of ease. Nothing like “set it and forget it” healing.
When I first ran across this article, I expected a reasonably witty dissection about the finer points of druiding. Instead, I found myself reading what seemed less of a “Let me illustrate our strengths with a subtle hat-tipping to our weaknesses” and more an argument to why I’d never want to take a druid anywhere. A good resto druid is an incredibly versatile healing machine, regardless of a supposed buff-lackage or crowd control. Generally speaking, when I’m prepared to tank an instance, I’ll take any healer who’s quick on the draw.
I’d go so far as to say that you’re not doing your job as a resto druid if you’re not anticipating spike damage, which can be easily mitigated with a well timed NS, Swiftmend or a Cyclone, if you’re not debuffing with IS and Faerie Fire, if you’re not Hibernating anything when it’s applicable (I used to do this regularly in heroic instances and in BT) and if you’re not automatically giving the tank Thorns whenever it’s up. Any buff, however small, is an edge, and I can’t even begin to explain how important all of the above are on a tightly-tuned encounter like Brutallus. My thorns alone did over 7003 damage to him before we all bought it. He’s the perfect example of how druid buffs and debuffs can add up, and while not everyone is trying to slam an 11million HP Pit Lord on steroids in six minutes, it just goes to show that all of that can be utilized on a normal instance-to-instance basis.
Unless you’re purposefully trying to “poke fun” at your class, I suggest that in the future, you try illustrating how our “nearly useless” abilities can also be strengths.
Runycat–
I think one thing you might be missing is the perspective here. I wasn’t trying to argue whether or not Druids make good healers. I believe Druids make GREAT healers, and can be integral to any group, raid or high level encounter. Rather, I wanted to make a post to help the ill-informed and “clueless” understand what our strengths and weaknesses were. This was largely inspired by other bloggers I had seen do similar treatments to their classes, but it was also inspired by the groups I have been in that flat out don’t understand our strengths and weaknesses.
For instance…
The group where the DPS sits around waiting for a rez after a tough encounter, expecting me to blow my Battle Rez.
The Kara raid that is using me only as a raid healer, and leaving the healing of the tanks to priests.
I’m also not saying we CAN’T handle spike damage, but certainly every other healing class can handle it better than a druid. Now, skill does play a factor and I personally don’t have real problems with it, as I stay on my toes and aware. I can anticipate damage and start a regrowth rolling fairly easily, or be prepared to hit NS or SM. Still, a priest, shammy or pally will be more effective in mitigating large spikes of damage.
In the end, I think we can quickly agree on one thing, skill means a lot more than anything else when it comes to healing. I’ve greatly outperformed healers that had much more experience and better gear than I, because I am able to anticipate. Thanks for reading!
[...] writing this post in response to a recent post by Pummra of Part Time Druid in which he details several of the strengths and weaknesses of our [...]
Pummra this got me wondering what the best druid healing assignments in 10 and 25 player raids are. Should they usually heal the tank, the raid, or both. A druid has time for 5-8 lifeblooms depending on their haste and how many other spells they need to cast like rejuventation. That is enough to fully stack two tanks with lifeblooms, stack one tank and some on the raid, or fully on the raid. Since the other healing classes don’t stack spells and druids have difficulties with spike damage it seems that except for raid healing they will always be sharing healing targets. How would you assign healing targets in the raid with our leafy friends?
Aos–
Here is how I assign healing roles in Karazhan. I normally assign myself to the offtank, and a Pally or Priest to the main tank, then a Shammy or Priest to the raid. The reason I assign myself (a druid) the offtank, is that the offtank doesn’t often take much damage. That frees me up to “help where needed.” I spend most of the trash pull time helping out with raid healing and doing a little DPS. During boss fights I let the healers know I will roll lifebloom on one or both tanks, depending on the fight.
A lot of this also depends on the healer’s gear levels. A tree with a lot of plus healing can fill ANY role (my Lifebloom ticks in the 600 range, and I am not all THAT well geared….all Kara stuff), and might be best served rolling lifeblooms on the tanks.
As far as 25 mans, you have to assign based on skill and knowledge more than gear or class, IMO.
Tranquility. For when that pug you’re in takes a turn for the noobtacular.
IMO, a tree raid-healing is tree with broken limbs. Seven seconds isn’t fast enough to counter damage that would kill the damaged raider, and most other raid healers will probably overheal the LB anyway. Trees are multi-tank healers, and I would hope the raid leader would assign any/all trees to rolling LB and rejuv on as many tanks as he they can handle. Let the CoH priests and chain-healing shammies raid heal, because they will do it -far- better. One could argue that nobody can come close to what we do, but neither can we do what everyone else does. At least, not well enough to make it a viable option in difficult raiding scenarios.
sorry for posting on an old thread, I’m playing catch-up today
i really enjoyed reading this. it makes me feel better about being a tree XD
i do believe hots on the tank is the best use for us. If a raider did take aggro off a tank a hot wouldnt be enough to save him/her.