A lot of things are about the change, for Resto Druids and for everyone else.  Patch 3.0 and the new talent trees are right around the corner.  We’re going to have new tricks to use, and we all will have a lot to learn.  With all of the changes, though, a lot of things will stay the same.  I thought it would be appropriate to take the time to look back before we look forward to our coming fancy tricks. 

What makes a good druid healer a great druid healer?

I’ve been around the block as a Resto Druid.  I’ve been a part of kills from Leotheras the Blind to Shade of Akama to Zul’jin.  In my time, I’ve worked with quite a few other druid healers, and I’ve also seen how other druid healers play while DPSing with my hunter.  I think I can give a fair estimation of some keys that separate the men from the boys.

Druids are the most efficient healers in the game.  With our innervate ability and our high mana efficiency, we have more healing longevity than other healers.  Also, our healing style is more pro-active and less re-active.  That translates into less over-healing or "wasted" healing and an overall higher rate of effective healing.  A great druid healer will often find him or herself on top of the overall healing charts.  (Excepting, of course, those fights that involve a lot of group-intensive healing, like Hex Lord Malacrass, for instance.)

You can be a good druid healer just by managing lifebloom stacks and rejuvenation rotations efficiently, along with throwing in the occasional regrowth.

In order to be a great druid healer, however, there are a few tools and philosophies you must have a firm grasp on.  Let’s take a look at those.

Swiftmend

The first tool that many druid healers lose sight of is Swiftmend.  If I see a druid in a raid that is in the middle to the bottom of the healing charts, I first look at their breakdowns to see if they are using Swiftmend often.

They usually are not, and often aren’t using it at all.

As a confession, I literally NEVER used Swiftmend in my early career as a druid healer.  I concentrated almost solely on getting the feel for rolling lifebloom stacks with rejuv and regrowth thrown in when necessary.  This got me through regular dungeons and T4 content fairly easily.

Once I hit up heroics, though, the rules changed.  I needed a way to deal with damage spikes when lifebloom and my other HOTs weren’t quite doing the job.  I soon learned the glory of Swiftmend.

Swiftmend is instant cast, has a reasonable mana cost, and it can heal for a LOT.  (As an aside, you’ll notice it will consume either a rejuv or regrowth.  If you have both spells active on the target, it will consume the one with the least time remaining.)  My average swiftmend of a rejuvenation is in the  neighborhood of 3700 or so.  If the swiftmend crits (yes, it can crit) I can heal for upwards of 6k instantly. 

I don’t know why I see so many druids that don’t use this often, but I do.  I think perhaps the tooltip doesn’t quite do it justice.  I can’t tell you how many times swiftmend has saved my bacon, and with that short cooldown I use it recklessly. 

One other note about swiftmend is that it doesn’t matter how many "ticks" are left on your rejuv or regrowth, it will heal the same amount.  So one of the best times to use it is when your HOT is just about to expire.  Unless, of course, you are using it because the tank is about to die.

Nature’s Swiftness

This is our other "oh crap" button for instantly dealing out some big time healing.  It’s also the other druid skill that many druids don’t use often enough.

Couple this spell with healing touch, and you have yourself a fancy little 6k+ instant heal.  You can also use NS to make regrowth instant cast, but for the most part I reserve it for use with my biggest possible heal.  About the only time I use healing touch is when I use NS to make it insta cast.  Sure, it pops you out of tree form (until 3.0, anyway) but it’s worth it if the tank is about to go down.

NS can also be useful to make rebirth instant cast.  If your OT goes down mid fight, you can have them back up, well, instantly. 

I think perhaps people overestimate the cooldown, and that factors into how often they use NS.  They try to reserve it for those true "oh crap" moments.  With a 3 minute cooldown, though, use it early, and use it often.

The Flow

The third thing I would like to address is not quite as concrete as a particular skill you should be using.  My last point focuses on the "flow" of druid healing.

In essence, what separates the great druid healers from the merely good druid healers is how efficiently they manage the global cooldown.  Because so many of our tools are instant cast, we have to focus more closely on the GCD than any other healing class.  For other healers, the GCD is a mere afterthought.  For a druid healer, the GCD is everything.

You’ll often have the task of HOTing up multiple targets.  If you want to be able to run a full complement of HOTs on more than one target, you have to be able to manage the GCD in such a way that ALL your HOTs are up at ALL TIMES.  It’s easy to keep everything on one target at a time, and in fact in those situations I often find myself bored.  If I have to handle 2, 3 or even 4 targets, though, I really have to be on my toes. 

This is where the flow comes in.  In my opinion, you need to have a FEEL for the GCD more than anything.  You have to get an inner sense of how quickly you can cast the next spell.  If I am really on my game, I get into a zone when it comes to managing my HOTs.  On a good night, I can keep full lifebloom stacks on as many as four targets fairly easily.  I can also keep a full lifebloom stack WITH rejuv and regrowth on 2 targets if I’m really feeling the GCD.

It’s difficult for me to quantify exactly how you would go about this.  In my estimation, this largely depends on experience running HOTs on multiple targets.  Over time, you just plain KNOW when you can cast your next spell with no wasted motion or keystrokes, and without allowing a lifebloom stack to expire unless you want it to.  I don’t know of any mods that can really help you with this, though the use of a mod like Clique or Healbot along with any HOT timing mod can make it much easier.  My suggestion is that you just keep on keeping on, and try to push your abilities whenever possible.  Experiment, and see just how many targets you can keep fully HOTed at once. 

If you have a good grasp of the GCD and the flow of druid healing, you can also quite easily work in assistance on other targets.  You’ll know when you can spare a GCD for a lifebloom on a DPS, for instance, or when is the best time to reapply regrowth to the tank.  The best druid healers, in my experience, are those that seem to constantly be casting.  You don’t see them standing there motionless, they almost always have their hands flying back up in the air for their next spell. 

If I see a druid who’s hands fly up only every 4 seconds or so, there is a good chance that they aren’t performing to their full capabilities. 

I know this entire last section is a bit vague, and perhaps more difficult to understand.  I also know, however, that any experienced druid healers reading this will know exactly what I’m talking about.  It’s kind of like when Michael Jordan occasionally got in the zone and "went off" on the opposition.  If you have a good grasp of the flow of druid healing, you’ll often find yourself in your own little healing zone, and the overall healing numbers will definitely bear that out.

Conclusion

I know it can be easy to lean on lifebloom and the occasional rejuvenation and be successful as a druid healer.  If you want to excel, however, you have to use ALL of our tools.  Swiftmend and Nature’s Swiftness are often ignored, and they shouldn’t be.  Anyone who tells you that druids have no good way of dealing with spike damage may have just never played with a great resto druid.  I’m also well aware of the fact that things are going to be changing quite a bit fairly soon.  In my opinion, though, the essence of what makes a great druid healer will remain the same.

Use all your tools, practice, and get yourself into the flow.  I know meters don’t mean everything, but that doesn’t mean it’s not nice to perform well.  Strive for excellence in druidic healing, and you can get there!

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 11:29 pm and is filed under Druid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.