Patch 5.2 brings with it multiple changes for the Druid and quite a few of those effect us Resto Druid Healers. With changes to the entire ‘Crowd Control’ tier along with a number of changes to some healing talents, these changes are somewhat small, so it would appear that Blizzard are getting closer to being somewhat satisfied with the position the Resto Druid is in.
Have a read through our analysis of the changes to the Resto Druid and why not let us know what you think about the changes. Remember these are PTR Patch notes, which could change anytime and may never go live. We will try to keep them updated when we can. These changes are going live March 5th 2013. Continue on to the changes after the break:
For a quick & easy summary head to ‘What you need to know as a healer for Patch 5.2‘.
Displacer Beast has been redesigned. It now triggers Cat Form and grants 50% increased movement speed for 4 seconds after teleporting, and no longer activates Prowl.
Not a hugely relevant change to a Resto Druid, but worth mentioning. It doesn’t activate Prowl anymore but will give a speed boost instead.
Cenarion Ward now grants 100% increased healing.
Directly increases the Heal over Time this talent grants by twice the amount. An increase in any healing is a welcome change to Resto Druids.
Rejuvenation now costs approximately 9% less mana.
Just a reduction to the cost of Rejuvenation, a common spell for the Resto Druid. This will be an even more staple spell to cast on party and raid members now as less mana spent can mean more casts.
Revive and Mark of the Wild now cost 55% less mana.
Just a reduction to the mana cost of these two spells, shouldn’t make a big difference to gameplay, but handy should a party/raid member die and they need rebuffing.
Faerie Swarm can now snare more than one target at a time.
Now it can be placed on more than one target at a time, which could be handy should you happen to have high threat on targets. May give time for your tank to pick up said targets.
Mass Entanglement now has a 30 second cooldown (was 2 minutes).
Cool down change on the talent Mass Engtanglement meaning it can be used more often than previously. Another enhancement for crowd control and great for PvP.
Typhoon now has a 30 second cooldown (was 20 seconds).
An extra 10 seconds on the cooldown for this spell, not a huge change but something to be aware of.
The Treants summoned by Force of Nature now deal more damage and healing, and the Force of Nature tooltip will report the capabilities of these summoned pets.
Force of Nature is a talent that summons treants to help you heal allies (if you’re a Resto Druid). With this patch these summoned creatures should do more healing. This is probably to bring it inline with the other talents that are in the same tier.
Soul of the Forest
Restoration: Now grants 70% Haste on the next spell cast after the Druid casts Swiftmend.
The Soul of the Forest talent previously provided 50% haste on the next spell after casting Swiftmend, so a 20% increase is a decent upgrade to this talent.
Nature’s Vigil now has a 90 second cooldown (was 3 minutes), and now increases damage and healing done by 10% (was 20%).
Though the healing of this max-level tier 6 talent has been cut in half, so has the cooldown, meaning it can be used twice as often. This shouldn’t make too much of a difference for our healing abilities.
Naturalist: This new passive learned at level 10 by Restoration Druids increases all healing done by the Druid by 10%.
A baseline ability is a passive ability so you won’t need to keybind it. It will improve healing by all Restoration Druids by 10%. It’s not a huge change, but a necessary one to hopefully bring Resto Druids in line with other healers as their current healing ability isn’t bad, but it’s a little bit behind the rest in 5.1.
Wild Mushrooms will now gain 25% of the overhealing performed by the Druid’s Rejuvenation effects, up to a maximum of 33% of the Druid’s health in bonus healing, and growing larger as they do so. When Wild Mushroom: Bloom is cast, this bonus healing will be divided evenly amongst targets in the area of effect.
Wild Mushrooms for Resto Druids takes the overhealing (the heals that occur on targets but don’t actually heal because they already have full health) done by rejuvenation and kind of “stores” it in your mushrooms up to a maximum of 33% of your health. So if you overheal your party/raid enough, you can have a 120k+ (at level 90 depending on your health pool) heal ready to be detonated and split amongst targets near your mushroom. The fact they grow is just a visual effect.
Wild Mushrooms as a spell has always been somewhat lacking, but Blizzard is continuing to attempt to make this a viable ability for healers. This is a positive change and shows they recognize this spell is not ideal as it currently is. The global cool downs it requires (you have to press it 3 times to place them and then another to detonate) and it’s ramp up time (overhealing isn’t done instantly by Resto Druids) still means this spell may not even be part of the Resto Druids core spell use, but it’s a step in the right direction.
That’s about it for the Resto Druid changes at this stage. Remember these patch notes refer to the 5.2 PTR and could be changed at any time and some if not all of these changes may or may not go live.
What are your thoughts about these Resto Druid changes?