Greetings fellow Druids and welcome to the post that is: Patch 5.4 changes for healing Resto Druids! Patch 5.4 is due to be released on the 10th of September, 2013, which is not far away now. This is a big content patch with many class changes, new items and a brand new raid. Get ready to take down the mighty Garrosh in the Siege of Orgrimmar!
Your best chance of taking down the mighty Garrosh involves playing your role as a Resto Druid and healing as best you can. And you can only heal at your best if you know what has changed for Resto Druids since Patch 5.4, which is where we come into it.
In this post you will find the official patch notes, including only the notes that directly effect Resto Druid in game play. We strive to improve our readers’ abilities to heal in the latest content, so we have taken out all the fluff and just focus on game play. So have a read below and let us know what you think. If you enjoy this post or find it useful, please do share it with your friends via Facebook and/or Twitter.
General
Faerie Fire now has a duration of 20 seconds while in PvP combat (down from 40 seconds).
Not a huge change for us really, especially for any non-PvPers, but worth mentioning nonetheless. It basically means that, when you apply Faerie Fire to a player of the opposite faction, the debuff will last for 20 seconds instead of the 40 seconds. The debuff time will still be 40 seconds for non-player enemies. Faerie Swarm (the talent) will act the same bar the additional slowing debuff.
Innervate now restores mana based on the Druid’s Spirit.
Currently on the live realms, Innvervate provides us with 10% of our mana back over 10 seconds when we cast it on ourselves. With this change, it will no longer be a set percentage amount and will change depending on our Spirit stat. This will make a more dramatic change to non-Resto Druids, as Spirit is not a required stat for those specs.
Your Spirit will need to be around 12,000 at maximum level to return approx. the same amount of mana that it would have previously. At the current level of gear, this amount of spirit is easily obtainable without having to sacrifice too much of your other important stats. But it will depend on what kind of stat set up you’re running with. At least we’ve been provided with the guarantee it will not restore less than 8% of our maximum mana.
Teleport: Moonglade now returns the Druid to a location near their original departure point when the spell is cast while in the Moonglade area.
A very welcome change to a somewhat rarely used spell. Instead of using your Moonglade spell and then having to waste your Hearthstone, this will simply send you back to a location “near” your original departure location – this may mean you will be returned to the closes inn or graveyard from where you came from. Much like the Monk’s Zen: Pilgrimage.
Wild Mushroom for Restoration Druids now summons a single mushroom at the friendly target’s location. If the mushroom is recast, the mushroom moves to the new location and retains its accumulated bonus healing.
- A single mushroom now heals for as much as what 3 mushrooms combined healed for previously.
- The amount of healing stored on a Wild Mushroom is now reduced by Battle Fatigue.
- Wild Mushroom and Wild Mushroom: Bloom now have a shared 3-second cooldown.
The Blizzard Developers continue to change and adjust this pesky Wild Mushroom spell and we Resto Druids are probably getting sick of having to re-learn this spell with every large content patch. However, this is probably the best iteration of the spell so far and hopefully won’t change too much in the future.
First of all, we only need worry about placing ONE Mushroom instead of 3 as it currently is on live. This will save on global cool downs(time in-between placing Mushrooms). Secondly, the Mushroom retains it’s healing power that it gains from the rejuvenation overheals even if you recast it. And thirdly, by default, you no longer HAVE to click and then click again to set the Mushroom in a location. It will instead drop wherever your current target is. You do have the option to re-enable the click-to-place ability if you wish, through the new Minor glyph: Glyph of the Sprouting Mushroom, which we’ll talk about later.
Even though the actual heal itself provides less healing as there is only 1 Mushroom now, this change gives us way more control over the way this spell will heal our groups and raids. The key to this spell is and always has been aimed to be the burst-AoE healing that it does. Having a strong heal stored up that can be unleashed instantly (if pre-emptively placed) and burst-AoE heal your raid members is invaluable. Note that Wild Mushroom and Wild Mushroom: Bloom now have a shared 3-second cooldown and Wild Mushroom: Bloom retains it’s 10 second cool down upon Bloom. So you can re-cast the Wild Mushroom in another location every 3 seconds, but you can only Bloom once every 10 seconds and it must be 3 seconds after placement.
Also note the new Glyph of Efflorescence and Glyph of Sprouting Mushroom that can change the way Wild Mushroom can work. We discuss these Glyphs later in the Glyphs sections.
Wrath now deals 10% more damage, but has its mana cost increased by 50%.
Though we don’t use this spell much as a Resto Druid, it’s worth taking note of, should you have chosen either Dream of Cenarius or Nature’s Vigil as your Tier 6 talent, for these spells involve Wrath. Just be sure to watch your mana as a 50% increase could surprise you!
Restoration
Genesis is a new Restoration spell learned at level 88. Genesis targets all party or raid members within 60 yards and accelerates the casting Druid’s Rejuvenation effects, causing them to heal and expire at 400% of the normal rate. Costs the same amount of mana to cast as Rejuvenation.
A new spell for Resto Druids level 88 and above. A really interesting new spell that puts a bit of “oomph” into one of our most prominent HoTs: Rejuvenation. It basically causes any Rejuvenation HoTs that are on targets to ramp up in speed, healing faster, but also causing them to expire faster. It doesn’t provide any additional ticks.
Along with the change to our Wild Mushrooms, this should give us a little extra burst that we need. It can also have an effect on our Wild Mushrooms, as we ramp up the Rejuvenation using it, any overhealing will also ramp up, causing the Mushroom to reach it’s full potential faster for that explosive splash healing.
Living Seed effects can now stack, up to 50% of the casting Druid’s maximum health, and will no longer be consumed if the target is already at full health.
Living Seed with the ability to stack? Yes please! Living Seed is a passive ability, so you need not worry too much about it, but this is how it should work. Let’s say you crit heal a target with a direct heal such as Swiftmend or Regrowth, which buffs your target with a Living Seed stack worth 30% of that crit heal. The same happens again. Now you have two stacks of 30% of the crit heals. Now when that target is attacked, those 2 stacks “bloom” and will heal that original target. Not bad!
With this passive healing ability now being able to stack, we could see it healing for a substantial amount more. However, this is passive ability that relies on direct heals. We don’t think it will warrant the need for changing our stat priority (currently crit is pretty weak). Note: It just adds the additional heal to the number in the buff and doesn’t show the ‘number’ of stacks on your Living Seed buff.
Swiftmend‘s area-of-effect healing effect is now called Efflorescence.
Just a name change to the AoE healing effect provided by Swiftmend, but coincides with the new Glyph of Efflorescence that we’ll look at later in the notes. Although, I’m pretty sure I’ve been calling that green stuff under the Swiftmend target Efflorescence since it came out!
Wild Mushroom: Bloom is no longer capable of critical strikes, and accumulates overhealing done by Rejuvenation by 100%, down from 150%. Overhealing bonus no longer benefits from Naturalist or Mastery: Harmony.
Another change for Wild Mushroom: Bloom, but of a different kind compared to the one mentioned earlier in the notes. Unfortunately the Bloomin’ things won’t crit anymore! The overhealing or “stored heals” that is gains from Rejuvenation has gone down by 50%. It also does not recieve the benefits of the extra 10% healing bonus from Naturalist or the 10% provided by Mastery: Harmony.
So basically, a nerf. BUT, we believe the changes to the actual function and game play style of our new Wild Mushroom’s will cause us to use it more than we have previously.
Talents
Dream of Cenarius has been completely redesigned to reduce complexity and increase usability, but maintain the spirit of the effects. Benefits now vary by specialization.
- Restoration: Causes Wrath to deal 20% more damage and heals a nearby friendly target for 100% of the damage done.
The current live version of the Dream of Cenarius has always seemed way to complicated, which is why we recommended other talents for this tier to starter players. Now with this change it has made it much less complicated and much more user friendly, just like the notes say it will!
Now, with this change to the talent, you’ll be able to use your Wrath spell on enemy targets at any time(it’s a passive ability) and the damage done will convert to a heal of a nearby party or raid member. This will be great for those down times, allowing you to contribute to increasing DPS while still topping up players health bars. This change to Dream of Cenarius will allow you to play a game style similar to that of Atonement Discipline Priest!
It will be interesting to see if these heals will count as direct heals and cause Living Seeds to stack as well. Keep in mind the change to Wrath’s mana cost, we don’t want to use all our mana using this spell, especially as it can be used at any time.
Heart of the Wild when activated, now also provides a 25% bonus to healing for Restoration Druids.
Another tier 6 talent change, this time to Heart of the Wild. Along with it’s current effect of increasing Intellect at all times and temporarily boosting our off-spec abilities, it will now boost healing across the board for 45 seconds every 6 minutes. We believe this is due to the fact it was hardly chosen as a talent, because honestly, when you’re healing, who has time to do other things like damage spells or melee attacks?! As a healer, we should have talents that effect us as healers.
Anyway, we’re glad for the change and it makes it a lot more competitive against the other two talents in this tier. Having this talent with a cool down of 6 minutes means we’ll be able to use it hopefully twice in boss encounters. That’s 1.5 minutes with healing increased by 25% PLUS the additional 6% Intellect at all times. The boost will apply to Tranquility and it could make our splash-burst healing really strong using our Wild Mushroom: Bloom and our new Genesis spell.
Mass Entanglement no longer has a limit on the number of targets that could be affected, up from 5.
A great change not just because of it’s value in PvP. As a Resto Druid we can sometimes attract some unwanted attention from enemies. This will allow us to stop them all in their tracks before they’re able to be within reach to whack us. This will allow more time for your tank to grab their attention.
Nature’s Swiftness is no longer a talent, and is now an ability learned by Balance and Restoration Druids at level 30.
Nature’s Swiftness available to all Resto Druids?! A welcome change for sure! We’ll take it! This also makes way for a new talent to be implemented into it’s tier 2 level 30 talent spot. We’ll need to change our keybinds, seeing as Nature’s Swiftness is always going to be on our bars from now on.
New talent: Ysera’s Gift. Ysera’s Gift replaces Nature’s Swiftness, and heals the Druid for 5% of their maximum health every 5 seconds. If the Druid is at full health, it will heal the most injured friendly target nearby instead.
Replacing Nature’s Swiftness is the new talent: Ysera’s Gift. This is a passive talent, in other words it will “always be on”. Essentially this is a Heal over Time (HoT) that will continually heal the Druid(yourself) for 5% every 5 seconds. If your health is already at 100%, it will instead heal the most injured party or raid member. Stats and healing bonuses, like the one provided by Nature’s Vigil, will increase the healing effect. We think this talent is going to have favour over the other two talents in this tier. With Nature’s Swiftness being such a necessity, we can see why everyone chose it, but a passive HoT on yourself at all times, we foresee most Resto Druids sticking to this talent instead.
Looking at the numbers of a 5% heal of maximum health every 5 seconds, were you to remain at or under 95% health(at which point the talent is effective to you), you could essentially receive 1% of your maximum health every second, which could be translated into healing you for 120% over 2 minutes. Comparing this to the other same-tier talent Renewal, this is an increase of 90%. This of course is dependant on you always being at or below 95% of your health. Even if you’re at maximum health, someone else may be healed instead, whereas Renewal effects only you.
I think it will be a choice between this new talent and Cenarion Ward, depending on the situation. For more raid-focused damage, go for the passive HoT, for tank-centered healing, opt for the ward.
Nature’s Vigil when activated now increases all damage and healing done by 12% (up from 10%), and causes single-target healing spells to trigger an additional heal on a nearby ally for 25% of the amount healed. This is in addition to the existing effect where it damages a nearby enemy target for 25% of the healing done.
Having boosted both Dream of Cenarius and Heart of the Wild already in these patches, we thought it was to bring them in-line with Nature’s Vigil. But now we’re seeing a buff to this talent as well? Interesting. Well, let’s take a look at the change.
Firstly, a further increase to all damage and healing done by an extra 2%. Why not hey? Ok. Single target healing spells still damage nearby targets as it always has done. No problems there. Now to the tricky stuff. Not only do single target damage spells also heal a friendly target as they have always done, but now single target heals will ALSO heal another nearby friendly target. Again, this is to cater for Resto Druids who don’t like to use damaging abilities when they’re supposed to be healing.
How this will perform against the other two talents in this tier we’re yet to see, but with the short cool down allowing us to have it active for a third of the time during an encounter makes it very appealing. Also considering this is a smart healing talent, it becomes even more attractive. Smart heals seem to be a developer favorite at the moment.
Soul of the Forest has been partially redesigned to make it more attractive to Balance, Guardian, and Restoration Druids.
- Restoration: Now causes the Druid to gain 100% haste (up from 75%) on their next spell after casting Swiftmend.
Simply an increase in the haste bonus applied by the talent Soul of the Forest. A buff to this talent and makes it somewhat more competitive against the other two talents in the same tier.
Major Glyphs
Glyph of Innervate now causes Innervate to give both the Druid and the target 60% of the normal effect of the spell if it’s cast on a target other than the Druid.
The only time this glyph should be used is if you’re in complete sync with another Resto Druid in your party or raid. If you’re confused about this Glyph, here’s how it works. Without the Glyph, if you target another player and use Innervate, they’ll receive 100% of the mana, and you will receive none. With this Glyph, your target will receive 60% of the mana, and you will also receive 60%. Therefore, should you have two Resto Druids and you use this on each, both will receive 2 x 60% mana, for a total of 120% mana. 20% more than if you were to just cast Innervate on yourself without the Glyph.
Like we said, only worth using with another Resto Druid with the exact same Glyph. However, if you’re finding you could manage with a 60% mana return and your non-druid class requires a more mana, this could be an option. In effect, a Glyphed Innervate can return 120% of a mana return to the raid as a whole.
Glyph of Lifebloom‘s effect is now baseline and has been replaced with Glyph of Efflorescence.
It’s great to see the effect of Glyph of Lifebloom become baseline. This means even without the Glyph, if you cast Lifebloom up to 2 or 3 stacks and you then cast Lifebloom on a different target (i.e. an off-tank), the same amount of stacks (2 or 3) will immediately be applied, rather than having to reapply them all again.
Glyph of Efflorescence increases the healing done by Swiftmend by 20%, causes the Efflorescence healing effect to be triggered by Wild Mushroom instead of Swiftmend, and lasts as long as the Wild Mushroom is active.
This is possibly one of the biggest changes to come out of the Patch 5.4 notes for the Resto Druid. Let’s be honest, Swiftmend is one of our essential clutch heals which can save a party or raid member from certain death with it’s instant heal. But sometimes we wish that we didn’t have to spend the AoE (Efflorescence) effect underneath that person who may be standing on their own.
Now, not only does that Swiftmend clutch heal for an extra 20%, but the AoE effect can be disconnected from Swiftmend and attached to your Wild Mushroom instead. Efflorescence will last for the entire time your Wild Mushroom is active, which can be up to 5 minutes! If you recast your Mushroom, the Efflorescence will also be recast. It’s like a movable, endless, Healing Rain for Druids!
Glyph of Master Shapeshifter now reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifts by 100% (up from 90%).
This Glyph will now reduce the mana cost of changing forms (say from feral to bear etc) to absolutely nothing. It’s a situational Glyph that we shouldn’t really see much use of, especially over our other Major Glyphs. If you’re finding you’re changing forms a lot, it might be worth it.
Glyph of Nature’s Grasp now reduces the cooldown of Nature’s Grasp by 45 seconds (up from 30 seconds).
This could be very handy for those of you who PvP. With this Glyph, Nature’s Grasp will have a cool down of 15 seconds! Which is huge when you’re trying to escape melee attacks.
New Minor Glyphs
Glyph of One With Nature: Grants the Druid the ability to teleport to a random natural location.
Just a bit of fun really. This glyph will give you a new teleporting spell that will send you to a random location that is abundant in nature and foliage. Pretty cool.
Glyph of the Sprouting Mushroom: Allows the Wild Mushroom spell to be placed on the ground instead of underneath a target.
This turns our Wild Mushroom into what it used to be, being able to place it anywhere we like. If you’re into the whole click to place. This might be needed in some situations where you know damage will occur in a particular area, but most times we can just cast it on the target as per default.
That’s about it for now. Patch 5.4 isn’t far away and hopefully we’ve given you enough insight into the changes to the Resto Druid that you can get your head around them before too long. All in all we really like the direction the Resto Druid is headed in this patch, with more burst healing and more heal-centric options for some of our talents, we’re glad that we’ve gotten some love.
What do you think? Excited about the patch notes? Do you think the change to Mushrooms is an improvement? Do you think that being able to attach our Efflorescence to said Mushrooms might be seen as a little overpower? Let us know in the comments below!