Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Druid vs Priest healing

My baby druid went broccoli. And then I healed some dungeons. And then I got a hot tracker (hotcandy in case you were wondering) and healed some more.

Druid healing is different. Not bad, just different. It may have something to do with the fact that I haven't reached the bottom of the resto tree (I figured I should get the balance talents first), but it's kinda panic-inducing, mixed with periods of boredom.

So let's lay out the difference...
As disc I shield the tank, start POM bouncing, and if the dps takes damage I shield and flash heal them. The tank may get a penance or greater heal, but mostly everyone gets flash heals.

As a tree I hot the tank. Then I wait to see if I need to use a Rejuv or a Healing Touch. I hot the dps as needed. My healing touch casting time varies for some reason so that makes my life a bit more interesting. And I run into mana issues (Innervate is the best spell ever) and I'm overhealing like crazy. The mana issues are a gear thing, I know.

Both disc and tree are best if you can think ahead and predict the damage. I'm not so good at this in 5 mans, since it requires me to actually remember fights beyond run out of the ick. If I ran the instances enough, I probably would retain the "ick about to happen, shield/hot!" information, but who wants to run Outlands stuff that much? But tree is kinda brain-hurty in that I have now been trained to DO SOMETHING when a health bar starts dropping. But if there's already a hot there, I don't need to do anything unless the damage is greater than the hot's healing. And that just seems wrong.

Now, this is not a critique of tree healing at all. I kinda like it, other than the panic bit. It gives me time to go get that yellow dot (ooh herb!). Plus I can pull of miracles in tree that I couldn't have in disc at the same level. One tank and one idiot dps trying to tank? It's a problem, but no longer a "oh god we're all going to die" problem. More of a "grr, I liked having a full blue bar and will you stop trying to kill the nice mage along with you!" problem.

But boomkin is more fun. Heehee hurricane and stuff is dead.

1 comment:

  1. Ive run lots of wrath raids as a druid healer and i did bt as a boomkin back before the nerf and i have to say being a tree has got to be the best thing ever its so easy 4 hots and im done. once you get geared enough its just no problem at all. I didnt play for over a year came back and was still able to heal nearly everything besides the really high end raids. this is because as a druid im normally the tanks 2nd healers or in dps which is just hitting wild growth and afking. so stick with healing as a druid its easy gear

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