Quot3Druid

Generic HoT Cycles

High-Damage Boss Fights (Single Tank)
On certain “high-octane” boss fights (like Bear in ZA, or Phase 2 Prince in Kara) you’ll want to be focusing your entire attention on the tank. Keep every HoT you can on them… LB stacks, Rejuv, and the Regrowth HoT and then have your finger hovering over the Swiftmend Button. You should also be “escape-healing” with Regrowth. This means you let a Regrowth charge up, and then hit ESCAPE right before it goes off IF the tank doesn’t need the heal. This way if the tank gets hit with a huge amount of burst damage your heal is already on its way. Keep in mind that the FSR doesn’t start until a cast has actually finished, by escape-healing keeps you out of the FSR and saves mana.

Raid Spot Healing (1 MT) – 6 second cycle
If you’re assigned to spot heal, then you STILL want to keep an LB triple stack up on the tank at all times (this is just too much healing to ignore). There are exceptions (times when you just have to spend all your time healing the raid), but mostly you want to use a rotation like this:

• LB on Main Tank
• Rejuv/LB on raid target (LB if ~2400 health or less, Rejuv if ~3000 health or more)
• Rejuv/LB on raid target
• Rejuv/LB on raid target
• — New Cycle —
• LB on Main Tank
• etc…

2 Main Tanks
With two main tanks you should easily be able to keep LB stacks and Rejuv on both of them for the duration of the fight (and have some in-between time to raid heal if you so choose). Here’s a cookie-cutter rotation:

LB Tank 1, LB Tank 2, Rejuv Tank 1, (downtime), LB Tank 1, LB Tank 2, Rejuv Tank 2, (downtime), etc…

3 Main Tanks
If you have a perfect connection, you should be able to keep LB on all 3 tanks, and Rejuv on 2 of them. Here’s how you do it:

LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, Rejuv 1, LB 1, LB 2, LB 3, Rejuv 2, repeat

With a less-than-perfect connection, you can still keep LB triple-stacks on all three tanks without any trouble.

4 Main Tanks
Keep LB stacks on all 4 tanks (if your latency is good enough).

Macros can really help out in boss fights where you have to heal multiple tanks during certain phases (Hydross and Kael come to mind). An interesting idea is to use targeting macros on hotkeys F1-F4 for those phases. A macro like this works well:

 /target TankName
 /cast [modifier:shift] Rejuvenation ; Lifebloom

If you hold shift while pressing this hotkey, you will cast Rejuv, otherwise you will cast LB. Be sure to test that this macro works before you try to use it in raids. For example, if you bind this macro to F1, you also need to make sure that Shift+F1 is not bound to anything else (otherwise the modifier won’t work).

Once again, if find that your mana pool doesn’t allow you to continuously throw HoTs every second of a boss fight, then you’re only gimping yourself in terms of your maximum healing capabilities. You need more regen gear (or you need to spend more money on pots).

@casualwow

Healing 10s vs. 25s, Part One (The Basics)

Section Two, Healing Setup:

• Glyph of Rejuvenation
• Glyph of Swiftmend
• Glyph of Regrowth
• Talent Build (Wowhead link)

Section Three, 10-Man Healing Style:

There are multiple ways for restoration druids to heal, of that there can be no doubts. For those that utilize different talent builds (typically the Dreamstate based builds or those that place more emphasis on Healing Touch) things will be a little different.

The Raid Healer – Currently will utilize Wild Growth, Rejuvenation, and Lifebloom the most, except in cases where heavy, direct damage is being taken (which, honestly, is a great time to use Nourish for a nice, quick heal). After the 3.1 patch it is doubtful this will change much.

The Tank Healer – Currently utilizes a rolling stack of Lifeblooms, Rejuvenation, and Regrowth most often, with the occasional Nourish or Healing Touch to make up for the difference in damage versus what the HoTs will heal for. Note that this is where Swiftmend is extremely useful, and should be a large component of any restoration druid’s direct healing arsenal. After the 3.1 patch there will be some modifications to this approach, although depending on gear and the duration of the encounter it is quite possible to see no changes on this style.

The Mixed Healer – In a typical 10-Man raid many groups only utilize two healers. In this type of situation things change greatly. Typically Lifebloom will be rolling on the tank or tanks, with the occasional one tossed on raid members. In addition, Rejuvenation, Wild Growth, Regrowth, Swiftmend, and Nourish all end up being utilized in varying degrees across encounters. This is where the ability to adapt and react quickly becomes most important, especially in a situation where one healer could end up having to heal through an entire encounter due to death, a disconnect, random patrols, lag, or even a zombie outbreak.

Healing assignments are helpful in this situation, but not necessarily able to be followed. When two healers know their class(es) well assignments are often ignored anyway, aside from making certain their primary healing focus stays alive. A well-adjusted healing team will not normally need to communicate much, aside from something as specific as “when melee dps one and melee dps two get frozen by KT I’ll heal one and you heal two.” Granted, this will contribute to a lower overall efficiency and more overhealing for the raid totals, but those numbers should be ignored on an overall raid level unless there is a very, very specific reason for needing to evaluate those topics.

Section Four, 25-Man Healing Style:

 The Raid Healer – Currently will utilize Wild Growth and Lifebloom the most. Not only is this extremely efficient, but in most cases is all that is necessary for the typical 25-man run. The occasional Regrowth as needed rounds out the primary abilities used.

The Tank Healer – Currently utilizes a rolling stack of Lifeblooms, Rejuvenation, and Regrowth most often, with Swiftmend tending to make up the difference on damage taken versus what HoTs or another healer has healed. Many druids go to Healing Touch in this scenario, but without it’s cast time reduced it is not very efficient, and will lead to a lower healing output.

The Mixed Healer – Practically the same as the raid healer in a 25-man, with the difference of adding Swiftmend and Nourish where applicable on the tanks or on a raid member suddenly taking abnormal damage. The primary difference in this scenario is that the mixed healer will most likely be maintaining a rolling stack of lifeblooms on the main tank in order to help absorb the damage while using the other time available between refreshes to heal raid members as needed.