It absolutely is a raid healing spec - In fact there are 3-4 different mainline raid healing druid specs, depending on how much gear you have - and the build your likely referring too - 21/30 - Has it’s problems and loses utility like Swiftmend (which is important) and trades it for access to Natures Grace & essentially Regrowth Spam. Which due to the Mana Cost is both deeply unhelpful in longer fights, far less mana efficient than back to back 166 Mana Rank 4 HT’s & Regrowths / Swiftmend and the very rare Regrowth, but also requires both end-raid levels of gear(which even at 6/8 T2 and some raid items I’m not comfortable with at only 5.8K base mana pre-buff), and I’d argue flasks to be utilized properly due to the aforementioned necessary absolutely tremendous mana pool to go down the Natures Grace Regrowth spam route. I’d argue 12/0/39 or 15/0/36 are both far better healing specs for raids when you need (or simply want) utility. Then, you get to - 24/0/27 when you reach very high Healing Power levels and want to be able to spam heals in Moonglow Healing spec. Which also gives up Swiftmend, which I personally don’t believe is worth it.
We definitely do do rather decent damage. At least as I was referring too in solo play. Even without changing spec, staying in healer mode without going full Boomkin (39 points in Restoration / Healing Talents) - I’m able to do 800-1K crits off of a 1.5 second Wrath before using my Zandalarian Hero Charm. A week ago with 18 spellpower in my full healing set I was only doing 300-380 damage a hit. Now it’s over double that at only -400 SP, and there’s still a ton of improvement to be made - I see nothing wrong with someone who raids 7 times a week getting some spellpower offspec gear if they have the EPGP to get it. They busted their butts for it, and deserve to keep it. I certainly won’t waste it. Even as offspec gear. And just these gear improvements alone are enough to make farming things like EE/SS or even Winterfell Firewater to fund raids and make some cash pretty effortless. And again, that’s with still almost entirely non-raid gear blues from dungeons and a couple enchants. No Druid is going to waste Spellpower gear - they’ll use it for Offspec solo farming, without even having to change spec. In fact I’d argue getting a decent spellpower offspec set should be mandatory to life as a druid main unless your playing feral. And I wouldn’t personally ever play Feral. In fact I don’t see myself changing spec from Resto ever since it hasn’t been necessary. Not for PvE where I heal in raids, Not for PvE where I solo farm mob drops to AH to fund raids, not for PvP which I’m only doing to exalt every battleground due to wanting to exalt every faction ingame (minus the impossible centaurs) - at no point has respeccing as a Druid been necessary. Getting a spellpower set, even a relatively bad one that I only started a week ago and have been building out since - has done more than enough for what I want to do to solo gold farm, and yeah, do pretty good damage.
I use a (super old) retail character because I haven’t played retail in many years - since the 100 cap - and I’m not going to publicly out any of my actually played characters. I only play Classic now and haven’t touched retail in a long, long time. Private person and all that. I very much prefer and adore Classic. I just ardently believe #somechanges would be good for the game. Things that wouldn’t obviously go against the feel of the game, but act as QoL - like Dual Spec, a group finder (without teleports to keep the open world active), and instant mail. Your free to disagree or agree with that as you like - people can like the same things for different reasons.
All this is to say we deserve an equal shot at spellpower gear as everyone else. Especially if your willing to put in the time and effort and go under an EPGP system.
And frankly speaking, I don’t see how you could possibly agree that people should get their fair share of loot, but also hate the idea of personal loot. Bit contradictory yeah?
People should get back what they put in - If your raiding 7 times a week, you deserve some gear out of it, yes, even offspec loot once everyone has it main spec, or your in a raid where nobody currently wants it for main spec. Druids should get to roll on spellcaster gear. EPGP does this - You get back, what you put in. Assuming the items you want drops and your front of the queue, which you can rapidly move up in if your working hard, overtaking others who slouch. That’s a looting system I can get behind.
Also, no - They wouldn’t be decided by a loot council, since MS>OS is pretty obvious in just about every possible case, so the only thing that get’s decided by officers in an EPGP system is what raid tiers are going to use EPGP or Free Roll MS>OS, and how much EPGP any individual piece of gear costs in raids which use it. Everything else just goes, again, by queue. If something is for your class, and main spec, you get it if you’ve earnt it - if it’s for your class but offspec, you get it if nobody else needs it for main spec and your still front of the line. That’s fair.
Loot councils? Not Fair. Deeply Anti-trust. They aren’t even remotely the same thing.
DKP & GDKP? Deeply unfair for reasons noted in the original post.
Free Roll MS>OS? I can get behind it, but I don’t prefer it since it doesn’t account for effort, time, player skill, or really anything other than your favor with RNGesus on any given moment.
EPGP is as close to perfect as looting systems get in Classic, and blows every other option out of the water - but ESPECIALLY Loot Councils…
