Ok let me prefix this by saying I have all classes of healers and I’ve played since Vanilla so that’s a really long time playing but my one true love has always been my resto druid.
I took her on a few normal and heroic raids recently but I feel like compared to the gear I could do better. I understand Resto Druid play style of ramp up etc but while my mind is willing, the flesh (and fingers) are weak. I’m in my 60’s.
Are there add-ons that would help me optimize ‘next spell’ to cast - but not Heikili. Player base doesn’t seem to have positive feedback
I also just do mouseovers with Vuhdu, and I have a 3 button mouse. I do WASD. Anything else I will need to retrain my mind. But I do want to do better. I just can’t remember the next spell to cast during an actual fight that would optimize clear casting, omen etc. I CAN do WA, but the only ones I have are for LB and Efflorescence.
The current implementation of Resto Druid is extremely active, for better or worse. It can definitely wear you out if you’re not a fan of casting spells basically as fast as you possibly can.
With Abundance and Wildwood Roots talents, you end up in a situation where once you have 12 rejuvenation HoTs out on the raid, your Regrowth casts will be nearly free, almost guaranteed crit (regardless of how much crit you have on your gear), and able to be cast almost twice as fast as the GCD.
So it’s critical to keep track of your Abundance stacks and make sure that you are spamming Regrowth as much as possible when you have Abundance at 10+ stacks. Taking advantage of that window of opportunity is key.
I have a Weakaura that both clearly shows me my abundance stacks, but perhaps more importantly, makes a loud bell-ringing sound whenever it gets to 12 stacks. That basically tells me (in a way that I can’t overlook) that it’s time to spam regrowth for a bit.
I’ve also played a Resto Druid since Vanilla and I don’t ever remember any previous expansion where I was spending so much time casting spells faster than the GCD. It’s definitely not a relaxing play style, that’s for sure. In fact, it can be quite physically and mentally exhausting.
At this point my CPM has climbed so high, the only people still casting more spells/abilities than me are the ret paladins. But the shear brute force healing that Regrowth is now capable of is pretty stunning. It’s amazing that my Regrowth casts are averaging ~80% crit despite my character only having about 10% crit. Regrowth has become my #1 spell again for the first time since WotLK.
thanks for this helpful response. I need to just get the muscle memory going here and retrain the brain on Regrowth. I’ll check out more WA’s and I like that sound thing.
Yeah, Hekili is really a DPS addon. Not really going to help a lot with healing.
Your best option really is watching a few tutorial YT vids and checking out the various Druid Discord servers. They will likely be of infinitely more help than anything else. But even then, it’s really going to come down to relearning and regaining that muscle memory with the new mechanical design of druid healing compared to the old techniques.
For normal and heroic raids, you can spec sub-optimally and still pull really big numbers without having to spec Abundance and use frenetic Regrowth windows.
You can absolutely heal very well on an RDruid with a more passive talent build, but it would require looking at your spec and making some suggestions.
Just basic advice (ignore any you already know or that don’t apply to you):
Use the Clique add-on to set all of your heals to a mouseover keybind.
Focus on maximizing Soul of the Forest and the Swiftmend-empowered Wild Growth combination.
Make sure to take Improved Wild Growth and Unstoppable Growth for raiding without Abundance.
Choose Cenarion Ward instead of Abundance, and keep 100% uptime on it for the active tank or one of your problem children who reliably takes a lot of damage. I suggest this because, even though it’s not optimal, it’s sufficient for Heroic raids and is easier to play well than managing the Abundance/Regrowth spam method.
Take Germination and Power of the Archdruid and Flourish as your cap talents.
Spell Priority will go something like this:
Keep Lifebloom and Cenarion Ward on a tank at all times, with a goal of 100% uptime. Get a weakaura to remind you when those fall off if it will help.
Use Swiftmend on cooldown and always follow it with a Wild Growth.
Use Flourish after you’ve put out your Guardians and a Wild Growth.
Tranquility followed by Flourish used to be our raid powerhouse. It no longer is. Do not use Flourish only for Tranq HoT extension. Use Flourish when you have a Guardian out, when you have more than 6 Wild Growth HoTs out (as in right after a Convoke) or on cooldown right after a regular Wild Growth cast.
Rejuvination spam should be going out in every free GCD. Keep them rolling.
Don’t be afraid to break meta. If Abundance/Regrowth is not getting numbers for you and your fingers just aren’t finding the right rhythm to play it well, you can go back to the traditional Soul of the Forest-centered Wild Growth build and still see excellent raid numbers.
If any of this didn’t make sense, I’d be happy to look at what you’re doing and offer more tailored advice. The above is just my generalized advice for someone who wants a simplified Resto Druid build that will still be effective.
edited to add:
This is absolutely and 100% excellent advice. Abundance/Wildwood is crazy insane powerful…but it also takes some time and confidence to learn. If you find it too daunting and want to get more confident with a simpler build, that was the purpose of my suggestions above.
I use an excellent weakaura for my own Abundance windows so that I can maximize the Regrowth spamming potential. If you decide to go that route, I highly recommend this aura to help you: https://wago.io/9tyeP6ogR
