Lackluster State of Resto Druid currently

Classes Druid
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I think Resto Druid is to the point where it needs some serious looking at for next patch… Where we are as of right now across the various forms of content:

  • Raiding: Bottom Tier (Low throughput, and non-existent raid utility). Useless raid CD with tranquility. Why is moving tranq still not a thing yet??

  • Arena: Bottom Tier (Pitifully low healing output, non-existent cooldowns to employ to save teammates in this high burst damage meta).

  • RBG’s: Bottom Tier (Same issues as above).

  • Mythic+: Mid Tier (Outshined by Shaman, and soon to be passed up by holy paladin as gear goes up). We lost a great deal of damage compared to other healers since our Moonfire/sunfire dots got giga-nerfed in terms of damage output, and our healing output is average. Again, we’re carried by convoke here to being mediocre.

In raiding, Resto Druid currently has both undertuned throughput, and also non-existent utility. It needs both a throughput increase, AND some actual sort of small utility beyond just a redundant stampeding roar that can be brought by Boomy and Wind rush totem.

Ironbark along with its honor talent has been consistently nerfed every expansion to the point where its just mediocre. And nearly useless in arena.

Mythic+, with engineering battle rez being a thing, we’re mid-tier at the moment at absolute best… And Holy Paladin is right about to pass us up. Average damage output, okay utility. Decent throughput in regards to healing. The old belief of “Resto Druid is lackluster in raid / pvp, but its the god-tier gold standard for M+ so lets not buff it” thing should be completely out the window by now. We’re no longer anything close to that anymore.

In Arena and RBG’s Resto Druid has incredibly low throughput, we’re in need of like a flat-out ~10% DIRECT healing buff in order to begin to be competitive. I would also REALLY like to see the old Stonebark type of Honor talent brought back that actually buffs Ironbark and lowers its CD.

Random aside, but please do something with Nourish… This talent is utterly useless.

16 Likes
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Honestly the only thing that’s keeping Resto Druids competitive in Mythic+ right now is Convoke. I’ve been leveling a Holy Paladin alt just in case, they seem like they’re only going to trend up.

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The only thing keeping Holy Paladin from being at the top is their healing throughput can get sketchy when they don’t have CD’s, like during Prideful in high keys. But as gear goes up, healer power goes up drastically and they won’t be as CD reliant anymore. As result, they will soon have more than adequate HPS in high keys, and their massive damage output will stand out greatly and propel them to the top.

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Hey guys,

Good thread. I’ve thought a lot about resto Druid healing in RBGs, specifically, and have a suggested solution.

In Legion, resto druids had a combination of talents and honor talents (including nourish) that did the following: (1) caused healing touch to apply a random HOT, and if all HOTs were applied, to automatically crit; (2) caused each application of rejuvenation to decrease the cast time of healing touch; and (3) allowed you to place two rejuvenations on each person (which we still have in germination).

This was really well designed system for RBGs. If you were able to get a lot of rejuvenations out, it gave you very high healing throughput to save someone from burst in a Zerg situation. But it was balanced because it took a lot of ramp up time to get your rejuvenations out and get those healing touches rolling. It was also balanced because it wasn’t usable in M+ because nourish was an honor talent.

We need to go back to this system by redesigning nourish such that our HOT applications reduce its cast time, cause it to apply HOTs, and then cause it to automatically crit when all HOTs are applied. Then, do something with the regrowth talent on the first row to make it specialized for M+. This would be balanced because it would not be useful in M+ or arenas, where there aren’t enough allies to get rejuvenations out to make an impact on your nourish cast time.

The way it stands now, druids have NOTHING to withstand the Zerg in RBGs. One of the biggest problems is that we have no shields or immunity mechanics to put on people to save them from Zerg. And we shouldn’t, that doesn’t fit our class fantasy. So, we need massive throughput nuke heals like we had in Legion. It is a good, balanced system and fits our class fantasy. This sort of change is necessary because our HOTs are very weak, and worst of all, our only direct heal in regrowth has a > 1 second cast time, is single target, is EXTREMELY WEAK, and to top it off is quite inefficient.

Also, why is tranquility so bad now? It doesn’t have to be.

I want to see this change, and then see convoke nerfed. I hate that we rely on that random, buggy covenant ability to be mediocre at healing every 3 minutes and bad in between. Plus everyone complains about it in PvP from balance druids so it’s going to get hammered at some point anyway.

3 Likes
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Rbg is the last thing blizzard should care about. We are talking about the only thing that matters here which is raid, 5 man, 3v3 arena.

3 Likes
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I can’t tell if you’re serious, but since I’m suggesting a change to a regular talent it will also work in raid. And if you’re a hardcore raider and never played RBGs in Legion, you won’t have used the system I’m talking about and seen how good it is. It would be great in raid.

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Besides convoke our throughput is not good at all. I’ve cleared every dungeon at +10 on this 207 Druid and I swear I find it easier healing on my 194 Shaman. Just so many more options for those big damage moments.

I can have the entire party in full hots but everyone still gets trained if convoke isn’t up. Which is quite likely to get nerfed very soon anyway.

3 Likes
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He is being serious.

Bliz doesn’t balance around RBG and shouldn’t start doing so now, unless they go full hog and just have abilities and numbers operate completely differently in PVP, and possibly different PVP environments. (Which is a different convo)

The 3 things they do in fact tune around are raid, M+, and 3s.

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Hey, did you read my suggestion? It works for any situation in which you have 10+ in your group. I.e., raid. Do you have a substantive comment to make regarding my suggestion or do you just want to argue with me about nothing?

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Where do you get your data? Because actual logs and raiderio data show resto is mid tier or better in raid and second most popular healer in m+.

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We need damage reduction to compete better against discipline priest and resto shaman. It would be nice to get better damage output against pally heals. Being able to move with tranquility would be nice also.

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So it would only fix one balancing issue. Raids. 3v3 and M+ do not contain those numbers.

It would have to apply to all 3 to be “considered”. Try altering it a bit to that to get a bit better feedback

1 Like
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I can’t solve all the problems… I don’t have experience with 3s (because 3s is horrible and boring), and I haven’t really had a problem in M+. I’m only doing like +7s though so I don’t know if maybe it gets worse at high keys. I suppose we may not be the best M+ healers, but I’m getting groups and we’re clearing them and getting loot so I don’t really care.

My suggestion for raid is good. The play style is fun.

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Trending data shows resto druids behind disc,sham,pal in raids and on path to trend below holy priests in the next week or two.

For mythic+ you’ll also see resto druid trending down in +15 keys below shaman and disc, and they’re on path to trend down below paly in a couple weeks as well.

They are essentially falling to mid tier or below in every aspect of the game, and are entering into the same category of ‘meh’ as holy priest and mistweaver.

Lower keys don’t matter, you can finish lower keys easily with any healer.

1 Like
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An easy fast fix would maybe increase rejuvenation by 50%

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Or unnerf mastery.

208 ilvl 11.30% mastery
Rejuv - 905 crit 453 tick every 2.5 seconds
Lifebloom 204 every .7s

Lifebloom+rejuv
LB - 225 every .7
Rejuv 499 every 2.1 997 crit

LB-Rejuv-spring
Lb- 245
Rejuv- 545
spring-151

Even with all hots on someone I doubt it would take them to half health over the entire duration w/o a nice fat sotf+wg. Which is why regrowth is trending at 30%+ of healing now.

2 Likes
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Looks like bliz is ignoring us for another week. No hotfix tuning notes. They do not care about us. Time to re-roll pally

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Rdruid never felt more useless in 3v3 since arena began. All the tourni rdruids were playing hpala in AWC. I’m using 2100+ pvp gear and cant carry 1400s teams because we oom so easily.

2 Likes
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I think resto is great in dungeons, good in raids, and… ok in BGs.
Terrible in arenas.

This was going to be the year i really tried out arena… Maybe next season.

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Being as to how easy we can be purged hots should def heal for more. Atleast in bfa hots actually healed. It’s almost pointless to even hit rejuve and cant spam week a$$ regrowth cause it cost almost 2k mana and heals for nothing outside of 15 sec window with swiftmend.