hello i play a few different healers… disc priest, hpal, and now resto druid.
im doing keys at around a +15 level but my dps on resto druid is pretty low compared to disc and hpal.
i currently play Night fae, cat form affinity, heart of the wild, and the night fae leggo, but i barely push 2-2.5k dps.
im 243 ilvl with
190 crit
794 haste
524 mast
529 verse
is there anyway to do competitive dps with disc, hpal, and resto sham? is necrolord/kyrian better? i mainly play with pugs for now but will play with friends soon
Before getting into covenants, it is just mostly getting comfortable actually DPSing. Compared to disc/pally, we don’t passively DPS while healing, and compared to shaman, we aren’t as bursty (or, you know, as overtuned). Honestly druid DPS feels pretty good right now as a “just-does-20s” guy, it can just be really hard to actually do that damage if you end up with a squishy tank or a group that just wants to stand in stuff, so DPS while pugging can be very hit or miss.
You mostly just sunfire, moonfire important stuff (or everything in a small-mid pull), then start spamming swipe as a kitty with rake/rip on important stuff.
For covenants - most of the higher keys are kyrian, and it will definitely shine if you have a good non-kyrian DPS you can bind with (won’t show up as your damage, but the stat buff for them is very strong). Necro is great in keys as well, since the legendary is actually fun and useful in that environment. For example, one of my keys last week was a 20 mists (had mage/DH buffs), and ended with me at ~5k overall, with about 1/6th of that just being the adaptive swarm DoT, not even factoring in the 25% buff that it gives to other DoTs (I forgot to switch conduits, it should be 35%).
Both rely on their covenant legendary, which is kind of a waste to craft now, so If you want to try them out stick with a cheap option (225 ilvl at most). Kyrian really wants at least 57 renown for keys, necro with like 43 is fine with heirmir (none of the soulbinds are nearly as important as mikanikos is for kyrian)
Sunfire is a pretty easy spell to use effectively, because a good tank is going to make it easy for players to cleave those big pulls. Keeping moonfire up as best you can is going to require a bit more effort…but it pays off. it’ll almost always be your highest dps spell, and def improve your 2-2.5k dps on many pulls.
takes practice to sacrifice those healing globals for moonfire spam, but it works. It’s important to get skilled at this if you aren’t running a dps focused build like the meta haste/vers.
Also, I am not sure what trinkets you’re running, but many resto druids choose balance/dps trinkets to give them an edge vs higher level keys as well.
Also, try not to be too conservative with mini cooldowns like HotW/Trinkets. They shave tons of seconds of your run when you start pushing them. Just be smart about it
Unfortunately you aren’t going to be competitive with those specs (assuming equal gear/skill of you & the group).
There isn’t really a set number to say that’s good or bad, there are too many variables for healer dps, specifically one that doesn’t do passive damage. 2-2.5 in pug groups as an average is probably fine for 15s. We’re getting a damage buff next patch. It won’t correct the disparity, but it will put us closer.
thanks i found this to be really helpful. i tried using necrolord and i like the spell a lot, but i wish i had more control over it. i only ever use it for damage but it always spreads to the tank after the first stack gets used up, even if mobs are still up. not sure if there’s a way to force it to only ever spread to mobs. i can see how the leggo would help around this though.
kyrian ive stayed away from because it was my understanding that you needed a coordinated group for it to work and im only pugging for now.
i have a holy pally and resto sham at the same level and the disparity feels pretty bad. resto sham outdpses my druid with vesper totem alone. and hpal obviously does the dps while healing at the same time, and outdpses even as kyrian hpal. with both of these cleasses, it feels like group play doesn’t really affect my dps that much. for shaman it might mean the difference between doing great damage and amazing damage, but that’s about it.
resto druid just feels like it takes more effort for less payout. i still really enjoy the playstyle and aesthetic though. i wonder if the disparity will get worse with druid’s healing only tier set.
