My second toon I role will be a Druid, I plan on healing in dungeons so is there a suggested spec build for keep questing easy while being a viable healer in dungeons? Any other tips are appreciated as well. I also plan on going alchemy/herb as my 2 professions.
You can heal in dungeons as any spec. Iāve been doing it with every point in Enhancement, no problems.
Keep a few ranks of Healing Wave handy to avoid overhealing, so you can cast the amount of healing you need and not waste mana.
If you fear for someoneās life due to high spike damage, utilize precasting. Start casting Healing Wave, then cancel it if they donāt need it yet, and repeat. That way, when they do take the burst damage and need a big heal fast, you donāt have to wait the full cast of HW since you already started it.
Pay attention to the 5 second rule. Dropping totems unnecessarily or spread-out will interrupt your mana regeneration and end up costing you much more mana than just their cost.
Remember to bring water to dungeons.
edit: You appear to have edited shaman to druid. Most of my post is still useful, though!
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You can level as feral and heal just fine.
When you find gear that has intellect on it try to keep it stored away. When you heal a dungeon, throw your intellect gear on.
Remember, your moves in bear/cat automatically upgrade, you cannot downrank Rake for example. However your healing spells can be downranked and should be down ranked when healing groups.
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Yeah sry about that lol, I had Shaman on the mind when I was making the post. Thanks for tips though.
Spec is largely irrelevant for healing Druids. You do not have a proper rez, though, so take a Shadow Priest or DPS Shaman with you if youāre healing for the rez.
Healing at endgame has a few different specs, based on gear. Thereās an endgame crit-based build that has really high HPS. The beauty is you donāt always have to specialize in one role, you can always flex between two and still do quite well. Thatās the strength of Druid outside of BRes and Innervate.
Ive seen this before and I guess I need to look into it, why is it not a āpropperā rez?
A lot of people say go feral and offheal. Iām going resto and throwing agility gear on to quest; itās not bad at all. I care more about being a better healer than a more efficient quester. Faster, stronger healsā¦ better mana regenā¦ Iām not stopping my groups constantly to drink and am able to better handle accidents / bad pulls.
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It can be cast in combat and has a 30 minute cooldown with a reagent cost. Every other healerās resurrection canāt be cast in combat, has no cooldown, and no reagent cost.
So if youāre in a dungeon run with no other res-capable class and one person diesā¦ that person is running back.
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For low levels iv been finding it easier to just bear tank. I get into groups so much easier then healers and its easy to keep aggro i put talents into the +threat and ur good to go. Just tank gnomer at level 28 with 1400hp unbuffed, bear tanks are awesome 5man tanks.
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Why agility gear if you dont mind me asking?
So I can rez once every 30 minutes as long as the fight is going on? If it is over can the tank just pull another mob?
It basically means if the group wipes and you have no other class that can rez, people have to run back into the dungeon.
It also means that once you used your rez, even if you have another person that can rez but that person dies, people have to run back into the dungeon.
You have one ability that can rez only one person and is then on cooldown for 30 minutes.
Agility gives you 1 AP, some crit, and some dodge (once you hit the thresholds). What you should actually seek out is Strength - it gives you 2 AP per point, and unlike Agility, doesnāt require you to be in Cat form so you can use Bear form without losing that AP.
Itās the same logic as having a healing set (Int/Spi/+healing) as a DPS-specād Druid - itās to give you more power in other roles. While leveling, itās really useful since while soloing your spells are not only horrendously inefficient, theyāre also really weak as youāre not Balance.
The general idea is to level as Feral for the best solo/questing experience while still being able to heal so long as you have a decent healing set.
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Some people may try to min-max leveling gear. I donāt; itās not worth the effort. It gets replaced quickly enough. Practically speaking, agility leather (agility plus other stats) is far more common. There might be a debate on agility to crit soft cap then strength. I havenāt done the math nor considered play style scenarios. A focus on agility is practical.
I would dispute the idea of ābestā leveling experience. There is no question that feral levels faster but ābestā is highly subjective. Speed and efficiency are not necessarily the only one should have when leveling. There is a lot of content to experience on the path to 60. Am I struggling questing? Do I find my own progress acceptable? In the face of any alleged meta or conventional wisdom, there is an alternative to feral/questing + offheal. Iām playing and enjoying it. I donāt want other to be discouraged to try. Resto + DPS/Off works too.
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while leveling thereās no reason to downrank since you donāt really get any +healing gear. The most efficient spell is almost always the max rank spell during this time. Just let the tank take sufficient damage so your max rank heal will not overheal. If youāre worried about the tank taking spike damage then pre-emptively queue up a heal and cancel it continuously so you have the option to proceed with the heal if needed.
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Yeah as someone mentioned just have a set of healing gear, cloth is fine, or hobo mix of cloth and leather. If its a decent level blue item can even get an enchant on it.
Tauren druids have like the worst mana pool in the game. So, like other posters have said. Grab Intel based quest rewards or drops and keep them on hand.
Really, in the beginning. Your low mana pool is your largest hindrance.
The reason is because people donāt have enough HP to make max-rank-always being worth it, not to increase efficiency via HPM.
I donāt think you are wrong here, but something to point outā¦
Resto druids are very hard on mana. Our spells cost a lot and our regen isnāt great. Some of those early resto talents help a lot (15% mana regen through casting, 10% mana const reduction).
Also, youāre probably much better off stacking spirit gear for healing than you are intel gear. Since our heals are slow and large, we get a lot of benefit from in-combat regen. Wait for the tank to lose enough health that your largest heal will not waste any to overhealing, cast that, then chill for a while and whack stuff with your main hand while you regen. Maximizing your mana regen through downtime was always the druid healer way, lol.
Finally, for what itās worth, even as full resto spec I can still kill things and quest in cat form. Thereās some stuff I miss (reduced energy cost of abilities!!) but it still works. Many folks like to get 21 points in resto before moving on to feral. Your first respec is only a gold though, so youāve got options!
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Your animal forms and potions do not trigger the global cool down.
You can make macros like
/cancleaura Cat Form
/use item Greater Healing Potion
/cast bear form
and it will instantly shift from cat to person, drink potion, and shift to bear in the blink of an eye.
Not sure on the sytax of that macro i just wrote but the idea is sound.
I did another that would make me a bear and feral charge.
It was like
/cast !bear form
/cast feral charge
Again, donāt remember if thatās right but the !bear form was so it wouldnāt take me out of bear form if I hit it twice. Reason is I never got it to work in 1 click. I would shift to bear form and it would say ānot enough rageā, but I had Furor, so I had 10 rage when i shift. I guess it takes a second for the rage to generate and the macro runs the Feral Charge before the rage shows up. Thatās why I have to hit it twice, and the !bear form should keep me in bear form.
That one is useful for just running someone down and making them stuck for 4 seconds.
Iām just learning good Druid tips but itās fun.
Oh, +Healing gear. Wow. That made all the difference. I have +128 healing atm and my lowest level spells how hit as hard as mid and higher spells. Now I just have to use the lowest ranks to get the heals, saving a TON of mana.