Hello folks, I wanted to ask some questions and look for some advice about gearing my resto druid in phase 4, primarily relating to the use of Trauma. I feel like its important to mention in my situation Valnyr is not an option so at least for me the argument that Valnyr is better doesn’t matter.
The most important info I’ve found about Trauma is as follows. (I got this info from a comment section on wowhead, so its from original wrath and idk if that makes it invalid info or not but)
1% Proc Chance (Includes Direct Heals, HoT ticks, and all forms of overhealing)
No Internal Cooldown
AoE Heal functions as a HoT, healing 217 per second over 6 seconds
10yd Radius, 6 Ticks, Incapable of crticially striking
Affects a maximum of 5 targets per proc
The buff is applied to your target those near that target are healed, like a Healing Stream Totem
There appears to be no limit as to how many buffs can be active at any given time
Healing is shown on recount as Fountain of Light.
Affected by Tree of Life and other auras which increase healing done or received. Does not benefit from talents.
Does not scale with gear. The healing you see here is what you will see in game.
The HoT is “smart” in the sense that it will heal nearby damaged players instead of those at full health but takes no preference to their health level.
The effect has been confirmed to heal pets and proc on pets.
Will heal anyone in a raid including those outside of the affected player’s group
If 5 targets cannot all be healed by the spell, the extra healing counts as overhealing
The heal has been confirmed to be affected by auras (such as Tree of Life and Imp. Devo Aura) and buffs which increase healing received, but not done.
I think the biggest issue that comes with Trauma is that it doesn’t have any secondary stats, most resto druids aim for reaching a haste point of 856 without the Celestial Focus talent(CF) and 735 with CF. I haven’t investigated much on how feasible it is to reach the 856 soft cap while equipping Trauma, however I imagine its still reachable but may require a significant amount more haste gems, I think that its likely that it wont be worth it to lose the spell power to equip Trauma. I think this is likely to be most peoples biggest issue with the weapon
However I personally question the value of specing out of CF in the first place, I think a lot of people will disagree with me on this but its largely why I’m making this post, I do not see much benefit in taking the bonus talents in the resto tree. The most common talents I see points spent in are Tranquil Spirit, Nature’s Bounty, and Living Seed. Don’t get me wrong I do see the benefits in these talents, but I also feel that they play into the parts of resto druid that are not its strong suits. These are all oriented around the abilities I feel I use the least when raiding. 98 percent of my time is spent casting rejuvenation and wild growth. So I believe the best possible way to increase my throughput would be to find ways to increase my healing from those abilities.
I am currently under the impression that in my raid groups it would be better to reach the 735 haste soft cap, and remain speced into CF and then begin to gear oriented towards maximizing spell power. Its with that mindset I believe that Trauma would likely be my bis weapon option. But a large reason I’m making this post is because I know I’m likely in the minority, and I don’t understand why, its very likely possible that I am missing something or that I am potentially even playing my class wrong, so any input discussion and advice is appreciated.
Only on blanket fights should you be casting like this. You need to adapt to the damage profile of the fight. If it’s a fight with mostly tank damage and sparse raid damage, you mostly heal the tank and spot heal the raid. If it’s a fight with 2-3 tanks constantly taking damage, loading up all your hots on each tank and casting nourish frequently is the play. This is where deep resto shines. Anyone who is still CF spec is living in the past. I haven’t been that spec since a few weeks into Ulduar.
You will see a mix of damage profiles in ICC, with Blood Queen Lana’thel being the dream blanket fight, to Lich King being almost entirely tank damage other than the ledge intermissions.
As to Trauma, you again have to consider the circumstances. Is the fight a lot of raid damage so the proc hot will be useful? Is it a tank damage only fight so the hot proc is not very useful? Are people going to be spread out or stacked? If people are spread, the hot proc will do very little.
If Valanyr is not an option, you’ll want to use different weapons for different fight types. You’ll want the highest ilevel caster weapon you can get (LK 10/25) for fights where there’s little raid damage or people are spread. You’ll want a Trauma where everyone is stacked up and there is constant raid damage. You can even swap weapons in combat if you accept the 1 sec penalty, for different phases of a fight.
If you have Valanyr, it’s better in all cases.
Also - It is quite possible to haste cap with Trauma, as the BiS T10 setup uses 3 crit items and 0 haste gems. Simply use ToGC haste bracers, and you can haste cap without Valanyr’s haste.
I wouldn’t worry too much. There’s too much haste in ICC. You can reach 856 very easily even in 264 10man gear, without haste on your weapon, gemming reckless ofc, which is inherently efficient anyways. (two reckless > runed + quick)
I only do pugs on this char, but it seems to me there are always 2 hpals in every guild, and almost every pug, so it seems tank healing should be well covered. Your nourish and seed healing will always be quite low, like 10% or even less of your total healing, but they’re much higher impact than blanket hots. It’s invaluable to have the toolset, even if it’s rarely needed. When it is needed, it’s mega needed. I mean like even now in this joke phase, you probably get assigned 1-2 PC targets, you’re not gonna open with 2 rejuvs. Chances are, you’re spot healing with nourishes on unhotted targets, unless you’re in a streamlined guild run with more optimal conditions. Those PC spot heals are the difference between kill and wipe.
Trauma might be a sick choice tho iunno how the interaction with wild growth will work, but with the other existing low proc% no ICD special procs, you get 5 stacks of solace with 1 cast of WG right now, and of course soul preserver procs off of holy light AND all beacon splashes, which is what makes a 187 ilvl trinket still bis. I wouldn’t be surprised if each of the 6 WG targets can proc trauma.
Ive made this post in a few different places, and most responses seem pretty consistent in that, its gonna be nearly impossible to not get haste cap, so why not just swap the talents around. Which certainly makes sense, yesterday I was also looking at raidlogs for some of the best parsers. The biggest thing i noticed is how much theyre casting nourish. I definetely know what you mean that blanket healing isnt conducive to the best numbers on all fights. I figured that out for lord jaraxxus and virtually only cast nourish in that fight now. I think the fact that i should be casting nourish more makes also makes the seed a lot better and its kinda starting to come full circle. So what ive learned is i need to be changing how im healing for certain fights, i guess i can see where i can fit in more nourishes on some fights, but i guess im not sure how ill balance it. Is there any chance you know of any good resto druid youtubers that I could possibly watch their fights?
It’s also worth noting that in ICC, resto Druids were notorious for being outstanding healers who often found themselves with pockets of nothing to do, and a good resto player was often able to drop a healer slot even before BiS gear, with no Val in raid.
Realistically, this entire discussion is overkill for this specific healer in this specific content tier
Usually what I do is look at logs and watch the replay. The replay shows positioning, casts (with targets), and damage taken. You can look at the healing profile and see what other people are doing.