Hey all, I’ve just started healing as a Resto Druid this expansion and I’m really struggling this week with the grievous affix. I also haven’t run m+ before this expansion, I ran a 9+ and 11+ key this week and it felt awful. I’ve been mostly pugging I wasn’t having issues before this affix with higher keys and I’m really struggling to keep people alive. I’m so frantically healing that I can’t totally see where all these stacks are coming from, whether or not it’s from avoidable mechanics or just how the affix is. Do any more experienced players have any tips and tricks? Your help is appreciated!
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Get better trinkets, stop using the rejuv legendary for a dungeon, stop using abundance.
thank you for the tips!
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Grievous stacks the longer a player in under 90% health. So ideally you want to continually be topping everyone off.
As a druid it’s a bit of a good news/bad news situation for us. Our HoTs make handling the ticking nature of it easier to manage than most healers, but they also make it so that it’s harder for us to actually top players off and remove the debuffs. Grievous was changed so that direct heals will remove a stack, but LB ticks, Rejuv, and WG aren’t direct heals, and the DoT nature of Grievous makes it so it’s hard for them to get above 90% with those spells alone.
You have to be a bit more aggressive with your spot healing w/ regrowths, you can’t just rely on rejuv/wg to top players off. I make pretty liberal use of swiftmend to top off one target and then a SotF Regrowth to top off lower targets, and I’m not nearly as stingy with NS+Regrowth as I’d otherwise be if I find myself a little behind.
You’re going to use more mana because of the extra regrowth spot healing, so you just need to be extra aggressive looking for opportunities to drink. The current spiteful affix makes this particularly challenging since you’re often stuck in combat waiting for it to die/despawn.
I’ve personally found the double lifebloom legendary paired with photosynthesis to be really nice for increasing my throughput while also making me more mana efficient by making a lot of those regrowths end up costing no mana, and I also believe the “bloom” aspect of LB counts as a direct heal and will remove stacks.
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thanks for the detailed response and the tips!
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Back in BFA, I used Germination and spammed Rejuvenation. It was a such a chore that I ran only 1 Mythic on Grievous weeks.
When the whole group is at 3 or 4 stacks it becomes extremely difficult to get everyone to 100%. I popped everything I had, blanket Rejuvenation on everyone, Swiftmend, Wild Growth, Tranquility and yelling at my screen. Sometimes I couldn’t make it. 
On heavy AOE group damage I can see this affix being a nightmare right now. I don’t mind the Regrowth spam with my current setup. I can get players to 100% health very quickly.
They get stacks just by being below 90%.
You have to heal them back up above that to remove it. Any direct healing can remove a stack but won’t bring it lower than 1. Keep in mind rejuv does have an instant component, so it will strip a stack… super useful when moving. You’re going to lean a lot more heavily on regrowth this week though.
Resto Druids handle this affix the easiest.
Our hots make quick work of it before it even becomes an issue.
The changes made so that direct heals remove stacks were made so that other healers could catch a break.
Rdruids do not struggle if you’re healing proactively and not trying to play catch up.
If you let your party get to 3-4 stacks, They either aren’t using cds and messing up the mechanics, or you aren’t healing proactively.
If either are true, the run was destined to fail from the start.
If you’re having to regrowth a lot this week, I’d think now would be the time to use abundance. I only healed one M+ this week on my Druid so far and I didn’t change any talents so I had ward. I actually wished I had abundance several times because of how often I was having to cast regrowth.
If the talents he logged out with were the ones he was using, the two I’d change would be to use spring blossoms over inner peace for the extra mastery stack and photosynthesis over flourish, though I have dark titans so maybe if you don’t photosynthesis becomes less attractive 
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Thanks for the tips and analysis. Yeah I changed my talents for raiding, I haven’t done a lot of m+ this week but I’m ready to try some new things.
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Following because I came here to make this exact same post. I feel okay healing +10s and +11s; the +13s that I did were terrible. Catching up during Pride pulls and some of the larger trash mob pulls were awful. I am a balance main, but I have the Memory of the Mother Tree leggo started for resto, and my resto set is 202 ilevel.
SotF feels like an absolute must - things got so much easier when I specced out of tree into that. I feel like abundance might not be a bad idea if you have a tank that can take hits - the increased use of regrowth would certainly warrant the help, but I’m terrible at this game so what do I know. 
You’re using photo, so you would be far better off using dark Titan as your lego.
The double lifebloom = absurd amount of omen procs. Pair that with the omen/regrowth conduit, and you’ll see more mana efficiency and extra healing than abundance can offer without the need to blanket rejuv the party. (Some irony in that talent lost on most of you)
Is the part about bloom removing stacks true? If so, Bloom on yourself and the tank with photo will make it a non issue, and the 20% will help with party heals. It’s win win.
I usually hit Rejuvenation right after a Regrowth. Other times I’m pro-actively applying them on the group in anticipation for AOE damage. Cenarion Ward is probably better for Tank healing but, making Regrowth into a burst snipe heal proved to be indispensable for me to keep players from dying.
Pro tip.
Regrowth heals for more of you rejuv first.
Is that what you think abundance does?
Oh my sweet summer child.
Sure, Rejuvenation then Regrowth, that’s fine. I hope he makes it. I’ll still grieve if he doesn’t.
Sorry to necro this thread, but the key questions I had were not answered.
First, the biggest problem I ever had with this affix was tanks linking pulls while below 90% causing me to (A) not drink, and (B) never be able to heal them because they couldn’t be bothered to eat… Same thing (to a lesser extent) with dps who feel like it’s not their job to recover their health between pulls.
But the changes are huge. First, tanks might be able to just ignore it now because it’s not % health. That’s a big help if your tank has a huge health pool. Second, direct heals now remove a stack. This means when you’re panic spamming … (what? regrowth?) … the situation gets better (instead of previously, where the guy happily runs out of range while at 50% health and is not bothering to eat).
That brings me to my main question: You can eliminate a stack… how? Do all of these count?
Spec Nourish? (BTW, when did Nourish become Healing Touch?)
The initial heal of regrowth? (Both in and out of tree?)
Swiftmend?
The final bloom of Lifebloom?
Renewal (just on yourself, though)?
Does anyone know if any of these don’t work? Is there another thing that does? Is there a trinket direct heal (this is more of a curiosity, I’m not going to go farm for a trinket for an affix that removes one stack every 3 minutes).
Does anyone know if individual’s self heals, like hunters or warriors, drop stacks? Obviously monks, druids, priests, etc… self heals must drop stacks. But some of the weirder ones, like rogue’s Crimson Vial (which is a 6-second HOT) may not.
Thanks for the notes and info!
hi friend. I read your post…lots of the spells you’re asking about (like swiftmend, lifebloom’s bloom, renewal) are all excellent ways to help you drop grievous stacks…i’m not really sure what you’re asking…spells like swiftmend and renewal are all sitational…since i’m not actively watching you play, i can’t advise you on when to use them…just try to stagger your cooldowns (including trinkets) when you do mythic+ and don’t panic and overreact to pulls…as a druid you should understand how to manage your mastery.
remember, grievous is defeated by the healer. this is our responsibility to deal with it. if you’re running out of mana or having trouble keeping up with the fluid constant speed of a mythic+ run, it’s likely a player issue on your end. could be low mastery, wrong talents, not utilizing mastery properly, gear, etc.
lots of classes have self heals, and some have some pretty bursty ones, but some of those skills are cooldowns and are saved for situational issues that arise (maybe for a super hard pull or Pride, or something like that) :p. just heal really hard my friend.
i also think the trinkets you have are both excellent for dealing with grievous 
you’re going to get SEVERAL different responses on how to handle your issue - but the best advice i can give you is to just practice out different builds, and record your runs so you can review replays…it’ll always show you what exactly went wrong, and what you can improve on.
gl
PS: do not pick nourish right now. it is a horrible talent. i’ve tried it myself 
Thanks for the notes. I think the main thing is that all the spells I listed should drop grievous stacks. That’s 90% of what I was trying to check. I could easily see swiftmend not being considered a direct heal… lifebloom and regrowth are both hybrid, but people seem comfortable with saying they count.
With the changes, I don’t think the problems I had with having multiple wounds going from pull to pull will be a problem anymore unless someone is pulling way too fast.
I try to use swiftmend on c/d if there’s a need. Otherwise I tend to swiftmend+barkskin the tank anytime I fall behind a little. Renewal is usually saved for when I need a big self-heal and have to move. I almost always have at least one rejuvenation on 3 or 4 of the party.
I’m considering a 2nd legendary with the 2xlifebloom rune for this coming week, to help a bit. But it might impact my playstyle more than the potential benefit. I also have a bad habit of not letting lifebloom finish - by re-casting it or casting it on someone else, that dates back from Burning Crusade (I think).
In the past, I’ve absolutely had like 3 people at the end of a pull all with wounds. And instead of eating, they all just stand there or head to the next fight. And because it didn’t used to drop stacks, I would just focus 1 till the stack dropped, then move to the next… and people died that way. If I didn’t, I could go completely oom before any of them lost the wound. And since we’re not even fighting, I consider that to be not my problem. But again, that’s gone now.