4.0.6 Patch Day

Many of you have probably been reading the patch notes (and other information) for a while now regarding the changes to druids.

Some things from the patch that caught my eye:

Symbiosis (Mastery) benefit from mastery increased by approximately 16%.

Coupled with some other changes to our talents, I see they are trying to make mastery a little more than a tank healing talent. I know I have been throwing on pieces that have more mastery on them, and if you look at the Valor Vendor, our gear is rife with it.

Making mastery work well takes some practice for me. I make the mistake of throwing rejuv on targets NOT affected by WG or not throwing WG down before Tranquility is up, etc. This will become easier once the fights have been done more (only a couple bosses are on farm for us, and we have been moving between 25 and 10s during the week).

Rejuvenation is now trained at level 3, down from level 8. In addition, its mana cost is now 20% of base mana.

Sad, but this was needed. You don't want to rejuv spam but at the same time, the change to Nature's Bounty would be moot if the cost was too high.

The instant Rejuvenation heal from Gift of the Earthmother should no longer gain bonus healing from haste too soon, and should now correctly benefit from Symbiosis

Somehow I overlooked this piece of information a few weeks ago. I had dropped to 1 point in GotEM to tweak with things, but if it will work with Mastery then perhaps adding back a point may be worth it.

Glyph of Regrowth now causes the heal-over-time effect to refresh itself on targets at or below 50% health, up from 25%.

This makes me want to take the glyph again. With my current progression, I am still not convinced I would get much use out of it. I mainly heal for 25's, and with our two holy priests, shaman and other resto druid, most folks don't stay at that critical level for very long. Perhaps later on in progression, this may make more sense. For 10s, I could see this getting more use as their are less people to draw from and tighter mana restrictions.

Tree of Life duration has been reduced to 25 seconds, down from 30.

With talents, this will last 31 seconds. There are quite a few people upset by this but I think it will pass.

Omen of Clarity can no longer trigger from helpful spells (aka heals), unless the Restoration talent Malfurion’s Gift is chosen.

If you didn't already have Malfurion's Gift before, this probably affects you a great deal.

Also note:

Mandala of Stirring Patterns now increases Intellect instead of mastery rating.

This sounds great. However, reports on PTR suggest that is is not procing off hots or dots which puts this at a really low priority for me. I know that I saved up tokens to get this but after reading the findings, I will be spending my tokens on stuff for tanking.

The tauren racial trait War Stomp can now be used while shapeshifted.

War Stomp-ing in Bear makes me sqeee! Getting myself to remember I can do that will take getting use to. Hell, some days I forget I can use a pot or healthstone in bear since I haven't actively tanked since early Burning Crusade. At least we will be closer toward Warriors and their shockwave.

What this means for my spec

I thought I had my spec set up nicely so I wouldn't have to worry about changing anything after the patch, but Efflo seems weak even in 25s. GotEM will be stronger, in theory anyway.

This is what I will probably be taking later today. I keep Nature's Cure because I still run a fair number of Heroics for the guild and I don't over gear the content so much that I want to just heal through it all. In addition, if you heal BH without Nature's Cure, you are asking for trouble.

I will drop Efflo. After a couple weeks worth of parses, I find it doesn't seem to be as effective as I wish it could be. And, as most of us know, being linked to Living Seed is just terrible. Even with Nature's Bounty and such, Living Seed still did pitiful healing. For the love of leafy things, unlink the two talents please!

Given that Healing Rain and Sanctuary are already in use for our raids, I find the green circle is not as needed. Our other tree will probably keep it, so it won't disappear from our raids entirely.

Interestingly, I find that it actually hinders me. Knowing that swiftmending will throw down a circle which may or may not be correctly placed means that I hold back quite a bit. Removing that from the equation will probably mean an increased usage of Swiftmend. And, one of our tanks thanked me when I told him I won't have green circles. I do admit that green circles with other nasty green stuff can be confusing for some to interpret (silly tanks).

There's also a ton of changes to ferals (why did you nerf bear threat?) and moonkin which are met with interesting responses on the forums.

Enjoy patch day!

Pugging, Raiding, Running like a mad cow

Pugging

So myself and many others are finding the LFG tool to be very handy. There are hiccups, like punks who feel they screwed up enough on their server that they need to spread the love... but they are few and far between. I started queing this weekend as a dps to give me a change of pace... and found that pace was slooow. Makes sense: less healers than dps means if I qued as the healer role I would fill it much faster than if I was competing with every other dps out there.

Something to note: my server has thing about scrub dps. I am sure it's not just my server, but we regularly scan gear and check the dps meter to see if people are pulling their weight. I have found that sometimes the stuff is dead too soon or the fight is favored toward some classes than others (ie, melee suck on WW stuff and boomkin suck at constant moving). Basically I won't vote to kick someone unless they constantly afk or pull jack ass moves.

The one thing I did notice about the tool is remember to watch your altitude. I used the "teleport out of dungeon" feature, only to find myself falling in Dragonblight and managed to shapeshift inches off the ground. Talk about panic. "Oh crap oh crap! Switch! Switch!"

Rejuvenation
I found it difficult to find information on exactly how the new rejuv works and in conjunction with the glyph. It was bugging me for days why I had a 12 sec rejuv even with the talents.

Here is what I have noticed so far:

Without any glyphs or talents- 15 secs
Without the Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation but with Nature's Splendor- 18 secs
With Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation and Nature's Splendor- 12 secs

I don't know if that's intended, but it seems the glyph overrides the talent. Because of this, I am now packing several copies of Rapid Rejuv, Nourish, Rejuv and Regrowth Glyphs. Possibly a little overkill, but I like to cover my bases. All reports were right in that the Rapid Rejuv glyph may not be the ideal for all situations.

A note about Regrowth: it will suck your mana if you rely on it too heavily. Ideally, Nourish is your best option. I have copies because our guild bank needed cleaning out and I am packrat.


My computer sucks
Still testing out things in a raid setting. I raid with such abysmally low frame rates that it's amazing I get anything done. Seriously, I can't wait until next month. I will have enough money to get a whole new computer then, but in the meantime I am working the gimp.

Friday Musings

I wanted to post about my rants on shapeshifting and the comments from GC. Then I wanted to post on my rants regarding raiding and the current outlook. Every time I wanted to go off on tirade, I started to feel like everyone else who is also griping.

I still may rant. I have a lot of things on my mind, but I haven't managed to put them into words and sentences that make sense, yet.

Instead, I will mention that I reglyphed for Glyph of Rejuvenation.

I have been staunchly opposed of this Glyph. Compared to some other healing Glyphs, it falls below optimal. But I am learning to be more open minded and try to new things lately.

However, I decided to give a try for our hard mode 10 man run, and I have to say it got some good mileage. For Heartbreaker, it was 2.3 percent of my healing-- with two other healers no less-- and 2.7 percent of my healing on our Hodir speed run.

Sadly, it starts to drop off during 25 man raids, accounting for barely 1 percent of my healing. A little more during Thorim.

I don't have 4pc T8, and I may or may not see 4pc T9 down the road where it might come in handy. I will say that as a raid healer, with between 40 and 60 percent of my healing comes from Rejuvenation, I don't quite feel the glyph is wasted. I just think it needs a little more love.

A chance to tick an extra 1k healing boost isn't game breaking nor all that lifesaving. However, it is a passive boost that I don't have to worry about attached to a spell I will be casting already.

Like many druids, we like passive things. We have enough stuff going on that having to do extra is just time (and GBD) consuming, so I kind of think of this glyph like a trinket. Not spectactualar for output, but in a small way helpful.

Do I keep it? Maybe. I might have a friend scribe a few Nourish and Rejuv glyphs for those times when I want to switch back and forth. Or I might get perpetually lazy and just keep it. All depends on if I keep my raid healing role or not.

What I would like to see changed... increase Crit chance on Rejuv, in light of the possible T9 bonus and the new idol. It could be small, like 5 percent. That would never happen, but I like to dream.