Saturday, June 1, 2013

The Weekly Innervate - World of Warcraft - Resto Druid Changes for Mists of Pandaria

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 (PLEASE NOTE: This was written BEFORE Mists of Pandaria was released, some (if not all) of the information in this article is outdated.)

 There are a lot of things to come out of the 5 month long beta that pertain to Restoration Druids in particular and if you haven't been keeping up with every single beta build there are a few things that you may have missed. Luckily for you, I have scanned through all of the beta builds that have been released since the beta began and have compiled everything from pre-raid gear to the recipe of raid grub you're going to want to pick up.

 Experience Needed to Reach Level 90
85-86 – 15.5 Million EXP
86-87 – 18 Million EXP
87-88 – 22.6Million EXP
88-89 – 27.3 Million EXP
89-90 – 32.8 Million EXP

 This was recently changed in the beta. All experience from 85-90 was increased by about 55%. People were noticing that you were outleveling zones before you were finished and could go through 3 zones and reach level 90 without stepping foot in an instance. Blizzard increased the numbers so that you would gain one level for every zone that you were in. This goes along with their lore-centric leveling expectations. This made it so that every zone would have to be completed to gain the maximum experience. 116 million experience is needed total and people are saying it will take 24-36 hours of /played time to reach level 90 however people expected this out of Cataclysm and level 85's were seen in the first 9 hours.

 New Talent System
Please note that these are the choices that I believe are correct for talents for a raiding Restoration Druid. We may find out that other talents may provide a bigger thorough put.
  • Level 15: Feline Swiftness -15% Movement Speed Increase - This is a passive speed increase that you receive no matter what form you're in. I believe that this will be more important than teleportation every 15 seconds.
  • Level 30: Cenarion Ward - Protects a target, if they take damage they are healed for 11,500 damage every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. 30 Second cooldown. - 34,000 healing every 30 seconds, 68,000 Healing every minute is a good chunk and having a tank heal is beneficial. Still a little peaved that they put so many heals in the same level. Nature's Swiftness got a reduced cooldown to 1 minute which may turn out to be better than the shield but Druids have been looking for a tank cooldown for so long that I think it's worth it to pick up a new spell and try it out.
  • Level 45: Typhoon - One of several levels of talents that have no healing gain what-so-ever. So I believe that the conal knockback is the way to go. Although you should never have to use it in a raid environment it may be hand to have a knockback to get adds away from you while you're healing. Druids are cursed to have the highest healing aggro with no way of getting rid of it. It hasn't happened in a while but having a bad tank who can't keep adds off of a healer is entirely possible.
  • Level 60: Incarnation - Tree of Life cooldown. Exactly the one that we have now, 15% healing increase, 120% armor; enhances Lifebloom, Wild Growth and Regrowth. Anything that gives us a flat healing increase is a good pick for us. When it doesn't have an ability restriction it helps us dish out as much healing as possible especially when paired with Heroism, Bloodlust or Time Warp.
  • Level 75: Ursol's Vortex - Puts a vortex on the ground, reduces movement speed, pulls enemies that try to level back in the first time they attempt to leave. Same as with Typhoon, there aren't any healing talents in this tree and it seems to be centered entirely around tanks. And again, it can be used to slowing down adds in raids or escaping run away adds.
  • Level 90: Nature's Vigil - 20% Healing Increase for all spells, when you use a single target heal some of that healing is done as AoE damage around the target. Another great healing cooldown, great to be used for heavy add phases in raids or Heroism phases.
Glyphs
  • Major: Glyph of Blooming -Increases Bloom Heal of Lifebloom by 50%. Reduces duration by 5 seconds. Duration no longer refreshed by healing spells. I was never a big fan of being Lifebloom being refreshed. I hated having to choose between healing someone with Lifebloom who was low and having to wait for the bloom or waiting the time for it to produce a big heal and losing the target because you didn't want to refresh the duration.
  • Major: Glyph of Healing Touch - Healing Touch now reduces Swiftmend's cooldown by 1 second. This glyph used to reduce the cooldown of Nature's Swiftness but it has changed. You may want to switch out this glyph for Glyph of Rebirth when you get your Tier 14 4 set where Swiftmend's cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds.
  • Major: Glyph of Wild Growth -Wild Growth affects 1 additional target but cooldown is increased by 2 seconds. Even though the CD is increased the 1 additional target warrants a bigger healing output.
  • Major: Glyph of Rebirth -Players that are battle resurrected now resurrect with 100% health. It sucks that we have to choose between this glyph and healing output. Battle rezzing a tank with 100% health was always something that only we could do as druids. But it may not be worth it if our healing output is increased.
  • Minor: Glyph of The Orca -Your aquatic form now turns you into a killer whale. No more ugly weird sea monster thing!
  • Minor: Glyph of the Stag - Allows your travel form to be rideable to other players. Your travel form is now a stag permanently (white or grey depending on faction).
  • Minor: Glyph of Treant -Perma-tree form back! Your caster form still gives you your passive healing bonus so being in this form doesn't cost you anything. It gives Resto Druids the choice to have their permanent tree forms back again.
Minor glyphs are now entirely cosmetic so you choose any one that you want without having to choose between healing output and cosmetics. Glyph of Treant will be the very first thing that I pick up in 5.0. I was very upset when they removed perma tree form from the game in Cataclysm and I can only laugh at the people who said that Blizzard would never put it back in the game. There are other glyphs you can pick up if these aren't your style but these are the ones I will be getting.

 Ability Changes
  • Ironbark – Tank cooldown, reduces all damage taken by 20%, Lasts 12 seconds, 2 Minute Cooldown, Castable on anyone. Barkskin is still the same but they share a cooldown. This is a tank cooldown that druids have been begging for for a long time.
  • Swiftmend – Now an AoEish heal. Will now heal 3 other people within 8 yards of the target healed. Efflorescence has been removed and has been merged with Swiftmend.
  • Wild Muschroom: Bloom – Heals all allies within 8 yards for 4-5k. 10 second cooldown. 5 Mushrooms allowed at a time and casting the mushrooms now has no mana cost. Not a very effective AoE heal when we have so many.
  • Healing Touch – 2.5 Cast Time, Down from 3 Seconds.
  • Innervate - Now grants 10% mana regeneration, up from 5%. Our mana cooldowns was always so good and getting a buff to it is nothing short of amazing.
  • Mark of the Wild - Now grants Intellect instead of Stamina. No longer grants increased magical resistances. Intellect instead of Stamina is great for us as Resto Druids. MotW now gives us a larger healing output.
  • Remove Corruption - Now has an 8 sec cooldown and removes all Magic, Curse and Poison effects. I'm not so sure about the 8 second cooldown. This affect is across all of the healers which means that Blizzard can no longer insert raid mechanics that involve multiple debuffs that need dispelling or debuffs that need to be dispelled in quick secession. 
  • Symbiosis - Creates a symbiotic link which grants the Druid one ability belonging to the target's class, varying by the Druid's specialization. In exchange, grants the target one Druid ability based on their class and combat role. Lasts 1 hour and persists through death. Cannot be cast on other Druids. Effect cancelled if Druid and target become too far apart. 4% of base mana, 6 sec cast, 30 yd range. Resto Druids generally gain some kind of defense cooldown like Ice Block from mages.
  • Lifebloom - Now the duration is refreshed each time you cast Healing Touch, Nourish, or Regrowth on the target. This can be glyphed away.
  • Nourish - Now has a 2.5 sec cast time, down from 3 sec.
  • Regrowth - Now also has a 60% increased chance for a critical effect and its duration automatically refreshes to 6 sec each time it heals targets at or below 50% health.
  • Harmony: now grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 20 sec. They've doubled the amount of time that Harmony is active, which means that Harmony can be up 100% of the time by Swiftmend alone.
Pre-Raid Gear
At the end of the day you will have 2660 Haste total from all of the items seen above. Haste rating has changed for druids due to Efflorescence no longer being in our arsenal of heals. The new haste break point we want to go for is 3034. You'll recieve an additional 80 from your enchantments. Reforge your Helm and Shoulders, both have critical strike rating which is entirely useless to us so it's the easiest to get rid of. You'll have some left over but having a little extra haste is still better than critical strike rating.
I picked these two trinkets for a reason. Most of the time you would rather go for 2 Intellect trinkets but in MoP Intellect only gives you healing output and no longer increases your mana pool. Which means it will benefit you more to have one Intellect trinket and one Spirit trinket at the beginning of the expansion when you need as much regen as possible to keep up people who are freshly geared.
Gems
Usually an orange gem would be on this list but the tooltips for meta gems don't show any requirements for 2 orange gems. If this is changed on launch be sure to use 2 orange gems which will give you 320 haste and not require any reforging but at the moment you do.
Enchantments
Mostly Intellect this time around. Movement speed increase is good for us this time around with a Mastery increase. The weapon enchant is extremely interesting, 1,650 Intellect and if it procs while your mana is low you get some mana regen. You receive both Power Torrent and Heartsong in one enchant this expansion.
Miscellaneous Finds
  • Flask of the Warm Sun - This is our flask of the expansion. You can go for the Spirit flask in the early goings of the expansion if you're having mana problems. Intellect no longer increases your mana pool in MoP. You have around a flat 300,000 mana once you hit level 90 but Intellect now only affects healing output so it doesn't hurt AS MUCH to go for a little extra spirit. You only need 1 type of herb this time around but you do need a Golden Lotus which is very rare and can be bought from a vendor by giving up your "Volatile Life" of this expansion.
  • Master Mana Potion - No Concentration Potions this time around but you will get about 10% of your mana pool back from this new Mana potion.
  • Mogu Fish Stew - Please note that this recipe makes 5 Mogu Fish Stews. So don't be alarmed if like me you thought you'd need 100 Fish/100 Crocolisks for just 1 stack.
  • Wisdom of the Four Winds - This is our Pandaria flying. Costs 2,500 gold at level 90. You can't fly in Pandaria before level 90 so be ready to quest on foot.
And that is that for everything you will need to know for your Resto Druid when MoP drops. Everything from Gear to the types of Herbs and Fish you're going to want to stockpile come raid time. I have the list of raid gear all ready to go and that will be released the Tuesday morning the first raid is set to be released! I hope you guys are as excited as I am and I cannot wait to level my druid to 90!
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