Imma be a healer when I grow up!Follow

So I've been leveling my druid lately for three reasons; we're 1 healer short of having 2 Kara runs going, I find healing is quite refreshing from the normal rogue/warlock dps roll I'm playing, and because you can never have enough healers. ^^
She's 57 now, and I'm REALLY excited to get her to the organized questing in outland. lol

We have 6 druids in our guild, 4 are feral and 2 are balance...
Which leaves me with nobody to go to for advice about resto druids. =(



I've read the FAQ but there's not much on the resto tree atm. lol
So I'm writing to get some general advice about endgame resto-druids.


Do they still exist? I haven't seen one in a REALLY long time.
Any advice on notable/endgame healing gear I should pick up on the way to 70? (I thottbot'd a wishlist but it seems, aside from epics, the selection of healing leather is quite limited.)
Also any general advice about things I should be careful of/look forward to once I respec would be MUCH appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

I am a restoration druid, but I am not in my guild's rotation for Kara at this time.

All except my body piece, I am entirely geared by quest rewards and 5-man instance drops. My body piece is a leather "of the Hierophant" piece. I'm working to replace it with the tabard from ZG. This ZG tabard is hardly the best, but it's better than what I have. I had run ZG a fair bit before BC, and bijous are cheap on my AH.

I'm in my town gear (again) so don't armory me. My gear is ok, though it certainly isn't the astronomical numbers you sometimes hear about. I think I have + ~750 heal, 7800 mp, a bunch of +mp regen. I need more mana, prompting the body piece replacement.

Off the top of my head, I think my equipment is
head - Raven headdress (Achaeni crypts I think?)
necklace - quest reward
Shoulders - raven pauldrons - Old Hillsbrad, I also have the priest shoulders, but they're cloth
Back - Mana tombs I think? One of those in Bonewastes
wrists - ZG reward (could stand to be replaced, not seen anything yet)
gloves - one of the reservoir ones, the one with the boss that levitates you
belt - Steamvaults, had a quest reward until this "Eighty-six Links"
rings - two runs through Hellfire citadel
legs - ZG, anamist leggings, could stand to be replaced
weapon - Steamvaults, second boss, serpent staff
trinket - you'll get so many quest reward trinkets, BC is trinket central
idol - one idol from Shadow Labs (+lifebloom! WOO!) and another quest reward in nagrand (+ rejuv! WOO!)

You can armory me for my spec if you want, I'm 14/0/47. (Manza, TB server) I recently respcc'ed to remove my points from the "Healing Touch" sorts and went full out HoT improvement and Subtlety. I typically main heal in tree form in 5-mans. I have balance points because I didn't see a better place to put them, and I do sometimes "pewpew".

I would never claim to be the treeform ambassador. I do not have "+1000 to +heal" and I don't have 10k mana. But I also don't have any trouble solo healing 5-mans, with two exceptions. I could not solo heal a 68 feral druid, who was not well geared, through shadow labs, and I could not solo heal a fury warrior through the last boss of Arcatraz. In both of these cases, the tank was taking WAY too much damage for me to keep up with, along with everyone else, and I did run out of mana. I need more mana, but I doubt another 3k would have prolonged the wipe too much.

edit: The spec you see is about the spec I did my xp grind with. I had points in feral at lvl 60, for a day, didn't care for it. Please note, Lifebloom is a integral component of healing strat, so, you might want the HT points until you get Lifebloom at lvl *mumbleIDon'tremember*

Edited, Apr 19th 2007 11:21am by Manza

Once you get used to it (and have lifebloom), it's natural to just stay in treeform for five man healing.

Rejuv the tank, (starting counting) Lifebloom x3, rejuv anyone else who is hurt, @10, swiftmend the tank. Repeat. I've found this to be extremely mana efficient. For burst damage, use a re-growth. You can Tranquility as a tree too, but I haven't gotten the hang of doing this yet.

I will say, it took some getting used to. I was a healing touch druid all the way, and *loathed* using Re-growth. I seemed to attract a lot of attention, much more so than when I would cast a HT and cure for the same amount. Once I got KTM Threat meter (an add-on that shows each party member's threat order), I could this was exactly the case. Re-growth jumps me up the list, healing touch does not. In a multi-pull situation, you want to keep yourself as close to the bottom of the list as you can.

My advice, if you're going to take Imp Re-growth, take the five points in subtlety. I have seen noticeable improvement since doing so.