Tree Theory

[robin_anadrith]

Somebody posted this on our guild forums:

I need help from the pro healer droods!
I'm going to be making a main spec healer drood and need help on a build. So far this is what I got and I'm all up on suggestions since I've never made one before.
tree spec attempt
I ended up writing quite a bit about my thoughts on tree healing, and I thought it

Comments

[amyiss]

THE PINK ON MY YELLOW BACKGROUND MADE ME CRAVE EASTER CANDY. THAT IS ALL

[fordarkness]

color

[robin_anadrith]

Yikes. Ok, folks. Changed. I don't post to communities much, it's just my default color for my journal, which has a white background.

Can we get to the merits (or lack of merits) in the content nao?

[lunanoir]

Your other big Oh Shit button is Tranquility - a spell any druid can use, but trees get to use a lot. Our talented cooldown is 3.2 minutes and it causes zero threat. Do keep in mind that it only affects your party - so in raids try to make sure that you're in the same group as the tanks.

... huh?

Granted, I am a priest raid healer but uh... this seems weird to me.

[okojosan]

I can't remember the last time I used Tranquility in a raid, to be honest. I do use it in 5-mans, but Wild Growth is much more adaptable in raids.

[najata]

This. I never use tranquility.

[archangelbeth]

I used Tranq the other day! ...I was in boomkin spec, we were doing the horrible three V-day bosses, and the healer'd gone down. I was trying to keep everyone up enough that I would be able to spare the time from healing to b-rez her. *panic panic don't have wild growth gotta heal everyone like ME and tank OH! TRANQ* **pretty noise and sparkles**

(Later, I pulled off a b-rez of the tank... There were like 3 seconds to go on brez cooldown, tank was down, healer was healing us, I'm going "AUGH"... And flash! And brez! And we have a tank at full health again! Gods, I love that glyph. And yes, I'm disgustingly proud of that set of kills.)

[stella_by_moor]

While some things are certainly a matter of personal preference (like the much-maligned pink text :D), your reply includes a few bits of advice that are counter to conventional tree-healing wisdom nowadays.

First off, this is a much more standard, cookie cutter resto spec. The haste soft cap drops to 735 if you pick up the 3 pts in Celestial Focus, which is handy until you can reach the 856 haste needed to soft cap haste without it. (Depending on how much your guildie is interested in numbers and theory, there's a lot more detail we can go into about what it means to be soft capped for haste and such, but not everyone is into The Maths, so I'll just leave it at that.)

Second, Natural Perfection and Imp Tranquility are not talents that trees typically get a lot of use out of in PvE healing. Natural Perfection is much more of a PvP talent and Tranquility just doesn't get used that much now that we have Wild Growth. (Honestly, Imp Tranq just needs to go away and I think Blizz knows it >.<) That isn't to say that there aren't times and

[stetnee]

This. I use that spec because I am nowhere near the haste cap. With the emphasis on haste now, we have to go a little deeper into balance to get a boost.

Except in heroics and some ten mans, we usually dont get put on tank duty, so I personally wouldn't even consider Glyph of Healing Touch. I just don't use it that often, and never without my Nature's Swiftness + Healing Touch macro. And what about Glyph of Rejuvenation? I really like it, considering how much I use Rejuv. And paired with the Rapid Rejuv and Swiftmend glyphs, I rarely have problems with people's low health.

I also rarely use Lifebloom, and I honestly don't get much use out of Tranq at all. I can count on less than one hand, probably, the number of times I've used it in the year+ I've been resto.

[starz_13]

I don't like that glyph because I generally try and keep my targets above 50% and when they are below it's either a) for a very short time or b) because they have to be that low and I don't want it to heal for more (aka Anub). There are better glyphs out there imo that will help your healing more than something that is very situational and not always good (Wild Growth is a must imo).

[stetnee]

Good point. Just personally, I've found I wasnt using WG a whole lot in raids because so many fights require ranged to spread out, or be constantly moving. And my (now ex-) guild was short on melee... so I had few situations where I could really utilize it, much less where I would need to effect a sixth person. I may be working it in more now that I'm pugging some more balanced groups.