Domo Submits to the Avarice Alliance!

[Bolty]

I know we don't want to get into a how much better does a restoration druid heal but really my thoughts are a 1.8 feral/restoration druid heals about as well a 1.7 restoration druid did in raid situations.[right][snapback]93104[/snapback][/right]

Innervate.

It's not so much for the Druids, but when you perform a healer rotation starting with:

1) Priest heals with minor healing by Druid
2) Priest runs out of mana
3) Druid innervates Priest
4) Druid takes over healing and gets to 50% mana or so
5) Priest, now back to full mana, resumes major healing duty

You can go on and on and on and on and on and on and on like this. Haven't had the opportunity to test it for a long enough timeframe, but I bet this combo could keep going long enough to get another innervate cooldown (6 minutes). It depends on many factors, of course, due to equipment on both the healers and the tank, but MAN can this combo heal a long time.

This is the crux of the resto-spec for the Druid. Working as a team, it's a far better spec than feral. If a Druid's the only healer, then yes I agree it's a toss-up. Is it fair to Druids that they have pressure to put 31 points into a talent tree to get a spell that benefits another player (Priests) more than themselves? Yeah, but that's how it is - don't blame me, blame Blizzard.

-Bolty

[Kevin]

Innervate.

It's not so much for the Druids, but when you perform a healer rotation starting with:

1) Priest heals with minor healing by Druid
2) Priest runs out of mana
3) Druid innervates Priest
4) Druid takes over healing and gets to 50% mana or so
5) Priest, now back to full mana, resumes major healing duty

You can go on and on and on and on and on and on and on like this.  Haven't had the opportunity to test it for a long enough timeframe, but I bet this combo could keep going long enough to get another innervate cooldown (6 minutes).  It depends on many factors, of course, due to equipment on both the healers and the tank, but MAN can this combo heal a long time.

This is the crux of the resto-spec for the Druid.  Working as a team, it's a far better spec than feral.  If a Druid's the only healer, then yes I agree it's a toss-up.  Is it fair to Druids that they have pressure to put 31 points into a talent tree to get a spell that benefits another player (Priests) more than themselves?  Yeah, but that's how it is - don't blame me, blame Blizzard.

-Bolty
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Actually it's not even a toss up with just a druid. Resto with innervate still wins even with just spamming healing touch and with the feral having the mana reduction talent for it as well.. See my post about my respec I went into a lot more detail. All 3 druid trees have ways to help them heal better.

But yes a healing duo gets a huge boost from innervate and I mentioned in that post that I think you could stay up for 2 innervates if you cycled right as well. I guess my point before it thought it out more in the other post was that a feral druid is still going to be an excellent single target healer if you let them do it. But just like a disc/holy priest is going to out heal a shadow priest and resto druid will outheal other druids but the gap isn't huge. Innervate though, as you said is better than Holy Nova as a top talent and while leader of the pack can actually generate about a 20-50 DPS increase for the raid if you have it in the right group that really doesn't matter. Lack of healers means that even on bosses that druid is probably going to be healing and the extra DPS in a raid that is doing 1800 - 2500 DPS isn't really that big a deal on a trash mobs that you have no problems with anyway.

The cost of innervate is some more versatility of the druid and that is really what the question comes down to. How much versatility do you want to give for solo and small group play to be a better healer or help other healers in big raids. Priests face it too as a shadow priest is a much stronger solo'r than a disc/holy

[Quark]

The cost of innervate is some more versatility of the druid and that is really what the question comes down to.  How much versatility do you want to give for solo and small group play to be a better healer or help other healers in big raids.  Priests face it too as a shadow priest is a much stronger solo'r than a disc/holy
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This is the nicest thing about Chani being my 3rd major char, and the 2nd I want to cap. I can force Chani into a complete Restoration spec - that's right, every point - and have other characters to fill in most other roles I'm missing.

[Kevin]

This is the nicest thing about Chani being my 3rd major char, and the 2nd I want to cap.  I can force Chani into a complete Restoration spec - that's right, every point - and have other characters to fill in most other roles I'm missing.
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And this is actually the problem I'm having with Taranna. Gnolack can tank. I don't really need a strong bear. Balador can heal (I healed lots of 5 man's with him) and actually with some better gear I don't see him being that much behind my druid in healing. So Taranna is fun as my rogue and hybrid and while she grew up as a resto spec and it was fine now that I have another high level healer (and yes I put cloth on to boost my healing on Balador) I don't feel as much need for her in that role. :)