The great monk Nerf has occurred – and it’s pretty much done jack and shit for the current state of the Resto Druid. Our toolkit problems continue to be reflected in our output in 25s. And, honestly, with Blizzard indicating they feel we are “fine” I’m running out of energy – and feel a bit like I’m wasting my time – continuing to try and show we continue to struggle and have problems.
Here is the breakdown over the past few weeks.
Since this is the fourth time we’ve taken a look at this, with no indication that our life is going to improve, I feel I don’t have much left to say on the topic.
Our Monk overlords have been summarily replaced with disc priests. The monk nerfs were steep (maybe too steep), and the bubble lords swooped in and have mitigated their way into the position formally held by monks. Mushrooms still suck. Our healing model still does not work well in the world of MoP healing. Our fixed mana pools still do not support the toolkit we have to work with. And well, that’s about all I have to say on the matter.
If I hadn’t devoted the past eight years to the Druid class, I would seriously be considering a reroll at this point (and have, in fact, given it consideration). But I don’t feel that I should have to give up a class I’ve put so much energy into, and enjoyed for so long. I pretty strongly feel it should be Blizzard’s responsibility to make sure that classes are fun to play. That they are equally competitive, that they have tools suitable to meet that goal, and that players can continue to feel like viable assets of their raid team and enjoy the game based on skill rather than be frustrated because of artificial limitations set by the game.
But maybe that’s just me.
Please feel free to review the prior three posts in the series for more in depth looks at the problem and potential solutions.
Falling Leaves and Wings 
Don’t Disc priests always win the meters once you start outgearing content?
Their shields will absorb damage before any other healer can get in. Once you have more healing than you need, disc priests will always win the meters.
But tho they win the meters, that doesn’t mean they’re better healers. It just means your group outgears the encounter.
I only raid 10 man but when I do LFR I often wish I had more buttons to push that really do something. Taking nourish and healing touch out of my toolkit, and only ever using shrooms when I’m on fumes has me feeling more like a pally in wrath… gimped unless I stick to tank healing.
I think the problems you’re seeing so clearly in 25 man are still there in 10, we just manage to hide it better with fewer people… so much easier to blanket the raid in hots.
Lol meant to reply to the article, not a comment.
It could also mean they developers made a mistake and buffed the amount of absorption Disc priest’s spells are doing relative to the current content (only 0.08% of all guilds have cleared all heroic encounters) and other healers to some insane number. Once we’re a tier or two from this point in time it makes sense the amount of damage going out from this tier’s encounters will be negligible to the natural scaling of healers’ absorbs.
When we are two months in with MoP raiding and you have the majority of Disc Priests (formerly Monks) throwing out numbers that are 2x the amount of other healing classes in most T14 encounters something is amiss. This is also ignoring the fact they bring some of the best raid CDs (PW:B, PS, Spirit Shell) available.
I only raid 10 man but when I do LFR I often wish I had more buttons to push that really do something. Taking nourish and healing touch out of my toolkit, and only ever using shrooms when I’m on fumes has me feeling more like a pally in wrath… gimped unless I stick to tank healing.
I think the problems you’re seeing so clearly in 25 man are still there in 10, we just manage to hide it better with fewer people… so much easier to blanket the raid in hots.
I understand your frustration. I have been primarily restoration since original release. With all the ups and downs, this definately feels like an exceptionally low spot right now.
10 Man isn’t as as frustrating as 25 man, but I still reach my frustration cap. It just feels like we are awkward now, with no real synergy in our tool kit. I am just thankful I work well with the team mates I have had over the years. We sync well and that helps.
I however am not going to shelve my druid. I’ll continue working on ways to improve myself as best I can. Dang it I put a lot of effort into her.
I am also leary about the wait and see approach of tiers. I have upgraded a lot more and still feel underwhelmed at my healing.
All I can say Beruthiel is hang in there. Your doing an outstanding job of providing an insight to us, and others.
Swings and roundabouts! I still love holy, even if disc is currently way at the top. Eventually disc will be brought down to the level of the rest of us. In my opinion, spirit shell needs a much longer cooldown. 1 min for what is basically a raid cd??
10 man is absolutely fine still. (sory Beru i know you hate 10 man references).
our monk healer rerolled after patch and our paladin and shaman have just got used to be way behind me. currently only 6/16 hc so hardly cutting edge but still.
anyway my reason for posting is why the huge differnece between 10 man and 25. It seems only the 25 man resto’s that are complaining. I don’t see how you could heal less than 10 man druids so is it that the other healers heal for significantly more in 25 man than they do in 10 and thus druids fail to keep up?
Just curious.
I had a good laugh at the title- this is how I feel. ALL HAIL THE DISC PRIEST OVERLORDS. /is levelling sanct as we speak.
Same old story 8 years later. Blizzard cannot balance their game.
Wow is the best and worst game I’ve ever played.
I understand where you’re coming from, and it’s definitely frustrating to see that my place tends to be at the bottom of the meters. I’ve noticed that even with equal active times, the other healers are getting more oomph out of their spells, and have higher raw healing numbers than I can manage. It sucks when you’re working on progression and you’re the one that has to sit for a kill, but it’s something to be taken in stride. As far as my guild’s concerned, there’s always going to be a raid spot for a resto druid. I just try to ride the “I’m AWESOME” high from Tsulong for as long as possible during the raid week, and throw out some DPS where I can.
Preach it sister,
One progression 25 man resto druid to another, it blows. I get by, I earn my spot, I (still) love my class, but I’m just depressed that we haven’t gotten any real attention for so long. Even in Cataclysm it wasn’t great, we did good HPS, but lacked utility compared to other healers. Now monks have perhaps, slightly less utility than us(but still some) but better HPS and they gut out our niche.
I love my druid, and I can’t see myself swapping to priest, but I feel like I have to work 3 times as hard as others to keep up with mediocre healers of other classes.
I wish they’d give HoTW a healing component. I’m so jealous that when priests smite they dont really sacrifice HPS. I’m not really into meters, but I hate that popping HoTW and assisting DPS pretty much guarantees me bottom place.
Bleh.
Sometimes I wonder if druids just lack the ability to collectively whine as loudly as other classes in order to get buffs.
It is interesting to see you just 5k below a priest in total healing over the course of a fight, but with 40% activity.
Huh?
I’m not sure what you are trying to say!
On a side note, the monk nerf makes me feel just like one person described their druid above, “awkward”. I feel like I have several choices, but all of them are bad. By that, I mean the wrong people will get healed, my mana will tank, or I won’t be set up properly to handle future raid damage. I think that the nerfs were as much about killing a playstyle as about curbing throughput. Renewing Mist/Uplift was so effective before because you could get good coverage on the raid, and Uplift did a lot of healing. Since the nerfs, the RNG and delay of Renewing Mist is really exposed as a weakness. You have to be hyper vigilant of the cd for Renewing Mist and keep it constantly ticking to make Uplift worthwhile. I don’t experience flow at all, and for that reason more than anything, I’m tempted to go back to my holy paladin. The toolkit is just so much more responsive and intuitive.
It looks like I might be getting back into the raiding scene soon. I see how much I’m running on fumes in LFR and at 476 ilvl I feel like I’m still going to be undergeared for normals. I used to be an H mode raider through wotlk and Cata, so for me to actually have doubts about my abilities is really a first. I guess I can feel fortunate I’m no longer in a 25 man raid guild.and will be 10 man raiding.
Hi,
I agree that our toolkit is quite average to say the least – i mean we are pretty much the only real healing class that hadn’t had a significant change to their healing tool kit.
Shrooms are too cumbersome and their range is small – they would have been suited to Dragon Soul but not MOP in general.
My only real suggestion is:
1. Make shrooms have a raid wide range (i.e. 100 yards etc) + increased output to them, which will likey never happen cause the GD dont want shrooms included in our rotation > dammed if you do and dammed if you dont.
OR
Give us a spirit shell type ability like “Mass Lifebloom” with a small cd like the priests shell – the intention is to make it work like spirit shell / prayer of healing, rather than waste so many GCD’s trying to bloom ppl in anticipation for incoming damage.
Your thoughts?