What’s a Druid to do in Wrath?

I’m quite hesitant to speculate on Wrath of the Lich King with lots of tweaks still to be implemented, but right now I have a good idea of what things are looking like in general. Druids appear to be going the way of the dodo in the sense that we know them now. With class power fluctuating so massively throughout the game, it’s not surprising. I’m going to take a broader look at druids having played one since release, and inform you of what I think Druids will be able to excel in, even facing our massive nerfs seen in beta.

Back in vanilla WoW, druids used Healing Touch max rank rotations. Queue up the spell, cancel it at the last second if your target is full health. Rejuvenation was a helpful buffer, but hardly bread and butter. With itemization changes, this evolved into downranking Healing Touch for faster cast time and great efficiency. In terms of PvP, we were very reliant on kiting to stay alive – very few classes had getaways from roots, and travel form could get you anywhere you needed to go without worrying about being slowed. Druids were considered a low end healer, an “innervate whore,” and generally were everyones’ bitch. The support class of support classes - carry my flag, innervate my priest, battle res our healer. Nor could we specialize in Feral or Balance, as both trees were broken, and itemization was non-existent.

Then came the Burning Crusade. Two words: cyclone and lifebloom. Now druids were kings of HoTs, and the kings of crowd control. Now granted, we were not dominant at first. How come? Well, lifebloom healed for half as much as it does now. That’s right, it healed for 300 with 3 stacks. Season 1 Gladiator druids were not common – check this out. Soon after, however, they fixed the lifebloom bug. Plus healing actually applied to the second and third stacks. Immediately, druids dominated 2v2 and 3v3s. It’s a cliché at this point to say “take any setup, replace the healer with a druid, and it’s better.” Because this is almost true. However, after months of druids being at the top of every ladder, Blizzard brought out the nerf bat and took our cyclone down to 20 yards. This barely dented our representation at the top of world rankings, amazingly.

So now we’re at the present. Cyclone is nerfed, Lifebloom is not. Druids are easily the most powerful healer in terms of arenas. Yet always keep in mind that Season 1 difference when druids had the low end of the stick.

Here comes Wrath - and Blizzard went overboard.

-Lifebloom costs 489 mana at level 80 (compared to 220 mana at 70). It also heals for LESS THAN IT DOES AT LEVEL 70. I’m not exaggerating any of this – it heals for 208 per tick for each stack at level 80. Welcome back to Season 1. But wait, there’s more.

-Death Knights can remove HoTs with a disease which you can’t cleanse. Warlocks can reduce healing done by HoTs. Death Knights have an unshiftable slow. Yes, counter-classes are everywhere. If you see a deathknight in arena, you may as well fall over.

-Druids were formerly the kings of instant heals – but now every class has a multitude of instant heals. Paladins specifically received a free Nature’s Swiftness each time they get a Holy Shock crit (which appears to be the majority of the time.) All healers now have druid like abilities – stronger CC, and tons of instant heals. But keep in mind, NO NERFS TO FORMER ABILITIES along with these buffs! Paladins still have plate, crazy mana efficiency, freedom, etcetera. Shaman still get bloodlust, windfury, mail armor and shield, blah blah blah. Druids and Priests in wrath are SUPER SQUISHY. Their abilities to survive using instants have been given to the healers who already had the ability to survive without instants. Why the hell would you want a Druid or a Priest anymore?

Wrath just feels like a massive nerf fest on druids. Here are the buffs druids got in Wrath that I believe are worth speccing for:

1. Slightly Longer HoTs

2. Healing Touch Glyph (hello, one second Healing Touch.)

3. Empowered Touch now 40% instead of 20% increase on Healing Touch.

Three (very minor) things. Awesome.

And as a side note for my detractors, I will NOT spec into Tree of Life Form unless our 51 point restoration talent is improved. Tree form is horrific. You cannot tank damage in it, you cannot heal through damage in it, because druids NEED to use their CCs to compete in arenas now.

So that’s that. But.

I’m going to tell you how to SUCCEED as a Restoration Druid! Well… you have to abuse the buffs Blizzard has added to Balance.

44/0/27

Yeah baby. Lunar Guidance, Dreamstate, Moonglow, Nature’s Splendor, Genesis, Gale Winds, Typhoon are ALL HELPFUL for a Restoration Druid. The latter two are for longer range cyclones and knockback utility (interrupt that shatter on your partner WITHOUT feral charge!) Not to mention Force of Nature is overpowered as hell, as your trees hit for 850 damage on clothies each hit with brambles. Oh, and thorns hits for 310 per hit (lol.) Throw in a 2000 damage typhoon and things are rolling. If you use this spec, focus your setups on heavy burst and heavy CC to make up for your loss of powerful HoTs. Rejuvenation will be your most efficient heal, followed by Healing Touch (1 second cast, woohoo) and Regrowth. Lifebloom is still usable, but only if you see some burst coming. Variations to the spec are fine, as I myself am considering picking up Improved Rejuvenation, or perhaps filling out the Healing Touch mana cost reduction.

I’m having fun with this spec on the Beta realm, and I’m just hoping we get to keep our one second Healing Touches. Currently the best fast cast heal in the game.