Balanced Undergrowth

Restoration Druid Changes Coming in 4.2

Posted on June 14, 2011 by . Patches, Spells and Talents

There are a lot of great changes coming for restoration Druids in 4.2, and I finally feel comfortable enough to give my take on them. Without feeling like Blizzard is going to change them before the patch.

Posted by Zarhym via Official World of Warcraft Blog.

Innervate now grants an ally target 5% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds, but still grants 20% of the druid’s maximum mana over 10 seconds when self-cast.

Glyph of Innervate now causes the Druid to gain 10% of his or her maximum mana over 10 seconds when Innervate is used on a friendly target, in addition to Innervate’s base effect.

I’m still not sure what the intent of this change is, for some reason I’ve been having problems wrapping my head around the numbers. Though from what I can tell by comparing tooltips, this will be a 15% nerf to Innervate trading (at least on paper).

Right now, when two druid trade Innervate, they are effectively getting 30% of their mana back, as opposed to only 20% when they use Innervate on themselves. Of course, the actual amount of mana varies depending on the maximum amount of mana each druid has, but for the sake of this I’m going to compare percentages. With the new Innervate in 4.2, druids can only get a maximum of 15% mana back from trading Innervates. Basically you get 5% back from the Druid who Innervated you, and then 10% back when you Innervate the other Druid. So presently, it looks like it will no longer be more efficient to trade Innervates. I can’t even think of a good hypothetical situation, like having a lot of +intellect procs up, where trading Innervates would be worth it. No matter how much maximum mana you have, 20% is always more than 15%.

Then just to clarify on the Glyph of Innervate change, it actually still gives the same percentage of mana as it does now, it’s just worded differently (and arguably more clearly). It’s my understanding that the “in addition to Innervate’s base effect” means in addition to the 5% mana the person you cast it on gets (as it works now), and not that the casting druid gets back 30% mana when you cast Innervate on someone else.

Posted by Zarhym via Official World of Warcraft Blog.

Omen of Clarity clearcasting buff from now lasts 15 seconds, up from 8 seconds.

I think this is more a quality of life change than anything. It gives us more time to to effectively use our Omen of Clarity procs, instead of just dumping them because the time is almost up or losing them because we had to move. So, I have no complaints, but nothing to really expand on.

Posted by Zarhym via Official World of Warcraft Blog.

Symbiosis (Mastery) has been removed and replaced with Harmony. Harmony increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic.

This is what I’m picking for the “game changer” this patch. Currently, our mastery is okay at best, but not something any resto druid was really crazy about unless you were tank healing all the time. The new mastery is leaps and bounds better for all aspect of our healing.

First, we have a direct buff to our big, direct heals, which will presumably be a buff to our tank healing. While I always felt druids could tank heal, I did feel like they were the weakest tank healers when it came to delivering truly huge heals. This should definitely help a lot.

But, the thing I’m most excited about is the buff we get to our heal over time spells from using direct heals. It will be interesting to see how difficult it is to keep the buff up just by using Omen of Clarity procs, or if I’ll have to make time outside of that to cast a direct heal and refresh the buff. I’ll no doubt want to keep the buff up as much as possible. Even the base 10% increase is pretty large and well worth it. This change also lays to rest the crit versus mastery debate that was going on at the start of Cataclysm. I would be hard pressed to find anyone (even myself) that could make an argument for crit now. I’m incredibly excited about this change, since it keeps me from having internal battles about crit versus mastery all the time. Plus it’s a nice little buff. (But don’t tell anyone!)

Posted by MMO-Champion via MMO-Champion.

Item – Druid T12 Restoration 2P Bonus – Your periodic healing from Lifebloom has a 40% chance to restore 1% of your base mana each time it heals a target.

Item – Druid T12 Restoration 4P Bonus – Your Swiftmend also heals an injured target within 8 yards for the same amount

I like these set bonuses quite a bit. I like that they still included a set bonus that awards the consistent use of Lifebloom, because I feel it’s important for Druids to do. The 4-piece is also very nice, and should be a very good bonus heal in tight situations. Especially because you’re either using Swiftmend to help save someones’ life in a tight situation, or using it to drop Efflorescence on a group of people. In either case, the extra heal should always be finding some use. The fact that it sounds like a smart heal to me makes it even better. So it should never really be going to waste. Now, if only the bonus heal would proc a second Efflorescence. ;)

Overall I’m excited for the patch, and I hope that it reinvigorates my interest in the game. Which I’ve steadily been losing due to guild issues and slow progression.

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