.
I just had a discussion with a guildie (a wonderful fellow resto druid) about this, who helped me really understand the mechanics here. I thought I might clear this up for everyone (although I'm pretty sure I was the only one confused in the first place. Bah).
Let's first look at the tooltip:
Wild Growth
1. Heals up to 5 party OR raid members. So, pretty much anyone. We're all one big happy family.
2. 40 yard range. Just like a normal spell.
3. Within 15 yards of THE TARGET.
Wild Growth affects people who are 15 yards around the person whom you cast it on, not 15 yards from you. So it's not as though the spell has a range of 15 yards - you can use it up to 40 yards away. The range in which it will "spread" to five people total is 15 yards from your target.
Scenario 1: You have a group of people all around you, and one person 35 yards away from you. You put WG on that one person. It ticks on them and only them, even if that person is at full health, because there's no one else within 15 yards of them to have it tick on.
Scenario 2: You have a group of 5 people 35 yards from you, no one else is around. You put a WG on one of them. It ticks on all of them regardless of their health at that moment, because there are only 5 in the group.
Scenario 3: You have a group of 10 people all bunched up, 35 yards away. 4 are at 50% health, 6 are at full health. You put a WG on someone - it will hit the 4 people with 50% health, and randomly select one of the people with full health as the fifth.
Scenario 4: You have a full raid, 25 people, all closely grouped around you. Everyone has full health. You put a WG on someone. It will randomly select 5 people from the 25 (and not necessarily select your target) to WG.
Scenario 5: You have 2 tanks and 5 melee bunched up, 35 yards away. Both tanks have full health, but are about to take some damage. The melee all have 80% health. You put a WG on one of the tanks to pre-HoT him in anticipation of incoming damage. The tank will NOT receive the WG, and instead it will go to the 5 melee with 80% health.
Get it?
I know I do.
(finally)
To be honest, I wish it was a party heal. I understand that a smart heal, in most cases, is preferable. Consider this: Everyone is grouped up (think Thaddius). One person in each party takes 50% damage. WG on one of them and BAM all 5 are being healed. It makes sense, it's awesome. It's also moron-proof, and I hate that. It would honestly be more fun if one person in each group took 50% damage and you have to think "oh crap, I can't use WG, how do I go about healing everyone as efficiently as possible?" Instead of just hitting "4", you would have to *think*. Hey, back when I thought WG was a party heal, it was fun to judge how many people in a particular party had taken damage, and was it enough damage and/or enough people taking that damage for me to warrant a WG (Yes, you can laugh at me. Yes, I've been healing like this for the past like, 6 raids. BUT. HEY. I've been at or close to the top of most healing charts, so it's not - ok, ok fine. Keep laughing. I know. I deserve it).
The other problem is that you can never pre-hot a particular group. Prehotting (especially with Wild Growth) is awesome on, say, Maexxna (right before the web wrap), and Gluth (right before decimate). I mean, ok - you *can* prehot a group, but it's only going to hit that group if the group already has a lot of damage. If you want to prehot a group that is at full health, it will only work if they are in the exact position to guarantee that. Which rarely happens.
This makes WG (as my guildmate put it)a very REACTIONARY HoT. Every single other HoT druids have can be used preemptively, but WG cannot. Just something to keep in mind, and QQ about during Maexxna. ^^
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Monday, February 9, 2009
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9 remarks:
I knew it was a smart heal but I always wondered why someone could be targeted for it. I didn't really know that it hits the target and players around the target. Thanks for the heads up!
By the way, with WG you can target everyone and everything, even bosses! Of course they wont receive the HoT, it's just good for specifying from where the 15 yards radius is calculated. Good alternative method for reaching all the melees around a boss.
Well said, anonymous :) I read that as well, I think that's a pretty neat trick to make sure you hit all the melee.
Zomg Averna, yous the smartmost druidz I knoz!
Very nice article :-)
Corselle
if you wg the boss, you're casting it on yourself and 4 party/raid members around you.
it's the same concept as if i'm a draenei dps. i'm dpsing the boss and i cast gotn? it's going to be self cast. that is a blizzard ui feature however to set self buff when you don't have a target/targetting boss.
i actually prefer it as a smart heal esp in sunwell prenerf. (i mean nerf to wg, not sunwell) there was just so much raid dmg flying around it was nice casting it 5 times on the same person then seeing HUGE ticks on 25 people. it was just too much work to try to see who is down lower than 50% and prioritzing wg based on group health trying to keep it within a certain party. that was the idea of wg, give us a spammable group heal that require no thought, ala coh/ch. obviously was too op and had to get the 6 sec nerf. it was just making raid healing trivial.
it was nice for loatheb too. as you pop out of necrotic aura, just spam wg 5 times and boom. topped off raid.
/hug Averna
Because you got featured today, you know I'm now going to give you extra crap tonight if I outheal you, right?
:D
~Tal
@ Tal - I acknowledge your challenge, good sir, and I accept it!!
And yes, to any who didn't know, my blog was mentioned on Resto4Life today.
I has a sizable happy ^^
It is also super nice in instances of LOS. WG doesnt suffer in the same manner.
I mean look at the first trash on Ignis, the tank has his backside hanging out the side and im hiding around the corner out of sight of the mob however all the melee are not in sight.. WG the tank and voila theyre smiling ;)
I use it with Flame Jets on Ignis too, im flying in the air, WG myself ... DPS hover around me, i know its not for love!
No Eric, you CAN cast WG on a boss, and it does affect the 15 yards around HIM, not around you.
The auto-selfcast is an optional feature, which i have disabled. i can click WG then click on the boss (or click on boss then WG), and it will heal the tanks and dps, even though they are well over 15 yards away from me. I do this often because you will heal the people who are being attacked by whichever mob you target, reducing the risk of accidentally healing a bunch of casters just because one of them was a shaman and i thought he was melee ;P
However it does always work, such as if the mob is unattackable (boss is giving a speech/transforming and cannot be attacked) or has targeting issues (Whilst Onyxia is in flight, it says invalid target, even though ranged attacks work). Also, if there are no raid members within 15 yards of the mod it will also say invalid target (i think), whereas on a player it would simply heal the one person.
It is also worth noting that the target does not need to be a boss for this example to work, it does not even need to be a mob. I have made arthas the target of my WG in culling of strat, it does not heal him (because he is not a raid member), but it will heal any party members near him. This is identical functionality to targeting a player who is not in your raid, the WG will not heal them but will still heal nearby players who are in your raid.
Also, i thought of another example you could have used in the main post:
There is an uninjured player around 40 yards away.
There is an injured player on the other side of the uninjured player, he is around 50 yards away from me (out of healing range), but within 15 yards of the uninjured player.
I cast WG on the uninjured player, and it heals the injured player as well, VERY useful :)
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