Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Resto druid raiding reqs for Ulduar: T8.5

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A couple weeks ago I posted the T7.5 raiding reqs that I put together for the resto druids in my guild. That post has a lot of good information about what the function of requirements are, and why they work. It also lays out the basic information about gems and enchants, consumables, talents, glyphs, etc. I would highly recommend checking it out here.

With Ulduar coming in the next month or so, my guild has been preparing to update these requirements for the next tier. I recently put the resto druid reqs together and thought I would share them with you guys. These stats are based on the assumption that you will have a decent amount of 25 man heroic gear from Naxx, Malygos, or Sarth. Having Ulduar 10 gear is NOT required to meet these reqs.

I've just copy-pasted them straight from my guild website. Enjoy! =)

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Resto Druid Reqs

Woohoo, Ulduar!

Changes from T7.5 are in green.

Stats:

Bonus Healing: 1900 in tree form
Health: 15000
Mana: 16000
Mp5 while casting: 290

If you have the [Majestic Dragon Figurine], you can essentially add +180 spirit to your stats, which is basically +32 mp5. So you can figure that in while figuring out whether you meet the 285 mp5 cut off. Also, 180 spirit gives you about +30 extra spell power (give or take a point) in ToL form because of your ToL spirit aura, so you can factor that in as well.
Essentially, if you have the trinket, you can still meet reqs by having 258 mp5 and 1870 SP (in tol). If you're just barely meeting reqs this way, it means that you MUST wear that trinket for raids.

Similarly, if you have the [Illustration of the Dragon Soul], you can subtract 200 spell power from reqs yet still meet them.

Glyphs:

[Glyph of Swiftmend] is the only glyph that is required.

[Glyph of Lifebloom] is not really recommended anymore***. If you're planning on using the Regrowth Glyph or the Nourish Glyph, you should look at having the 5/5 Nature's Bounty (previously called Improved Regrowth - they changed the name for 3.1) talent. Pre-3.1, the talent gave you an extra 50% to crit on Regrowth. Post 3.1, it gives you a 25% chance to crit on Regrowth, and a 25% chance to crit on Nourish.

[Glyph of Innervate] is also good if you're having mana issues.

Two new glyphs come 3.1, [Glyph of Wild Growth] and [Glyph of Nourish], can also be considered. Depending on your healing style, both of these can be very powerful glyphs.

***We'll probably be letting Lifeblooms bloom more often than not due to the change in lifebloom, so having a longer duration on LB isn't really advantageous. After you get your healing rotation down in 3.1, maybe you'll find that you can roll LBs even with the double mana cost, and that the glyph helps you - at that point you can assess your glyphs.

Please see the T7.5 Naxx25 reqs for information on consumables, enchants, talents, gems, etc. Those requirements are still in effect.

Thanks guys! Let me know if you have any questions/concerns.

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16 remarks:

Sylly said...

great resource! You'll have to keep us updated if you feel you have to make any changes once you hit the content!

p.s. I'm tagging you for a Warcraft Haiku blog meme =) Have fun!
http://www.rollinghots.com/2009/03/31/warcraft-haiku-hijinx/

Unknown said...

I have about 2k bonus healing unbuffed in tree form and on our server it's considered to be good for Naxx 10 and decent for Naxx 25.

Peli said...

Roman, 2k may be deemed decent for Naxx 25 if you're playing a paladin (who don't have to worry about stacking spirit heavily like druids and priests or MP5 like shaman), but a druid's true strength doesn't come from the size of their heals, but from to their longevity and the fact that we do not go OOM. Ever.

If anyone tries to tell me any of my characters are undergeared for any instance that I know they will do fine, I know they are one of two things: Lazy and don't want to put in the effort (meaning that the group will most likely fail at the first sign of trouble) or they're really bad at their class and I'd be better off not grouping with them. I had an experience on one of my DKs a week or so ago where this guy absolutely grilled me on my stats for a simple Heroic GD run, when I joined the group it ended up being that the guy (another DK) was DPS specced 0/0/71, was dual-wielding, and his OH was a tanking weapon...

Unknown said...

@Peli,
True. I personally don't go OOM, though I still have much to learn about being a great resto-druid. I meant that most people on my server consider high stats to be the core of the game. Whereas the knowing (Dak'Kon speaks in me)) of your class and how to handle it mean much more. A pity.

Sorry for not expressing all this clearly in my last post. I've just realised how odd it sonds.. Like "Wut be that? T8.5 raiding reqs? Pfft..." I totally didn't mean that.

Averna said...

@Roman: No worries!

I've read a lot of posts on various blogs about pugs requiring higher and higher stats. It makes some sense - you want to have the best group possible, and when you don't know the players personally, the best info you have is stats. But in my opinion, having a skilled, attentive player with slightly low stats is better than having an unskilled, inattentive player with best in slot items.

The reqs I posted for Naxx25 put bonus healing at 1600, and it seemed to work well for us. The 1900 was based on: I wanted to put it high enough so that people would need to have a decent handful of 25 man gear to meet it, but at the same time, not need to have ALL 25 man gear. It's a delicate balance.

@Peli: Lolpug.

Author said...

I'm 1800 sp, roughly over 2k with raid buffs. I have run EoE/Naxx/OS/Vaults (10/25). Anything extra just seems extreme to me. Feel free to check my gear however atm I'm in feral from the daily grind and hadn't switched back yet.

I'm sporting (recalling from memory) Helm of anomalus, neckpiece from anomalus, Shoulders from Salva in H UP, bands of the world tree (purchased from a guy selling valor bracers), heros dreamwalker robe, t7.5 gloves, earthgiving leggings/boots (crafted by guildy) both rings are blue, one from DTK and the other from I dunno land (some instance or quest) Trinkets are Blue dragon card (beast deck) and I just replaced the cannoneer trinket with one from OS 10 (majestic dragon figurine?) I'm 99.9% sure that is it. So you can put all that together in rawr and see my stuff.

I say that to say that once the new patch comes out I will be attempting to use the same gear for the ulduar stuff. I really wanna see how "out of the box" can do for any druids who may not have the ability to hit all the raids and be blessed with the gear. Pug runs ftw...

Thank you for the update, we appreciate it Averna :-)

Silvermoo of Tichondrius

Peli said...

Silvermoo,

You have to remember that Spellpower isn't the end all, be all of stats (although most pugs will wrongly only look at that stat, much like hp pool for tanks). A druid with 3000 spellpower isn't any good to a group if they only have a mana pool of 6k and no mana regen, or their health is so low that they die to AoE constantly. I have a feeling with those items that there are other stats in which you are lacking that make it hard to be a well-rounded raid healer. I'm not implying that you are unable to be a well-rounded healer with that gear, but saying that you'd be able to walk into Ulduar25 with that gear and make out fine is wishful thinking.

-Peli

Brian said...

The real question I would have about minimum stat requirements is how well an excess of one stat can make up for a lack of another stat. More mana regen with a smaller mana pool is the most obvious example here.

In a perfect world it wouldn't really matter, since everyone would have access to all gear options, so stats could be perfectly balanced. But if that's not the case, is it possible to cobble together a set of Ulduar25 viable stats without meeting the minimum in EVERY category?

In my case I have 94% of the requires mana pool (15100/16000), but 120% of the required MP5 while casting (310/258, since I have the Majestic Dragon Figurine). Is that worth worrying about, or should I focus on other things (like getting my less than ideal spell power up)?

Toil said...

It is better be a resto or a balance? Isn't healing a bit boring?

Averna said...

@Toil: Is it better to be resto or balance?

OMG wall of text incoming!

Well that's a pretty loaded question. "Is it better" is pretty vague. But it looks like you're coming from the line of thought, "which is more fun?"

I think both have their places. Being a boomkin means you can blow stuff up, and that's totally rad. Being resto means you can keep those people who are blowing stuff up, alive.

I don't know all that much about dps in general, but I LOVE healing. You never know what's going to happen next - who will be on the brink of death? Will everyone move out of the fire or will someone need heals? Will the tank suddenly start to take massive damage? You have to be at the ready, all the time. You have to be ON. I love working with the healing team I have in my guild, too. The 5 or 6 of us join our healer channel during Naxx or Malygos in in-game chat and figure out strats and mechanics together. It's really neat. Our communication is awesome.

I love the healing as a tree, too. Hots are so neat - you get to be a buffer for all the other healers. The tank takes a massive hit - good things my hots are rolling on him while the paladin over there is trying to cast a big heal!

There's also a lot of timing that goes into it. Can I put a quick Nourish on the mage over there before I have to refresh my stack of LBs on the tank? Can I put a rejuv and a swiftmend on the rogue that just pulled aggro, or are the global cooldowns too long, in which case should I use my oh-shit macro of nature's swiftness + healing touch? Or will I need that macro for the tank later? Should I just let the rogue die because I need to focus on the tank? Is it more important to refresh the regrowth on that tank before it runs out, OR to save the rogue? Should I let him die and forget about him or use a battlerez after he's dead?

All of these thoughts are racing through your head when you're a resto druid healer.

I have leveled multiple alts - not all the way to 80, much less raided with them - but for what it's worth, I can say that playing a resto druid is the most un-boring class and spec I've ever played. Besides, if healing was boring, I wouldn't have dedicated this much played-time to it, or to this blog, don't ya think? That being said: it's not for everyone. Some people DO find healing boring. They want to be killing stuff. That makes sense to me - however my heart will always lie with a healing class ^^

=D

Peli said...

@ Toil

DPS is terribly repetitive and never really changes with the encounter. Healing and tanking, on the other hand, have the beauty of being different with every pull, even the same mobs never give you the exact same fight twice. For that reason, I find tanking and healing to be far more gratifying than DPSing, but seeing big 4 or 5 digit numbers pop up above their head makes some people enjoy the game, so more power to them.

Schmackum said...

I was expecting the reqs to be higher. My guild finally has enough people to run 25 man naxx and I got 3 drops there in the last week. I'm using naxx10 gear, vendor stuff and some craftables as well. Mp5 is around 300, mana and health are both just over 16k (should concentrate on mp5 and mana) and my bonus healing is 2150.

What makes healing fun is those raids where all the tanks die on patchwerk 25man and only 1 druid tank is left who is taking all the hits. Just healing him through it with 6 healers and just giving it all you've got. Dps and tanking are also fun, but I get bored of dpsing very fast (I have specced moonkin for a while) and tanking is just to messy for me. You really need to keep your eye on every mob around you. Where as healer you have a clear overview out of the back of what is happening in front of you. The time I specced tank was fun and it's a welcome change, but I switched back to healer after 2 weeks already.

Also the fact that on our server we have a lack of healers gives me a lot of attention. I get 15 whispers a day at least asking me if I can heal a heroic or a raid.

With dual spec coming up we can start tanking or dpsing next to healing. But since I like healing this much I will start doing feral pvp next to healing. That way I can always heal in raids and still experience some other aspects of the druid... if that makes sence to any of you ;)

Thanks for posting these requirements :D

Nazhtarune said...

I am generally considered to be Naxx geared, while being at 1600 spellpower, 400 in-combat mana regen, 17k health and mana (roughly).

Most of my gear is sadly still pretty bad (blues and PvP gear I had to put up with), but I managed to do really well on EoE and Naxx 10 mans.

I even healed Razorscale yesterday, which was a blast for it's machine-gun healing style and massive damage.

I am wondering though, are those stats correct? Because if so I am ready for Ulduar while having run only a bit of Naxx and EoE on my resto druid, while I felt that Ulduar was much more heavy-handed with damage and less forgiving for slipping up.

Averna said...

@Nazh: Yup, the stats are correct. Note that these stats are completely unbuffed (you shouldn't even have MotW on), and in tree form.

First of all, I don't believe you can get 400 in combat mana regen with blues and pvp gear. I have around 330 in best in slot gear atm. If I sub out a spell power trinket for a spirit or mp5 trinket, I might be able to get it up to 360 or so. Perhaps that 400 is with raid buffs? Or do you just have everything enchanted with mp5 and spirit enchants? Are you sure that number is right?

Secondly, is your 1600 spell power in tree form, or in night elf form? Is that with buffs?

My stats here say that you need 1900 spell power, in tree form, with no buffs on. So you actually wouldn't be ready to raid in Ulduar, if you go by the reqs I set up for my guild.

But remember that stats are just a mere drop in the bucket when it comes to answering the question, am I ready to raid this next tier? It also depends on your own skill, and the skill of the people you're with.

So perhaps you ARE ready for Ulduar. Personally, my guild likes setting up benchmarks and standards, for a number of reasons, but it doesn't mean that someone with 1850 spell power will utterly fail in Ulduar.

Nazhtarune said...

Hmm, well my stats did include the effects of an elixir and possibly MotW, but I rechecked them without any buffs except ToL form.

Spellpower 1767 (ToL), 1588 (Elf)
314 in-combat regen (unbuffed, elf form)
Spirit: 1195 (Elf) -> +179 healing spellpower (+/-)
Health: about 15k
Mana: about 16k

I have mostly Spirit and Spellpower enchants; no Mp5 enchants except the shoulder one.

I think the In-combat mana regen should be correct as it was on the armory; I can't recall any changes from ToL on it, at least.

So basically all I'd have to do is find some more SP gear to make about a 300 difference (which is not all that hard), while being OK in the Regen department.

The health and mana are merely a side-effect of gear-level. If I'd get my hands on Tier 7 or the like, I am pretty sure they'd jump by 200-300 per piece I switch out.

My apologies for the math error; I wish armory had a more clear way of showing what buffs were active.

Nazhtarune said...

With in-combat mana regen I mean while casting...doh!