Resto Druid in MoP - stat allocation

[Gruntex]

So, I've thought of a few combinations as to how this works, and I've kinda come to the conclusion that my stat allocation will be based almost fully on whether the mechanics of the fight allow strong consistent use of mushrooms or not. I'm thinking a full on mastery/crit build if so, and then if not, perhaps mastery/spirit (with mastery having priority), and reaching whatever reasonable haste caps there are for wild growth and rejuve.

What are the resto druids here thinking? What do you consider an "average" build?

I feel like a lot of this is really up for debate, which is why I'm most interested in hearing what the best have to say about it?

[Gruntex]

Please, I am in need of top level advice with good reasoning! :)

Where is this "super active forum" that Mancy was talkin about? ;)

[Pathemeous]

There's quite some time untill MoP hits, surely a lot more than 8 hours. Give them guys a second, they've got more things to do than stalk their own forums 24/7 ;). I'm sure they'll give you a useful response.

[Gruntex]

:( D:

[Nagura]

Hi Gruntex,

first of all: from what i saw on beta tests there was only one fight that would allow a strong consistent use of mushrooms (Gara'jal the Spiritbinder), on every other boss the raid needs to spread out the whole time or there are only a few times during the fight where you can use mushrooms on multiple targets (at least on 10 man).

Now something about the stats: since there are no new healing spells for a restodruid except mushrooms and the "healing style" is pretty much the same as it is now, I think its still int > haste (wg + reju breakpoints) > mastery > crit > haste (above breakpoints). I would say it isnt viable to stack crit for one single healing spell only (mushrooms), because haste + mastery are still better for hots.
I didnt list spirit because no one can say how much manaregen someone needs, its individual for every druid and for every fight. But I think mana is a big problem at the beginning of mop (like it was in cata too), so you may have to stack spirit for many fights.

[Old]

I agree on Nagura on pretty much everything besides mushrooms. I personally used a lot of mushrooms during almost all the bosses on beta and they are a very good way to heal damage for almost no mana cost. It's the only spell that will really go up with the switch to 25man. I expect something like 15% of my healing on many bosses in 25man.

Nourish is very lackluster and it needs a hot on the target and we don't have much spells to cast besides Rejuvenation when there is damage. Rejuvenation costs a lot and as always it will be our manasink ability. And mana is definitely something to look at on progress and especially at the beginning of expansions.

Crit is in my opinion a bad stat because it lies in whether or not you crit with Swiftmend, because it's where crit shines. It averages badly on a fight per fight basis.

In a 6min fight, you can do max 23 Swiftmend. And even in heavy aoe boss it will be more like 20, if you use it properly. Criting with 1 more SM makes your crit rate on the meters go up by 5%. Criting with 1 less is basically -5%. So you can be at 20% like you can be at 30% because of 2 crits. And considering item budget is very limited early in the expansion (aka you don't have a lot of stats), you'll never be able to stack it enough to make a difference compared to mastery.

[Nagura]

I didnt want to say mushrooms are bad or I dont use them at all, I like them a lot and used them on pretty much every fight too. They are pretty awesome in many situations, but what I meant is: theres no boss like zonozz/ultraxion/madness/spine/yorsahj where you could use them on cd because the raid is stacked up somewhere. Most of the bosses need a lot of movement and the raid cant stack up somewhere. You can still use them for tanks + melees on a lot of bosses and yes, they're gonna be strong in 25 man.

Haste is a pretty much wasted stat for mushrooms, maybe its worth it to drop one haste breakpoint or something to stack more mastery for a fight where you can use them a lot. But as I said I didnt rly see a fight where you can use them on cd in 10 man at least, lets see 25 man then.

[Gruntex]

I like a lot of the thoughts on this. I also saw Old mentioning something about crit for Swiftmend, but they capped the efflorescence hot tick aoe healing as a set number, so it's no longer based on how hard your swiftmend hits anymore, rendering crit almost useless :(

I'm trying to view what the usefulness of a druid is going to be, and I'm actually to the point now where I don't even think we'll use nourish, we'll just re-cast the LB to keep it going when it's close to expiring which won't bog us down too much considering the 15s timer added on top of never needing to worry about mastery anymore. The more heavy use we can incorporate mushrooms into our build means the more we can take stats out of spirit and just use things like swiftmend-->wild growth (for 50% haste) and then maybe the final +heal talent casting a wrath-->wild growth and just not use the wild growth glyph so that the timers match up better. We could just save our clear casts for regrowth so that we can apply swiftmends that way instead of using rejuve. I've also noticed some situations where a raid who can position really well can REALLY benefit from a pro resto druid by staying in a particular area while spread out certain distances to avoid mechanics, but still get heals from mushrooms.

I mean, I know people have tested a great deal of the fights, but I see this incredibly high potential in mushrooms (especially for 25) if a really pro guild can execute it. I feel like being able to do so would allow raids to basically just start dropping healers because mushrooms do a completely ridiculous amount of healing for practically no mana cost. If you could power all of your raid damage and healing into being healed by that one ability, it would just make the raid's dps go up by subtracting more healers.

I realize asking an entire raid to position so well is really only for the truly elite, and sometimes beyond even their capabilities just due to the pace of some mechanics and natural player error..... but it almost feels like a freaking exploit if some really intelligent analyst with a lot of time and great knowledge of the mechanics could take a look at this. As I play some of the raids myself, I start to wonder just how much time would be wasted if I tried to actually start coordinating such tight restrictions and wild ideas just to boost this ability. I am slowly starting to believe that maybe I just wanted it to be something more, rather than just playing almost cata-style resto druid while adding in some shrooms here and there.

As a 10 man player, I'll likely just gun for spirit and hit some reasonable haste caps, then just get mastery in between whenever I can. As mushroom use goes up, I can sacrifice spirit. As mushroom use goes down, I can grab more spirit back for the old style spells.

I do still feel there's something more here that I'm just not seeing, and that this will be a large debate throughout the tier... but for the time being I'm just not able to put the work in to come to a solid conclusion on it. It'll be interesting to see how things are when the release hits on the 25th.

[Old]

Feel confident we are aware of mushrooms power. Sadly many fights do not allows you to position your whole raid on a same spot (or close enough to dodge ability and still get healed y shrooms) and a lot of quality healing has to be done, which can't be covered by mushrooms.

We know how powerful druids are and mushrooms are most likely going to be nerfed. Badly nerfed.
After checking I in fact just learned about the new Efflo, making as you said crit even worse.

[Old]

We know how powerful druids are and mushrooms are most likely going to be nerfed. Badly nerfed.

called it!