Looking for a few pointers here. I'm a long-time boxer who can't box for a while (long story), so I'm just playing one account now, and my Druid is my main. I've been moloing the last few months, but want to start seeking out groups. The problem is, I haven't done regular grouping in a LONG time, and I'm pretty rusty on what I should be doing spell-wise. I know our DoTs are great DPS, but with group mobs dying so fast, I assume NFW is the only one worth casting. I can run through a decent DD rotation, but am curious if that's what we're supposed to be doing in a group. For a healing role, I have much less of a clue. Would anyone mind sharing their spell set and general approach? I know I'd have several heals up, along with furious growth, the big-hit DS spells, the spell which makes the next two heals twincast, and probably the DD which reflects a heal back on the tank. Anything else I'm missing? I just want to be able to fit into a group without torquing off anyone Thanks, Tat
Hmm. I only use the damage shield when power leveling or farming. Today's mobs have millions of HP, so your return would be better putting the spell gem to other use. Maybe the bear pet that gives you mana or a rain nuke or skin of reptile or a debuff like skin to plant if you have a lot of fire damage in your party or a cold one that reduces the mob's AC and ATK values. Main thing is remembering that your first job is to heal. Anything you can add beyond that is great, but don't do it at the expense of your tank dropping. What is nice about a DoT is that it's very quick to cast. You can drop that and Storm Strike and get right back to healing.
Good points, thanks. The thing I like about the DS spells is that they don't pull any agro, and they are very efficient, dmg vs. cast time. Point taken about keeping the tank up. My comments regarding doing damage was if I'm not the primary healer. For the Reptile line, I just started using it on my tank merc recently, and I was not really seeing that it did anything. Don't know if I'm not supposed to see messages when the heal goes off on someone else, but I never saw anything. And, it's only supposed to be good for 72 hits, but it would be up on the merc tank for the whole 7-8 minutes, and not fade. Hard to believe he's not getting hit 72 times over the course of 5-6 mobs.
Furious Growth is a bad spell in group content. It's useful in raids to keep tanks from being functionally one-shot by AEs + boss melee. If you're giving up a spell gem to put a temporary buff on the tank, Pellicle of the Reptile is the way to go. It makes the tank proc a lil' debuff on the mob when he's hit, and heal himself a lil' when he's hit. The "big-hit DS spells" are terrible always. Resurgence Dichotomic Winds Remote Sunflash Survival Adrenaline Vida Luna is situational, it's for AEs, most groups don't need it. Blessing (the twinheal nuke) is a'ight, but you kinda need to anticipate healing for big chunks with the twinned heal, so it's not usable if the tank needs more constant heals. Moonbright Frost is also a heal, and one of the best mob debuffs in game. Stacks with Blessing+Fixation of Ro AA, and with Pellicle Curse. It's recommended for battles that will go on a while, but frequently it's more efficient to just be casting a damage spell to make the mob dead, instead of a debuff to make the mob wimpier.
Thanks, that's how I understood it. Per my comment above, does it not work on mercs? Or does the caster/buffer not see messages when it procs on the tank? And again, hard to believe it wasn't running out of procs (and fading) before it timed out. Or does it not proc on every hit? I also remember it being changed a while back, such that it didn't proc much (or at all) vs. lower level mobs. My experience w/ the merc tank was against DB (and some LB) mobs. Thanks again, Tat
This is what I (usually) use:* NFW Remote Sunflash Dicho Roar Roar Winter's Wildflame Swap Slot Panavida Adrenaline Torrent Lunasoothe Resurgence Twincast ^Gives you 6 heals on your spell bar + NFW and a Druid nuke weave. And Twincast, which should probably never be un-memmed. Bonus points for two of your biggest heals also being nukes. Hate being caught out without Lunasoothe on my spellbar so I just leave it there. Swap slot can be used for any number of wonderful things. Depending on how active you want to be, you could use that slot to cast Pellicle (It lasts a long time) then swap to frost aura if you feel you or your group will get use out of it. Or mix in another DoT or leave Survival there if you need the extra group heals for those "oh s***" moments. Seems to work well for me if there's an actual tank in the group. It really starts to make your group healing feel stretched thin if something wacky is happening like pet tanking with lots of aggro being bounced around. Edit: I actually hate Panavida. I don't know why, I just do. I usually use that as a second swap slot. The other 5 heals are good enough (for me) unless the tank is going hard or is super squishy. *I'm not a Druid main. Take this post with a grain of salt until an actual Druid main chimes in. Be sure to hit your AA nuke during GCD. Keep Black Wolf/GBW on yourself at all times to help with mana. Evac your group to Skyfire as often as possible.
My spell line up usually consists of :- Resurgence Panavida Survival of the Serendipitous Lunasoothe Twincast Dichotomic Winds Remote Sunflash (Distant Conflagration AA should always be on cooldown) Winter's Wildflame Anabatic Roar NFW Sunflash Argent Thornmaw I will swap Argent for Adrenaline Torrent if I need to heal more but in most cases Remote & Dicho performs a large chunk of my healing and when needed i will cast resurgence / panavida (or Lunasoothe if I don'f feel like switching targets). I will also use Convergence of Spirits and Spirit of the Woods during cooldown for extra healing. I've tried including Sunfire Blessing in my healing spell set but using this leaves a gap in my healing following by 2 twincast spells that may be a load of unnecessary healing. If I do need a short boost of single target healing (i.e. nasty name or large number of adds) then I will cast Bosquetender's Fortitude, it burns through my mana but it boosts single target heals (panavida will heal for 85k and crit for 180k). The only debuff I bother to use is Fixated Blessing of Ro (AA) as most mobs die in 15-20 seconds and I never bother with the large DS spells as I find them wasteful. Spells like our auras, Nature's Response, Nurturing Growth I will recast when they are available again. For each one I have a macro that will swap out Panavida, load the buff, cast the buff and then swap Panavida back in. When I am healing my spell cast order tends to look like Fixated Blessing of Ro, NFW, Fire Storm, Remote, Dicho (if available) and then a heal or nuke depending how tank's health is looking.
