Shadowlands Alpha State of Resto Druid - Lackluster GCDs, Spell Changes, Covenant Abilities

Pubblicato 24/05/2020 alle 04:45 da Jaydaa

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This article is written by Jaydaa a veteran healer and contributing writer to both World of Warcraft content and other Blizzard games content here on Wowhead. I've been raiding in WoW for almost 15 years at various levels of progression. I've contributed to the theorycrafting of multiple healing classes, notably Mistweaver Monks and Restoration Druids. Find me on Twitter or on the Wowhead Discord username Jaydaa#2814.

Restoration DruidBaseline Toolkit Changes

New Baseline Restoration Druid Abilities:
NEW & NEW - These abilities no longer require their respective affinities. Not a huge change as each affinity really helps make the most out of these abilities, but good change.

NEW - Fantastic hard CC ability that was relegated to a PvP talent in prior expansions is back for Shadowlands. Having this to prevent Bolstering on a mob will be exceptional. Welcome back old friend.

NEW - The AoE sprint ability that our Feral and Guardian friends have enjoyed is returning to Restoration Druid. Fantastic utility that I'll be glad to have back in the Restoration Druid arsenal.

NEW - A nice quality of life ability returning for Restoration Druids. I'd ideally like to see this expanded to the new and perhaps some additional perks for using it with and like a and effect respectively.

Shadowlands Leveling Perks for Existing Restoration Druid Abilities
Restoration (Level 54): Initial heal has a 40% increased chance for a critical effect if the target is already affected by Regrowth.
Cost changed from 14.0% of base mana to 17.0% of base mana
The flat extra critical strike chance for Regrowth is back but this time with the caveat that the target must already have a Regrowth HoT active. Exceptional for continuous single target healing the same target (ie. M+ and PvP), but lackluster in raid where those situations are found less frequently.

Interesting perk that solidifies that the best use of Innervate for overall value to the raid is using it on another healer. More utility for your fellow healers, but not mandatory to be used in that way. See the GCD section below for more thoughts.

Baking in the HoT increase baseline to the ability is a nice quality of life change even if it's at the cost of an increased cooldown. This frees up a dead talent spot and beefs up Restoration Druid's external defensive CD a bit more. Overall happy with this change.

Reworked Restoration Druid Abilities

Instantly heals a friendly targetConsumes a Regrowth, Wild Growth, or Rejuvenation effect to instantly heal an ally for (240% of Spell power).
Cost changed from 14.0% of base mana to 8.0% of base mana
Cooldown changed from 25 sec recharge to 15 sec recharge
Swiftmend returns to a version that hasn't been seen since Cataclysm consuming a HoT effect for a single target bomb of healing. Ideally you'll want to consume a HoT that is about to expire to minimize the amount of healing lost from consuming the HoT, but the actual healing of Swiftmend will far outweigh the lost HoT healing. Combine this with a reduced mana cost and reduced cooldown and I'm pretty sold on this being a solid change. This also provides the side effect of buffing which is a talent that has seen only limited use in PvE.

Talent Changes

NEW Heals a friendly target for (135% of Spell power). Receives triple bonus from .
Tier 1 Talent, in place of REMOVED
As a replacement for I'm willing to give this one a shot, but I'm not completely sold on this one purely from a clarity standpoint. It fills the same design space that does but its advantages aren't super clear cut. It costs roughly the same as , but has a longer cast time. benefits from subsequent casts on the same target with the new crit perk while benefits more from mastery and therefore the number of existing HoTs on a target. How much mastery do I need to have and how many HoTs need to be on the target for to be an improvement over ? Later on in an expansion when we have a large amount of secondaries this will probably work itself out more simply but the answer will likely be more muddled early on.

Baking in some additional utility into the affinities is a smart move and makes the choice of which to a pick a bit more meaningful. For , Restoration Druids have also inherited the system for dealing damage. Combine that with the energy regeneration reduction for and the top affinity for damage for Restoration Druids may be up for grabs.

Finally a talent that treats healer damage as utility and gives Restoration Druids a way to deal more of it if they're willing to commit significant time to dealing damage. It's also possible to become significantly more tanky as a Restoration Druid. Back in Throne of Thunder on Iron Qon our tank died in the last 30s of the fight so our Restoration Druid popped and tanked the remainder of the fight. It was one of the most epic boss kills and I live for those moments, so I'm all for any talents that have the chance to make that happen.

NEW

failed to see a lot of play as the spell learned from and this iteration in the talent tree does very little to incentivize its use in Shadowlands. While the other talents in this tier boost AoE burst healing and AoE sustained healing, is meant to increase Restoration Druid single target burst healing capabilities. While it does do that to some extent, the costs are just too high. costs more than the , , 1/6th of a and HoT to apply, so you're really only paying a larger mana cost to apply them all at once. Combine this with a very limiting 1 minute cooldown and the problems with this talent emerge. Reducing the mana cost, reducing the cooldown, or allowing the spell to cast a full and would go miles in terms of making this talent more viable in PvE.

Covenant Abilities

Kyrian:
- Essentially provides a Beacon to your bonded target for 10s every minute. Largely a single target throughput gain, but there is some interesting choices to be on who you bond with depending on if you want the additional self healing by bonding with a healer, the extra main stat by bonding with a damage dealer, or the extra defensive by bonding with a tank. The tank would be the obvious choice as you want the beacon healing to be largely effective, but there is a choice there. The thought of funneling 50% of a through the bond while getting a stacking intellect buff is awesome, but it's hard to justify in a raid environment where a majority of fights favor AoE throughput.

- The steward offers some quality of life options like free talent changes or a vendor to sell things, but it essentially boils down to , a glorified healthstone for all intents and purposes. The healing will be nice and contribute albeit minimally to throughput, and the bleed and disease dispel for Restoration Druids could come in handy as you can't normally dispel those; however, the circumstances where the phial will be invaluable will be few and far between compared to other covenant abilities which are more universally valuable.

Venthyr:
- The best parallel to this ability would be but with a longer CD. Instead of losing out on mana regen, you'll lose the effect, become stunned, and take damage if you're idle for more than 1.5s. At early levels you're looking at somewhere between 8-10 stacks of the buff for 16-20% haste and healing. The strength of this ability is its versatility; it can be used for improving single target or AoE healing, raid or mythic+. Where it loses a lot of value for me is the 3 minute cooldown, it seems far too long considering we're used to the 30s cooldown of and the other covenant abilities are shorter. Could be an interesting use of supercharging your . Ideally If the penalty for idling stays, I'd like to see a reward for reaching the full duration like a cooldown reduction maybe? Double down on the risk/reward of this one.

- Quite possibly the star of the covenant signature abilities, it's hard to say no to a 35yd teleport with a minute cooldown even if it has a 1.5s cast time. This type of movement is almost universally valuable and it's hard to think of an occasion where it'd be useless. Full Venthyr dungeon groups can plan skips around this ability. As a Restoration Druid, our mobility is top notch, but I will never so no to more.

Necrolord:
- One of the coolest abilities I've gotten to play with on Alpha. A ton of thought went into the design of this ability and I absolutely love it. The HoT alone is decently strong by itself and does apply . Now add in the 20% extra HoT healing to the target and you really start cooking. The cooldown is near perfect; short enough that I feel like I'm constantly interacting with the ability both via activation and healing targets with the HoT but also long enough that I don't feel like it's a maintenance buff that I'm constantly needing to keep up. You can have multiple copies up at once and if they land on the same target the stacks of remaining jumps just add together so you really only lose out on jumps if there's no enemies or allies in range.

I do have a few requests to make this already feel good ability even better. First, make the jump range the full 40yds instead of 25 so that I can hit the injured hunter in the middle of nowhere and not be concerned about losing jumps because they're max range from the boss. Second, make the jumps to allies always target the lowest health ally similarly to or at least an injured ally to ensure that we can always make use of the HoT. It may already have the second functionality, but was hard to test with limited players. Beyond that I think this is a fantastic ability with an impressive visual.

- This extra self survivability will be nice and as an absorb will contribute minimally to overall throughput, but where this one loses me is the 4s channel. Restoration Druids already know how impossible it can sometimes be to find the perfect opportunity to channel a full . Adding another long channel to our toolkit is not exactly something we want. I would really like to see the channel time reduced or allowing this ability to channel while moving would go a long way to making this ability more palatable. Even with those changes it's a bit of a hard sell against the other movement oriented covenant signature abilities.

Night Fae:
- Possibly one of the most anticipated Restoration Druid abilities because of the sheer AoE burst healing potential, this one has let me down a little in practice. First, the abilities cast seemed to be all over the map. I'm not sure if this is related to the limited number of players I tested this with, but even as Restoration I got a significant number of damaging abilities. The ultimate dream is cast this with like 12 of the 16 abilities being and . I'm not sure if the abilities favoring your current specialization isn't quite hooked up right or fails once everyone in the party has both HoTs, but something felt off. Second, once the preference is working I'd really wish the preference was on your current shapeshift instead of your specialization. I can definitely imagine times especially in Mythic+ where I'd like to use this more offensively. Next, there's some issues where Thrash would just not hit if I was standing outside of melee range of the enemy and used . I should haven't to run into melee to get the full benefits of this ability as a Restoration Druid. Finally, I'm not in love with the 4s channel on this one, especially in its underwhelming current state of power. Restoration Druids already know the frustration of having to find the opportunity to channel , so having to channel this as well better be worth the downtime and frustration.

As someone who adored , it's nice to see this come back as an option although more watered down. Blinks and teleports are universally valuable and while it might not be the Venthyr ability this is a strong second place option. You likely won't be coming up with skips for such a limited 10 yard blink, but you get 3 in the 12s duration so you may have some opportunities to blink over some particularly nasty mechanics. Comes with a cosmetic collecting minigame which is fantastic.

VenthyrNecrolordNight FaeNecrolord'sNight Fae'sVenthyrLackluster GCDs

In BFA, was placed on the GCD and eventually the duration was increased from 10s to 12s to compensate. However, in order to maximize the benefit of , a Restoration Druid had to cast it on another player. That other player did not have pay the GCD cost and could therefore get an extra GCD of mana savings compared to the Restoration Druid. They were paying a GCD for someone else to have that fun instead of themselves because it was optimal. Now I won't be naive in thinking that most Restoration Druids altruistically always gave to a fellow healer; many would definitely choose to themselves. Even in that scenario, there was no upfront benefit, a small infusion of mana or something leading to feeling hollow.

In Shadowlands with the leveling perk, the difference between casting it on yourself and another player is even larger. While it's nice to receive some compensation, I'd really like a world where there was some equality of the effect for both players so the casting Restoration Druid doesn't feel like their sacrificing part of their throughput. I think it'd be even better if when I cast on another player, after the effect expired I'd receive all the mana you spent. I would be cheering on my target so much hoping they burn a ton of mana for both the raid's benefit and mine.

Similarly, Boomkins lose a full GCD without any benefit for themselves. Most will still use , although begrudgingly or once their cooldowns are over which might not be the strategically best time for the healer. There should be no penalty for helping their healer friends; if anything they should be encouraged to do so. However, I'm not sure what kinda benefit upfront or otherwise could have for Boomkins that wouldn't then shift using to being what's best timing for the Boomkin instead of what is strategically best for the healer as we saw early on with in Uldir. I honestly think if Boomkin is to feel good again for both the Boomkin and the healer then removing the GCD cost is necessary in this circumstance.

Another casualty of the BFA GCD changes, at least has the upfront benefit of making all existing healing out on the group heal for 15% more. The downside of being on the GCD is we've lost the emergency interaction with . If you needed to move but needed to heal with something stronger than , then you could insta-pop and burn an insta-cast into the target. Now you have to pay the GCD to even begin meaning using that as an emergency mobile heal. Some of that is alleviated with , but that's only once per minute. Additionally if you ever have to shift out of , you have to pay that GCD over and over for each shift. Using or for movement or for survivability while causes you to lose even more of your cooldown. The GCDs add up.

While this one has been partially alleviated by , I'd still like to see a perk for like to incentivize burning the on the battle resurrection instead of the throughput of .

Personal Wishlist

Customization Options - Seeing other classes that are able to change the color of some of their abilities is awesome. The best we have as Restoration Druids is and which we only see on occasion.
- The updated spell animation from Legion is gorgeous, but I think there could be some options for recoloring this iconic ability without losing clarity. Maybe even covenant themes? A Restoration Druid can dream.

- We don't really utilize this form all that often and that's okay, but when I see the cool forms my other Druid friends got in Legion I feel a little bit jealous. If this one could be updated to the modern models we get today I'd be ecstatic. I'd even settle for a permanent form that was purely cosmetic or Ardenweald Treefolk (see below). I just want to be a tree again.

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Commento di Sola23This will be our first time being the traveling journeyer again, exploring new lands, peculiar inhabitants, and unraveling a mystery in a mystical realm. It’s slow and steady for this wanderer, taking in all the sights and sounds and appreciating the art, music, story and fun, with breath of refreshing air since mists. Some may rush by but I’ll be exploring all the nooks and crannies snd travel at my comfortable pace, thanks anyway!

while the spell and ability names can and probably should stay the same, each race should have their own unique visuals for their culture's version of the art.

a tauren's animation may be to kneel and plant seeds for their version of efflorescence, sprouting a visual of a small field of autumn grasses that grow upward into harvest wheat swaying in a breeze, set to the sounds of soothing wooden pipes, gentle drum beats in the background or turahe chanting (accompanied by drums), while a night elf's version of efflorescence, having developed uniquely from within their culture, including their history, ideals, beliefs, traditions, teachings and having honed their skills differently as each race does develop and hone their own version of each art uniquely from within their culture, may be visually and aurally distinct and represented, by sprinkling seeds or calling forth growth that sprout into green, moonlit grasses and a few woodland flowers, set to the sound of a uplifting windchime or softly hooting owls.

Tranquility could see the tauren druid raise their staff or weapon or hand (or holding magical leaf) high into the air, calling forth a whirlwind of autumn leaves to refresh their friends and comrades and the wounded, accompanied by the sound of inspiriting wood flute, tender drum beats and/or tribal chanting, while a night elve's tranquility may call forth calming night to the dreamy plucks of harp strings or to a soothing symphony of cricket or encouraging growls, chirps and rattles of nocturnal forest fauna.

each spell, animation, and ability, where and whenever possible, should have culture identity.

not liking swiftmend's consume but will keep an eye on it. The appeal of my main which is a druid, restoration, is his rolling and refreshing healing over time, so ending a spell on purpose, while situationally could come in handy, I do truly prefer to keep my magic whirlwinds of mending ongoing. shall see.

I would love autumn / harvest / tribal tauren culture-themed spells, visuals, animations and sound effects, for restoration druid, please, blizzard.

right now we all cast the same looking spells and use the same looking abilities no matter the culture. most of the animations are the same as well. even different colors would differentiate and represent cultures a little more appropriately than now; dark, starry magic for nightborne mages, cloud serpents whipping around for pandaren sorcerers, etc. I would like thoughtful, creative, meaningful visuals, not just recolorings and excuses to do less.

right now we only have culture-appropriate totems for shaman and race-specific forms for druids, that's about it for representing our many colorful and interesting peoples' version of their art. wouldn't it be beyond awesome, perhaps in the next expansion since shadowlands has the customization / cosmetics feature, if our beloved races received a grand overhaul of spell and ability visuals, animations and sound effects? could be one of the next great features in a wow expansion!Commento di UmberenThank you for the insight manCommento di AmandahealzThanks Jaydaa!Commento di sycdResto has felt wrong ever since Healing Touch was removed from the kit. I'm looking forward to having Nourish back in the rotation, even if Regrowth is getting buffed simultaneously.Commento di Sola23I do miss healing touch as a signature druidic spell, not sure if that's nostalgia or me simply liking my kit complete with all things nature. it was a defining, heavy spell, and it felt good to complete a long cast and provide a significant mend, which are all reasons why I was in more than a little disbelief when it was removed. we've done ok without it, performance wise, but it just feels like a loss of a tried and true, signature art, and seems weird that it's suddenly not part of our deep wild magic. I liked having a dependable oomph heal if I chose to dig deep, meditate, connect deeply with nature and summon a mighty heal if and when the situation called for it. seems like that kind of big backup, forest trance fantasy, is something we should have in our kit for when we choose to use it.

I can't appreciate nourish, never felt a connection with it, it felt tacked on, forced (I'm grateful it's not enforced, as it really alienated me and made me feel uncomfortable which I don't like feeling, especially with my main/favorite class) and a strange replacement for spells we had deeper connection with. don't like it.

as a druid I've always wanted an ability to call forth a woodland critter(s) such as couple of squirrels who then scurry around, healing friends. they would provide small, random heals, and enrich our class by giving us an ability to work with animals. we could whistle for a woodland companion to aid in healing. maybe even designate a favorite non-combat pet who will be our healing buddy, who does small heals here and there. with a druid's connection to flora and fauna, might be cool to communicate with earthmother's children who accompany us such as deer, squirrels, rabbits, butterflies, turtle, etc. sigh, I suppose I can emerald dream..Commento di septicsalmonwhat a shame, they deserve an expansion of mediocityCommento di PhotekNourish should, I hope, end up working something like this:

Becomes more effective the more HoTs you have on the target thus if you have 3 or more, Nourish is hands down the go to heal on that target

If less than 3 and certainly on players with no HoT up, Regrowrh is more powerful.

This would also add some more thought to using the new Swifmend and consuming your HoT(s)Commento di HHLHHLExactly. It is " cool " to hate ferals and shadow priests because these specs are much more complicated than two buttons frost dks, for example. And people fail to get to the top with them. They like the fantasy of playing a cat or a shadow priests but then in reality they need to press more than just two buttons and they fail to do so, they get angry and start hating it. What they want is complete overhaul of the spec, where they would just press two three buttons and become top dps.Commento di OzraevunI would love to get more cosmetic choices for our forms, and spells. For example having a glyph that changes tree form into a dryad would be amazing, or being able to change colours on certain spells, like giving regrowth a more autum feel and so on. There are so many small things blizz can give us that will make it even more fun to play the class. I know I'll choose NIght Fae, but I'm really worried that it will cost me healing and in the end; fun and enjoying my class as there will be those people raging at me for not having the optimal covenant...Commento di ThalgirThank you, excellent write-up, very informative.Commento di SerenegriefImagine being a Resto Druid player and complaining about your spec.

Good riddance. Let Druids be the worst healer for once in their entire existence in this game.Commento di SeldomaneBeing mainly a resto druid I can say that most of these changes seem negative. No perma-tree form. Take away double swiftmend. Give an instant cast vs. lots of insta-casts. Its all been downgraded to CD's. First MotW and Lifebloom, and now this. If Shadowlands is as disappointing as this describes then I'm out. Freaking Blizzard will listen to anyone that isn't experienced.

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Shadowlands Alpha State of Resto Druid - Lackluster GCDs, Spell Changes, Covenant Abilities

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