Resto Druids' Incarnation in Throne of Thunder

[Soulsage]

I've just completed my 4T15 on my druid so I have to say goodbye to my beloved 4T14+SotF combination. But the thing is, I've never used Incarnation in any raid situation so any tips on timing for bosses would be awesome and appreciated. I'm working on Lei Shen with a group of friends and without my trusty SM+WG combo I feel I might misuse Tree of Life. So far, this is what I know:

1) Don't sync Tranquility with Tree of Life. Better alternate them.
2) When in ToL, roll out LB and (ab)use clearcasts with Regrowth.
3) ???
4) PROFIT!

No, seriously, any help would be appreciated. Also, how many 4t15 users use mushrooms and how often do you use it? So far, I've only really used them on Jinrokh, Tortos, and Megaera. I really don't like them but with the overheals from the 4set bonus, I guess I should be spreading the nasty fungi all over the place. Or something.

[Kyliaar]

I rarely use Incarnation any more. You mention its primary use is to spread LB around and chain cast regrowth on clear casting procs. This makes it a great way to get out a lot of healing during high raid damage while using minimal mana.

I never got my T14 4 piece. I took a break due to not having a solid raid team until 5.2 came out. Thus, this was my only experience with that tier of talents where it was sorely needed to keep going during longer raid fights.

Once you get to around 515 ilevel, you should have enough stat points that you can get your spirit up to a level where mana cooldowns start to become less necessary and throughput starts to become favored. Then, SotF becomes more of a gain even without the 4 piece T14 bonus. All those extra ticks are still great on a WG if the raid is taking dmg or a super powered rejuv on a tank.

This becomes even more of a factor once you get the 4 piece T15 bonus. Each time rejuv ticks on a target, it will tick harder. If it a SotF hasted rejuv, it is ticking pretty damn hard by the end, even with just the 3043 haste breakpoint.

I would only use Incarnation now for fights where I need a mana breather.

Your mileage may vary.

With 5.3, mushrooms should be used A LOT. They account for a lot of my healing, even when I spam them before they can fully bloom.

[Soulsage]

Yay a reply to my thread! Thank you! Yes, I have noticed the mushrooms are overpowered right now. On Tortos and Megaera, Wild Mushroom: Bloom was my 2nd highest heals. So far, I have gone throughput over regen as well. I started ToT with ~14,000 spirit but now I've dropped it down to 9,000, and it was even down to 8,400 at one point. Fully buffed, I also have more Int than I do Stam, so that plays a big role in my heals. I'm not sure it would work for 25M though.

I'm really trying to get the timing right on ToL form. Usually I end up casting it too late and wasn't able to roll out my lifeblooms, so less free regrowths. On fights like Megaera, Jin-Rokh, and Ji-Kun, it's easy to cycle it with Tranquility. But with Primordius, I hardly even use it. I think I need a how to Druid guide on bosses.

[Kyliaar]

I am currently running with about 10.5k spirit unbuffed. I also have two trinkets which give me back mana as well. Also, I've learned to time my innervates and any other active mana regen cooldowns I have available throughout the fight so I have the maximum available. If I don't have to somewhat monitor the rate at which I overheal in order to end the longest, toughest fight still healing, I usually start thinking about cutting back on my spirit and putting the points into throughput stats, like int and mastery.

The best way to manage this in my opinion is to be at a point where it is common for you to notice the difference if you use spirit food for long, progression fights. Of course, being able to swapout regen vs throughput trinkets is another good option but it has been a while since I've been able to make that gear choice with even item levels.

If you are not running with a consistent group, this is kind of moot as there will be so many variances between any team you find yourself in that your mana needs can change drastically from group to group on the same fight.

You mention timing ToL. I agree that it can be tough... but why are you still using it if you are cutting back on regen to favor throughput? In my book, ToL should only be used to provide longevity to your mana pool. SotF will give better throughput, especially if you are tailoring your choice between a hasted WG or Rejuv, based on the needs of the fight at that moment. I haven't tried the Treants since 5.3 but it sounds like they got a significant boost as well and may give more of a throughput gain on a long cooldown.

Lately, I have been finding one of the key things to figure out in a fight is when and where to place mushrooms. If you can place them well before raid damage goes out, they will have a chance to absorb overheals from rejuv and bloom. However, don't let that stop you from spamming two sets close together for intense stacked damage. Magaera and Primordius are both fine examples of this.

Before a rampage, I will usually set down 3 mushrooms at the next stack point, let them bloom and then pop them when rampage starts, followed up with a swiftmend, setting down an efflorescence, doing a SotF hasted WG, plopping down some more mushrooms and popping them as the rampage ends. As the fight progresses, you may want to keep a stack in the middle between rampages to help deal with the green AoE thing the venemous head does.

With Primordious, I was pretty much trying to drop mushrooms and pop them on cooldown when Caustic Gas was going off. Even without that, there is usually a good concentration of players taking damage in melee. An interesting trick to learn here is to place them a bit behind the tanks so that the boss will be pulled on top off them as you want to pop them. H Horridon is another fight where I got familiar with where I wanted to pop mushrooms based on where the raid would be when a dire call would go off.

So, anyways I hope some of that discussion was helpful. I am still learning a lot, too. It has been a while since I've healed 25 mans and I have normally been on teams much further behind on the progression curve than AM's AM team.

Edit: Another huge factor in all this is that I do have the metagem that grants Lucidity. Looking at one fight, that was up 17% so almost 1/5th of my casts were free from that alone.

[Kyliaar]

Also, one thing I am doing more and more of lately is ensuring I have a good amount of tomes on me to swap out talents and glyphs for each fight as appropriate. Your build should no longer be considered a set thing, as in past expansions.

[Soulsage]

I'm currently running with the LFR Horridon's Last Gasp and the SPA Trinket. I have the SPA Trinket macro'd to my innervate so together I get 30% mana back every 3 minutes. Unfortunately, those are the only trinkets I have to work with at the moment.

I'm using ToL because I don't have the 4T14 anymore and theorycrafters mention that Incarnation comes up on top without the T14 4-set bonus. Also, with SoTF I realize I have to use SM and WG on cooldown which would use more mana, compared to when I'm not using SoTF where I just use SM only to refresh Harmony or sometimes have WM: Bloom refresh that instead. Perhaps I'll give SoTF a shot again, if only to see how sick a hasted rejuvenation would heal. It may also be important to mention that the other two healers on my group are a Disc Priest and a Holy Paladin, which usually throws any of my ticks past 3 straight into overheals with their constant shielding.

Anyway, the fights I constantly have WM on are:
Jin'Rokh - every puddle and every lightning storm
Council - 2 around the tank melee are focusing and 1 on the other tank whenever it's up
Tortos - 2 around tank and melee, 1 on ranged area for Stomp
Megaera - Rampage
Ji-Kun - Quills
Iron Qon - whichever group is stacking
Lei Shen - Thunderstruck

Your input helps me a lot. I'm trying to incorporate shrooms as part of my rotation now since it's a great heal for such a low mana cost.

Also, I don't find myself changing talents much on my resto druid. On my death knight, yes. The treants are currently bugged to where if their cast time is less than 1 second, they'll sit there and do nothing. Plus I don't like depending on pets to do my healing for me. The SoTF may actually be more useful for Primordius, though. I'll look into that. But for the level 90 talent, I like having HoTW passive intellect bonus plus I activate it at the beginning of fights like Durumu to shame some of our dps, since it's insane with Heroism on.

[Kyliaar]

I will need to review the theorycrafting regarding SotF and Incarnation to get a better idea of what you are talking about there. I do know I really enjoy that SotF gives me constant OPness in my heals and lets me choose to favor single target or AoE healing as called for at the moment.

Keep in mind I am healing in 25 man, not 10 man so that changes a lot. Disc priest + H Pally makes it difficult for a druid healer from my own experience. I had difficulty in adjusting in the group I was in before coming to AM. I'm a bit surprised you would not be using SM and WG on cooldown regardless. SM on a melee or tank is a good thing to keep up pretty much all the time and WG will hit everything else.

I guess it really depends on what you are being called to do and what you have to respond to in a fight. For instance, you may need to keep SM up to deal with periodic spike damage.

I too like HotW for most fights over NV. However, there are some fights where that extra little bit of free dps would result in a boss kill.

I do want to reiterate that if you think about it, you will probably realize that different talents or glyphs should be swapped out quite a bit. I do switch to Incarnation when needed even though I currently favor SotF. Feline Swiftness and Displacer Beast are entirely situational even though I've grown to favor the latter more often. We've already covered HotW and NV which I will swap on occasion as well. I change my glyphs less often but in my raid, savage roar gets called for a lot on certain fights so I've started swapping that in over LB.

[Nyonjia]

Why would you need 3 healers for 10 man? O_o Especially if you have disc priest/holy pallie..

No offense, but Resto druids are often struggling to out heal tanks on those fights. so much better to get people to use defensives and use another dps.

[Soulsage]

Disc priest + H Pally makes it difficult for a druid healer from my own experience. I had difficulty in adjusting in the group I was in before coming to AM. I'm a bit surprised you would not be using SM and WG on cooldown regardless. SM on a melee or tank is a good thing to keep up pretty much all the time and WG will hit everything else.

I had difficulty adjusting at first, as well. But it helped when I gemmed for more throughput as my initial ticks would heal for more before the shields and spot heals kick in. Not using SM and WG on cooldown is something new I picked up - having 2 other relatively geared healers around, I want to use these heals when it benefits me most. Plus, with the 4t15, a rejuv really takes care of people where I don't feel the need to "reinforce" the HoT with any other heals (except when I see they're gonna take more damage, of course).

I do want to reiterate that if you think about it, you will probably realize that different talents or glyphs should be swapped out quite a bit. I do switch to Incarnation when needed even though I currently favor SotF. Feline Swiftness and Displacer Beast are entirely situational even though I've grown to favor the latter more often. We've already covered HotW and NV which I will swap on occasion as well. I change my glyphs less often but in my raid, savage roar gets called for a lot on certain fights so I've started swapping that in over LB.

I've always heard about Displacer Beast being great for Ji-Kun, but I've never really tried using it because the way we do it, I get a feather while staying on the platform. I haven't really looked into it though.

Why would you need 3 healers for 10 man? O_o Especially if you have disc priest/holy pallie..

No offense, but Resto druids are often struggling to out heal tanks on those fights. so much better to get people to use defensives and use another dps.

We do two heal some fights. One of them being Ji-Kun - egg group doesn't have a healer with them. The Disc Priest goes shadow and does them with the Balance Druid. I guess it's just a level of comfort when 2 members are relatively new and accidentally stand in poop sometimes. And we don't roll with a Blood DK - which I think is the only reason a tank could possibly outheal a good healer.

[Kyliaar]

I've done some playing around with FoN. I wasn't able to find very good information regarding haste breakpoints so I did my own testing. Around the 3043 haste breakpoint, I found that without a raid buff 6 HTs were cast... almost a 7th. With the raid buff, the treant was completing the 7th and getting about 1/3rd of the way through the cast. I reforged for as much haste as I could, got up to about 5200 before the raid buff. Even with the raid haste buff, the treant was only getting about 1/2 through the 8th cast before despawning.

Thus, I am not going to pursue a new breakpoint in order to make FoN more effective. It doesn't seem practical at this level of gear.

I will need to do more actual play testing but, from a raw numbers perspective, performance seems on par with what I would expect to lose from not having SotF and above what I would expect from Incarnation.

By that, I mean that Incarnation should give me a 15% increase to healing for 30 seconds every three minutes. If all outgoing HPS is spread evenly (which is rare), this would be only a 2.5% overall increase. I estimate either SotF or FoN in the range of 10% of overall healing, based on what I've looked at.

FoN offers more burst healing capability than SotF does as you can choose to pop all three treants at once. I will have to get some more experience with them to really get a firm idea of how much I do or don't like them but they definitely seem worth a go.

[Soulsage]

I had some fun with it last night, too! With regard to the haste breakpoint, according to Kjeldorian of EJ,

@tioz FoN: 3947 HR (14.3% raid buffed) for cast #7 HT, 10625 HR (25% raid buffed) for cast #8. These would be the theoretical if the base cast times were 2.5 seconds. However, from live testing the base cast times feels like 2.56 seconds requiring ~4400 haste (15.6% raid buffed) to reach the 7th cast.

I tested them in different ToT fights and was pretty impressed so I went after the 4400 haste rating and retested. It appears they are a bigger mana cooldown than expected. With them being up every 20 seconds for some fights, I was hard-pressed to bring my mana down below 70%, even when using SM and RG on cooldown and peppering the raid with Rejuv. They were that effective. On stack up fights, having all 3 out at once pretty much guaranteed that all the heals belonged to me. Now, this is an LFR setting and by no means conclusive, so I will be testing them at a proper 25-man setting.

As a final point, in a 25-man, it does feel nice to have 3 other mini-healers looking out for raiders while you do mechanics.