Cataclysm : Restoration Druid First Approach

Check the Cataclysm page for more updated info

Latest beta builds have given us a more accurate picture of what will be the situation in Cataclysm. Healing has been redesigned a lot, and the difficulty no longer come from reactivity but from mana management.

I have to admit that I'm not really comfortable with this changes. The main issue come from the fact that you can permanently heal a tank without losing any mana, but when you try to cover 3-4 people with Rejuvenation, which will heal them for 30% hp max, your mana start dropping like mad for a really poor healing potency.

Let me try to explain quickly the new stats pattern we have.

Mastery: our mastery changed, check recent posts for more info

Spell Power: directly comes from intellect. With the latest build, spell power gems have been removed and only intellect is left, fulfilling red sockets. For 1 intellect you get 1 spell, 15 mp, a bit of crit and regen throught Innervate and talents. We will definitely gem for it, but we will probably also look for socket bonuses.

Spell Haste: now works a bit differently than on live. Spell haste decreases the time between your hots (like Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation does) but also adds new ticks to your hot. To give you a quick example, my Rejuvenation:

• under 12% haste : 10s duration for 4 ticks
• over 12% haste : 12,5s duration for 5 ticks

You now have levels of haste that you'll need to reach to get additional ticks. So to say, spell haste will have multiples soft cap at which you'll get interesting combination of additional ticks on all your hots.

With the talent Swift Rejuvenation, haste is no longer needed to reach 1s GCD on your Rejuvenation. But we will still focus on haste to get additional ticks so we will be able to place talent point elsewhere.

Spell Crit: crit now works on all our spells, including hots. Crit add a non-negligible amount of healing and will be a really interesting stat.

Mana regen: mana management is the new challenge in Cataclysm. As you may know, we have very efficient spells but also very expensive abilities. Innervate has been reduced to 20% of your total mana, spell mana cost has been greatly increase and Replenishment has been reduced by 50%.

Basically on the BETA, you are able to permanently heal without losing mana. But when you need to cover more damages, more abilities and adapt to sensitive situation you will spend a lot of mana and run oom in a few seconds.

Check the Cataclysm page for updated info

(The following is not up to date)

Even if I think restoration template needs to be improved before the release. Some interesting choices depending on encounter will be possible to make.

These choices mostly turn around more throughput or more regen.

The base template would be 5/0/31 (click image to enlarge):

Then with we play around:

Mana

• Furor: +5/10/15% maximum mana
• Moonglow: -3/6/9% mana cost on all spells
• Revitalize: 8/16/24% proc chance to restore 3% total mana (every 6sec)

Throughput

• Genesis: +2/4/6% healing on hots and Swiftmend
• Blessing of the Grove: +2/4% healing on Rejuvenation

• Gift of the Earthmother: +5/10/15% on Lifebloom final heal and Rejuvenation instantly heals for 5/10/15% direct heal on application 

Additional

• Nature's Cure: Remove corruption also removes 1 magic effect
• Swift Rejuvenation: -0,3/0,5s on Rejuvenation GCD

The ability to remove magic as a component of our Remove Corruption is a talent: Nature's Cure. This can be adapted depending on encounter. If no magic dispell is needed, then you can drop it.

As I said, the Swift Rejuvenation will probably only be 1/2 because our haste will compensate for the 0,2s needed to reach 1s GCD on Rejuvenation. This is also something we can drop.

Revitalize, Moonglow and Furor are mana regeneration oriented. If mana is not an issue on an encounter, we can drop Moonglow, Furor and let 1/3 in Reviltalize. Then we can get Genesis, Blessing of the Grove and Gift of the Earthmother.

It might looks like :

• mana regeneration template: 7/3/31

• throughput template: 8/0/31

From what I've seen so far in 85 instances, Mana management can be really challenging. It's quite frustrating to see how much we've lost compared to WotLK but things change, we have to adapt. With half of my gear in 277 and the rest in blue cataclysm instances, I have to say that I'll opt for a Regen template at first. If Mana regeneration becomes fine with more gear, I'll switch to more throughput.

Regarding reforging, we will probably drop Mastery rating to get Spell haste till we reach interesting soft caps, then remove Mastery to get more Spell crit. On items without spirit we will probably remove, at first, Spell crit or Mastery to get Spirit, then Spell haste to get Spirit.