How to Heal as a Druid in 3.1 PVE

1. Tank healing – Nourish supported by HOTs

About Nourish: Nourish (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=50464 ) is a spell with a 1.5 base cast time. This was designed to be our flash-heal ability (heal for a moderate amount in a short amount of time).

The effect heals for 20% more (before glyphs & set bonuses) if you have a Heal over time effect (HOT) on your target. The druids have 4 HOT spells that will increase the healing effect: Regrowth, Rejuvination, lifebloom, and Wild Growth. The Tier 7 set bonus and the Nourish glyph increase the amount healed by nourish by 5% and 6% (respectively). With both bonuses, and 3 HOTs, nourish is a really incredible healing spell.

About your other healing spells for tank healing:
Regrowth: 2 second cast direct heal, with long HOT component. In 3.1, the primary use of this is to have a long lasting HOT on your tank. You are welcome to cast this HOT on more than one tank without too many side-effects if you want. No longer recommended as a direct healing spell. Let the HOT run out and then re-cast
Rejuvination: Instant cast HOT that lasts a moderate amount of time. Use this to buff nourish healing.
Lifebloom: Instant cast HOT (with a large heal “bloom” at the end). Lasts short amount of time. See lifebloom page on options for how to use it.
Swiftmend: instant-cast direct heal. Nice if you need some instant burst healing on tank.
Nature’s Swiftness + Healing Touch: large instant burst. Don’t cast Healing Touch without using Nature’s Swiftness.

Tank Healing with Nourish strategy 1: Using nourish with Tier 7 bonus and Glyph combo
-Cast three HOTs: regrowth, rejuvenation, and lifebloom. Then, cast nourish until a HOT spell needs to be re-cast (see page 2 on lifebloom strategies). You want to maintain all three HOTs because you gain 11% healing for each HOT you have on the target. With 3 HOTs, that’s a lot of extra healing your nourish will do.

NOTE: Obviously, you don’t want to use wild growth as a tank heal, unless your tank is in range for 4 other people to benefit from it, since wild growth costs more mana than you want to spend on one target. However, if you are tank healing and raid healing at the same time, and have the mana to use it, wild growth will buff the amount of healing done by nourish with T7 bonus & glyph

Tank Healing with Nourish strategy 2: Using nourish with only T7 bonus or only the glyph:
Without both bonuses, you only gain either 5% or 6% extra healing, instead of the full 11%. In that case, you have the option of dropping lifebloom entirely from the rotation – or keeping it. At a 5 to 6% bonus to tank healing, a single lifebloom by it’s self isn’t that great. However, if you have a preferred lifebloom healing strategy, then go ahead and keep using it.

Tank Healing with Nourish strategy 3: Neither T7 bonus or Glyph:
You probably shouldn’t be tank healing with a Nourish-spam healing strategy if you aren't at least willing to dedicate a glyph slot to nourish. You may just be support tank healing with HOTs or something. However, I consider the nourish glyph "mandatory" for any serious tank healing. Any HOT after your first one isn’t increasing your healing done by nourish if you skip both the glyph & the set bonus. Using at least the glyph is recommended for tank healing. You may also be able to get away with regrowth + regrowth glyph – however, you’re still better off switching out the regrowth glyph for the nourish glyph. You may also be one of those Healing-Touch spec'd healers, but I don't really have advice for that healing strategy.

2. Tank healing – Lifebloom strategies

For PvE healing, you will no longer be able to “roll” triple-stacks of lifebloom on more than one target, because you will spam yourself OOM without doing enough HPS to be worthwhile to your raid. So, these lifebloom strategies are intended for one tank target, in addition to using regrowth, your other HOTs & nourish on a tank. See section 3 for raid AOE healing strategies.

Strategy A: Traditional rolling lifebloom triple-stacks:
This is the strategy most healers have been using lifebloom for. What you do is get three lifeblooms on the target, and then refresh it before it falls off the target. If you have enough mana to do this, you will get the maximum healing out of lifebloom. However, at 800 mana for lifebloom, it costs 800x3 = 2400 mana to get the first three stacks up, and then an additional 800 mana every 9 or 10 seconds to maintain it. Over the course of one minute (~6 refreshes), this strategy will cost you: 2400 mana (initial stacking) + 4800 mana (6 refreshes) = 7,200 mana. This is only the mana cost associated with rolling the lifebloom. It doesn’t factor in ANY of the other spells you will cast during that minute (and doesn’t factor in the regen you gain over that minute), but 7200 mana is a LOT of mana just to maintain lifebloom stacks. You can reduce this mana cost through talents and items that reduce the cost of your spells. However, do not use this strategy if you are running OOM too early in the fight. If you are not running OOM, and you seem to have enough mana to spare, you can still roll 3x lifeblooms, it's just not the "be all end all heal" that it once was.

Strategy B: Slow applying the triple-stack rolling lifebloom:
Instead of immediately stacking lifeblooms at the beginning of the pull, you slowly stack it (ie. cast 1st, 9 seconds later cast 2nd, 9 seconds later cast 3rd). Then, you can maintain that stack over the course of the fight. If lifebloom costs 800 mana, this saves you 1600 mana up front compared to strategy one. Still costs 5600 mana over the course of a minute. If you’re still running OOM, then use my current favorite strategy:

Strategy C: Slow rolling & let it fall off at 3
This is my recommended strategy if you have the T7 bonus and glyph of nourish (that people now refer to as “slow rolling lifeblooms”). It doesn’t have the more constant healing that A & B have, but it maximizes the mana regen while doing the most HOT healing. How it works: Slowly stack it like strategy B (cast 1st before it falls off, refresh 2nd, before it falls off refresh 3rd). Once it has 3 stacks, let it bloom and return mana to you. Then, slowly stack it over time again, let it fall off after third application. Rinse and repeat. You also have the downside of it always having a huge triple bloom at times you can’t control that will likely mostly go to overhealing, as you aren’t timing that big bloom. Remember that you let it fall off for mana regen purposes, not because you get a bloom. If lifebloom costs 800 mana, one minute of casting costs only 2400 mana.

Strategy D: Cast it once and let it bloom.
Don’t bother maintaining stacks at all. Just wait for it to fall off and bloom, then cast it again. Wait for it to bloom. Cast it again. You get a lot of little blooms across the course of the raid, the full benefit of the mana return, it buffs your nourish, but never does very much healing on it’s own. I only recommend doing this if you have BOTH the T7 bonus and the glyph. Otherwise, use one of the other strategies. At 800 mana per lifebloom, this costs roughly the same 2400 mana that strategy C costs.

Strategy E: Forget lifebloom.
If you aren’t using the glyph and T7 bonus combo for nourish, and rolling triple stacks makes you OOM, then just don’t use lifebloom at all for tank healing, and just stick to using your other tools. I don't really recommend this, since you should still use this spell some, and the mana return (if you let it bloom) is still pretty good.

The Nicomacchus strategy:
Nic’s method is: “pretty much change nothing except realize the bloom is now a viable spike heal, and let it bloom at the refresh point if the tank needs it. ” So, a little mix of everything.

3. AOE raid healing – Wild growth and other HOTs

About your HOTs (and other spells) for raid healing:

Wild Growth: Your primary raid healing tool. Will heal 5 to 6 targets (15 yards from eachother) for a moderate amount over 6 to 7 seconds.

Rejuvination: Instant cast HOT that lasts a moderate amount of time. This is one of your primary raid heals. With the Tier 8 four piece bonus, you gain an instant tick at the beginning of the rejuv heal, which will make it your second best raid healing tool (after wild growth). With the rejuv idol, it’s your most mana efficient HOT in 3.1. Without either the idol or set bonus, it’s still a great HOT because it’s cheap and you can swiftmend it.

Lifebloom: Instant cast HOT (with a large heal “bloom” at the end). Lasts short amount of time. Not recommended as a primary raid healing tool, however there are situations were it will be useful, so use sparingly and use your best judgement on this one. The bloom will almost always be overheal in some situations. Some people like to use it, and you will get the mana return, but I don’t really recommend throwing around single lifeblooms as a primary raid heal strategy at the exclusion of other HOTs. It may be possible to maintain a lifebloom stack on tank while raid healing. It may be possible for single lifeblooms to do a fair amount of healing on the raid if they are taking consistent enough damage that you are pretty sure the bloom won't be all overheal.

Swiftmend: Instant-cast heal that requires a rejuv or regrowth on the target. Good for getting some fast burst healing on someone that already has a HOT (regrowth or rejuv) on them.

Regrowth: 2 second cast direct heal, with long HOT component. You can put this on the tanks while you are raid healing, and you can use it sparingly as a raid heal. There may be some fights with constant, or more heavy, raid damage where the long lasting HOT is powerful (ie. Saph’s frost aura in Naxx). However, please don’t spam yourself OOM by using it too much.

Nourish: Makes a great tank heal, however it doesn’t heal enough without HOTs on the target to be a primary raid heal spell. Only use nourish as raid heal if your raid healing target has HOTs on them, or really needs a direct heal to be topped off quick and regrowth or rejuv + swiftmend isn’t an option.

Primary raid healing strategy (especially with 4-piece tier 8 bonus):
Cast Wild growth every time the cooldown is up, if your targets are close enough for it to bounce to at least 3 people. Then, cast rejuvenations on anyone else taking damage. Mix in other spells using your best judgment. Just don’t spam yourself OOM using heals besides wild growth & rejuv.

When your targets are too far spread out: Just do the best you can, and avoid casting wild growth if it won’t heal enough people at the same time. You may ask to be assigned to tank healing for any fight where wild growth can’t heal enough people.

NEW: Combining tank & raid healing - Some people have found that their Ulduar healing mostly consists of putting HOTs on a tank (ie. rolling 3x lifeblooms) and then raid healing with wild growth and rejuv (with some swiftmending) between tank lifebloom refreshes. So, it is possible to go with a lifebloom tank healing strategy and then raid heal between lifebloom refreshes.

4. Possible talent specs –
There is some degree of flexibility in what specs people think are “best.” It’s really up to you (in the end) to pick a spec that YOU think will be best. Here are a couple different options I’d like to highlight.

Nourish-focused tank healing build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0VG0uZZf0fuiuxVuVhsVo
What it misses is more AOE focused talents (replenish & imp tranquility). It contains Nature’s Grace and full tranquil spirit to benefit Nourish with HOT healing the most. I actually think my final build will be something closer to this.

The “raid healer” build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0VG0zZZf0IurugVuVIsVo
Contains more AOE healing bonus talents. Skips Nature’s Grace and a couple points out of tranquil spirit, since you won’t be using as much direct healing, and replenish will benefit you a lot. You could also drop living seed and pick up Nature's grace instead.

The Compromise build:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#0VG0uZZf0furuxVuVIsVo
Keeps both nature’s grace and replenish at the expense of tranquil spirit & improved tranquility. (If you drop out replenish from this one, you end up with something like the tank healing build I posted first, or you can pick up something like natural perfection instead of replenish).

Talents some people don't like from the above builds:
Some people don't like the the replenish effect and that talent drops out of their builds.
Some people don't like Living seed and/or Nature's Grace.

Talents I don’t put in my PvE healing builds:
Imp barkskin – I consider to be PvP talent, and not useful for PvE
Empowered touch & naturalist - aren’t that helpful for raid end-game builds (assuming you only use HT with Nature's Swiftness) and make better talents for intro-healing before you are level 80.
Furor - is a balance/feral talent that happens to be in the resto tree.

But I really want to be a restokin: (Not recommended for raid healing builds, but in a blog called restokin, I have to at least give it a nod – Though it doesn’t go all the way to moonkin form). Restokin specs are mostly outdated, and were mainly used during BC for PvP or 5-mans, and never really for end-game healing. It could look something like this:
http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0VGsu0IohZZf0IubuxVuV0R
Once again, something resembling one of the first three builds will do a lot more for you, in terms of raid healing.

5. Glyphs for raid & tank healing.

All “major” healing glyph analysis:
Glyph of nourish: Nourish heals for 6% for each additional HOT on the target. If you are doing any MT healing at all, you will use this glyph for the benefits outlined in section 1 of this guide.
Glyph of Lifebloom – Increases duration of lifebloom slightly. Good if you are planning to roll lifeblooms on your target, to reduce the amount of mana it costs you.
Glyph of Regrowth – Increases healing done by regrowth if your target already has the regrowth HOT on them. This used to be my MT healing glyph. However, I’m replacing it in 3.1 with the Nourish glyph
Glyph of Healing Touch – Only okay to use if you don’t have nourish yet, in which case most of this guide doesn’t apply to you in the first place.
Glyph of rejuvenation – Requires target to be below 50%, so it’s mostly useless for now.
Glyph of swiftmend – Swiftmend doesn’t consume your HOT when you cast it. Nice to have if you’ve gotten the 2-piece set bonus that increases swiftmend’s healing done and/or you are using swiftmend a lot.
Glyph of Wild Growth – Increases the # of people healed by wild growth by 1 additional target. Great for healing a group of melee, assuming you have 6 people that this would heal at one time.
Glyph of Innervate – Increases the effectiveness of your innervate spell. Use this glyph if you are having mana problems. (At level 80, the glyph adds and extra 3146 mana to you, and no longer scales with spirit or any other stat).

Recommended glyphs to choose from for healing:
Nourish
Lifebloom (only if you are rolling 3x lifeblooms)
Swiftmend
Wild growth

Recommended glyph trio for overall healing:
Nourish
Wild Growth
Swiftmend

Minor glyphs to use:
Unburdened rebirth
Glyph of the Wild
3rd – whatever you want.

6. Set bonuses (tier 7 & Tier 8 ) along with Relic/idols for Restoration druids

Tier 7 restoration sets:
Hero’s Dreamwalker Regalia (10-man Naxx).
Valorous Dreamwalker Regalia (25-man Naxx):

* A) The 2-piece set bonus for Tier 7 reduces the cost of lifebloom by 5%.
* B) The 4-piece set bonus for Tier 7 makes your nourish spell heal for 5% more for each HOT that is on the target.

Tier 8 Restoration Sets:
Valorous Nightsong Regalia (10-man Ulduar)
Conqueror’s Nightsong Regalia (25-man Ulduar)

* C) The 2-piece set bonus for Tier 8: 10% more healing for Swiftmend
* D) The 4-piece set bonus for Tier 8: Your rejuvination instantly ticks for a normal tick amount instantly.

Now that you know what the bonuses are, how do they work & what are the benefits of having them?

* A) With 3.1, the mana cost of lifebloom is going up. You’ll want to hold onto this set bonus as long as you can while learning Ulduar, until you get your 4-piece T8 bonus.
* B) Increases the healing done by nourish. Really great for tank healing when combined with the nourish glyph, as explained in previous sections of this guide. You will want to keep this bonus over the swiftmend bonus IF your primary role is tank healing, until you get the 4-piece bonus. Yes, I actually suggest keeping the T7 bonus for fights where nourish makes up a good chunk of your tank healing done (especially if going from 25-man Naxx to 10-man Ulduar, as their item levels are pretty dang close!).
* C) Getting 10% more healing for swiftmend will be great if you are primarily healing the raid, and thus not usually MT healing with nourish. As a raid healer, you will want to pick up this bonus ASAP, since nourish is not that great for raid healing overall.
* D) The 4-piece Tier 8 bonus for 25-man Ulduar gear will trump the Naxx gear, taking into consideration the frequency at which you will use rejuv (for all situations - tank OR raid healing). This is going to be a great bonus because it allows rejuvination to heal instantly rather than being delayed. Priests get a similar thing for their HOT as a talent. One difference is that this tick should NOT be able to crit (thus not procing things like living seed, etc). Even for tank healing, the full T8 gear will likely be better for you than sticking with your out-dated T7.

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Idol/Relics for PvE healing

There actually aren’t that many choices. Your best options are likely going to be:

1. Idol of Awakening - Reduces the mana cost of rejuvenation. This would be useful regardless of what kind of healing style you are using. In 3.1, you can buy this with 25-man badges, so it will be easily accessible. This is especially really awesome when combined with the Tier 8 set bonuses.
2. Idol of lush moss - Easy to get with 10-man badges, this idol increases the HOT (periodic) portion of lifebloom (and not the final bloom). Especially for people still “rolling” lifeblooms in 3.1, this is still a viable option. Most people who are dropping lifebloom more from their rotations will skip it in favor of the rejuv one.
3. Possible new nourish idol - This seems to have fallen off Wowhead’s PTR site, but this seemed to be mostly rejected by the healing community, anyway.

And… that basically covers your idol selection for 3.1 PvE healing, which is why I hate the relic system in the first place…

Taken from the WoW Forums from User Lissanna of Elune.