Healing gear as feral.Follow

I have a lvl 63 feral druid at this point whom I lvl atm. Sometimes I need to heal and so I am looking to optimize my healing set. Was wondering if I should just go for pure heal or should I mix some things in, like spell crit mp5? I understand that I get lifebloom at 64 and if I am correct it doesn't crit and is main source of healing in 5 mans from what people say. So spell crit wouldn't be needed at all, correct? as for mp5/spirit, I am drawing a complete blank here, since it is my 1st time playing a pure caster let alone a healer in wow.

I myself am feral and in my healing set have focused on, in this order: +heal, +int, +mp5, +spellcrit. Don't know if that's optimal, but here's my rationale for consideration and rebuttal.

+Heal
I have +850 heal in my healing set. One reason I like that stat is that it's instantly available. So if I switch to my healing set I benefit from that +850 right away, instead of needing to drink or wait my way to a full mana bar. I think it's ESPECIALLY important to get a weapon with phat +heal, as that boost is available to you mid-combat as long as you have a gear swapping macro or addon like Outfitter or Itemrack. There's a mace called "The Essence Focuser" that'll cost ya like 50-60g in the AH that is great for this.

+Int
Pretty obvious how important this is to us furballs which have near no +int on our normal gear. In feral form I only have something like 4,500 mana, but my healing set boosts it to like 8k. That delta represents a LOT of healing.

+Mp5/Spirit
These are "take 'em when I can get 'em stats" for me. Some of each will just naturally come on healing gear. I don't even know off the top of my head what I have...I think my "mana regen" rate is like 225. Between innervate, a lot of drinking, and a lotta mana pots, I do fine with that.

+Spell Crit
The direct heal at the end of a Lifebloom can crit, and of course your Healing Touch can crit HUGE, so there's some value to spell crit. I personally like having a big tank of mana and lots of +heal more than the unpredictable bonus of occasional crit heals, especially because so much of my healing comes from Rejunvenation and the HoT part of Lifebloom.

Edit: Selv and I were posting at the same time...his point about threat is a good case for why you should AVOID increasing spellcrit. Good call.


Good Stuff to Know About Lifebloom
1) The most mana-efficient way to use it is to pop a +heal trinket, throw Lifebloom x3 on your tank, and then keep it refreshed and rollin. It'll benefit from the trinket boost indefinitely.
2) You can always let it expire if things get dicey and you need to boost their health, but I prefer to throw a Healing Touch in between Lifebloom refreshes to keep the Lifebloom flowing and save the "bloom" for when I'm low on mana, cuz the mana's already been spent.
3) The healing threat of Lifebloom's "Bloom" at the end goes on the tank, not you. Not huge but cool and good to know.





Edited, Nov 12th 2007 11:47am by JeeBar

Edited, Nov 12th 2007 11:48am by JeeBar