Taking the plunge - Mazra the RestokinFollow

I've always been Feral.

Well, no, that's not entirely true. Back in the days I went along on the Restoration cookie cutter build fad. Healing yourself while stabbing stuff to death with a dagger was the bomb. Really.

But the moment they fixed the Feral tree, I went there and never looked back. Until now. Or rather, until a few weeks ago.

I really, truly, love my Feral Druid. I love the survivability and the versatility in instances. I went on a tribute run in Stratholme and it was fun tanking, dealing damage and healing all at once. However, stuff like that doesn't happen at level 70. It rarely does, at least.

And I've always felt like a shadow of the Warriors and Rogues in PvP. A good Rogue can whittle my health away while staying alive long enough to either receive backup or beat me at my own game: survivability. Warriors also manage to get 2k Mortal Strikes in on my 200 resilience and 16k armor rating. Don't ask me how, but they do it.

And I've had my share of fight versus Priests and Resto Shamans/Druids who just wouldn't die. They'd literally regain mana as fast, or faster, than I could undo their healing through damage.

Besides, after three years I sort of feel like trying out something new. Being a ninja slash brick of fur is pretty funny, but not in the long run. At least not for me. I want to do something more for my team. I want to heal.

So I gathered some gear (some of you probably remember my other post wherein I asked for minimum requirements) and finally decided to jump off the cliff. I'm now a Restokin with around 300 +damage, 750 +healing, 8k mana and ~140 mp5. Not impressive, but I'm not going to heal heroics anytime soon. It's just for questing and lowbie instances, like Ramparts and stuff. I need to gather some more gear before I advance in instances.

However, I have no idea what the life of a Restokin Druid is. I guess it's a bit "nicer" than Restoration as you get some decent damage from Moonkin form (love the new /dance, btw), but at the cost of healing capabilities. So far I've downranked all my heals by one since that's where the mana/heal ratio leveled out.

Example: Rejuvenation (Rank 13) has a mana/heal ratio of 5.2, but Rejuvenation (Rank 12) has a mana/heal ratio of 5.3 whereas Rejuvenation (Rank 11) also has a ratio of 5.3. This tells me that I gain nothing from downranking past Rank 12.

I use DrDamage to provide all this information onscreen, calculating in trinkets, buffs and all that on the go. Really handy addon, actually. It also shows you the real value of your spells, after damage and crit, etc. has been applied.

Anyway, other than downranking, is there anything else I should do before joining my first instance as a healer? And I know I should get better gear, but things take time and all. Any advice on how to heal? My build is based on HoT healing. Keeping Rejuvenation and Lifebloom up, using Regrowth and Healing Touch to provide fast healing if need be. I have Dreamstate and Moonking form, which means I don't have access to Swiftmend. Oh, why don't I just link the build.

Also, any advice on how to optimize the build if I put some points wrong would be nice. I went with what I thought would be most useful, building on a premade example from WoWwiki.com.

Thanks.

One question, why are you taking Furor over Imp:MotW?

Isn't your whole concept to switch into caster form to cast heals and into oomkin for mana regen?

Just wondering.

What? Not at all. Sure you don't rip faces off as fast as feral kitty but still. I've been restokin for quite some time (temporary feral for some pvp now) and I've been killing just fine. I even instance as DPS from time to time. I've run heroic Sethek as DPS restokin with healing gear on and my damage wasn't a shame, really. I have 1350 +healing, and about 500 or 600 damage with that same gear.

Plus, solo, you are unkillable. You just keep those lifeblooms rolling and they'll never see the end of you.

I love this build. I'm going to respec to it as well.

I failed at reading comprehension :P Sorry I didn't see you meant in tree form. Indeed it must be quite a difference from restokin. The talented crits alone made a huge difference.

I don't post much on alla, but I have to say, I am pretty much in the same place. I also leveled feral stopping only at 60 and 70 to go resto to get more invites.

Since I haven't had any time to play as much as I used to, I find that bg's have been my home for a while now. When I started my honor grind for welfare epics (or the only purple items I'll ever see), I specced almost full resto. It was great in bg's as I had a high survivability rate, but I could not solo anything (it just got to be too painful).

With the inclusion of all the new dailies (especially those that require killing things, why can't I heal mobs to death?!?), I decided to try out a restokin build as well. I settled on this [link=http://www.wowarmory.com/character-talents.xml?r=Illidan&n=Slootah]
(sorry don't know how to hyperlink yet)

It is really similar to yours, but I found our differences noticeable. With this build, I focus on stacking lifeblooms and a rejuvnation, using regrowth for big heals usually immediately followed by healing touch (after popping nature's swiftness). I have not downgraded my heals (I'm not that great a player), but I find this build still gives me great healing for bg's and lets me actually do new dailies quickly and efficiently.

I don't have furor (although I should after reading your reasons), nature's focus (since I use healing touch a little more these days), and balance of power (with my gear 4% isn't helping anything). I tried to focus my build around hot's and added some points in moonfury to make grinding a little easier.

I guess the only reason for me posting was that I am also making this transition and although I forgot how great feral is for dps (no I really have), this build easily lets me heal in bg's and solo quest as well.

The problems I find is those times I am boomkin because all I seem to do is spam wrath. My normal rotation is moonfire, entangling roots, insect swarm, and then just wrath to death. I figure I should be tossing in some starfires here and there, but those tend to take a while to cast and this build is more focused around wrath.

Are there any experienced restokins out there with a better spell rotation than this? Also, should I be healing differently in bg's now that I am a restokin. I really try to focus on hot's since as a tree, that's what I am use to.

One more thing, kind of an off topic comment, but is arena season 4 around the corner. I've been spending all of my honor on season 1 gear and that would suck if season 2 was going to be released soon.