Short version:
I am trying to figure out should I go resto... Is resto hard to pick up at 70 switching from feral? Will the OL rep gear be sufficient to start doing heroics for a new healer? I am honored with Cenarion exp, Thrallmar and Mag'har and have some gear from them, otherwise it is mainly pre-70. (logged in feral pre-70 gear) I have gathered some post 70 healer/caster gear - one of the things I need to learn is the difference... just read the wowinsider gearing for kara thread and now I know some things look for in evaluating gear - have to compare mine when I get home)
So my main questions are: is resto easy to learn jumping there from feral at 70? Is it easier to get decent gear than for feral? Does it make sense to go Resto - as in are Resto druids given the same respect a holy priest or pally might get? (I know Druids are the bomb and can beat or at least hang with any other style comparably - tank, healz, dps...)
Longer version:
I am in a rather casual guild, we are friends or friends of friends and none of us dedicate a ton of time to raiding and most don't really have large blocks of time to play frequently (one 4-6 hours run a month is good average is a couple of hours here and there, rarely on at the same time...) I am new Feral 70 druid and enjoy the class. I have not done many instances and am nervous of being a tank, as it all comes down to the tank in an instance. I should learn if I am going to stay feral. I hear about all of these shortages on servers for tanks and healers so I debate constantly what am I going to do. Either way I need to figure it out so I can start gearing and once I get a decent set I can start getting dual gear and respec at will. I just need to get started.
Currently I am in my pre-70 (for the most part) feral gear, I got rep enough with some of the OL factions and got some spell/healing gear from them - for feral I replaced the legs, but otherwise, liked what I had over what was offered.
A friend in my guild has a 70 prot warrior, 70 fire mage another guy has a 70 feral druid, 70 rogue and 70 shadow priest... both of them enjoy their dps classes, but the warrior talks of wanting to get gear and tank more (just did his first raid - Mag - and said it was disastrous and a learning experience.) I think I could switch to the healer role and the three of us could go with a lock friend and pick up a 5th. Just the same, my tank buddy and I could come to groups as a package - healer and tank.
So here is my dilemma... I am trying to decide if I want to dedicate to tank or go healer. I think either class would be fun.
DISCLAIMER: I have never been one to focus on gear - all through leveling, I just quested and used what I got there. This is my first 70 and now at cap, I know I need gear so I am trying to figure out what to get.
Thanks for any advice. Know I am not looking for gear recommendations, just opinions from anyone that leveled feral and switched to resto.
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Feral to Resto... should I make the jump?Follow
All I can say is: Try it and see what you think. I switched from Feral to Resto at 70, but I already had a number of Resto drops from Kara that I obtained while Feral. I don't think Resto is particularly hard to learn, but you have to be smart about it. Read up on how to play a HoT healer, and make sure you have addons to help you out. I rely heavily on my Grid addon with a bunch of different plugins. There's link in the Resources section of the Sticky that'll help you get it set up. It's a pain at first, but I couldn't live without it.
In my experience, the PvP rep gear is pretty crappy for anything but starting PvP. It's OK if you need to fill out one or two pieces with this gear until you get something better, but if it's your primary healing set, you're going to be severly lacking mana regen. I doubt that you'll be able to heal heroics unless the rest of your group far outgears the instance.
But if you're interested, I'd definitely give it a shot. I find Resto to be a lot of fun. And if you don't like it, you're only out the cost of 2 respecs and the price of your rep gear. Not too bad.
In my experience, the PvP rep gear is pretty crappy for anything but starting PvP. It's OK if you need to fill out one or two pieces with this gear until you get something better, but if it's your primary healing set, you're going to be severly lacking mana regen. I doubt that you'll be able to heal heroics unless the rest of your group far outgears the instance.
But if you're interested, I'd definitely give it a shot. I find Resto to be a lot of fun. And if you don't like it, you're only out the cost of 2 respecs and the price of your rep gear. Not too bad.
You want around 1000 bonus healing for heroics and the first half of Kara, 7000 mana buffed with MotW, and as much mp/5 as you can get. I didn't switch to Feral until I already had a (mostly) full set of off-spec gear from raiding feral for several months, so I'm not sure where you should start. The blue PvP rep gear is probably better than quest and AH greens, but after that you want to start looking for dungeon and quest level 70 blues.
ok thanks... I've done a few feral healing assists, but never tried resto. As i recall with the healing/caster set I have my mana was 8700 or so, but I don't know what the +healing or mp5 was. I was just talking to my lock and he pretty much convinced me to give it a go, so, tonight I'll respec... now its off to read some of the HoT guides as mentioned above. I think I've read about Grid addon before but never tried it, so I'll have to look that up too. As for respec cost, with dailies that would be nothing... man gold comes easy at 70.
When I reached Outlands I started wondering the same thing. So while I remain Feral spec'd I've been collect healing gear and trying to heal instance when I could. To date I've healed instances three times, and other then having a problem with the last boss in Seth I think I did ok. My current healing gear is not going to be adequate much longer though according to what was posted above. I have +630 Heal and I think I'm over 7k mana.
What I was thinking of doing is collect this set http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/itemset.html?setid=744. Would this be a good move? I have the Honored rep to get two pieces as soon as I turn 70 (sometime this week I think) and can probably get Honored with a third fairly soon. I will most likely remain Feral spec'd until I finish leveling to 80. While leveling I will continue to try both tanking and healing so I will know which way to go once I reach level 80.
What I was thinking of doing is collect this set http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/itemset.html?setid=744. Would this be a good move? I have the Honored rep to get two pieces as soon as I turn 70 (sometime this week I think) and can probably get Honored with a third fairly soon. I will most likely remain Feral spec'd until I finish leveling to 80. While leveling I will continue to try both tanking and healing so I will know which way to go once I reach level 80.
In terms of that set, I have read somewhere (will look for a link) that the benefits to having 4 pieces aren't that great and unless you can get the def rating up elsewhere, it would be more beneficial to have the 2 of the kodohide and 2 of the wyrmhide for the resilience bonuses. But I suppose that all depends on gameplay... as it appears more PvP style where you might have to cast an occasional offensive spell the wyrmhide would come into play, for PvE the kodohide would seem to be better.
can anyone shed some light on this?
can anyone shed some light on this?
SumDuud wrote:
In terms of that set, I have read somewhere (will look for a link) that the benefits to having 4 pieces aren't that great and unless you can get the def rating up elsewhere, it would be more beneficial to have the 2 of the kodohide and 2 of the wyrmhide for the resilience bonuses. But I suppose that all depends on gameplay... as it appears more PvP style where you might have to cast an occasional offensive spell the wyrmhide would come into play, for PvE the kodohide would seem to be better.
I don't really follow what your asking here. Are you talking about resilence? Also, PvE and PvP healing are TOATALLY different. PvE you keep a rolling lifebloom up on the tank, regrowth and reguvanation as required. AOE hits melee DPS, throw a single lifebloom on them. You spend 98% of your time in TOL form, and you stack spirit like it's going out of style.
PvP healing, you need MP5 more than spirit. You spend zero time in TOL, cause your always on the move. I rarely cast offensive spells when PvP healing, seems like a waste of mana to me. Back in the good ol days, we used to get a % speed bonus for having 4 of the set. They nerfed that, and gave us a reduction on casting regrowth.
Scholar
37 posts
I was a Feral up to 70 at which time I switched to Resto. Please note that the healing needed depends GREATLY on the rest of the group. A good, well geared tank, with enough CC and good DPS requires much less healing for the run. Of course in PUGs, that happens in 1 out of every 10 runs. My numbers below assume a "average" PUG with less then optimal setup (less CC, tank gear so-so, DPS not high etc.). Here is what my experiance was (this assumes "average" PUGs):
1) You can off-spec heal the pre-70 normal instances as a Feral with decent healing gear(+600-700 healing). You will not do well in level 70 normal instances (SL, Shatt Halls, etc.).
2) You will have to switch to Resto to heal even the level 70 normal instances. You need Resto and at least ~+800-1000 for SL, Shatt Halls, TK instances.
3) Normal MgT is very hard. You need a good ~1200-1300 for average PUGS (and it will still be hard).
4) At +1200-1300 you can do the first part of Kara and the easier Heroics (SP, UB, Mech).
5) Look for +1400-1500 for second half of Kara and the Medium difficulty Heroics.
6) +1600-+1800 for the harder Heroics.
7) I dont know what works for Heroic MgT as I have not done that yet and I sit at +1680 unbuffed.
Again, I PUG a lot so I have found I need a significantly higher +heal to cover all the possible problems with tank gear/spec issues, CC problems, and DPS issues. If you only play with guild groups that are geared and speced well you can probably get by with slightly lower numbers.
Here is a great list I have been working off of to get geared up:
http://druid.wikispaces.com/Healing+Gear+List
Note that this does not cover MgT drops (which are quite good). You can also refer to this
http://druid.wikispaces.com/Healing_Gear_Calculator
to include MgT, but it does not cover rings, trinkets etc.
1) You can off-spec heal the pre-70 normal instances as a Feral with decent healing gear(+600-700 healing). You will not do well in level 70 normal instances (SL, Shatt Halls, etc.).
2) You will have to switch to Resto to heal even the level 70 normal instances. You need Resto and at least ~+800-1000 for SL, Shatt Halls, TK instances.
3) Normal MgT is very hard. You need a good ~1200-1300 for average PUGS (and it will still be hard).
4) At +1200-1300 you can do the first part of Kara and the easier Heroics (SP, UB, Mech).
5) Look for +1400-1500 for second half of Kara and the Medium difficulty Heroics.
6) +1600-+1800 for the harder Heroics.
7) I dont know what works for Heroic MgT as I have not done that yet and I sit at +1680 unbuffed.
Again, I PUG a lot so I have found I need a significantly higher +heal to cover all the possible problems with tank gear/spec issues, CC problems, and DPS issues. If you only play with guild groups that are geared and speced well you can probably get by with slightly lower numbers.
Here is a great list I have been working off of to get geared up:
http://druid.wikispaces.com/Healing+Gear+List
Note that this does not cover MgT drops (which are quite good). You can also refer to this
http://druid.wikispaces.com/Healing_Gear_Calculator
to include MgT, but it does not cover rings, trinkets etc.
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