Gear for a Sapling.

Being a new tree at 80 is not easy there are many things to learn and lots of groups that will put you down if you do no do well. However, Blizzard has made it easy to get the gear we need to be effective and ready to raid. The new looking for group system (and do not forget the fact of being a healer so you will get in to groups almost instantly) makes it fast and simple to badge grind over and over. Conqueror’s Malfurion’s Garb is the T9 set that you will be looking to pick up. Wowhead has a wonderful page that shows a clear chart of what the gear provides. http://www.wowhead.com/?itemset=851.

Here are all the pieces:

• Malfurion’s Headpiece of Conquest – 50 Triumph Badges
• Malfurion’s Robe of Conquest – 50 Triumph Badges
• Malfurion’s Leggings of Conquest – 50 Triumph Badges
• Malfurion’s Spaulders of Conquest – 30 Triumph Badges
• Malfurion’s Handguards of Conquest – 30 Triumph Badges

• 2 pieces: Increases the critical strike chance of your Nourish spell by 5%.
• 4 pieces: Your Rejuvenation ability now has a chance for its healing to be critical strikes.

These pieces are easy to get and will prepare you for a raid.

Now, though I like all of the pieces for the bonus, you really only need four to get it and there are other badge gear that is better that can be bought. I believe that there are other pieces that can replace the normal tier gear.

Mask of Abundant Growth costs 75 triumph badges and is a major upgrade from the tier helm. Now if you get this helm you are still benefiting from the 4 piece bonus from the tier gear. But if you do not care about the bonus and only care about gear score (which you should NOT be doing the 4 piece bonus is a very nice one esp for raiding) then you can also get the Epaulets of the Fateful Accord. These are 45 badges and are a nice upgrade from the drops in many of the heroics. But like I said, you will not be getting the tier bonus so there is a trade off.

The next piece of buyable gear is an idol, rings, and trinket. All of which are major upgrades and will last till you replace with frost gear or ICC gear.

• Band of the Invoker – 35 Triumph Badges
• Heartmender Circle – 35 Triumph Badges
• Idol of Flaring Growth – 25 Triumph Badges (this will be your idol until you are able to buy the Frost badge one)
• Talisman of Resurgence – 50 Triumph Badges ( this is nice esp if you have poor trinkets, the mana boost alone is very helpful! )

So all and all you will need a total of 380 Triumph Badges. This may seem like a lot, but as a healer you will almost always get a quick group in for the random dungeons and those 2 extra badges per run will really add up.With all this gear the only pieces you will need are a neck, cloak, wrist, main hand, off-hand, belt, feet, and one more trinket. The rest of these times will be drops from dungeons (most the new ones).

• Neck – Arcane Loops of Anger – Forge of Souls from Devourer of Souls
• Wrist – Ghostly Wristwraps – They are a random drop from Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, or Halls of Reflection
• Belt: Belt of the Living Thicket – 28 Emblems of Conquest you can use Triumph badges and turn them into these
• Main Hand – Surgeon’s Needle – Pit of Saron from Forgemaster Garfrost
• Off-Hand – Shriveled Heart – Halls of Reflection from the Lich King race
• Trinket – Ephemeral Snowflake – Halls of Reflection from Marwyn

Now boots and cloaks are generally hard to come by so here are a few options:

Feet:

• Boots of Wintry Endurance – Crafted – Now these take a lot of mats and will require to you buy Runed Orbs with Triumph Badges. But they will last till you get gear from ICC.
• Boots of the Petrified Forest – This is a random Ulduar drop

Cloak:

• Relentless Gladiator’s Cloak of Salvation – Now I know this is a PvP cloak, but until you get a cloak out of ICC or with frost badges this seems to be the best bet. It is better than the Ulduar drops as well. It costs 26,100 honor which should only take 1/2 to get.

There it is! All the gear that you will need to get you raid ready. Tomorrow…gems!

Tree Beginnings

Lets start with the basics. Over the years there has been a lot of changes to the Restoration Tree and where the points go. Today, there are some very essential talents in the Balance tree that one should be picking up as well. This is currently the spec that I am running with: http://www.wowarmory.com/talent-calc.xml?cid=11&tal=0532013100300000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000230033312031500531050313051 . I find that it gives me the spell haste bonuses along with the solid resto talents.

Restoration Talents:

• Improved Mark of the Wild – 2/2 Increases the effects of your Mark of the Wild and Gift of the Wild spells by 40%, and increases all of your total attributes by 2%.
• Nature’s Focus – 3/3  Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Healing Touch, Wrath, Entangling Roots, Cyclone, Nourish, Regrowth and Tranquility by 70%.
  
• Subtlety – 3/3 Reduces the threat generated by your restoration spells by 30% and reduces the chance your healing over time spells will be dispelled by 30%. Some people feel that this talent is not necessary, sadly it is because of all the threat that druids pull. Each HoT is ticking and causing more and more threat, over time this builds up so the 30% reduction is a must.
• Natural Shapeshifter– 5/5 Reduces the mana cost of all shapeshifting by 30%
• Intensity – 3/3 Allows 50% of your mana regeneration to continue while casting and causes your Enrage ability to instantly generate 10 rage.
• Omen of Clarity – 1/1 Each of the druid’s damage, healing spells and auto attacks has a chance of causing the caster to enter a Clearcasting state. The Clearcasting state reduces the Mana, Rage or Energy cost of your next damage, healing spell or offensive ability by 100%.
• Master Shapeshifter – 2/2 Tree form – Increases healing by 4%
  

• Improved Rejuvenation – 3/3 Increases the effect of your Rejuvenation spell by 15%.
• Nature’s Swiftness – 1/1 Instant, 3 min cooldown. When activated, your next Nature spell with a casting time of less than 10 sec becomes an instant cast spell.
• Gift of Nature – 5/5 Increases the effect of all healing spells by 10%.
• Nature’s Bounty – 5/5 Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth and Nourish spells by 25%.
• Living Spirit – 3/3 – Increases your total Spirit by 15%.
• Swiftmend – 1/1 16% of base Mana, 40 yd range, instant cast, 15 sec cooldown. Consumes a Rejuvenation or Regrowth effect on a friendly target to instantly heal them an amount equal to 12 sec of Rejuvenation or 18 sec of Regrowth.
• Empowered Rejuvenation – 5/5 The bonus healing effects of your healing over time spells is increased by 20%
• Revitalize – 3/3 Your Rejuvenation spell has a 15% chance to restore 8 Energy, 4 Rage, 1% Mana or 16 Runic Power per tick.
• Tree of Life – 1/1 28% of base Mana, Instant cast. Shapeshift into the Tree of Life. While in this form you increase healing received by 6% for all party and raid members within 45 yards, and you can only cast Restoration, Innervate and Barkskin spells, but the mana cost of your healing over time spells is reduced by 20%.
• Improved Tree of Life – 3/3 Increases your Armor while in Tree of Life Form by 200%, and increases your healing spell power by 15% of your spirit while in Tree of Life Form.
• Gift of the Earthmother – 5/5 Reduces the base global cooldown of your Rejuvenation, Lifebloom and Wild Growth spells by 20%.
• Wild Growth – 1/1 23% of base Mana, 40 yd range, instant cast. Heals up to 5 friendly party or raid members within 15 yards of the target for 1442 over 7 sec. The amount healed is applied quickly at first, and slows down as the Wild Growth reaches its full duration.

Balance Talents:

• Genesis – 5/5 Increases the damage and healing done by your periodic damage and healing effects by 5%.
• Moonglow – 3/3 Reduces the Mana cost of your Moonfire, Starfire, Starfall, Wrath, Healing Touch, Regrowth and Rejuvenation spells by 9%.
• Nature’s Majesty – 2/2 Increases the critical strike chance of your Wrath, Starfire, Starfall, Nourish, and Healing Touch spells by 4%.
• Brambles – 1/3 Increases damage caused by your Thorns and Entangling Roots spells by 75% and damage done by your treants by 15%. In addition, damage from your Treants and attacks done to you while you have Barksin active have a 15% chance to daze the target for 3 sec.
• Nature’s Grace – 3/3  All spell crits have a 100% chance to grace you with a blessing of nature, decreasing spell casting time by 20% for 3 seconds.
• Nature’s Splendor – 1/1 Increases the duration of your Moonfire and Rejuvenation spells by 3 sec, your Regrowth spell by 6 sec, and your Insect Swarm and Lifebloom spells by 2sec.
• Celestial Focus – 3/3  Reduces the pushback suffered from damaging attacks while casting Starfire, Hibernate and Hurricane by 70% and increases your total spell haste by 3%.

Celestial Focus is a very useful talent with the changes to haste, basically making it more effective for druids. Today, druids only need a 735 spell haste with this talent as compared to 856 without this talent. The only reason there is only one point in Brambles is so that I could get Celestial Focus, not much else in the Balance Tree is useful as Resto. I know Revitalize is a talent that some Druids leave out, but my testing has found it to be very useful. Though it is only a minor gain of Energy, Runic Power, Mana, or Rage there have been times where other raid members have been baffled as to how quickly and often this 15% chance occurs.

After much debate, I have decided against getting the Living Seed talent. Yes it provides an extra HoT on the target, but the amount of the HoT is only 30% more healing on the target. However, it seems more effective to take the talents to get Celestial Focus, that is until you are at the soft haste cap. Once you hit 856 spell haste, then you can take those points out of the Balance Tree and place them in the Resto Tree. You can pick up extra talents like Living Seed and Empowered Touch.

I have found that using this grouping of talents has made me an effective raid healer.

Welcome from the Tree!

Resto Druids are everywhere, well now-a-days they are, I mean today alone I have seen at least 7 in tree form running around Dala. This has not always been true. From the day I played a tree, I have over came the hard ships and the trials that being a tree has entailed. Now, most of you probably only know the overpowered trees that are topping the healing meters (and overhealing meters but that is a story for another time) but this was not always so.

I would like to say that I am one of the Tree survivors, one that could not get groups before BC came out because “Druids can’t heal Nub!” Though if the group stuck around, they were pleasantly surprised because this druid could heal. Even though this was a regular occurance, I still found myself struggling to get groups, let alone find a guild that wanted me to raid with them. But I stuck it out, and today I am glad that I did.

Since Kara, I have raided in every dungeon and killed all the bosses these raids have to offer. Currently, I am 6/12 in ICC and two months back to the game after a much needed 9 month break. After all this time, I still enjoy playing my tree and am hoping that with the new guild I am in we can get it together and take our 10 and 25 mans all the way to Arthas.

I am going to use this blog to post tips and tricks on Resto Druid healing in raids, 5 mans, and PvP. I would like to give advice on how anyone can just pick up a tree and heal! Plus I will be talking about what the Tree sees and should do while healing. Hope everyone enjoys!