I can't think of anything funny or witty to open this up with, so... here I go again!
Here is Part 1... refer to that if you're a little confused.
I realize that a lot of this will be useless soon, as Cataclysm will change everything, but hey I'm just late to the party getting in on this. It will get reworked come Cataclysm. Besides, I had to get my rant off my (4) readers' feeds.
The Kitty Spec
There used to be a little difference between the best specs for single-target or AOE DPS, but with the changes to Mangle they are close enough together that I'm going to present just one spec...
Just like the Bear Spec, you have a few points in the Resto tree, none at all in Balance, and a ton in Feral.
Restoration Talents
Tier 1
2/2 Improved Mark of the Wild - Increases all your attributes AND makes your buff better? Can I get a few more points in it?
0/3 Nature's Focus - Resto/Balance Talent. Ignore.
3/5 Furor - Gets you to the second Tier, and lets you do a little shapeshifting without always losing all your energy.
Tier 2
5/5 Naturalist - 10% damage bonus. Need I say more?
0/3 Subtlety - Resto/Balance. Ignore.
3/3 Natural Shapeshifter - Makes shapeshifting cheaper... and lets you get Master Shapeshifter.
Tier 3
0/3 Intensity - Not interesting to cats. Not really interesting to bears, either, but at least they'd get something out of it. Next.
1/1 Omen of Clarity - Free stuff is good mmkay?
2/2 Master Shapeshifter - With Natural Shapeshifter, we've spent 5 points to get only a 4% damage bonus (less mana cost is good but meh.) We spent 5 points to get 10% just a few minutes ago. What gives? Well... it's not worth it without spending all 5 points here, and there's nowhere we'd rather spend all 5 points, so here it goes. And really... it's 4% damage bonus across the board, don't complain.
Feral Talents
Tier 1
5/5 Ferocity - Reduces the Energy cost of some key abilities (with the changes to Mangle, it's most important for Rake and Swipe for cats)
5/5 Feral Aggression - Increases damage done by Ferocious Bite - not very useful except in long raid boss fights, but then it can make a significant difference.
Tier 2
3/3 Feral Instinct - The stealth upgrade is a nice bonus. 30% additional swipe damage is HUGE. This talent was left off single-target maximized builds before the changes to Mangle.
2/2 Savage Fury - 20% increased damage to Rake and Mangle (and Claw, but... ew.) So... 20% increased damage to Rake here. Rake is a fairly large chunk of our DPS. Take it!
0/3 Thick Hide - Bear talent, safely ignored.
Tier 3
2/2 Feral Swiftness - Not the most key talent, but the increased movement speed really helps get on target faster and stay on target longer during movement-heavy fights. Increased dodge chance helps survivability as well.
1/1 Survival Instincts - An emergency button for 1 talent point, to help you through those rough patches, worth taking it.
3/3 Sharpened Claws - Static crit chance bonus? Yes, please!
Tier 4
2/2 Shredding Attacks - Shred is one of your key DPS and combo point regen abilities, so reducing its energy cost by 18 is huge.
3/3 Predatory Strikes - This gives you a bunch of attack power (and can randomly give you an instant-cast nature spell. While it is rarely to your benefit to cast spells... it might help? It's here for the huge AP bonus, though.
2/2 Primal Fury - You're going to crit, a LOT. This gets you free extra combo points when you do.
2/2 Primal Precision - A HUGE chunk of Expertise you don't need on gear is great, and you get refunded if any of your finishing moves fail to land. Which they shouldn't, but that's another discussion, and sometimes it's unavoidable.
Tier 5
0/2 Brutal Impact - Increasing the stun duration of Pounce is... well it's PvP-focused and if you're going for a PvP spec you might want it... but here it's not really that useful. Maybe, possibly, if you had free points you wanted to spend, but I'd still spend them elsewhere.
1/1 Feral Charge - Allows invisible-flying-cat-leap and helps in engaging enemies quickly. Worth 1 point.
0/2 Nurturing Instinct - I'm not really sure how this is useful (maybe PvP for a hybrid heal/cat spec?).
Tier 6
0/3 Natural Reaction - Bear Talent.
5/5 Heart of the Wild - 10% increased attack power... yum...
3/3 Survival of the Fittest - 6% to all attributes? Awesome! Oh and cats get to be uncrittable too?? Sweet!
Tier 7
1/1 Leader of the Pack - Static raidwide 5% buff to ranged and melee crit chance is good for 1 point.
0/2 Improved Leader of the Pack - Wouldn't be a terrible choice to put any points you want to move in. Not great, but not wasted either.
0/3 Primal Tenacity - Not a bad PvP talent, but kinda wasted on a PvE build.
Tier 8
0/3 Protector of the Pack - You are not a bear. Bad kitty.
3/3 Predatory Instincts - Damage from Melee crits increased 10%. Not too shabby, and a reduction to damage from AOE effects to boot.
0/3 Infected Wounds - Not a bad debuff.... but doesn't help us at all. Maybe if your raid group needs the debuff, and you've got points to spare....
Tier 9
3/3 King of the Jungle - A key talent to keep us going by giving us a way to quickly regenerate energy, with some side perks on top.
1/1 Mangle - One of our key debuffs, and a damage ability. There's a reason people refer to one cat strategy as Manglespam.
0/3 Improved Mangle - Without this, Manglespam is a costly tactic (and you may actually want to Claw (ew!) instead).... but since it lasts 1 minute you shouldn't be using it often enough for the increased cost to matter, since normally you'll be behind an enemy so you can Shred.
Tier 10
5/5 Rend and Tear -Increases a bunch of your damage on Bleeding targets. Since you make targets bleed (a LOT!), increases a bunch of your damage.
1/1 Primal Gore - You should Rip on any boss fight - trash you won't have time. But for boss fights, gives you the ability to crit. More random free damage, and it only costs 1 point.
Tier 11
1/1 Berserk - Become the flailing cat-ball of death. You know you want to.
You may (or may not) have noticed that I'm 1 point short - that can go where you feel it will be best utilized (1/2 iLotP or 4/5 Furor are probably your best bets).
The Glyphs
Generally speaking, your best three major Glyphs are:
Rip: Increases duration (and thus damage) of Rip by 4 seconds.
Shred: Makes your Shred extend Rip by 2 seconds, up to 6 seconds total - so makes Shred doubly-important when Rip is up.
Savage Roar: Makes the ability that you always have up and buffs all of your attacks buff them more.
If you're weird and just don't like those, consider these Glyphs, which, while subpar, are not horrible:
Mangle: You probably should shift talent points around to take iMangle if you're going to use this. It makes Manglespam better...
Berserk: You get to be a cat-ball of death for a little longer.
Minor glyphs are a little more malleable. The generally accepted "best" are:
Challenging Roar: Not as cool for cats as bears, but makes it easier for you to sacrifice yourself (or try to shift to bear and tank for a few seconds) to save your healer.
Unburdened Rebirth: I honestly don't think any Druid should be without this.
Dash: Remember me talking about how it's important to move quickly in certain fights?
Peronally, I drop Challenging Roar for Aquatic Form and Dash for Glyph of the Wild. Personal choice.
So what's the point? See Part 1. We increase our damage a bunch, sure, but we've made a lot of our abilities synergistic - as I said then, Savage Roar buffs everything, Mangle buffs Rip, Rake, and Shred, Rake and Rip both buff Shred, Shred extends Rip... and on the occasions we get to Ferocious Bite or have to Claw, they've got some buffs too. The really tricky part is keeping everything going properly.
Stay tuned for Part 3 (Gear, Gems, and Enchants)! (Sometime before Cataclysm... I hope...
Showing posts with label glyphs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label glyphs. Show all posts
Friday, July 2, 2010
Friday, November 13, 2009
A Primer on Tree Healing (Part 2, The Spec and Glyphs)
Following the same path I treaded with my bear primer, I continue with discussions of leafy things.
The Spec
Here is a link to my spec, which I'll step through once again. This time, instead of mentioning hybrid builds, I'll mention what's most useful for tank vs. raid healing, in addition to points that I'm thinking of moving into or out of, and why.
Much like with the Feral build, there are a few talents in another tree that are useful - but this time it's the Balance tree. There really isn't anything you want in the Feral tree, so I'll skip that one, but you want to get at least 2 and possibly 3 tiers deep into the Balance tree, so we'll talk through that before digging into Restoration.
Level 1
Starlight Wrath, 0/5: Not even remotely helpful to a tree.
Genesis 5/5: Makes your HoTs (except the not-really-a-HoT Tranquility) better. That's right, it improves half your healing spells by 5%. That's pretty good for a 1st tier talent, and it's really your only option to get to the 2nd tier to boot.
Level 2
Moonglow, 3/3: Reduces the mana cost of half your heals by 9%, including the important Nourish and Rejuvenation. Worth it!
Nature's Majesty, 2/2: Crit chance is fairly important for healers, and while Healing Touch is not a very go-to spell for us, Nourish is, and this gives us access to a couple of abilities we probably want in the next tier, not to mention that if you DO want to get to the next tier, you need five points in this one.
Improved Moonfire, 0/2: You don't do damage.
Level 3
Brambles, 0/3: You don't do damage and the Barkskin ability is negligible in PvE. You *might* consider taking this for a PvP spec but not here.
Nature's Grace, 0/3: For trees that cast mostly instant-cast HoTs, this isn't an exceptionally strong talent, but I see quite a few 14/0/57 builds that take this to be better at casting Nourish, Regrowth, and the occasional Healing Touch. I'm considering moving 3 points around to take it, and the biggest reason I haven't yet is that I'm not entirely sure where I should take points away from to do it.
Nature's Splendor, 1/1: I think 1 point here is worth it for the Rejuvenation and Regrowth boosts alone, and if you're tank healing and using Lifebloom, this really, really helps.
Nature's Reach, 0/2: You don't cast Balance spells, and you don't use FFF.
So much for the Balance tree. I don't think it's as obvious a must-have as the Restoration tree talents were for a Feral druid, but it's still strong. Moving along, the Restoration tree!
Level 1
Improved Mark of the Wild, 2/2: If the 2% total attributes increase isn't enough, it makes your buffs better AND you need 5 points to get to tier 2, and you aren't getting them elsewhere.
Nature's Focus, 3/3: Reducing pushback isn't the most super buff for the trees that like so much to cast instantly, but it does help all of our non-instant cast spells, and... well I hate to say this yet again but you need 5 points in the first tier.
Furor, 0/5: This is a Feral talent that happens to be in the Restoration tree.
Level 2
Naturalist, 0/5: Unless you're one of those rare trees that is just determined to make Healing Touch your go-to spell, this isn't worth it, at all. In my mind, it's 5 points on this or 5 points increasing all your healing by 4%. I'll take the other.
Subtlety, 3/3: This would be worth it for the threat reduction alone; healers really don't like grabbing aggro. Making your effects harder to dispel makes this an all around strong talent. Take it!
Natural Shapeshifter, 3/3: If you aren't taking Naturalist, you get to put 2 points here, and if you're putting 2 points here, you need to put the 3rd in and get Master Shapeshifter out of the next tree and increase your total healing by 4%. If might not be worth 5 points, really, to get just 4% bonus healing, but if you don't go for it you really have to let 2 points go to waste in the second tier.
Level 3
Intensity, 3/3: You do a lot of instant casting, which makes this somewhat less cool, but it does help with mana regen (one of the most important things for a healer!), and gives you access to Nature's Swiftness, which you want.
Omen of Clarity, 1/1: To paraphrase my point from the bear post, random free stuff is good mmkay?
Master Shapeshifter, 2/2: I've kind of already discussed the how and why of taking this, but 4% bonus healing is pretty good.
*EDIT*
When I wrote this, I had forgotten that even with instant casts, as far as WoW is concerned you are casting for the next 5 seconds. Intensity is way cooler than I thought.
Level 4
Tranquil Spirit, 0/5: A good ability that we don't have enough points to justify taking, unless you're using Healing Touch a lot, and if you are you'd probably rather be using Nourish anyway, which this helps as well, but 5 talent points to reduce the cost of Nourish by 10% is not worth it. The Tranquility reduction is not huge; as I said before it's an emergency button. Perhaps if we free up enough points elsewhere, and are focusing on tank healing...
Improved Rejuvenation, 3/3: Rejuvenation is a go-to spell, plus gives us access to Nature's Bounty.
Level 5
Nature's Swiftness, 1/1: Part of our emergency suite - most often used to power out a Healing Touch at instant speed.
Gift of Nature, 5/5: Increases all healing 10% and gives access to Swiftmend. Strong!
Improved Tranquility, 2/2: Honestly I should probably spend these points elsewhere. The cooldown reduction is nice but it shouldn't be something we're relying on anyway. The threat reduction is really why I took it, but that should be a tank's job to worry about more than ours.
Level 6
Empowered Touch, 2/2: Excellent for tank healers. Given the way I have healed I probably should not have this talent, but I'm bound and determined to make myself use Nourish more often.
Nature's Bounty, 5/5: Much like Empowered Touch, given the way I have healed I should probably move these points, but increasing crit chance on Regrowth and Nourish by a massive 25% is huge, especially for tank healers.
Level 7
Living Spirit, 3/3: Spirit is goooooood. More on that with Improved Tree of Life later.
Swiftmend, 1/1: Awesome for quick recoveries. Not so cool without the glyph, but still a powerful option, instant heal.
Natural Perfection, 0/3: I really don't know what to make of this ability. Seems to me to be more PvP oriented.
Level 8
Empowered Rejuvenation, 5/5: Bonus healing effects of HoTs increased 20%. Nice. Plus, access to Tree of Life form. Required.
Living Seed, 3/3: I really, really like random free heals, but if you're looking for points to squeeze out, it might be these 3.
Level 9
Revitalize, 3/3: These 3 points might get moved elsewhere. Although it (slightly) boosts everyone rejuvenation is ticking on, except for providing you with a little extra mana when cast on yourself, it really doesn't help you heal.
Tree of Life, 1/1: In order to be a tree, you have to, well, be a tree! Note that in tree form you generate an aura that increases healing done to all affected by 6%. You just made all the healers in your raid better.
Improved Tree of Life, 3/3: Ignore the armor contribution part. We don't care (unless we're doing this for PvP!) We really do care that we get to increase our spellpower by 15% of our spirit. With upwards of 1000 spirit well-geared, we're getting 150+ free spellpower. Nice.
Level 10
Improved Barkskin, 0/2: I mostly view this as a PvP talent. It can be useful but I think we'd rather spend our points elsewhere.
Gift of the Earthmother, 5/5: There's been a lot of talk about how this is going to change come patch 3.3 (or maybe Cataclysm, I don't remember), but for now it lets us cast heals faster, and that's a good thing.
Level 11
Wild Growth, 1/1: Most. Awesome. Group. Heal. Ever. I can't say enough good things about Wild Growth.
The Glyphs
There's a lot of good glyphs out there available for a tree druid. It's difficult to settle on what the best ones are, but I'll take you through my picks and why, and try to discuss the other options with clarity.
I would recommend Glyph of Wild Growth for any tree druid. It's not as strong in 5-mans but it makes one of your best spells even better for raiding. I'm not currently using it because it wasn't available when I selected glyphs and I haven't revisited them since. I'm going to be picking this one up soon, though.
After that, we have a LOT of good options. Glyph of Healing Touch is the only one I really wouldn't recommend having.
Swiftmend is strong, but not as much as it was - I'm probably going to keep this one when I go about changing my glyphs. Not eating HoTs when you cast Swiftmend is pretty good.
Lifebloom is also very strong, but as I'm trying to shift away from being quite so focused on the multi-nerfed spell I'll probably pass. It does give you more time in between rolling blooms and increases the healing output of the spell, but I'm wanting to shift my focus elsewhere.
Glyph of Regrowth is good, but I don't think it's worth it. If you really like using Regrowth, consider it, but I think you'd rather have Glyph of Nourish.
I'm currently using Glyph of Rejuvenation, but I'm probably going to move away from it. It's situationally amazing but I'm hoping that shifting my healing style a little bit will make it less useful.
Glyph of Rebirth is a reasonable option, especially if you're going after bosses that are a little hard for your group, as it makes less chance for a freshly resurrected friend to die to random damage. I'm passing, though, as I'd rather try to keep people from dying in the first place.
Really, after Wild Growth, it will be a battle for my other 2 spots between Swiftmend, Glyph of Nourish, and Glyph of Innervate. For the long, mana-intensive fights currently out there, Innervate means (when you cast it on yourself) you get ~18k mana instead of ~15k, which can be a lifesaver in dire situations. Nourish is excellent for tank healers, as is the Lifebloom glyph - you won't often have more than 1 or at most 2 stacked HoTs on anything other than a tank, and you won't often Lifebloom non-tanks. Making either of these spells better, though, is a very good thing.
I'm leaning at the moment toward Wild Growth, Swiftmend, and Nourish, but that could change.
Whew! That's a lot.
One of the key things to remember is that the strength of a druid has always been versatility. No matter what role you want to do - main tank, off-tank, melee dps, ranged dps, raid healing, tank healing - you can do it as a druid. To be among the best at any of them you have to choose and focus on that one to the exclusion of (at least most of) the others. If you're like me, you want to be good at more than one role in each of your two available specs - and if you want a PvP spec, you only get 1 spec for PvE. While I'm trying to refocus my healing spec to be better at both raid and tank healing, I will probably never be as good at either as someone who focuses, because I have to give something up to get that flexibility.
I hope folks are finding this and the bear primer useful! It'll pick up again in a few days with a post on gear, gems, enchants, and professions!
The Spec
Here is a link to my spec, which I'll step through once again. This time, instead of mentioning hybrid builds, I'll mention what's most useful for tank vs. raid healing, in addition to points that I'm thinking of moving into or out of, and why.
Much like with the Feral build, there are a few talents in another tree that are useful - but this time it's the Balance tree. There really isn't anything you want in the Feral tree, so I'll skip that one, but you want to get at least 2 and possibly 3 tiers deep into the Balance tree, so we'll talk through that before digging into Restoration.
Level 1
Starlight Wrath, 0/5: Not even remotely helpful to a tree.
Genesis 5/5: Makes your HoTs (except the not-really-a-HoT Tranquility) better. That's right, it improves half your healing spells by 5%. That's pretty good for a 1st tier talent, and it's really your only option to get to the 2nd tier to boot.
Level 2
Moonglow, 3/3: Reduces the mana cost of half your heals by 9%, including the important Nourish and Rejuvenation. Worth it!
Nature's Majesty, 2/2: Crit chance is fairly important for healers, and while Healing Touch is not a very go-to spell for us, Nourish is, and this gives us access to a couple of abilities we probably want in the next tier, not to mention that if you DO want to get to the next tier, you need five points in this one.
Improved Moonfire, 0/2: You don't do damage.
Level 3
Brambles, 0/3: You don't do damage and the Barkskin ability is negligible in PvE. You *might* consider taking this for a PvP spec but not here.
Nature's Grace, 0/3: For trees that cast mostly instant-cast HoTs, this isn't an exceptionally strong talent, but I see quite a few 14/0/57 builds that take this to be better at casting Nourish, Regrowth, and the occasional Healing Touch. I'm considering moving 3 points around to take it, and the biggest reason I haven't yet is that I'm not entirely sure where I should take points away from to do it.
Nature's Splendor, 1/1: I think 1 point here is worth it for the Rejuvenation and Regrowth boosts alone, and if you're tank healing and using Lifebloom, this really, really helps.
Nature's Reach, 0/2: You don't cast Balance spells, and you don't use FFF.
So much for the Balance tree. I don't think it's as obvious a must-have as the Restoration tree talents were for a Feral druid, but it's still strong. Moving along, the Restoration tree!
Level 1
Improved Mark of the Wild, 2/2: If the 2% total attributes increase isn't enough, it makes your buffs better AND you need 5 points to get to tier 2, and you aren't getting them elsewhere.
Nature's Focus, 3/3: Reducing pushback isn't the most super buff for the trees that like so much to cast instantly, but it does help all of our non-instant cast spells, and... well I hate to say this yet again but you need 5 points in the first tier.
Furor, 0/5: This is a Feral talent that happens to be in the Restoration tree.
Level 2
Naturalist, 0/5: Unless you're one of those rare trees that is just determined to make Healing Touch your go-to spell, this isn't worth it, at all. In my mind, it's 5 points on this or 5 points increasing all your healing by 4%. I'll take the other.
Subtlety, 3/3: This would be worth it for the threat reduction alone; healers really don't like grabbing aggro. Making your effects harder to dispel makes this an all around strong talent. Take it!
Natural Shapeshifter, 3/3: If you aren't taking Naturalist, you get to put 2 points here, and if you're putting 2 points here, you need to put the 3rd in and get Master Shapeshifter out of the next tree and increase your total healing by 4%. If might not be worth 5 points, really, to get just 4% bonus healing, but if you don't go for it you really have to let 2 points go to waste in the second tier.
Level 3
Intensity, 3/3: You do a lot of instant casting, which makes this somewhat less cool, but it does help with mana regen (one of the most important things for a healer!), and gives you access to Nature's Swiftness, which you want.
Omen of Clarity, 1/1: To paraphrase my point from the bear post, random free stuff is good mmkay?
Master Shapeshifter, 2/2: I've kind of already discussed the how and why of taking this, but 4% bonus healing is pretty good.
*EDIT*
When I wrote this, I had forgotten that even with instant casts, as far as WoW is concerned you are casting for the next 5 seconds. Intensity is way cooler than I thought.
Level 4
Tranquil Spirit, 0/5: A good ability that we don't have enough points to justify taking, unless you're using Healing Touch a lot, and if you are you'd probably rather be using Nourish anyway, which this helps as well, but 5 talent points to reduce the cost of Nourish by 10% is not worth it. The Tranquility reduction is not huge; as I said before it's an emergency button. Perhaps if we free up enough points elsewhere, and are focusing on tank healing...
Improved Rejuvenation, 3/3: Rejuvenation is a go-to spell, plus gives us access to Nature's Bounty.
Level 5
Nature's Swiftness, 1/1: Part of our emergency suite - most often used to power out a Healing Touch at instant speed.
Gift of Nature, 5/5: Increases all healing 10% and gives access to Swiftmend. Strong!
Improved Tranquility, 2/2: Honestly I should probably spend these points elsewhere. The cooldown reduction is nice but it shouldn't be something we're relying on anyway. The threat reduction is really why I took it, but that should be a tank's job to worry about more than ours.
Level 6
Empowered Touch, 2/2: Excellent for tank healers. Given the way I have healed I probably should not have this talent, but I'm bound and determined to make myself use Nourish more often.
Nature's Bounty, 5/5: Much like Empowered Touch, given the way I have healed I should probably move these points, but increasing crit chance on Regrowth and Nourish by a massive 25% is huge, especially for tank healers.
Level 7
Living Spirit, 3/3: Spirit is goooooood. More on that with Improved Tree of Life later.
Swiftmend, 1/1: Awesome for quick recoveries. Not so cool without the glyph, but still a powerful option, instant heal.
Natural Perfection, 0/3: I really don't know what to make of this ability. Seems to me to be more PvP oriented.
Level 8
Empowered Rejuvenation, 5/5: Bonus healing effects of HoTs increased 20%. Nice. Plus, access to Tree of Life form. Required.
Living Seed, 3/3: I really, really like random free heals, but if you're looking for points to squeeze out, it might be these 3.
Level 9
Revitalize, 3/3: These 3 points might get moved elsewhere. Although it (slightly) boosts everyone rejuvenation is ticking on, except for providing you with a little extra mana when cast on yourself, it really doesn't help you heal.
Tree of Life, 1/1: In order to be a tree, you have to, well, be a tree! Note that in tree form you generate an aura that increases healing done to all affected by 6%. You just made all the healers in your raid better.
Improved Tree of Life, 3/3: Ignore the armor contribution part. We don't care (unless we're doing this for PvP!) We really do care that we get to increase our spellpower by 15% of our spirit. With upwards of 1000 spirit well-geared, we're getting 150+ free spellpower. Nice.
Level 10
Improved Barkskin, 0/2: I mostly view this as a PvP talent. It can be useful but I think we'd rather spend our points elsewhere.
Gift of the Earthmother, 5/5: There's been a lot of talk about how this is going to change come patch 3.3 (or maybe Cataclysm, I don't remember), but for now it lets us cast heals faster, and that's a good thing.
Level 11
Wild Growth, 1/1: Most. Awesome. Group. Heal. Ever. I can't say enough good things about Wild Growth.
The Glyphs
There's a lot of good glyphs out there available for a tree druid. It's difficult to settle on what the best ones are, but I'll take you through my picks and why, and try to discuss the other options with clarity.
I would recommend Glyph of Wild Growth for any tree druid. It's not as strong in 5-mans but it makes one of your best spells even better for raiding. I'm not currently using it because it wasn't available when I selected glyphs and I haven't revisited them since. I'm going to be picking this one up soon, though.
After that, we have a LOT of good options. Glyph of Healing Touch is the only one I really wouldn't recommend having.
Swiftmend is strong, but not as much as it was - I'm probably going to keep this one when I go about changing my glyphs. Not eating HoTs when you cast Swiftmend is pretty good.
Lifebloom is also very strong, but as I'm trying to shift away from being quite so focused on the multi-nerfed spell I'll probably pass. It does give you more time in between rolling blooms and increases the healing output of the spell, but I'm wanting to shift my focus elsewhere.
Glyph of Regrowth is good, but I don't think it's worth it. If you really like using Regrowth, consider it, but I think you'd rather have Glyph of Nourish.
I'm currently using Glyph of Rejuvenation, but I'm probably going to move away from it. It's situationally amazing but I'm hoping that shifting my healing style a little bit will make it less useful.
Glyph of Rebirth is a reasonable option, especially if you're going after bosses that are a little hard for your group, as it makes less chance for a freshly resurrected friend to die to random damage. I'm passing, though, as I'd rather try to keep people from dying in the first place.
Really, after Wild Growth, it will be a battle for my other 2 spots between Swiftmend, Glyph of Nourish, and Glyph of Innervate. For the long, mana-intensive fights currently out there, Innervate means (when you cast it on yourself) you get ~18k mana instead of ~15k, which can be a lifesaver in dire situations. Nourish is excellent for tank healers, as is the Lifebloom glyph - you won't often have more than 1 or at most 2 stacked HoTs on anything other than a tank, and you won't often Lifebloom non-tanks. Making either of these spells better, though, is a very good thing.
I'm leaning at the moment toward Wild Growth, Swiftmend, and Nourish, but that could change.
Whew! That's a lot.
One of the key things to remember is that the strength of a druid has always been versatility. No matter what role you want to do - main tank, off-tank, melee dps, ranged dps, raid healing, tank healing - you can do it as a druid. To be among the best at any of them you have to choose and focus on that one to the exclusion of (at least most of) the others. If you're like me, you want to be good at more than one role in each of your two available specs - and if you want a PvP spec, you only get 1 spec for PvE. While I'm trying to refocus my healing spec to be better at both raid and tank healing, I will probably never be as good at either as someone who focuses, because I have to give something up to get that flexibility.
I hope folks are finding this and the bear primer useful! It'll pick up again in a few days with a post on gear, gems, enchants, and professions!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
A Primer on Bear Tanking (Part 3, the Spec and Glyphs)
I previously went over how to play with a bear, and the mechanics of bear tanking. We'll follow this up with an in-depth look at the spec and glyphs, and then finish up with a look at bear gear.
The Spec
I'm going to present a bear-focused spec. If you want a tanking/dps hybrid, you'll want to shift a few points around. I'll try to mention which ones you might want to take for that, but keep in mind I'm doing this as a bear, not a cat/bear hybrid.
Here is the spec I am currently running. It's probably not perfect, but given the nature of WoW I don't think any spec is particularly perfect. I'll step through what I've taken, what I haven't taken, and what I might change to, one talent at a time. The only talents in the Balance tree that might be of any use are too far down it to justify taking points in that tree, so I won't bother going through it. I'll start with the Restoration tree and talk about what you want there, then dig through the entire feral tree.
You want to get to the 3rd level of the Restoration tree. Omen of Clarity is pretty darned good. Most places I've read and seen offer a couple of different looks, but almost every one includes that. So here goes on the resto tree.
Level 1:
Improved Mark of the Wild, 2/2: I used to skip this, because, hey I'm a bear I don't need to worry about being the person buffing the team, since my guild usually has at least one boomkin and tree along as well. Then I realized that it increases all attributes by 2%. I'll take a free extra 2% stamina, agility, and strength please, and thank you.
Nature's Focus, 0/3: This should be obvious. It is not even remotely useful to a feral druid.
Furor 3/5: You have to get to 5 points to get to the 2nd level. Depending on exactly how you lay out your points, you could put 5/5 in this, though, if you wanted. In my opinion, you aren't going to shapeshift mid-fight, however, and if you really, REALLY need that 10 rage to start a fight you can always shift a few times to get it before charging, not to mention enrage/barkskin.
Level 2:
Naturalist, 5/5: 10% damage in all forms is good mmkay? This is arguably one of the best reasons to be in the resto tree as a bear.
Subtlety, 0/3: Not a feral druid talent.
Natural Shapeshifter, 0/3: In the 0/55/16 builds I sometimes see, this is taken so that you can get to Master Shapeshifter. I'm considering moving a few points around to do that, but we'll talk about that in level 3.
Level 3:
Intensity, 0/3: The only reason to take this as a feral druid is if you are seriously always out of rage, even after an enrage... and if you're that badly out of rage, you're not doing it right.
Omen of Clarity, 1/1: This is, in my humble opinion, the biggest reason to get this far down in the resto tree. Randomly getting rage-free abilities is awesome, hands down.
Master Shapeshifter, 0/2: As I said above, some 0/55/16 builds take this. I've always kind of thought it was more of a hybrid cat/bear ability, but I may shift some points out of the feral tree to take it. 5 talent points seems a lot to get 4% damage, but you have to decide if the points you are losing to get it is worth the 4% damage.
And that's it for the resto tree, as a bear. You don't want to and cannot afford to spend more points in the resto tree, if you want to be a solid bear tank, at least, this bear thinks so. On to the feral tree!
Level 1:
Ferocity, 5/5: Maul costs 15 rage, and Swipe and Mangle each cost 20. A 25 - 33% reduction in the rage costs of your most used abilities goes a long way to making you a viable tank. Always take this.
Feral Aggression, 0/5: The bear side of this ability, increasing the attack power reduction of demoralizing roar, just doesn't do enough to make it useful. Very occasionally, massive groups of adds would make this talent worthwhile, but otherwise the limited reduction of the base ability just doesn't make this talent worth it.
Level 2:
Feral Instinct, 3/3: See Savage Fury.
Savage Fury, 2/2: Both this and Feral Instinct increase damage output, which for a bear, means increased threat. The first is important for AOE threat with Swipe, and the second for single-target threat. I consider these must-haves.
Thick Hide, 3/3: We need all the mitigation we can get our hands on. 10% to armor is a requirement to bear tank.
Level 3:
Feral Swiftness, 2/2: Dodge is our only avoidance stat. Required talent.
Survival Instincts, 1/1: Perhaps the most important part of our "oh sh_t" buttons. Required talent.
Sharpened Claws, 3/3: Critical strike chance is very important for bears, providing rage and threat generation as well as mitigation, and this talent gives us access to a couple other talents we want. Required talent.
Level 4:
Shredding Attacks, 2/2: I may move these points elsewhere. Reducing the rage cost of Lacerate seems pretty good for most Ulduar/ToC content, but reducing it by only 2 may not be worth the talent points. I would recommend this talent as much more important for hybrid kitty builds.
Predatory Strikes, 3/3: Increases your attack power (which is both a threat statistic and a mitigation statistic for a bear) by a reasonably significant amount, and gives access to Heart of the Wild, which will be required.
Primal Fury, 2/2: Remember how I said critical strike is a rage generation stat? This is why.
Primal Precision, 2/2: 10 expertise (not expertise rating) reduces total enemy avoidance by 5% if Wowwiki is to be believed. I wasn't running with this before, but I believe this is worth it and took it with gusto in my last respec.
Level 5:
Brutal Impact, 0/2: I go back and forth on whether this talent is worthwhile. Bears only get 1 interrupt, and having it up more often is a good thing. Then again, if you're having to rely on your bear for interrupts, you're probably hurting anyway. I pass.
Feral Charge, 1/1: Take this. Getting into the middle of things very fast is a good thing for a bear.
Nuturing Instinct, 0/2: You are not healing, and you are not a kitty. Hybrid kitties don't even want this. I doubt even pure kitties want this.
Level 6:
Natural Reaction, 3/3: This is an important cog in our machine, both for avoidance and rage generation. Take it.
Heart of the Wild, 5/5: Bears get more stamina for a reason. This helps us even more. Must have. Good for hybrids, too, as it increases attack power.
Survival of the Fittest, 3/3: I'm not sure where this will be going forward, as Blizzard has stated they are removing defense rating and the point of this talent was to remove a druid tank's need to hit the defense cap. But that's then. For now, this is required and does remove the need for a bear to worry about defense rating. Even without that, though, this talent is worth it since it increases all attributes (yay more stamina and agility!) as well as armor.
Level 7:
Leader of the Pack, 1/1: A free 5% crit for the entire party or raid? Yes, please.
Improved Leader of the Pack, 2/2: This is part of the reason critical strike is a mitigation stat for bears. The healing is minimal, but added up across the raid it can cause quite a bit of healing, and for us as bears it is yet another way in which we will slow down the hp loss during a fight.
Primal Tenacity, 0/3: This is more of a pvp talent than anything else. Fear reduction is nice, but in most cases where you care, Berserk will get you through the fear that matters and it's gravy from there.
Level 8:
Protector of the Pack, 3/3: More attack power, and one of the few ways we have to mitigate spell damage. Too good to pass up.
Predatory Instincts, 0/3: Purely a kitty talent. Ignore at will.
Infected Wounds, 3/3: These are 3 points that may get moved elsewhere. I've seen arguments both ways on whether it's worthwhile or not. The slowing effect is marginal, but I think the attack speed reduction is useful.
Level 9:
King of the Jungle, 0/3: You should not be enraging in combat unless absolutely necessary, and you should not be shifting in and out of form in combat either. This is a pretty good talent for hybrid builds, but not useful to a pure bear.
Mangle, 1/1: Highly important ability for both kitties and bears. A cog in our threat rotation wheel and does a solid amount of damage as well.
Improved Mangle, 3/3: These are another three points that may get taken elsewhere. I wouldn't consider it if I were going for a hybrid build, but as a bear it's not a required talent. Whether or not you take it affects your optimum threat and damage rotations, but if you feel the points are better spent elsewhere it's not so much of a loss here.
Level 10:
Rend and Tear, 5/5: Another important piece of threat generation, and damage (especially for hybrids). Take all 5.
Primal Gore, 1/1: Gives us another method to get critical strikes, and one that will continue to tick regardless of whether we're still attacking the target, at least until the Lacerate stack wears off. It's more than worth 1 measly point.
Level 11:
Berserk, 1/1: Not quite as important for bears as it is for kitties, but still important. Blow it early on single-target mobs for increased threat and damage, or save it for 3-target threat to hold down aggro versus AOE. Alternatively, in any situation, use it to protect yourself from, or break out of, fear.
The Glyphs
As a bear tank, there are 2 major glyphs that are very, very important to have. They make your emergency buttons so much better - these are the Glyph of Survival Instincts, and the Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration. I've heard some bears are dropping the SI glyph. I don't think it's worth it, but I can understand why. (If you need the emergency button that badly.... you're already in trouble).
The other three glyphs that can enter the conversation from the major glyph standpoint are Glyph of Maul, Glyph of Growl, and Glyph of Berserk. Berserk is best suited for hybrid builds, as kitties get more use out of it. Some folks prefer Growl for Ulduar, for situations where you rarely need the second Maul target and really absolutely need your Growl not to miss. I personally prefer Maul as I don't have a lot of issues with Growl missing already.
From the minor glyph standpoint, the only glyph of real note is the Glyph of Challenging Roar, to decrease the cooldown on your mass taunt. I fill in the last slots with glyphs I find randomly useful, specifically Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth and Glyph of Acquatic Form. Glyph of Thorns should also be considered.
If you've stuck with me this far, stay tuned for part 4 where I'll cover gear, enchanting, and gemming, but first up I'll share some thoughts on GearScore and similar addons, and later I'll get to T10 set bonuses from the PTR.
The Spec
I'm going to present a bear-focused spec. If you want a tanking/dps hybrid, you'll want to shift a few points around. I'll try to mention which ones you might want to take for that, but keep in mind I'm doing this as a bear, not a cat/bear hybrid.
Here is the spec I am currently running. It's probably not perfect, but given the nature of WoW I don't think any spec is particularly perfect. I'll step through what I've taken, what I haven't taken, and what I might change to, one talent at a time. The only talents in the Balance tree that might be of any use are too far down it to justify taking points in that tree, so I won't bother going through it. I'll start with the Restoration tree and talk about what you want there, then dig through the entire feral tree.
You want to get to the 3rd level of the Restoration tree. Omen of Clarity is pretty darned good. Most places I've read and seen offer a couple of different looks, but almost every one includes that. So here goes on the resto tree.
Level 1:
Improved Mark of the Wild, 2/2: I used to skip this, because, hey I'm a bear I don't need to worry about being the person buffing the team, since my guild usually has at least one boomkin and tree along as well. Then I realized that it increases all attributes by 2%. I'll take a free extra 2% stamina, agility, and strength please, and thank you.
Nature's Focus, 0/3: This should be obvious. It is not even remotely useful to a feral druid.
Furor 3/5: You have to get to 5 points to get to the 2nd level. Depending on exactly how you lay out your points, you could put 5/5 in this, though, if you wanted. In my opinion, you aren't going to shapeshift mid-fight, however, and if you really, REALLY need that 10 rage to start a fight you can always shift a few times to get it before charging, not to mention enrage/barkskin.
Level 2:
Naturalist, 5/5: 10% damage in all forms is good mmkay? This is arguably one of the best reasons to be in the resto tree as a bear.
Subtlety, 0/3: Not a feral druid talent.
Natural Shapeshifter, 0/3: In the 0/55/16 builds I sometimes see, this is taken so that you can get to Master Shapeshifter. I'm considering moving a few points around to do that, but we'll talk about that in level 3.
Level 3:
Intensity, 0/3: The only reason to take this as a feral druid is if you are seriously always out of rage, even after an enrage... and if you're that badly out of rage, you're not doing it right.
Omen of Clarity, 1/1: This is, in my humble opinion, the biggest reason to get this far down in the resto tree. Randomly getting rage-free abilities is awesome, hands down.
Master Shapeshifter, 0/2: As I said above, some 0/55/16 builds take this. I've always kind of thought it was more of a hybrid cat/bear ability, but I may shift some points out of the feral tree to take it. 5 talent points seems a lot to get 4% damage, but you have to decide if the points you are losing to get it is worth the 4% damage.
And that's it for the resto tree, as a bear. You don't want to and cannot afford to spend more points in the resto tree, if you want to be a solid bear tank, at least, this bear thinks so. On to the feral tree!
Level 1:
Ferocity, 5/5: Maul costs 15 rage, and Swipe and Mangle each cost 20. A 25 - 33% reduction in the rage costs of your most used abilities goes a long way to making you a viable tank. Always take this.
Feral Aggression, 0/5: The bear side of this ability, increasing the attack power reduction of demoralizing roar, just doesn't do enough to make it useful. Very occasionally, massive groups of adds would make this talent worthwhile, but otherwise the limited reduction of the base ability just doesn't make this talent worth it.
Level 2:
Feral Instinct, 3/3: See Savage Fury.
Savage Fury, 2/2: Both this and Feral Instinct increase damage output, which for a bear, means increased threat. The first is important for AOE threat with Swipe, and the second for single-target threat. I consider these must-haves.
Thick Hide, 3/3: We need all the mitigation we can get our hands on. 10% to armor is a requirement to bear tank.
Level 3:
Feral Swiftness, 2/2: Dodge is our only avoidance stat. Required talent.
Survival Instincts, 1/1: Perhaps the most important part of our "oh sh_t" buttons. Required talent.
Sharpened Claws, 3/3: Critical strike chance is very important for bears, providing rage and threat generation as well as mitigation, and this talent gives us access to a couple other talents we want. Required talent.
Level 4:
Shredding Attacks, 2/2: I may move these points elsewhere. Reducing the rage cost of Lacerate seems pretty good for most Ulduar/ToC content, but reducing it by only 2 may not be worth the talent points. I would recommend this talent as much more important for hybrid kitty builds.
Predatory Strikes, 3/3: Increases your attack power (which is both a threat statistic and a mitigation statistic for a bear) by a reasonably significant amount, and gives access to Heart of the Wild, which will be required.
Primal Fury, 2/2: Remember how I said critical strike is a rage generation stat? This is why.
Primal Precision, 2/2: 10 expertise (not expertise rating) reduces total enemy avoidance by 5% if Wowwiki is to be believed. I wasn't running with this before, but I believe this is worth it and took it with gusto in my last respec.
Level 5:
Brutal Impact, 0/2: I go back and forth on whether this talent is worthwhile. Bears only get 1 interrupt, and having it up more often is a good thing. Then again, if you're having to rely on your bear for interrupts, you're probably hurting anyway. I pass.
Feral Charge, 1/1: Take this. Getting into the middle of things very fast is a good thing for a bear.
Nuturing Instinct, 0/2: You are not healing, and you are not a kitty. Hybrid kitties don't even want this. I doubt even pure kitties want this.
Level 6:
Natural Reaction, 3/3: This is an important cog in our machine, both for avoidance and rage generation. Take it.
Heart of the Wild, 5/5: Bears get more stamina for a reason. This helps us even more. Must have. Good for hybrids, too, as it increases attack power.
Survival of the Fittest, 3/3: I'm not sure where this will be going forward, as Blizzard has stated they are removing defense rating and the point of this talent was to remove a druid tank's need to hit the defense cap. But that's then. For now, this is required and does remove the need for a bear to worry about defense rating. Even without that, though, this talent is worth it since it increases all attributes (yay more stamina and agility!) as well as armor.
Level 7:
Leader of the Pack, 1/1: A free 5% crit for the entire party or raid? Yes, please.
Improved Leader of the Pack, 2/2: This is part of the reason critical strike is a mitigation stat for bears. The healing is minimal, but added up across the raid it can cause quite a bit of healing, and for us as bears it is yet another way in which we will slow down the hp loss during a fight.
Primal Tenacity, 0/3: This is more of a pvp talent than anything else. Fear reduction is nice, but in most cases where you care, Berserk will get you through the fear that matters and it's gravy from there.
Level 8:
Protector of the Pack, 3/3: More attack power, and one of the few ways we have to mitigate spell damage. Too good to pass up.
Predatory Instincts, 0/3: Purely a kitty talent. Ignore at will.
Infected Wounds, 3/3: These are 3 points that may get moved elsewhere. I've seen arguments both ways on whether it's worthwhile or not. The slowing effect is marginal, but I think the attack speed reduction is useful.
Level 9:
King of the Jungle, 0/3: You should not be enraging in combat unless absolutely necessary, and you should not be shifting in and out of form in combat either. This is a pretty good talent for hybrid builds, but not useful to a pure bear.
Mangle, 1/1: Highly important ability for both kitties and bears. A cog in our threat rotation wheel and does a solid amount of damage as well.
Improved Mangle, 3/3: These are another three points that may get taken elsewhere. I wouldn't consider it if I were going for a hybrid build, but as a bear it's not a required talent. Whether or not you take it affects your optimum threat and damage rotations, but if you feel the points are better spent elsewhere it's not so much of a loss here.
Level 10:
Rend and Tear, 5/5: Another important piece of threat generation, and damage (especially for hybrids). Take all 5.
Primal Gore, 1/1: Gives us another method to get critical strikes, and one that will continue to tick regardless of whether we're still attacking the target, at least until the Lacerate stack wears off. It's more than worth 1 measly point.
Level 11:
Berserk, 1/1: Not quite as important for bears as it is for kitties, but still important. Blow it early on single-target mobs for increased threat and damage, or save it for 3-target threat to hold down aggro versus AOE. Alternatively, in any situation, use it to protect yourself from, or break out of, fear.
The Glyphs
As a bear tank, there are 2 major glyphs that are very, very important to have. They make your emergency buttons so much better - these are the Glyph of Survival Instincts, and the Glyph of Frenzied Regeneration. I've heard some bears are dropping the SI glyph. I don't think it's worth it, but I can understand why. (If you need the emergency button that badly.... you're already in trouble).
The other three glyphs that can enter the conversation from the major glyph standpoint are Glyph of Maul, Glyph of Growl, and Glyph of Berserk. Berserk is best suited for hybrid builds, as kitties get more use out of it. Some folks prefer Growl for Ulduar, for situations where you rarely need the second Maul target and really absolutely need your Growl not to miss. I personally prefer Maul as I don't have a lot of issues with Growl missing already.
From the minor glyph standpoint, the only glyph of real note is the Glyph of Challenging Roar, to decrease the cooldown on your mass taunt. I fill in the last slots with glyphs I find randomly useful, specifically Glyph of Unburdened Rebirth and Glyph of Acquatic Form. Glyph of Thorns should also be considered.
If you've stuck with me this far, stay tuned for part 4 where I'll cover gear, enchanting, and gemming, but first up I'll share some thoughts on GearScore and similar addons, and later I'll get to T10 set bonuses from the PTR.
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