A Terrible Resto Druid in Need of Help

[Oheyo 0]

Hello, everyone.

Some background info first: I've played healers on vanilla private servers since 2010, starting out as a holy priest, and being fairly good at it. I breezed through the pre-raid content and didn't have much of a hassle when it came to raid healing. Things were pretty swell.
I continued the trend on another server by rolling a resto shaman. That also worked out just fine, 5-man and raiding alike.
I then rolled a pally. Same story, except I never raided as a pally.

Now, the last two servers I've played on, I wanted to play a druid, since it's the only healer I hadn't really tried out for real. I started leveling as feral, figured I'd collect some heal gear, and attempted to heal through a few dungeons as I leveled. From Deadmines, and all the way up to Scarlet Library, things worked out fine. I put a rejuv on the tank, had a few downranks of HT on my bar, no problem. But Armory and up turned into a nightmare for me. Suddenly I couldn't do anything right.

My rejuv was certainly not enough to keep the MT up. My R3-R4 HT healed so little and were so slow that they couldn't possibly sustain a tank taking consistent damage. A regrowth or full rank HT would OOM me, if I even managed to land it before the tank died, an accusing silence from the group following.

I figured I'd respec resto. Clearly, I didn't have it in me to heal as a feral druid. It was a new, different class without a cheap clutch heal like the others, a resto build would surely be a crutch for me to lean on while I learned the ropes for real.
It didn't help.

Even with the faster Healing Touches, NS, and the other tools that come with the resto tree, I find that if I try casting lower rank Healing Touches on my tank, they die semi-instantly from spike damage. If I try clutch healing with regrowth (which is a spell I see people discouraging the use of anyway) I go OOM and end up standing there, watching my tank die. I do my best to clip heals, interrupting my casts if I see they're going to do solid overhealing and trying to make sure I choose the best rank for healing the tank up as close to maximum as possible, trying not to let them drop below 80%. Rejuv is constantly on the tank, my options following that are: low-rank HT, hi-rank HT, Regrowth. All of these alternatives end up with my tanks dying and my rep as a healer going down the drain.

The fights I'm talking about start up with me having full mana, and very decent healing gear for my level. I went as far as spending oodles of gold to see if I could "outgear" the content we were doing at the time. My tanks don't seem to be doing anything wrong, the group uses CC when available, and the DPS manages to get down mobs reasonably quickly.  I don't get what I'm doing wrong, but I am, I'm doing something terribly, terribly wrong here. If I fail this hard in Scarlet Monastery, I dare not think of how stuff like Strat is going to be. It has been like this every time I've tried to assume the role of a druid healer, over the course of two characters, one I leveled all the way to 60 while trying to heal now and then, and now on Elysium with a healer currently at level 45, resto speced, resto geared, and unable to heal through trash on a dungeon.

Any pointers as to what I might be doing wrong would be sorely appreciated, I'm really in a bind here. Are mid-level dungeons simply harder to heal through as a resto druid than late-game? Do I need solid +heal gear to be able to save my group whatsoever? Have I overlooked something? I really want to be a good healer, but I don't see it happening as a druid. 

Thanks.
 

Edited February 1, 2017 by Oheyo

[taladril 43]

It's hard to say without watching what you're doing but at least you are trying a lot of things so that's good. You should be able to do this so don't give up hope. One big thing I am wondering is the question of suitability for the dungeon. Ideally the tank is going to be on the higher end of the level of the dungeon versus the rest of the group. I always knew that healing a dungeon where the tank was on the mid to lower level was going to increase the healing stress a lot. That would be the first and easiest fix - don't invest in a group where the tank isn't capable of performing adequately. The thing you are talking about with horrible spike damage just isn't going to be THAT bad if the tank is adequately geared. DPS, yes would go down fast.

So presuming that's not the issue I think you could work on mana management and efficiency. It's different at high levels versus low levels and also with +heal and without. Without +heal downranking isn't as useful. All it does is do a worse job of hps vs higher levels. And that is a huge impact because the key to surviving pulls with low and mid level dungeons is mana management. Ideally you want to burst heal and hot all at once so the tank can coast through the fight for a while so that during that time you have the chance to regen some extra mana so your total healing can be higher. You need to optimize the 5 second rule. If you don't know or forgot the 5 second rule is that after you have cast a spell then your mana regen from spirit pauses (without talents of course) for 5 seconds. After that time your mana regens normally. If you are in process of casting but cancel a spell the rule does not kick in.

So breaking down an ideal pull, the tank will get initial agro and the cc happens. Tank starts to drop in health. Probably around the 1/2 to 1/3 mark you can start to cast a max rank HT. That'd bring them up to either full or a high amount. Maybe a touch later you do a regrowth to bring them to max. Then throw on a rejuv. That'll be a big amount of mana spent but now you easily should have the full rejuv or more to sit there and regen mana. You will be able to regen multiple ticks. The trick is don't if at all possible do any healing in this time. I know it's tempting to rejuv a dps or spot heal them. Don't. Save it for the end or do it in an emergency. Your healing needs to be in spurts and stops. You also might be tempted to help out by meleeing. Just don't. You'll get hurt and then you have to waste your mana on yourself and your dps is insignificant too.

[Duality 4]

Very solid explanation by Taladril.
At lower levels focus on getting a solid mana pool, rather than stacking BH.

As for the scenario in SM Arms + Cath, I suspect that your tank was below lvl 40 and didn't have plate gear or dire bear form at this point.
 

[Oheyo 0]

Thank you very much for your input, both. I've mostly been gunning for a mixture of int/spirit, mostly going for "Of the Owl", "Of Intellect" and "Of Spirit" gear, when I've not emptied my wallet in an attempt to see if +heals was the way to go even when leveling.

I've not tried the "burst" healing described in your post Taladril, I was under the impression that all healers were encouraged to continually keep their cast bar active (though not letting unnecessary heals finish). I've mostly found myself unable to utilize the 5-sec rule because I always find myself casting, and usually the heals felt necessary to let through because of the perpetually sorry state of my tank.

I'll try experimenting further, taking what you folks've told me into account, noting whether my tanks have upgraded to plate/dire as I go.
Hopefully I won't become a too hated person and suffer too bad a reputation during my learning process, it doesn't feel good to let my group down, and I doubt many people I've grouped with before want to see me again.

Thanks again, I'll keep on trying!

[histortion 0]

Regrowth is only bad if you're overhealing. The mana per point heal is pretty equivalent to HT/rejuv (at least when I compared the values a couple levels back). Additionally, having two regen effects on the tank gives you more time to regen mana before breaking the 5 second rule again. Your tank shouldn't be lower level than the mobs. They could have excellent equipment, but damage mitigation is crippled vs higher level mobs.

[taladril 43]

If you were constantly trying to cast then this is definitely the problem. 60 raiding healing is a lot different than dungeon healing so understand that the advice here applies to dungeons only. I'm sure you'll be more successful.

[szuszak 2]

nvm

Edited February 4, 2017 by szuszak
nvm

[metagame 8]

Do your own calculation to see what the best healing per mana spell you have is. Use that spell the most often. It may be a weird rank of Healing Touch depending on your +healing and what level you are.

The rest comes down to your group doing what they are supposed to. Is the warrior using demo shout and disarm when they're off cooldown? Is the rogue opening with stunlock combo when there's a big pull or is he afk dpsing every pull? 

Encourage CC. If there is a mage in the group make sure he is using sheep. If there's a warlock, encourage your tank to pull mobs far backwards so the warlock can fear and possibly seduce as well. Warlocks are pretty OP for instances. Make sure your tank has a healthstone.  

Hunters can trap a mob, rogues can sap/ blind, priests can mind control, and you can use hibernate on beasts. These are pretty situational, but they exist for a reason.  

If you notice things can be done better say something. If you have trouble healing it's because the warrior is too low level or someone isn't CCing. The only other possibility is that your group just has no CC whatsoever, which is very unlikely. Most likely people just aren't using CC and no one has said anything. Say something about it!

Edited February 7, 2017 by metagame

[Oheyo 0]

I want to thank everyone who's come here with input, you've been very helpful! I admittedly expected more than a few "git gud" answers, but this has really helped me out.

I'm doing much better now, and feel like I've mastered mana conservation to a much larger degree. I also see a huge difference based on the level and gear of my tank that I didn't pay much attention to before. Now that I abuse the 5-sec rule way more than I used to though, I even heal through instances in which most of the group is underleveled nowadays, and I feel confident when I enter a dungeon to heal now, as opposed to the uncertainty I always felt before.

There's a few hiccups still, not having a reliably fast/efficient clutch heal is something I'm still not used to. But I think things will work out fine. Thanks again, everyone. :D

[Garun 9]

Are any of the mobs orange level (3+ levels above) to the tank? If that is the case, there is a mechanic called crushing blows that causes the tank to take extra damage.

[taladril 43]

Glad to hear it's going much better for you! I was hoping you'd post an update.

[фткyн 1469]

Spirit isn't really useful if you don't have that talent for regen while casting. Did you tried precast? 

[taladril 43]

Spirit is incredibly useful when doing leveling dungeons and working around the 5 second rule.