Tree Mail: Leveling Resto
I have started to receive several emails a week with different questions from readers out there who would like some advice on specific Resto Druid topics. I have been most happy to respond to them individually, but also thought that there might be others out there with the same question. Therefore, I’m introducing a new feature here on Rolling Hots, “Tree Mail,” in which I will answer questions that come up to the best of my ability for the benefit of the wider druid community. The first installment: Leveling Resto.
The question:
I am just starting out as a Resto druid and have been searching the net for tips. I found your site very helpful and insightful. I plan on going full Restoin my later levels, like 60+ but am wondering if it would be easier on myself to level the low levels as a tank…What do you think?
Now, I already answered this email before deciding that I might want to make my response to this and other selected emails into blog posts. Therefore, I am going to include my emailed response to this question, followed by a bit more discussion and advice on what to do if you do decide to stay resto.
The response:
I have a couple of questions for you. First, is your druid your only
character or your highest character? If not, can you afford to dual spec
the druid? I ask for a couple of reasons. I’m not sure what you mean by
“easier on myself.” If you mean easier to level, I’d go with a DPS spec, either
balance or cat. Either a tank spec or a healer spec can be ponderously
slow to level because our strengths are not in causing damage. Tanks
absorb damage. Healers heal damage. Balance and Cat DPS specs specialize
in causing damage. It’s not that you can’t level as a tank or a healer.
I leveled Syll up to 70 as resto the whole way. It is just a loooooot
slower.
That being said, it will be easier for you to heal when you have leveled
up if you have had experience doing it along the way. For example, I’m
level 80 and stopped building a tanking offset at level 70 because I
wouldn’t have the first idea how to tank even if I wanted to. I’d have to
completely relearn my class, almost like rolling a new toon. If you heal
as you progress, you get time to learn and adjust to each spell as it is
added to your arsenal, rather than being like a kid at Christmas with a
bazillion new toys and no idea what to play with first. =)
That is why if you have the means to dual spec, I’d recommend doing that.
Have a DPS spec for leveling and a healing spec for running instances. If
you can’t swing the 1000g to dual spec, then I guess you have to choose
between the ease and speed of leveling DPS vs. the great deal of
experience you will build up by maintaining the healing spec you
eventually wish to keep.
A bit more about leveling resto seems in order here. While it was a pretty long and ponderous process to level up Syll as Resto from day one, there were many benefits to my end game play for having gone the distance as I did. By the time I was level 70 in BC, I knew my resto repetoire of spells like the back of my hand. I had had practice healing instances for months before I started running heroics and then raids. I believe that my familiarity with my spec and class gave me a huge advantage out of the gate once I started raiding.
Now the game offers us the opportunity to dual spec, which is not something that I had access to. In this case, you might be able to solo as feral or balance, while healing as resto in instances to hone your skill. However, dual speccing comes at a high price and isn’t available until level 40, regardless. The good news is that if you do not have the means to dual spec, or are not interested in doing so, it is completely possible to level from 1-80 as a Restoration Druid. If it is something that you are interested in doing, I have some strategy recommendations for you.
1. Come up with a spell rotation that includes heals for yourself. Restos do have damage abilities in both the balance and feral trees. These abilities are just not generally what is buffed by our talents. Our heals, on the other hand, become stronger and stronger as we level. Therefore, you should certainly not expect to win encounters by bringing out the big guns. Rather, your strategy will be to outlast your foe by doing a little damage, healing yourself up, doing more damage, and so forth. This is not always necessary, but you will find it to be so quite often, particularly when taking on multiple mobs. I have many times joked that, in her pre-dual spec days, Sylly solo’ed by boring things to death.
2. Use your crowd control abilities. When soloing as a Resto, roots are invaluable to me (I do balance damage. Very, very rarely do I go kitty to deal damage). If you are fighting multiple mobs, root one. Preferably, you will want to root an opponent who is doing melee damage to you so that you can distance yourself from them. However, even casting NPCs take damage from the DOT of roots, so they have uses even with casters. Cyclone, too, can be used to control multiple mobs while you try to get one down or get heals up on yourself. Keep thorns on yourself, and use barkskin. Always remember to have Mark of the Wild cast on yourself. Every little advantage you have that will either protect yourself or do a little damage while you are busy with other things will quicken the pace as you go.
3. Get by with a little help from your friends. When possible, snatch up some guildies or friends to complete quests with you. It will speed them up some to quest with you, while it will speed you up tremendously. I am not a shy person, so I have been known to be in a quest area, see someone who seems to be working on the same objectives, and whisper them to ask if they are on the same quest and, if so, would they want to combine forces. People will very often say yes to such a request. Not only will you speed yourself along, you may also make a new friend in the game.
4. Consider a hybrid spec. Although I myself stayed pure resto, if I were to level a druid again without access to dual specs, I might very well choose some sort of a hybrid build that would allow me to heal in instances, while still going deep enough into either the feral tree or the balance tree to have a little “oomph” to my damage dealing abilities.
5. Instance, instance, instance! When leveling you can get a great deal of experience quickly by running instances. I don’t know if this is always the case for other classes or specs, but for me when I was leveling Syll, instances were absolutely the fastest way for me to gain experience. The loot was generally better than questing gear, and I was able to move through content with other players, speeding my experience gains. The best part, though, was of course getting practice healing groups, which was always my end goal for Syll.
I hope that this extended answer is helpful to all the little trees out there looking for their place in the sun!
If you are interested in having a question answered in Tree Mail, please contact me using the contact form here on the blog. Please indicate if you would (or would not!) like to have your email featured on the blog. I’ll be happy to respond either way.
There are 14 Comments to "Tree Mail: Leveling Resto"
I’d like to add that for healing instances as you level, a Hybrid spec isn’t even neccesary! While it would definitely help you to get a good idea of how your talents work, it’s entirely possible to heal a leveling instance as a DPS spec, as long as you have the gear.
For example, my Boomkin friend was usually called upon to heal instances whilst she leveled to 80, and always did a good job of it, and as for myself, I healed a few instances with only minor problems as a melee DPS Shaman!
Of course, the downside to going full DPS, even if you heal as that spec in dungeons going to 80, is that you still need to learn how your talents and talented abilities work at 80. Took me a couple of Heroics to get Resto Shaman figured, and even still I suck at it
Faulsey’s last blog post..I like UI addons a bit too much, it seems…
Hi !
I’m currently levelling a resto druid.
My main is a raiding hunter and I wanted to try to be a healer to know what these guys are facing in instances and raids. Being a dpser, I know the tank’s job quite well : he keeps the mobs from running at me. In instance, I got one eye on Omen and the other on the mobs in case one of them would escape the tank and eat the healer… (I don’t care if they eat the mage though…) But it’s my only interaction with the healers. I blindly trust them to do their job because I don’t have time to watch over it.
About levelling a tree :
I think point 3 is essential. Don’t play alone or you will get bored (and die a lot). I levelled with my boyfriend who plays a dwarf tank-specced warrior. It’s really fun and quick. He aggroes a bunch of mobs, I heal him a bit when needed and I aoe everything. Everytime I have to solo, I use the tips pointed above and it is quite okay (but sooo long to kill those mobs).
And point 5 is very important too. We went through quests and zones very fast and didn’t take time to do some instance on the way (except a few rushes with guildies to find some nice and shiny blues). Now we are in Northrend and it’s very easy to find some people levelling and wanting to run any instance.
My first time as a healer in Nexus was a nightmare. Two of the dpsers were stangers, one was a guildie and my boyfriend was the tank. I was just so anxious, and it was like chaos. I died a lot, forgetting to heal myself, let the tank die while focussing on a idiotic dps grabbing aggro and taking damage. Well, it was awful. And I thought : “I don’t want to heal anymore in instances…”
But I went on levelling and running other instances, with some guildie’s alts most of the time. I got some training and now, I feel must more confident in my healing abilities. No more panicking, no more forgetting to heal myself… No more stupid heal on stupid dpser…
So practice in instances as much as you can, because healing is not an easy job if you want to do it right. But it’s fun. Now that I’m not afraid of it anymore, I have a lot of fun with my tree druid !
And to end this wall of text, just great blog !
Nef
Nefernet’s last blog post..Séthi is happy !
@Faulsey, right you are. One can certainly heal instances a long way through the game with a DPS spec. They’ll still have a bit more catching up to do, though, than someone who stays resto throughout.
@Nefernet, thanks so much for finding your way to my blog and commenting. It really can be hectic trying to heal instances your first handful of times, so the more experience you have at low levels doing so, the stronger you’ll be. If you haven’t looked into a healing addon like Healbot or Grid, you might want to sniff around them a bit and see if they might be of interest to you. You’re much less likely to forget to heal yourself when you are just another box among many to focus on. =)
I leveled as a kitty dps until 70 when I went to tanking Kara. I found that being a kara-geared tank helped me pound through Northrend with my wife who was a hunter. All those annoying party quests in dragonblight? Not a problem with me in bear and her as dps. Round up 15 of this and that and 20 of this to finish a quest? Bear form, aggro the whole village, have a friend AoE them down. I think if you have the gear tank leveling at least 70-78 (when I stopped and went healing) was super easy.
Horde tanks are few and far between on my server so I never had a problem getting into instances to really get that level over with. I’d suggest kitty dps or bear tank to level as much as possible. I found moonkin gear severly lacking pre-60. I never even looked in Outlands so it may be there at that point. It’s also true that dual speccing is great if you can afford it. Learning to heal a party of 5 is way different than just you and a buddy questing.
That’s really great feedback, Moo. My knowledge of leveling feral or as a tank is limited to say the least, so it’s good to know it was such a viable option for you.
I just put up a post explaining why I won’t suggest resto leveling to people.
Lissanna’s last blog post..Leveling resto?
lol Lissanna… I hear you. I’m not quite ready to jump out there and suggest resto leveling, I just wanted to post and offer some advice if they chose to go down that road. I’m glad in the end that I leveled resto, but it was a long row to hoe, and I did not level resto 70-80. I went boomkin for that. But I see advantages for those who stick it out and go resto.
I had Grid installed for a long time, but I managed to set it up right a few days ago, using Phaelia’s and Keeva’s guides. Now I can follow my Hots much better and I think it helps me a lot.
I installed it just above my casting bar, I can see it very easily this way.
The only bad thing about levelling resto, is that when I’m in bear form or cat form, I just randomly push the buttons… I don’t have a clue of what I’m doing… XD
It’s like wasting some of the many great tools the druids have but…
Nefernet’s last blog post..Séthi is happy !
lol I so hear you on that about the bear/cat form, Nef! For me… this is shameful… bear form is for dancing, cat form is for stealthing or running fast when returning from corpse run. That’s about all I use them for. Bad Syll. Bad, bad Syll. =P
It has not been said so this is how I leveled my resto druid (now 60 and going) I leveld feral till level 50. then respecced resto cause of tree of life. I always have a dps feral set in my bags. So whenever I need to quest I just switch to cat dps (only in gear not in spec). It is really viable since I can tanke 5-8 mobs at a time while healing in between and still have a very good dps output. I tried the caster way as described above but it just doesn’t work that well for me. So for those who like melee and can’t afford dualspec.. an extra set of gear works really well (for me at least)
One of the most helpful things I find on healers is to learn basic macro’s, and abuse the target=mouseover (now @mouseover).
Not having to target everyone first really makes healing much simpler, and the macro’s are a way to do so without installing additional addons; though you should familiarize yourself with them if you plan to raid.
for example:
/cast [@mouseover, nodead, help][@target, nodead, help][@focus, nodead, help][@player] rejuvenation
will first cast at your mouseover target, then your actual target if you targetted someone, then your focus (probably your tank) if you have no target, then yourself if you have no focus.
adding a [mod:alt, @player] at the front would also allow you to use the alt key to force it to heal yourself over all other targets. This can be a useful addition if you pull aggro, though I do not use it in mine.
nodead will cause your macro to ignore that target it it is dead (and thereby jump automatically to the next priority)
help ensures that you don’t get a “target is hostile” error when you have an enemy target/mouseover.
Using a raidframe addon makes these macros more powerful, but the standard blizzard addon works well. This will never serve as a replacement for healbot, but remains useful interactivity.
resto lvling
ok call me an idiot but im leveling resto all the way but i figure with the new dungeon finder and the fact that my mates leveling bear form tank we should be ok . as a resto druid i picked up a couple heirloom items from my other chars but i wanted to ask about gear there does not seem to be a lot of caster leather available should i be looking for cloth only and what stats should i be going for in order of priority =) ?
Your site has been helpful. What i am looking for is a rotation. When to use what i have. I am doing instances and healing well. but the three healings. Keeping mana up and is bear or cat form better to ward off being attack. I do use my roots but i am so new at this. I want to do resto i know this, but i will dual spec eventually. I am learning to fight while soloing trying to put the whole thing together in a instance get crazy. But i am only a level 35. So i am learning. Help with rotation…specs….that would help. Thanks