Embracing Empowered Touch for 3.2
One of the important decisions Resto Druids are going to have to make when patch 3.2 goes live is whether or not to re-talent to pick up Empowered Touch. Currently, Empowered Touch (mouseover to see current talent description) is pretty universally a throw away talent, other than for the minority group of druids who choose to buff up Healing Touch to the teeth and chain cast it, as talents that buff only one spell for us pretty much fail. The 3.2 version of Empowered Touch (mouseover to see 3.2 talent description), however, throws in a nice 20% boost to Nourish, making it a much more viable choice for us. I, for one, am going to start the patch by picking up this talent and see where it gets me.
Here’s my current Resto spec. And here is the spec I think I’ll go with when 3.2 hits. In order to pick up the 2 points in Empowered Touch I gave up one point in Nature’s Grace (I’ve gotten a good bump in spell haste in recent drops that should help compensate), and one point in Natural Perfection (one percent drop in Critical Strike chance is also easily compensated for by gear choices).
The reason I am leaning in this direction is because, in looking over my WWS reports for my recent raiding, Nourish is consistently hovering at around 20% of my heals. That number remains fairly constant regardless of shifting healing assignments, and maintains that level even though I’ve currently lost the T7 4pc set bonus to Nourish and haven’t yet picked up the T8 2pc set bonus to Nourish. Blizzard has buffed this spell to the point that it has become a very solid tool in my healing arsenal. Giving it an additional 20% buff regardless of number of HoTs, critical strike chance, etc. almost seems a no-brainer for me at this point.
In addition, while I currently use Healing Touch… pretty much never because of the other options in my arsenal (the exception being a Nature’s Swiftness + Healing Touch when the tank needs insta heals), adding 40% healing to this spell will certainly bump up the NS+HT in my priority of spells (usually I’ll hit a swiftmend if I need a quick healing bump), and will actually make me also consider using Healing Touch without Nature’s Swiftness on occassion, as an additional 40% healing might make that long cast time seem a more worthwhile investment.
As always, I plan to keep a close eye on my stats and healing reports when the patch goes live to determine whether this shift in talents is worth the talent points I will sacrifice. But for now, I’m cautiously optimistic about picking up this new talent that up until now was an auto-skip when building a talent spec for me.
edit: I didn’t expect the link from wow.com today and all the attention this post is getting. Thanks to the folks at wow.com for linking here. I appreciate the comments people have made and would like to add the following to the post:
1) Yes, Nature’s Grace is a great talent. Yes, many prefer it over Natural Perfection. I’m currently playing around with the balance between these two talents and working out which is most beneficial to my own playstyle and healing assignments. Natural Perfection has more points at the moment. To those who disagree with this choice, my decision to place points in Natural Perfection for the time being doesn’t mean I’m ignorant. I am simply exploring the virtue of higher crit over haste. I may come to the same conclusion that you have. I am not suggesting that people take my spec and that it is the perfect spec. I just put it out there to show where I am and where I’m thinking of going for the patch.
2) I didn’t mention it in the post, but have explained in later comments that my current assignments are largely tank heals. If and when this changes, I will make decisions accordingly and my spec will change in response. If I were not asked to heal my tanks with some frequency, I might think better of adding Empowered Touch. I might still change my mind about it after taking it for a test drive on the PTR. Or I might like it and keep it in.
There are 10 Comments to "Embracing Empowered Touch for 3.2"
I like Nature’s Grace more than Natural Pefection. At the rate of 1% crit for 1 talent point, Natural Perfection is really not enough “bang” for the points.
I’m also keeping Nature’s Grace maxed out in my next build. It’s actually a decent haste return if you use nourish or regrowth very often. I like keeping the talents that make crit more attractive, so that when I do crit, I get both living seed & Nature’s Grace procs every time.
Brace yourself for some traffic, Syll(y). This just got linked from the front page of http://www.wow.com!
Grats!
Only 1 point placed into Nature’s Grace currently? Surely adding what amounts (without 3/3) to an ability totally dependent on RNG isn’t very helpful as you cannot be guaranteed it will be available for the times it strongly helps (such as Mimiron Phase 1).
Even considering Natural Perfection for a PvE spec currently is hugely questionable. Restoration Druids are, at this point in time, very strong for raid healing using Wild Growth and Rejuvenation – especially so if the latter can be complimented with the 4 piece Nightsong bonus. Crit has very little place in such a healing style.
If you would prefer to spam Nourish all day on a tank and ignore what the spec actually excels at then maybe it might be time to consider becoming Ferarro 8.
@Miatela thanks so much for your insight into my spec and your suggestion that take over a pally blog. I’ll take it under advisement. In the meantime, perhaps my post on cookie cutter specs might be of interest to you. Further, I believe that I mentioned in my post that Nourish is now approximately 20% of my healing. I hardly spam it all day on a tank. I do not yet have the attractive t8 4pc bonus to rejuv that makes it so wildly strong for druids, but it still makes up a healthy portion of my heals. I’m glad that you are as comfortable with what you are doing as you can possibly be.
I wouldn’t pick up any, and I mean ANY, talent related to spells that require cast time if you’re healing for a raid. Druids are without a doubt the worst tank healers out there, and nourish is something that the devs threw in to get druids to feel like they can be pallies. Not bashing druids, as I play one as my main and love him to death, but in 25 man ulduar, the style of healing that’s gotten me the most bang for my buck on the meters has been rejuv spam in between WG CD’s. Leave the tank healing and spike damage to flash of light, lesser healing wave, or flash heal. The amount healed from nourish is, with the glyph and t7 4pc or t8 2pc, and with the new talent coming out, “fairly” mana efficient, but I feel like you’re gimping yourself when you feel like you have to stick to nourish. I think I was second on the meters behind one druid (#1) on yogg the other night using ONLY rejuv and wg, the same rotation that he was using. Invest the talent in something like revitalize or gift of the earthmother, play to the druid’s strength’s, not the very specific weakness that direct healing is. And 20% is too much, that means a fifth of your healing done is being covered by nourish.
@Shaasar, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment. I agree that the greatest amount of healing that druids can currently pump out is in the rejuv/wg spamfest. However, there is some danger in looking to top the recount meter, as has been hashed out by many others before. My guild has consistently given me not raid healing as my assignment, but tank healing. As long as I am working in a tank healing role with some consistency, I have to look to buffing those heals that benefit that assignment. I don’t come out on top of the healing meters, but because I’m covering my assignment, that’s not where I belong. If the tank doesn’t die, and the raid doesn’t wipe, I’m doing just fine. =) I disagree that 20% Nourish is too much for the healing assignments I’ve been given. When tank healing, 20% Nourish seems just about right to me. Should my guild decide to move me into a different healing role, my talent spec will naturally shift to accommodate, but honestly, I hope it doesn’t happen any time soon. I wouldn’t be any more happy spamming wg/rejuv than pallies are happy being 2 spell spammers. Finally, I wouldn’t agree that druids are the worst tank healers out there. I’d rather heal a tank as a druid than as a shammy any day of the week and twice on Sundays lol. Druids are more versatile than you are giving us credit for. My tank healing assignment has clearly not gimped the raid I’m in. I’m able to hold my own.
Interesting read! You have some writing talent there, I will definitely be reading your blog regularly.
I have gone back and forth on Nourish. One of our Druids has amazing output relying mostly on Rejuv. I still tend to reach for a whole lot of Lifeblooms, letting them pop. I was using Nourish spam for raid healing at times (sorry guys, yes I just sniped your HoT!), and although the output was good, it didn’t seem to really mesh as well with what our other healers were doing. So now, Nourish spam on tanks at times, and lots of HoTs still for me.
You might consider dropping the 3 points in Subtlety and picking up the 3 in NG, unless you are having some strange healing threat problems.
@Meugly, the subtlety is another talent that I’ve gone back and forth with. I had dropped all points in that talent in my last guild because I knew my tanks and their capabilities, but picked it up again when I changed guilds until I got my bearings with my new tanks. However, they do seem to be most capable, so Subtlety may soon go away in favor of another build.
Thanks very much for the positive feedback about the blog. It is most appreciated! =)
I nead say I so apriciat ure blog and I ceap return 2 u from time 2time
and this one was realy nice for a old tree that feal a bit lost in what Blizzard things we shuld do and what we actual do when we heal a raid
Q: do u hawe two talent trees for healing? sort of one Tank healing tree and one Raid healing ?:)
ty:)
Just wanted to point out — in a few places you say “40% more healing” or “20% more healing”. The way I read the change is it’s not to the actual healing, but from the bonus healing the spell gets from your spellpower etc. Grab ‘Dr.Damage’ addon and see how it displays the spell power coefficients etc for the spell and then try and do the math of how much it’ll actually increase your heals.
I bounce between raid and tank heals depending on the PUG — to the point that I’m tempted to carry around Glyphs of WG and Nourish and swap them in and out depending on the group &/|| boss.