5.2 Viable Team Comps

So far this season I have played with practically every class in the 2v2 bracket. (Rogue, Spriest, Hunter, Warrior, DK, Ret pali, Monk, Mage, etc.) For the 2v2 bracket I would have to say that DK's tend to work best with a resto druid. The ability Icebound Fortitude which you gain from using symbiosis on a DK is very useful because it temporarily makes you immune to stuns and breaks any of those effects currently on you. It can save your life in many situations and is extremely useful against rogues. A DK is typically capable of putting out very good damage but lacks heavily in the CC department. This is where the druid comes in to compliment what the DK lacks and use their various CC abilities. All in all it is a very good comp, in terms of what is possible for a druid in 2v2 and has brought me the greatest amount of success. Unholy seems to be better at the moment but frost are just as capable.

Second in the list of possible set ups would be warrior. They are similar to a DK in that they bring a lot of damage potential to the table but they also do not have much CC. They are a little more resistant to being kited when compared to a DK because of their charge ability and if played correctly are also hard to CC because of their spell reflect. Druids gain Intimidating Roar from using symbiosis which is a 8 sec fear on a 1 min CD. Warriors and druids have always had a high amount of synergy since the days of the Burning Crusades and this expansion is not different. If you cant find a quality DK to play with a warrior should be you second choice.

The 3v3 brackets had seen some of the same and some new comps in terms of what resto druids can play with. Teams such as TreeSG (DK, warrior and rdruid) have seen moderate success along with the classic WLD (warrior, lock, rdruid). There have also been some weird comps that I have seen. On my server there is a group of players ranked at around 2400 in 3's. The group is ww monk, frost mage and rdruid. The team revolves around having the mage set up his burst window while the monk uses fists of fury to continuously stun the target and force him to take all the mages damage. I have only seen this comp played by this group of people and their success probably has more to do with the players individual skill than it does to the comp having good synergy. Also in 3's there is God Comp which consists of frost mage, spriest and a healer. The healer will often be a shaman but there are a few druids who play the comp with success. It is extremely competitive this season and is doing well in terms of top ranked players. Another comp that is often see is KFC which is a hunter, warrior and healer. You will mostly see this comp having a resto shaman as their healer or a holy pali but again there are some teams that use a resto druid. Currently I am personally attempting to play in a shadowplay group (DK, spriest or warlock and a healer). The priest brings high utility and decent damage. There focus will often be peeling for the druid while stacking their damage buffs. Once their buffs are up they can burst and with the DK's already high damage you can expect a lot of pressure to be put out. The priest and druid also bring plenty of CC and since the priest can life swap and dispel for the druid it greatly helps the team survivability. All of teams are viable at the moment and while I haven't tried them all myself I would like any suggestions that you guys might have. What does or doesnt work? What teams have you tried? What teams do you think would work?

Resto Druid 5.2 Gems, Glyphs and Enchants

So for today I thought I would give you guys some info on the best gem, enchant and glyph options. Lets start with the glyphs. Essentially there are really no required glyphs and instead they are based on play style but there are two that are highly recommended for any resto druid PvPer. Glyph of Blooming reduces the time that lifebloom lasts by 5 secs but increases its bloom amount by 50%. The most important part of this glyph is also that it will not allow for casted heals to refresh the duration of lifebloom. You always want lifebloom to finish the duration completely and heal for the final amount. This glyph is as close to a must have as they come. Some players prefer to play without it but they are a very select few. My second recommendation is Glyph of Barkskin which reduces the chance you will be critically hit by 25% while Barkskin is active. This will help you greatly in damage mitigation and is also highly recommended. Aside from those two the third is a toss up between a couple of viable options. Experiment with the ones you may find useful and see what work best for you. I personally use Glyph of Fae Silence for the 3 second silence on faerie fire if you are in bear form.

In terms of gems, PvP resilience used to be the greatest stat to gem for by a large margin. That was due to the fact that it had increasing returns the more of it you gained. That is, the more of it you gained the better the stat got. However, as of patch 5.2 resilience now has diminishing returns. The higher you stack for the stat the lower each point is worth in terms of reduction value. However, the stat is still very attractive and if you plan on doing any serious PvP you will have to gem for it. PvP power is a bad stat for healers as of patch 5.2. Healers only receive 50% of its value which makes picking other stats such as intellect, haste or spirit a better option. For this reason I recommended that you gem all yellow sockets with +320 PvP resilience, blue sockets with +320 haste (if you have not reached the break points discussed earlier) or +160 spirit and +160 PvP resilience and for the red sockets use +160 intelligence gems. The meta gem can be any of the ones that add Intellect with a side effect. I personally use the +3% mana which adds 6000 mana which isn't really much.

The different enchants you can use are all pretty simple. You want to have +170 Haste on the Gloves, Windsong for your main hand (or Jade Spirit if you can afford it), +165 Intellect for the offhand, +200 resilience for the chest, Haste or Mastery for the bracers depending on which you can afford, the shoulder enchants should be +200 intellect and +100 critical strike rating, Haste on the cape, the belt should use the item enhancement that adds an extra slot and you can add a gem according to what you need, the boots can carry pandaren step if you prefer the extra run/walk or +175 haste if you need it to reach the breakpoints, the legs should have the enhancement for +285 intellect and +165 spirit. All of this is standard and will change depending on your professions. A tailor should use their cape enchants instead of the haste and so on. Hopefully all of this is pretty simple and straightforward. Overall you follow the same priority when gemming and enchanting as you do when you are choosing gear. Remember Haste > Crit > Mastery. For all of those who are unaware, druids have a passive that converts the amount of spirit you have to hit rating for spells up to a maximum of 15%. For this reason hit was not mentioned in the priorities for gearing. If you however choose to use Might Bash you will have to gain the 3% hit rating to ensure that the stun always hit or risk occasionally missing an attack. Ok, well I hope this helps and happy hunting.

5.2 Resto Druid Racials and Itemization

So another topic of debate that is often talked about are the racials for the different races that can become a druid. Overall anyone who seriously PvP's will tell you that the best racial in the game is the humans "Every man for himself" which allows you to remove any loss of control effects from yourself, just like the PvP trinkets, without having to wear one. This allows you to use whatever two trinkets you want instead of being forced to wear the standard PvP trinket. On the horde side the best racial is Will of The Forsaken for the undead. Removes charm, fear or sleep effects but gives a 30 second cool down before you can use the PvP trinket. However, druids can only be one of four races. Worgen and Night Elf for the Alliance and tauren or troll if you are Horde. In terms of abilities that you would see in PvP the worgen have dark flight, which is a 40% speed increase for 10 secs and night elves have Shadowmeld which stealths you in place but does not allow you to move. For the alliance the night elf talent gets the nod. A skillful player can dodge a lot of damage by shadow melding at the right moment and can also slip away and drink if you allow them to. On the alliance side the trolls having berserking which increases your attack and casting speed by 20% for 10 secs (3 min CD) and taurens receive war stomp which is a 0.5 sec cast stun that stuns every around you in an 8 yd radius for 2 secs (2 mins CD). Both of these are of roughly equal value. Neither is too great and probably wont make the difference if you win or lose but personally I prefer the tauren racial. There can be times when the 2 secs mean the difference between a win or a lose or the time that it allows for you to escape is sometimes crucial. As stated before, it is a preference.

So adding onto last times topic of stacking haste. A nice thing to note on the gear for resto druids is that the helm for the restoration set is not a good for a healer as is the balance head piece. The resto helmet for PvP gives crit and mastery which are of the least priority to healers while the balance helmet gives haste and crit which makes its much more useful to a resto druid. Since only 4 pieces of gear are need to attain the set bonuses for the PvP armor sets it is actually recommended that the balance PvP helmet be used instead of the resto one. Next time we'll talk glyphs, gems and enchants.

Well for anyone who keeps up with the patch notes the upcoming patch, 5.3, will see a massive overhaul to PvP combat. Resto druids are not seeing much of a change besides the fact that their wild mushrooms will see an 100% increase in healing. Tranquility will affect more players (which will not matter in arenas really) and swiftmend's efflorescence will see an increase in the area of effect's radius. What is big are the overall changes to PvP. Item level in BGs and arenas will be capped at 496. That means that any gear over the maximum level will be scaled down proportionately. This means that wearing heroic pve gear will provide no stat bonus. The PvP gear will have the same stats as the highest end PvE gear in arenas and BGs. Secondly, resilience will be removed from all gear and will naturally be set to 65%. You will still be able to gain resilience through enchanting and gemming. However, PvP will stay on gear and all set bonuses that provide resilience will be changed to PvP power. Lastly, PvP power will provide 100% of its effect for healers. On live realms it is currently set at 50% which makes it an unattractive stat for healers. To counteract the increase inheals, Battle Fatigue will be increased to 50% in arenas and BGs. So overall, dedicated healers should see a small increase to the amount that they heal. All of this will definitely change the stat priorities for classes. The patch notes are copy and pasted down below and heres the link for the official WoW website and the corresponding notes.

General

• Mark of the Wild had its mana cost reduced to 5%, down from 10%.
• Symbiosis: Intimidating Roar had its cooldown increased to 90 seconds, up from 60 seconds.
• Tranquility now targets 12 raid members (up from 5) each time it heals when used in a 25-player instance. This change also applies to players using the Symbiosis version of Tranquility.

Talents

• Force of Nature is no longer on global cooldown and summons a single Treant. The Treant no longer has a control bar, immediately uses its special abilities on the Druid’s current target, and accumulates 1 charge every 20 seconds up to a maximum of 3 charges.
  • Restoration version of the Treant now casts Swiftmend on the Druid's target when summoned. This version of Swiftmend does not require or consume a heal-over-time effect on the target.

Glyphs

• Glyph of Solar Beam have been removed and replaced with Glyph of Omens.
• New Glyph: Glyph of Omens: While the Druid is not in a Solar or Lunar Eclipse, the following abilities will generate 10 Solar or Lunar Energy: Entangling Roots, Cyclone, Faerie Fire, Solar Beam, Faerie Swarm, Mass Entanglement, Typhoon, Disorienting Roar, Ursol's Vortex, and Mighty Bash.

Balance

• Solar Beam is now more responsive when players enter and leave the beam's area-of-effect.

Feral

• Savage Roar now increases physical damage done by 40%, up from 30%.

Restoration

• Ironbark now has a cooldown of 60 seconds, down from 2 minutes.
• Swiftmend's area-of-effect component now heals injured allies within 10 yards, up from 8 yards.
• Wild Mushroom: Bloom: Healing from this spell has been increased by 100%, which includes all bonus healing from Rejuvenation overhealing. In addition, the radius has been increased to 10 yards (up from 8).

Item Sets

• Restoration PvP 4-piece set bonus now reduces the cooldown of Ironbark by 30 seconds (down from 90 seconds).
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• A blog titled: PvP Gear in Patch 5.3 has additional information and reasoning behind the PvP changes in 5.3.
• All characters now have a base Resilience of 65%.
• Battle Fatigue now reduces the amount of healing and absorbs by 45%, up from 30%.
• PvP Power bonus to healing is now based on class and specialization.
  • Healing specializations receive a 100% bonus to healing from PvP Power.
  • Damage specializations for Druids, Monks, Paladins, Priests, and Shamans receive a 70% bonus to healing from PvP Pow
  • All other specializations and classes (including tanking) receive a 40% bonus to healing from PvP Power.
PvP Items
• Season 13 Tyrannical gear had their item levels increased to ilevel 496, up from ilevel 493. Weapons and shields/off-hand items remain unchanged at ilevel 498.
• Season 13 Tyrannical Elite gear had their item levels decreased to ilevel 496, down from ilevel 512.
• Resilience has been removed from most PvP gear.
  • Resilience gems and enchants will continue to be available and remain unchanged.
  • 4-piece PvP set bonus for all Season 12 and 13 armor sets that granted 1000 Resilience now grants 1000 PvP Power instead.
• PvP Power will remain exclusively on PvP gear.
• Tyrannical weapons no longer have a conquest-earned prerequisite to purchase them.
• Glorious Tyranny weapon enchantment now grants 600 PvP Power instead of 400 PvP Power and 200 Resilience.
• New weapon enchantment: Bloody Dancing Steel is functionally equivalent to Dancing Steel, shares the same visual effect as Glorious Tyranny, costs a scroll of the base enchant, and requires a 2200 rating.
• New weapon enchantment: Spirit of Conquest is functionally equivalent to Jade Spirit, shares the same visual effect as Glorious Tyranny, costs a scroll of the base enchant, and requires a 2200 rating.
• Tyrannical Gladiator’s Tabard and Tyrannical Gladiator’s Greatcloak are available as new prestige items at 2500 rating for 1000 Conquest Points.
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5.2 Resto druid Haste versus Mastery (PvP)

So some people have been asking me lately whether it is better to stack haste versus mastery. The mastery bonus for restoration druids is Harmony as you know which increases the amount healed by instant spells when you use a casted heal. If you look up the info on a site such as Noxxic the order of priority is as follows : Intellect > PvP Power > PvP Resilience > Spirit > Haste > Crit > Mastery, http://www.noxxic.com/wow/pvp/druid/restoration/stat-priority. Noxxic is known for getting some things wrong but just in case lets look at some numbers here.

Spell	#	Ticks	Percent	+5% Raid Buff	Unbuffed
Lifebloom	1	16	3.36%	0	1428
Wild Growth	1	8	7.12%	860	3028
Wild Growth (SotF)	5	12	64.34%	1846	4063
Lifebloom	2	17	9.95%	2004	4229
Rejuvenation	1	5	12.51%	3039	5316
Tranquility	1	5	12.52%	3043	5320
Lifebloom	3	18	16.62%	4703	7063
Regrowth	1	4	16.65%	4717	7078
Wild Growth (SotF)*	6	13	78.73%	5730	8141
Wild Growth	2	9	21.43%	6652	9109
Lifebloom	4	19	23.38%	7440	9937
Wild Growth (SotF)	7	14	92.86%	9543	12145
Lifebloom	5	20	29.95%	10101	12731
Wild Growth	3	10	35.78%	12458	15206
Lifebloom	6	21	36.71%	12834	15600
Tranquility	2	6	37.50%	13157	15940
Rejuvenation	2	6	37.52%	13163	15947
Wild Growth	8	15	107.25%	13426	16222

Taken from http://sometimesatree.signaleleven.net/guides/haste-breakpoints/

So you could reasonably reach the first highlighted value of 5320 unbuffed haste which would net you 2 extra ticks on LB, 1 on wild growth, 1 on rejuv and 1 on tranquility. Without getting into the math too deeply, roughly 480 mastery is equal to 1 rating so for the equivalent amount of mastery, 5320, you would see roughly a 11% increase to your mastery rating which is an 11% increase to your HoT spells. From gaining the 2 extra ticks from haste on LB it is a 20% increase, 1 on rejuvenation is a 25% increase, and tranquility is a 2% incease as well. Aside from this you also cast faster due to the haste and have a lower global cool down time which allows you to do more in less time. All in all you will see a much larger increase to your output if you stack haste.

Also last week I had the chance of playing some rated battlegrounds at a rating of 2000. Some of the opponents we played were featured on the website Skill-Capped.com which is crazy and cool when you think about it. I have to say it was rather brutal. We ended up losing the games we played at 2k rating by a reasonable margin but we won a few at around 1800. As far as advice for that goes, the only difference you see when you start climbing ratings is that the teams are much more organized and focus their targets better and they also tend to use balance druids to lay a Ursol's Vortex on top of a Solar Beam. (sometimes they will also lay a ring of frost on top of that so you cannot get out or use a death knight's talent, Gorefiend's Grasp to force you into the beam a 3rd time. As a druid you can put out a ton of throughput while being rather easy to kill so you often be the one focused for a kill. Try to sit on the edges of the battle rather then running into the fray and always keep hots rolling on yourself to help reduce some of the damage you will take. Displace beast will help your survivability greatly. In arenas I've only played at 1700 in the 2v2 bracket with moderate success so not much to say there. I'll talk some gear and talent options next time guys. Hope you enjoyed the post.

A little random goodness

Ok guys so its week 4 of season 13 and I thought I'd give my impressions on 
arenas so far and some general advice and discuss the upcoming pvp changes in 
patch 5.3.

For the most part 2's will result in either a drawn out game where neither team 
loses a player or where a double damage team just quickly gimps you. So far this season I've played with a death knight, warrior, hunter, shadow priest, and wind walker monk . Of all of these characters I  would say that the warrior or dk seem to pair best with a druid healer. The
problem with the two classes however is that sometimes neither is capable of putting out too much crowd control so it can often end with the above mentioned "gimps". Overall however, if you are able to keep yourself alive both of them bring strong damage and tons of pressure. Hunters provide a good amount of cc and good damage without being too hard to heal. They're somewhere between the classes able to deal heavy damage and pressure and the others that deal mediocre damage but put out pressure with constant control over the enemies. Spriests bring 
a lot of utility with less damage when compared to the other three. As far as 
being viable for 2's I think that a warrior or dk would be the best options but if you 
know a good player who knows how to play well then a priest or hunter can be 
used. In threes I've played with a spriest/unholy dk, spriest/rogue, unholy dk/ 
warrior and monk/unholy dk. Of the above listed comps the priest brings a ton of 
utility with good damage and cc potential. If you can find a good spriest or 
warlock along with a dk or warrior you can make a strong team. The problem is that the warlock or priest have to know what they are doing and play their class very well because much of the game is based on what decisions they make. I've only played up to a rating of about 1700 so hopefully when I get the chance I can share more detailed information about what does and doesn't work on the different comps. Rbgs have been good for resto 
druids. They tend to perform very well overall and Ursols vortex allows for a 
lot of control options on some maps. I've reached a rating of 1100 in 2 hrs of 
doing bgs and given the chance I will detail the higher brackets and some 
general advice if I feel I have anything helpful to really say about that. 

So, Blizzard has announced in patch 5.3 that all characters will have a baseline 65% 
resilience. Pvp resilience will also be removed from all pvp gear. Gems and 
enchants will be the only way of gaining extra resilience. Also rated bgs, 
arenas and random bgs will scale item levels to a maximum of 496. Tyrannical 
gear will be upgraded to lvl 496 and elite tyrannical will be purely a cosmetic 
improvement. Since pvp power will still exist it will make pvp the better choice 
for pvp combat compared to pve gear. This is a very exciting change that will 
hopefully make it easier for characters to compete based on skill rather than on 
gear which has plagued newcomers to the game for a long time. Overall it should 
make it to where many more players are choosing to use pvp gear for pvp and pve 
for pve. The items scaling to 496 means that having a more powerful pve weapon, 
as an example, will give you no benefit because the damage and stats will be 
decreased to the equivalent item level in bgs, arenas and rbgs. Here are the 
official notes by blizzard. 

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/blog/7892888/53_PTR_Patch_Notes-26_03_2013

Ok so time for a little advice. Recently this week I was introduced to an addon 
named oqueue. This addon let's you look for other players on other realms that 
are looking for players for rated battleground groups. The addon collect your 
character info and allows you to join other people's groups based on your stats 
and what the raid leader is looking for. It can also be used to find groups for 
questing or random bg groups. I've used it for roughly a day or two and it has 
been very easy to find groups for what I want and I would highly recommend it to 
anyone who plays on a server that makes it hard to find rbgs groups. Here's a 
link to the addon.

http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/oqueue

I intend to get some videos of me doing some rbgs and arenas up soon and talk a little about talents and play style. Check back soon.

Week One

So I'm new to the whole blogging ordeal but I hope to put up a lot of information up here that can be used by the Resto Druid community. I intend to put up some tips and tricks for what you should be looking for and gearing options/ priorities and the like. If I really have the time I may try to put some of my games and hopefully get some helpful critique from anyone reading this. I'll also try to go into what it's like to play with some of the other players and what you should be looking for in your partners/groups. Well I wish you all the best and look forward to putting some interesting stuff up.