The topic has already been written about in a general sense before, but after running multiple ten and twenty-five man raids it is quite apparent that things are not nearly as difficult from a single player’s perspective in a twenty-five man raid. Instead of rehashing an existing debate, however, this post is meant to provide a solid understanding of the different techniques that restoration druids will most likely utilize in the two, very different, raiding situations.

Section One, The Spells:

• Lifebloom – Even with the upcoming changes in 3.1 (Nerf this Druid has a wonderful write-up on her testing numbers on the PTR) Lifebloom is still going to provide a significant role in raid healing.
• Rejuvenation – Especially with the Tier 8 Set Bonus forthcoming.
• Regrowth
• Healing Touch
• Wild Growth
• Nourish – This may become a larger part of a druid’s healing profile, though not until playing more with the changes once patch 3.1 hits live will we know for certain to what extent.

Section Two, Healing Setup:

• Glyph of Rejuvenation
• Glyph of Swiftmend
• Glyph of Regrowth
• Talent Build (Wowhead link)

Section Three, 10-Man Healing Style:

There are multiple ways for restoration druids to heal, of that there can be no doubts. For those that utilize different talent builds (typically the Dreamstate based builds or those that place more emphasis on Healing Touch) things will be a little different.

The Raid Healer – Currently will utilize Wild Growth, Rejuvenation, and Lifebloom the most, except in cases where heavy, direct damage is being taken (which, honestly, is a great time to use Nourish for a nice, quick heal). After the 3.1 patch it is doubtful this will change much.

The Tank Healer – Currently utilizes a rolling stack of Lifeblooms, Rejuvenation, and Regrowth most often, with the occasional Nourish or Healing Touch to make up for the difference in damage versus what the HoTs will heal for. Note that this is where Swiftmend is extremely useful, and should be a large component of any restoration druid’s direct healing arsenal. After the 3.1 patch there will be some modifications to this approach, although depending on gear and the duration of the encounter it is quite possible to see no changes on this style.

The Mixed Healer – In a typical 10-Man raid many groups only utilize two healers. In this type of situation things change greatly. Typically Lifebloom will be rolling on the tank or tanks, with the occasional one tossed on raid members. In addition, Rejuvenation, Wild Growth, Regrowth, Swiftmend, and Nourish all end up being utilized in varying degrees across encounters. This is where the ability to adapt and react quickly becomes most important, especially in a situation where one healer could end up having to heal through an entire encounter due to death, a disconnect, random patrols, lag, or even a zombie outbreak.

Healing assignments are helpful in this situation, but not necessarily able to be followed. When two healers know their class(es) well assignments are often ignored anyway, aside from making certain their primary healing focus stays alive. A well-adjusted healing team will not normally need to communicate much, aside from something as specific as “when melee dps one and melee dps two get frozen by KT I’ll heal one and you heal two.” Granted, this will contribute to a lower overall efficiency and more overhealing for the raid totals, but those numbers should be ignored on an overall raid level unless there is a very, very specific reason for needing to evaluate those topics.

Section Four, 25-Man Healing Style:

The Raid Healer – Currently will utilize Wild Growth and Lifebloom the most. Not only is this extremely efficient, but in most cases is all that is necessary for the typical 25-man run. The occasional Regrowth as needed rounds out the primary abilities used.

The Tank Healer – Currently utilizes a rolling stack of Lifeblooms, Rejuvenation, and Regrowth most often, with Swiftmend tending to make up the difference on damage taken versus what HoTs or another healer has healed. Many druids go to Healing Touch in this scenario, but without it’s cast time reduced it is not very efficient, and will lead to a lower healing output.

The Mixed Healer – Practically the same as the raid healer in a 25-man, with the difference of adding Swiftmend and Nourish where applicable on the tanks or on a raid member suddenly taking abnormal damage. The primary difference in this scenario is that the mixed healer will most likely be maintaining a rolling stack of lifeblooms on the main tank in order to help absorb the damage while using the other time available between refreshes to heal raid members as needed.

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Part two, which will be posted later this week, will go more into the difficulty of 10-mans versus 25-mans. This series is not intended as a definitive guide, especially with patch 3.1 looming close, but as an overview of what abilities fit well for the types of healing one will encounter in T7 raid content, and to provide a basis for understanding “adaptive healing” (which will also be detailed in part two).