There really are two things you would do in Kara. One job would be to roll Heal over time spells on the tanks. This is really the resto druids greatest strength. Lifebloom and Rejuvenation are the two main HOT spells that we use. Lifebloom is the most unique spell we have. You can stack it up to three times to increase its effectiveness, and in addition to that, if you get a stack of it running, you can refresh the WHOLE stack with as single cast, as long as the stack doesn’t expire. What this means is you get a full stack of lifeblooms on your healing target, and then “roll” that stack for as long as you can. At around 1900 +heal, my lifebloom stack heals for over 700 EVERY SECOND. That is some powerful healing. You also try to keep rejuvenation up, which is a more standard HOT. It does not stack and ticks every 2 seconds. I believe mine ticks for somewhere in the 800-900 range every two seconds. I hope this isn’t too confusing, it’s late.

The other thing you might do is be assigned to heal the raid. Instead of rolling HOTs, you’ll be healing reactively based on who takes damage. When I raid heal, the spell I use the most is Regrowth. It is my quickest casting big heal, and can take care of most nicks. I’ll also drop lifeblooms and rejuvenations here and there when needed. Most of the time as a raid healer, though, I’m spamming regrowth.

Does that help at all? Let me know if there’s something you still need to know or don’t understand. Thanks for reading!

All fine and good, but I should point out that maintaining 3LB stacks and rejuv on the MT leaves you only one cooldown per two cycles. With a 1.5 second global cooldown, that means you only get to cast one extra LB on the raid ever 12 seconds. Helpful, possibly, but not to any sort of make-or-break-the-raid degree. Not trying to knit-pick… ’cause I know I throw LB around if I’ve got one or two tanks with stable healthbars and raid damage happening.

I can certainly see how Lonetree’s methods could do well in scenarios where the entire raid is taking damage and tank damage is light(er). Definitely something I’m keeping in my back pocket.

Seriously, enjoyed my browse through the site, will be back for more reading…

While this may seem like an isolated use of non-LB healing, I have to say I think the right Tree on raid healing can be exceptionally valuable.

1) Trees getting assigned to raid healing? Who’s leading this raid? Why am I in it?

2) Eek, my tank just took spike damage. /casts swiftmend or nature’s swiftness. Spike damage gone.

Exceptions for 1): All druid Kara or an exorbitant amount of trees in a 25-man.

Exceptions for 2): Dang, 15 second or 3 minute cooldown. /e hopes for plenty of time between spikes.

Anyway. I love raid healing — I always feel a bit restrained when being put on the tank, and normally, even if that is assigened to me, I manage to have spare rotations for everyone else as well without losing my lifebloom stack. Perhaps it has just been the groups I’ve been with, but it works well enough for the lot of us (and, normally, a tree isn’t the the only healer to the tanks, due to our inability to deal with spike damage).

As undergeared as I was, it was great to stand (or is it sway) in the back and scatter those HoTs around. LifeBloom is amazing and I loved knowing I was making a solid contribution to a run I had no business being in! So…oh yeah! We be good!