The future of 10-man raiding looks bright. Blizzard saw that 10-man raids were very successful, and they have had the wisdom to focus on such “small team” raiding in Wrath. This is one of the most exciting changes to come in Wrath for me personally. It’s just much easier to get a 10-man rolling than to get together 25 willing souls to attempt the present end game raids. I can’t wait.

There is a problem I foresee, however. My guess is that the difficulty of these future 10-mans will be ratcheted up a notch or two, and the present “Kara Laziness” in healing strategy will go the way of the Dodo. Some guilds have had Kara on farm for so long they don’t even bother thinking about healing assignments, or what healers they bring. I’m sure there are also a few of you out there who are still learning about 10-mans, and maybe you’re wondering how the different healing classes work with Tree Spec Druids.

Well, I’m here to try to inform. Let’s look at the three different possible combos and what their synergistic strengths and weaknesses are, and what roles they fill best when working together. First, let’s look at the strengths of the Tree Druid.

The Tree Druid

• Very good tank healers. A well played tree can roll lifebloom on multiple tanks, 3 fairly easily, and up to as many as for or 5 with some effort.
• Good raid healers. Lifebloom or Rejuvenation are often enough to top off small bits of raid damage. Regrowth, since the changes to it in 2.4, is a very useful spell for raid healing as well. Reasonably fast cast, chance to crit and a ticking hot on the tail end. Their vast supply of instant HOTs can often make the difference in a raid healing situation.
• Poor at group healing. If there is a lot of splash damage to raid members all at once, Trees are not the best class to take care of it. We do have tranquility, but it is on a 10 minute cooldown and is limited to the group we are in.

Tree Druid, Holy Pally

This combination makes for a very easy assignment. Paladins just make flat out poor raid healers, but they are excellent single target healers. For that reason, this pair would work best with the Paladin watching the MT and the Tree handling the rest. Depending on the situation, the Tree can also assist with MT healing if necessary. This is one of the stronger combinations, IMO, because it is obvious how they can work together. You have all your bases covered in this scenario.

Problems could arise with this duo if there is a lot of raid damage. As mentioned before, Tree Druids are not very good at healing groups efficiently. If the splash damage comes at once and then stops, the Druid can handle it. If it is any kind of sustained damage, it could be difficult. The Paladin also does not have much to offer in this respect, so if there is a lot of raid damage, it could spell trouble.

Tree Druid, Resto Shaman

The strength of the Resto Shaman is the Brain Heal. This “smart” multi-target heal makes them a VERY strong raid healer. The big heals of the Shammy, however, are not conducive to effective single target healing. In this case, the Synergy says the Tree should handle the tank(s), and the Shammy can worry about everyone else. One of the benefits of having a Shammy in this situation is that he/she can easily throw a few heals the tank’s way in a pinch, without totally sacrificing his/her raid healer role. Ahh, the beauty of Chain Heal.

The only thing that worries me about this pairing is if both the MT and OT are taking a LOT of damage. Trees are excellent at smoothing damage spikes, and keeping tanks up in general, but if things start to get out of hand their tricks are somewhat limited. Pair that with the Shammy who isn’t the best at single target healing, and you could be in trouble. In my experience, however, I’ve rarely seen such a situation. Of course, who knows what kind of wonders await us in Wrath.

Pair of Trees

I’ve personally never run with this combo, and I’m curious as to how well it would work. There would be a heck of a lot of HOTs flying around, that’s for sure. There could be an amazing amount of Heals Per Second on the tank, if both trees are stacking HOTs. If they could figure out a way to play off of each other, it could be a potentially very strong combo.

It could also fall right on its face. Lots of spike damage and/or raid splash damage could easily spell doom for this duo. This would be interesting to see in practice.

Tree Druid, Holy Priest

I saved this combo for last for a couple of reasons. First, I believe it may be the strongest 2 healer combo you can get in the game. I would venture a guess that a lot of 10 mans in the future will be looking for this combo first and foremost. I also saved it for last because I found it the most difficult to articulate.

These two have to communicate and work together. The priest will have a large responsibility in this duo, as I would want the priest to both heal the raid and keep an eye on the tanks. The Tree Druid will focus on rolling all his HOTs on the tanks. These two have to communicate and work off of each other. The tree can handle throwing the occasional lifebloom onto raid members if necessary, and the priest can top off the tanks if they take spikes of damage that the tree alone can’t handle.

When I thought of this article about the synergy of Tree Healers and other healing classes, this is the combination I thought of. In this combo, both classes are using their strengths. The Tree Druid is the best there is at maintaining health, and smoothing spikes of damage. Priests are very versatile, and are both very good at big, single target heals and group healing situations. These two working together could be a VERY potent combination.

Conclusion

Assigning healing roles can be tough. It can be hard for me to understand the intricacies of Druid healing, and I’ve spent countless hours doing it. It’s even more difficult to understand how the different healing classes work. I don’t envy the people who have to make assignment decisions. I imagine a lot of it comes from the very basic understanding they may have of healer’s strengths. Couple that with differing specs, and it can be quite difficult to understand how best to use your healers.

The info I have given comes from my experience of working with other healing types, and seeing how they can work off of each other. If I had my choice of any combo including a Tree, it would be a Tree and a Holy Priest. I just think they cover all the bases, and both can play to their true areas of strength. I hope that the little knowledge about how Tree Druids can work with other healers can help someone, and I’m more than open to criticism of my thoughts and opinions, or questions if you feel I haven’t explained something fully.

I also need to give a special thanks to Matt Low icus of World of Matticus for his thoughts on the Tree/Holy Priest duo. Thanks Matt! As always, thanks for reading. Now flame away.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 1:45 pm and is filed under Druid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.