It’s no secret that the nerf bat has hit restoration druids hard. Perhaps it was even a rabid nerf bat!
However, we are left with one shining ability whose awesomeness might just help fill the gap left by a formerly useful Lifebloom and the once-OP Flourish, the much-overlooked Regrowth.
This spell, once a joke, shines in 3.0 and beyond because of a perfect storm of talents that all combine to buff it into a surprisingly spammable Flash of Light equivalent. So it seems that priests are going to mix Flash Heal into their rotations now, but we healers of the leafy persuasion will be going one step farther. Regrowth will go from being an extra hot on a tank to a high-frequency spell for druids, no matter what their healing assignment.
Talents that Affect Regrowth
Improved Regrowth
Living Seed
Moonglow
Nature’s Splendor
With Improved Regrowth, and with Natural Perfection for extra credit, Regrowth simply crits all the time. Add that to the crit on level 80 gear, and a crit on Regrowth will be practically guaranteed. Living Seed will almost always be active for us, which is an exciting prospect.
In addition the Glyph of Regrowth makes the spell even more spammable. I suspect that we’d spam it anyway, but the Glyph sweetens the deal by upping the effectiveness of the spell when the hot is still active. When I use the spell now in live, I’m likely to reapply it on my tank just before the old one drops. This isn’t exactly spamming, but I’d still be getting the effect from the glyph even with my current playstyle. And guess what! If we’re not spamming Regrowth, the extra duration of the hot portion that we’ll gain from Nature’s Splendor will make it easy to reapply before the effect wears off.
It does leave the future of Nourish, druids’ new level 80 heal, in doubt. The devs don’t seem to realize they’ve created a lackluster competitor for Regrowth.
Yes, Ghostcrawler. If values stay the same, Nourish won’t make it onto my spell bar.
Regrowth is simply going to be awesome post 3.0, at 70 or 80, with or without the Glyph of Regrowth. However, most of the druid community believes that a nerf to Regrowth or its Glyph is upcoming–I sure hope not, because we need at least one spell to cheer about!
New blog post: Regrowth 3.0: The New Hotness http://tinyurl.com/3nmm6t
According to http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/images/news/2008/august/lkarena_druidhealer.jpg
The set bonus for the PvP gear will be -0.2 sec Regrowth cast time. It means 1.3 sec cast when crit. I don’t know if it affects GCD but if it does, we have a winner for highest HPS spell in game. Even if it doesn’t affect GCD, it will still be the fastest non-instant cast heal spell in game. I will surely go for Regrowth.
Gevlons last blog post..Damage reduction
I need to look at the talent trees more closely, but does this mean dreamstate could be in for a big comeback?
It just might be! I think that will depend on what spells we want to use at 70 and how effective Living Seed and Gift of the Earthmother turn out to be as talents. If those two are total crap, then yes, I could see a dreamstate build being a workable option.
Er, 80.