Shifting Perspectives: A limited number of people, part 2
Rejuvenation
Mana cost: 2,385
Glyph of Rapid Rejuvenation?: No. Rapid Rejuvenation should actually be obsolete due to all HoTs scaling from haste and crit in Cataclysm. Glyph of Rejuvenation wasn't used for testing purposes although I can see it being useful for a bad or inexperienced group, sad to say.
Duration: 10 seconds. I'm not sure what's going on here; tooltip says 12 seconds (yep, they've nerfed it from the present 15, although the 15 second duration was technically a bug that went the length of Wrath) and while I might've guessed that the missing tick is simply the result of my haste, developers have said previously that haste shouldn't be reducing HoT duration. So yeah, I'm not sure what's going on there.
Average initial hit (assuming 2/2 Gift of the Earthmother): 1,403
Average HoT tick: 3,225
Average Crit HoT tick: 4,837 (as with Regrowth crit ticks, pretty rare)
Average amount healed per full Rejuvenation: 14,303 (ticks four times over 10 seconds plus the initial hit).
Same deal as Swiftmend. Rejuvenation is more expensive than it used to be, but Blizzard hasn't really nerfed it per se -- it just hasn't gotten all of the goodies that Regrowth's gotten. This dovetails pretty neatly into some commentary over at Elitist Jerks speculating that the developers' primary intent is to keep druid healers less mobile than they've been in the past. My real question here is what's going on with the duration.
Lifebloom
Mana cost: 477 mana
Glyph of Lifebloom?: No.
Duration: 7 seconds
Average HoT tick (one stack): 364
Average bloom (one stack): 3,678
Average HoT tick (two stacks): 727
Average bloom (two stacks): 7,356
Average HoT tick (three stacks): 1,091
Average bloom (three stacks): 11,034
Average HoT crit (one stack): 546
Average crit bloom (one stack): 5,516
Average HoT crit (two stacks): 1,091
Average crit bloom (two stacks): 11,034
(The above numbers aren't a typo; the average HoT crit at two stacks is the exact same as the average HoT tick at three stacks, and the average bloom at three stacks is the same as the average crit bloom at two stacks)
Average HoT crit (three stacks): 1637
Average crit bloom (three stacks): 16,550
Cataclysm: the return of the non-suck Lifebloom. I put Lifebloom back in a convenient place on my bars, which I think says all you need to know about whether you'll be using it for tank healing. The per-second tick is extremely valuable, and it's also very efficient in comparison to what it is now in Wrath. The tradeoff for getting its efficiency back is having Lifebloom limited to one target at a time. Once unbugged, the talent Empowered Touch should allow you to keep a stack running via Nourish.
Efflorescence
Efflorescence is really, really good, and it's going to get really, really nerfed. Right now I see about 3,500/second healing while on a "bed of healing flora," and you know that's not going to last.
A few random comments concerning 5-man healing in the beta:
Tanks have gotten out of the habit of watching healers' mana bars. I am as guilty of this while tanking as everyone else.
DPS, with their vastly increased health pools, can weather more hits than they could historically. There is not much incentive for them to watch their threat, although I think it might be more charitable (and accurate) to note that in the absence of threat mods like Omen, it's also extremely difficult for DPS to know what their threat actually is at any given moment.
Due to intellect's becoming the stat of choice for every healing class, you'll be rocking a significantly larger mana pool than you do now. As with health, this means you'll spend a lot more time "wounded" (aka lower mana levels) than topped off. At 40 percent of my mana pool, I was still good for several pulls before drinking with a good group, although my main may not be hugely representative, as she has several heroic ICC-25 pieces.
Not that good gear's going to matter much. You may wind up dumping even ilevel 277 pieces around levels 82-83 due to mastery popping up even on leveling greens. You will need the boost to your HoTs.
There is an astonishing amount of damage in normal Cataclysm 5-mans, although I'm not sure whether the runs I've had are representative. A lot of things are still buggy right now across all ten classes.
A few random comments concerning things that have nothing to do with 5-man healing:
Wrath has a new sound on hitting a mob -- somewhat akin to someone getting a finger caught in an electrical socket.
Worgen seem to be missing their ears on occasion.
Shift to bear or cat in Vash'jir with Sea Legs. Seeing a legion of cats frantically swimming around the Vash'jir depths was almost enough to make me lose bladder control.
Arch Druid Hamuul Runetotem has gotten his own voice actor, who I do believe is a close relation of Barry White's.
I dearly miss the one copper respec fee we had back during the Wrath beta. It's full price on the Cataclysm beta.
*Yes, I stole that line from Matt Groening.
Every week, Shifting Perspectives treks across Azeroth in pursuit of truth, beauty and insight concerning the druid class. Sometimes it finds the latter, or something good enough for government work. Whether you're a bear, cat, moonkin, tree or stuck in caster form, you'll find the skinny on druid changes in patch 3.3, a look at the disappearance of the bear tank, and thoughts on why you should be playing the class (or why not).
