WotLK Druid Restoration Changes

Some very nice changes for restoration druids coming our way in the next WotLK beta build.

Here are the changes we’re making next patch. See how they feel.

• Wild Growth: Coefficient and healing increased. Mana cost decreased. Cost should be about the same as Circle of Healing. It doesn’t heal instantly, but will heal for about double what CoH does over its duration.
• Nourish: Reduced mana cost by somewhere between 15 and 20%. This is supposed to be your Flash Heal, but we recognize that it doesn’t have the same versatility — you can’t just drop one on a wounded rogue or something since you need the hot up first. Hence the lower price.

Druids have quite an arsenal of healing spells now, and it can be tricky to find niches for all of them.

Normally I’m the last to call druid buffs anything but ridiculous. However, in this case think they are more than justified, particularly the wild growth changes. With as amazing as druids are in arena they are pretty much the worst of any PvE healer. Wild growth should dramatically improve druid’s healing output in PvE without creating additional PvP imbalances.

As far as nourish is concerned…well, I’m not really sure. I don’t agree with Ghostcrawler’s assertation that it doesn’t have the same utility. Let’s face it, druid’s are always going to have the target HoT’d. We won’t know how amazing or horrible the change is until we actually get to see it in action during the next beta build.