My Resto spec and talents for Arena/PvP/rated BG

I've been PvPing with this spec for most of 85.  Now bear in mind, I had been doing mostly arenas and BGs until recently.  I was quite happy with it until recently.

So why did I have THIS spec?  Well, there are a number of things, and I'll talk you through my reasoning, from the top of the restoration talent tree.

Blessing of the grove is very similar to Genesis, and I wasn't sure if it stacked with Genesis (It SHOULD, but it just seemed a bit silly to take).  So I didn't take points in it.  Rank 2 doubles the healing of Rejuv to 4% and the damage of Moonfire by 6%.

Natural shapeshifter is a MUST for anybody who wants to perform tasks in any kind of animal or vegetable form, as you need 2 points of this to get to Master Shapeshifter.

In PvP you shouldn't really be casting these long-ass spells.  Leaves you WIDE open for interrupts and locking those spell schools out for what feels like forever even if it's only 3-6 seconds.  So this talent is not as useful in PvP.

What healer DOESN'T want more intellect?  More intellect = more spell power = more healing power.  And, more intellect = bigger mana pool.  So of course I was going to have 3 ranks of this.

This seemed like a good talent to take.  Reducing all spell damage.  Means I'll live longer.  That's why I took 3 ranks of this for PvP.

Why would you NOT take this talent.  Increases everything important in animal and vegetable form by 4%.  So that's why I took it.  If I didn't put the point in here and put it somewhere else, I could only get a boost of healing or damage by 2% instead of 4%.

Instant cast spells are the mainstay of my PvP playstyle.  So boosting Rejuv and Swiftmend, both of which are instant casts is a bonus for PvP.

This sounds good, but notice you have to cast one of the direct healing spells to make the seed plant.  I don't use those much during PvP and therefore it feels like this sort of thing would be a waste of 3 points, which could be used elsewhere.  However, to get the next row of talents to become available I had to use 2 points somewhere, and...

THIS seems pointless to me.  I am busy healing not wasting my time DPSing.  Especially since wrath is a nature spell and if I am counterspelled or something whilst doing that, I can't heal for a few seconds.  So I put NO points in this.

Of all the direct spells, I use this the most.  Every time Omen of Clarity procs, I use this.  It's the most expensive spell we have, and it does a direct heal as well as a small HoT.  And, in tree form, this spell is instant.  Increasing the crit chance of Regrowth is good because that gives more chances for Living Seeds to be planted on your heal target.  But really, I find this a very useful talent for PvE rather than PvP because of the 2xRejuv and Nourish effect for mana efficiency.  I almost never use Nourish in PvP.

This is not good for PvP.  In PvP you want your lifeblooms to bloom, and having this will not let them bloom - the extra heal is a critical life saver in PvP.  So I would not recommend this talent to anyone for a PvP spec.

I didn't take this because fights are so short and fast in 2v2 or 3v3 that I can only get one Tranquility off anyway.  However, this is a great mana saving talent because Omen of Clarity gives you a mana free spell to cast, and I always use Regrowth as my free spell if I can.  But, I thought it wasn't that great for 2s.

You see, this sounds like a good talent, but the reason I was trying NOT to take it for arenas is because my arena partner (Warlock Sev) doesn't stand still.  I could do an efflorescence and it's wasted because he's running around.  And when he runs around, I run around.  So nobody is standing in my green healing circle (not even me!) and it's such a waste.  So I only took 2 points in it because I thought, well, with Shaba (mage) in 3s, he's always standing still, and it's good for him when he's iceblocked and dying, so I'll take a few points in it.

This is a no brainer, really.  You can't be resto without Wild Growth.  An extra heal, it's instant cast, it's a HoT.  Enough said.  Don't take the glyph for it though, one extra target, but a 2 second longer cooldown? Bleh.

The faster you can get those magic spells off yourself, and everyone else the better.  And if you're running away alone, who's going to dispel your magic effect if not yourself?  Get this for PvP.  You should.

I had this because nobody is going to heal me when I'm running my ass off trying to get away from people trying to kill me.  I thought it was good to have.  So I took it.  So basically if I was low, rejuv would be on me all the time.

Bigger blooms, more rejuv for your ... rejuv (LOL)... what's there NOT to like about this talent?  I took all 3 ranks of it, it's so good.

This means you can cast more rejuvenations.  It's probably not that useful in small group fights because in 2s or 3s you only cast it on 4 or 5 people (those damn pets) but in a big group, it is.  So I took it, but you probably could get away not having it when you are doing 2s or 3s instead of big BGs or rateds.

Essential in PvP.  You are immune to poly in this form.  You can get out of poly by jumping to this form.  More healing, more armour, enhanced healing spells, instant cast regrowths and entangling roots.  And you have to take it anyway if you want to start putting talents in other trees.

So moving now to the Balance Tree...

What's not to like about this?  Spell haste doesn't hurt if you're casting a regrowth I guess, and if I was smart I was try and time my longer spells like regrowth or healing touch to whenI had Nature's grace up.  Besides I need something to put talents in to get me down the next part of the talent tree.

These talents are all getting a little bit old starting with "Nature's" all the time... but Nature's Majesty is good as more crit = bigger heals = more living seeds planted.  Which means good, I must get it.

This is another fantastic healing spell which is why I wanted to get down the balance tree in the first place.  I took 2 points in this instead of 3 because I had mana issues, and wanted to put 2 points into Moonglow.  2 points gives you 4% and 4 secs instead of 6% and 6secs.

Good for longevity.  I suppose now with the higher ranked gears I didn't need this.  But I had it anyway.  I guess it's good that I decided to refiddle my talents a little (see new talents below)

I need the hit from spirit, if I want to be able to noobfire, root, cyclone, anything.  So one point in this is useful.

There is only one thing in the feral tree that I would consider taking, and that is

The Furor vs Moonglow debate is a tough one - I guess would you rather see more mana but more expensive spells or less mana and cheaper mana spells?  I had chosen the former for a long time.  However the little bit of rage you have when shifting to bear is enough to get you to bash someone if you need to.

So, what's changed?  Now that we are doing rated BGs, healing groups of 10 people, like a raid, maybe I've gotten a little behind now that my gear is so much better.  Shab sent me some stuff to read, what the TOP rated druids are doing and speccing into, and also reforging - I never reforged any of my stuff.  Some of the things he said was they were reforging out of mastery into spirit - I thought why would they do that?  Spirit is not great for regen, but maybe it's for Balance of Power, and getting more hit.  And also, he told me I should be getting some spell penetration to ensure my ccs hit the targets and resisted less.  So he showed me one of the spec of the top ranked druid and told me to try it

Essentially the differences are:

• 1 point in Blessing of the Grove.  Ok, well, I think it's a bit pointless, but if it gives me that little bit more healing then why not.
• NO points in perseverance.  So I guess my resilience is going to prevent?  Geez I hope so, either that or I'm supposed to heal through it.
• 3 points in Living Seed.  Ok, that's cool, the seed will heal for more.
• 2 points in Malfurion's Gift.  I guess we need to save mana more, and reducing the CD on tranq to 3 minutes is good.
• NO points in Nature's Ward.  Oh well, I guess I shouldn't be lazy and I can cast rejuv on myself anyway.  No point putting 2 points in there to do it by itself.
• 3 points in Efflorescence.  That makes sense, now that we have big groups fighting together, more effective healing now.
• 3 points in Genesis.  I should have done that a while ago to get more healing out.
• NO points in Moonglow.  OK, fine I should have enough mana now.
• 1 point in Furor - it's hard to know whether to balance a decreased cost of spells with an increase in your base mana pool.  I preferred the latter, but I guess I'll give this a try and see, and I guess now I can go bear and bash someone to stun them.

I had to fiddle with glyphs too.  The glyphs that this druid has for PvP (which I have now also taken) are:

• Glyph of Swiftmend - saves you having to cast another hot on your target since it's not consumed by Swiftmend anymore
• Glyph of Lifebloom - more crit on your LB?  Yes please.
• Glyph of Rejuvenation - 10% more rejuv healing?  Another yes please.
• Glyph of Entangling roots - 0.2 seconds never sounded like a lot so I never took it, but I'll give it a try.
• Glyph of Faerie Fire - longer range faerie fire (10 yards)
• Glyph of Barkskin - Reduces the chance you'll be crit by 25%.  Definitely good for PvP.

So Shab linked me a video to watch.  It's actually really good and explains a lot.  And it helped him to understand resto druids better.  And obviously now he wants me to play like that.  OK, well I'll try...