NOTE: Since the update on 8.11.2017 this guide is outdated.
This is a guide for healer druids in raids referring to the current meta build at http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Druid_-_Support/Healer_Staff.
I have been playing healer druid for a while now and wanted to share some of my thoughts and experiences on the role in the form of a tutorial. Most of us are not playing in the top performing raid teams and sometimes you have to make your own decisions what skills to take in order to adapt to your team’s needs.
There’s few things I have noticed to be very important to take into consideration while playing.
As obvious as this sounds I cannot stress it enough. A dead healer can’t heal or buff allies and will most of the time result in a raid wipe. Learning to dodge sparingly plays a huge part in surviving most fights.
This might sound silly for a support but it’s more important to keep the heals and buffs going than to stop and rez a fallen ally. A loss in dps is better versus a domino effect where more people get downed because of a lack of in consistency with heals.
Be aware of what your team struggles with and when there’s a heavy damage attack coming. As the support you have the best tools to help your squad to survive and perform in the fights.
There’s a few traits I want to talk about a bit more and how to make the best out of them in a fight. Most of the traits are easy to absorb and the description is sufficient but some seem to need a bit of explaining.
Quick Draw. This trait also triggers when entering and exiting Celestial Avatar not just on weapon swap so choose what you need the most. However, be sure to finish casting your skill as the trait applies to the cancelled cast especially when exiting Avatar.
Verdant Etching. Activating a glyph gives healing, condi cleanse and one stack of Grace of the Land, be aware that the effect will come only after the seed has popped in the visuals. The healing is decent and you always need that Grace for your team when Celestial Avatar is on cooldown.
Grace of the Land. Use Celestial Avatar when it’s off a cooldown and fill the gaps with glyphs. As a druid it’s your job to keep this up (even if not a healer).
As the healer of the group there’s a lot of things you have to keep your eyes open for during the fights such as squad health, boss attacks, your pets, boss adds and/or teammates further away from the melee group.
It’s important to maintain squad health maxed if you can as most of the dps classes use scholar runes that give extra damage when above 90% health threshold. If you are new to healing just focus on the boss mechanics, keeping the squad alive and landing that Grace.
One of the most important things for the team is to stay grouped up to receive all the buffs, this goes for heals as well. People are not always aware of how your skills work so sometimes it’s good idea to remind them to get close in order to be healed and buffed.
Solar Beam. Low healing. To take the healing effect into use you have to hit an ally with the beam, position yourself a little behind the main group to hit up to 3 allies for max efficiency.
Astral Wisp. Creates a wisp that circles around the target enemy for a short time. Use this skill always when it’s off cooldown to give the melee group a bit of healing.
Ancestral Grace. Blast finisher, decent healing. Good movement skill and I recommend using Quick Draw trait effect on it in most fights.
Vine Surge. Condi cleanse and immobilize. Removes only chill, cripple and immobilize on allies.
Sublime Conversion. Water field, low healing. Combine this with Ancestral Grace for area healing or place it to turn incoming projectiles to heals for your group in fights like Sloth. However it counts as destroying projectiles and on fights like Matthias you don’t want to do that.
The Avatar form is your main source for the Grace of the Land and as any druid in a raid you should use it when it’s off cooldown. The best skills to use are Lunar Impact and Rejuvenating Tides, Seed of Life has it’s uses when there’s a stray raid member in need of condi cleanse in fights like Matthias and Slothasor.
Cosmic Ray. Low healing on a small area. 1200 range. One stack of Grace of the Land.
Seed of Life. Condi cleanse, blind, low healing. 1200 range. One stack of Grace of the Land.
Lunar Impact. Blast finisher, daze and decent healing. 1200 range. You usually want to use Quick Draw trait for this one and avoid hitting an ally slubling in Slothasor fight. One stack of Grace of the Land.
Rejuvenating Tides. Water field, decent healing if you finish channeling. Position yourself in the middle of your allies for best results and it’s also a good skill to proc Quick Draw in burn phases like at Keep Construct. Full channel results in 5 stacks of Grace of the Land.
Natural Convergence. Cripple, slow, immobilize. Gives stability. Doesn’t generate Grace of the Land.
The glyphs in Avatar form work a bit differently so pay attention to when you are going to cast them to have desired effect. Glyphs work nicely with Druid trait Verdant Etching, for the extra heal and Grace of the Land.
Glyph of Rejuvenation. Healing skill. Heals primarily allies and a small amount you and your pet.
Glyph of Alignment. Utility Skill. Removes conditions from allies. Good option for condition heavy fights as Slothasor, Matthias or Xera.
Glyph of Equality. Utility skill. Breaks stun for allies.
Glyph of the Tides. Utility skill. Pulls enemies to your location. Good for managing adds and dealing some cc.
Glyph of Empowerment. Utility skill. Increases the outgoing healing of your allies. Avoid using this glyph in avatar form.
Glyph of Unity. Elite skill. Tether yourself to a nearby ally and heal them when you get healed.
The ever persisting problem in any group activity is a ranger/druid who doesn’t control their pet. It is important to keep your pet in check by giving it a target (F1), using the special attack (F2) and stopping it from wandering off (F3).
Juvenile Lynx. Overall dps one of the highest among pets.
Juvenile Jungle Stalker. Might. If the squad lacks might stackers then the stalker is a valid option to take with you.
Juvenile Tiger. Fury. When might is taken care of choose tiger to buff critical chance.
Juvenile Electric Wyvern. Launch. Excellent cc and should be considered in fights where break bar needs to be taken care of quickly or your team doesn’t have enough cc to begin with.
Juvenile Pink Moa. Daze. If you don’t have electric wyvern then the moa is valid replacement for it.
Juvenile Fern Hound. Regeneration. Good if your group requires a bit more sustain or you can’t always be at the melee group to give healing.
Juvenile Brown Bear. Remove conditions. You should consider bringing this one to the fights like Slothasor, Matthias and Xera, that are condition heavy fights, as it makes things a lot smoother even with Verdant Etching trait.
When your team struggles to take down a boss it’s time to determine why, and most importantly how to fix it and sometimes you can give that extra push.
Sometimes the timer reaches zero and the squad is soon wiped by an enraged boss. At times like these it’s often the case of just getting used to the fight so the rotations hit their mark in the middle of managing boss mechanics. However, as a support you can try to boost your team to some degree
Have Frost and Sun spirits.
Juvenile Jungle Stalker. Might.
Examples: Gorseval is often the boss where people struggle with keeping up with the timer. Make sure you give the most buff and heals when burning Gorseval together with the group. Bosses like Keep Construct have a clear burn phase so figure out when the team is bursting most damage to do your buffs.
With some teams you don’t have to contribute much to the break bar but there’s times when it becomes essential that your team gets it broken as fast as possible.
Especially good at Vale Guardian for seeker management.
Destroying Frost or Stone spirit. I don’t recommend this unless you really have to.
Celestial Avatar 3. Daze.
Celestial Avatar 5. Slow, cripple and immobilize.
Juvenile Electric Wyvern. Launch.
Examples: Knuckles at Sabetha needs a fast break bar and so does Xera. Sacrificed allies at Matthias need quite a lot of breaking.
When the squad is having a hard time staying alive you might want to consider a second healer if you are the only one doing the job. Other times it’s enough to choose your play style and skills to sustain and heal instead of buffing damage.
Celestial Avatar 3 for burst heals
Proc Quick Draw for heal skills
Spirit of Nature revives up to 5 players
Juvenile Fern Hound. Regeneration.
Examples: At Vale Guardian failing to have four people in the green circle is usually a raid wipe but well timed burst heal and Spirit of Nature can sometimes save the situation. You will need to be ready to heal during Gorseval cc as it will have retaliation that can be fatal, especially to squishier dps classes.
Conditions are a bit tricky to take care of as it’s very hard to see them on your teammates unless you click on them and by then it’s usually too late. The best way is knowing the fight (look out for the skill tells on a boss) and to cleanse every time there’s a huge amount of conditions coming and communicate with your teammates if they are in need of cleansing.
Celestial Avatar, Glyph of Alignment
Trait Verdant Etching (druid) will turn every glyph into condi cleanse.
Juvenile Brown Bear. Remove conditions.
Examples: Slothasor, Matthias and Xera are condition heavy fights. At Sloth look out especially for the wet dog attack that can easily spread conditions to the whole raid, signet of renewal is good for this fight as it’s a personal stun break as well. Xera can be tricky with her blurred frenzy that can stack a lot of confusion to the target in seconds.
Case #5. Learning a New Fight.
When your team is learning a new fight I recommend choosing skills for sustain and healing at the beginning and slowly to drop them for dps buffs. Raid awareness is very important at that point so you can determine what the squad needs. More often than not what people need is time to get comfortable with the mechanics and not a change in skills or pets.
I hope this was helpful to anyone who is interested to start raid healing as a druid. Good luck and have fun on your adventures!
