Druid Hybrid - Dreamstate Healing
Posted on June 13th, 2008 by Nameless Demon Hunter under Efficiency Tips, General Tips, InstancesOne of the most versatile classes to play is the druid. They can be set up for tanking, healing, melee DPS, and ranged DPS. The best part; any spec is highly effective.
Given the balance and restoration trees, there are some incredible abilities that can lend support to each other. Keep reading on to learn how to manipulate these two talent lines to get a dps/healing effect that is incredible for PvP, raiding, and just running simple heroics.
Before I explain, here is the link. This is known as the Dreamstrate healing spec. The idea is to use the talent abilities Lunar Guidance and Dreamstate to replace ToL (tree of life.)
Dreamstate healers spec fully in intellect and +healing. They are not reliant on spirit because it really does nothing for them. The cycle of healing consists of lifebloom, rejuvenation, and regrowth on at all times while casting healing touch (HT) appropriately.
HT is extremely powerful (especially with empowered touch) so lower levels of this ability are required. Healing touch will not be spammed, but used appropriately when big heals are needed. Combining it with nature’s swiftness is vital for getting a 6k heal in half a second to save a tank. With 1800 bonus healing and empowered touch, a HT crits for 10k or more.
The only thing that hurts this spec is losing swiftmend and the threat that HT generates. However, the effect of HT easily replaces swiftmend. The bonus healing from ToL form is replaced with Lunar Guidance.
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the dreamstate build:
Pros:
- Spell damage is now applied, also giving an extra ability (Insect Swarm)
- Moonglow reduces nearly all spells by 9% mana cost
- No shapeshift form. Healing touch can now be used and no speed reduction
- Dreamstate gives 10% mana regeneration every 5 seconds
- Nature’s Grace
Cons:
- No Swiftmend
- No Improved Regrowth
- No Empowered Rejuvenation
- Casting Healing Touch causes more threat
This is a different strategy to bring to the table, but is still very effective. It all depends on your style and equipment. The druid is very diverse and can be manipulated in several ways. In addition, the ability to off-DPS or solo daily quests without difficulty makes it much easier than being full restoration. There is plenty of DPS to carry around through this build, making the life of a healer more simplistic.
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I need so good tips and ideas for my feral druid. I am a cat guy and what is the best way to farm gold. I have Isle of Quelsdalas dailies and i don’t have a clue what is best $ ways?
Your a druid, so i am guessing your a skinner. Go to Shadowmoon valley and get Cobra Scales, on my server they sell for 22g Each.
i am a 58 druid and finding it extremely hard to do quests from thrallmar without get assist wat build spec can u reccomend i am feral but unsure about kit to be wearing can u link me advisable kit to get for this level please
As for you quests in Thrall, you are the lowest man in Outlands so you need to be self sufficient. I would spec a split between Resto and Feral, you can Cat single targets and Bear multiples, keep your life up and know when your heals will give you a full boost.
Just a correction, druids cant range dps. Sorry to break it to you…
Are you high? I can hits crits of 1600 damage right now with my Druid Wrath. And Im dreamstate.
so, i take it mages and warlocks dont perform ranged DPS either, according to you Servos?
so with a 10% mp/5 sec comes to if you had 12000 mana it would be 1200 mana every 5 sec? that sounds a bit OP to me but i may have to try it.
Its 10% of your intellect not your mana
um servos… its called a boomkin. very effective ranged dps.
@ A Druid
not 10% of mana, 10% of int
so with 500 int you would have 50mp/5
druids cant range dps!? Perhaps youve never seen a boomchicken.. sry to break it to you.
Servos,
Druids can’t range DPS? You’re joking, right?
Servos, the “Boomkin” does what exactly?
I seriously find HoT healing much more efficent then dreamstate bc of the average 4k+ Regrowth crits and a reju and lb to keep it up… and swiftmend in my opinion is unbearable to lose as a druid primarily into healing. this spec is not a good raid spec.
It does suck to lose swiftmend, but you can natures swiftness HTs or Regrowth to make it up, and have a high chance to crit them. But in the end I have 10% more healing bonus from being DS.
it’s good 2 know that this style of talent tree has been done by someone else….because i have been doin the same 2 my druid with slight variations.
Im sorry Servo but like everyone else has said Ever Heard of a Boomkin? thats all they are are ranged DPS. Even me a Feral druid (0/47/14) knows that as well as anyone who plays the game knows druids are one of the most hated classes in the game because of there abilities to range dps tank reg dps or heal no other class has all these abilities
boomkins are awesome range dps ex=specially in raids as they give the 5% spell crit rating that is awesome for mages warlocks etc and servos u noob wat do u think u do at levels 1-10 u use magic at range u knob
My full resto druid carries her cat and healing gear- and farms quite well even will all that to carry around - mind you she has been full resto since the get go and is now level 58. With addiquate Cat form gear it has not been any more challenging that pushing my mage through levels. Though I may give this a try to see how it preforms GL with your druids
Seems like this spec would grow fairly obsolete (no pun intended-look at my name) at later stages of raiding. While I am a resto shaman player and have only moderate experience with druids and have no experience with druid raiding outside of raiding with them and friends. The auto-replenishing mana bar would be wonderful but the trade off in healing power might be too much. Regardless, I would expect that by the time you started getting to those tasty 25 man raids and the higher 10 mans you would most likely have enough spirit and mp5 from your gear to keep you chugging along without running OOM frequently, thus making the main keeper of this spec lacking. Though I guess you could stack +healing more fanatically as you don’t have to juggle multiple stats. Either way-I think I’m going to have to have a friend test this spec out and give me a review. And I’ll most likely try it as well when my druid hits 70.
I used to have a full resto druid 1932 healing. It got banned due to some unforseen glitched that occured to my toon during an SSC run. But i had a full tank set, boomkin set, dreamstate/healing, ToL, along with the cat set. as for the dreamstate healing its incredably effective i loved it and usualy prefered it to ToL spec its also Amazing for PVP not bad at PvE also for when doing dalies and such b.c of the extra little spell dmg or what not <3 Insect Sworm. for people who belive that that the druid cant dps as resto ur wrong i was in a 50% blue set and came in second on a dps for gruuls we had to many healers. That was with the t5 geared players also if u know ur rotations/class well enough u can do jsut about anything. im not sure if this lil blur helps anyone but if u have questions about ur class juse ask mellowgamer4life@aim.com be more than happy to help out a fellow dru lover.
What unforseen glitch are we speaking of?
Hey guys, Ummm in high end raiding this spec isn’t going to be viable, unfortunatley, to get the cast time reduction with HT, you have to go too many ranks lower for it to still be effective. I use ToL NO empowered healing or anything, because HT is redundant unless you use it for those emergency heals, and you dont need empowered touch to give that last second life saving heal before the other healers land their heal. SO long as you gem correctly (+9 healing and 2mp5 PURPLE gems, or the t6 equivilant) and get spirit (thats a MUST for any druid healer) you will easily last any fight, and with innervate you effectivley have two mana bars, and if needed you can always go for a mana pot. This is an interesting theory, but a rotation of Lb’s WILL land you more healing. And it is a mana heavy stratergy to use HT (This is what druids do, we don’t go oom), LB’s will fill in the hp that the tank loses, and you’ll find your mana lasts a very long time, and with innervate you can easily outlast those 25 man bosses. It’s a nice idea - check out “shalithes” spec NAGRAND EU - i have insect swarm and easy wrath, i can grind nicley, I only use HT for emergency heals and it’s i am certain the most effective way to raid heal.
Good luck Druids.
This is not an obsolete spec. With the addition of the +spell haste rating especially in the T6 content drops, that makes dreamstate healing much more viable. You get some gems, you get high +heals and a good mana pool and with this build you can regen mana like crazy. Keep a few hots up, which aren’t as good as a full resto build (as we all know), but with the spell haste and high +crit, you can drop to a few lower Healing Touches and bomb the tank with nice heals very very quickly. This is all about cycling through your healing rotation. People are ignorant when they say dreamstate isn’t raid friendly, L2P druid and then get back at me. I’m resto right now because I love my gosu HoTs, but dreamstate is very very viable if done right.
BTW to the newb that said Boomkin isn’t ranged DPS, you don’t know jack obviously. Go play a huntard.
This doesn’t work if you raid.
No.
druids, the most versatile class in the game…i am a boomkin with a be.imba rating of 217, so my gear would rate just over t3. i hate healing (cuz i’m just not good at it) but this build gives me some things to think about. i don’t think it would be worth doing raids for a few months to get a healing set though just to be an ot healer when lich king comes out in november. still interesting concept, not maxing out any talent trees. mostly i had to comment because of servos, who i noticed hasn’t been back to defend his comment that so many are bashing the hell out of. dude, my first magtheridon run i was killed three times (got knocked around and ended up in front of him and was cleaved down) and even with being absent from a good portion of that fight i was still third on the dps. i crit up to 5400 at, dare i say it, range. how is this not ranged dps?
A few questions about this build:
- Is it good for Arena?
- What is the talent build exactly (ranks where and whatnot)?
- Can you please put a link to the Talent Calculator for the Dreamstate Talent Build so I can put it into action on my Druid?
I am currently a feral druid who, though undergeared is still a viable part of the team, but I’ve been throwing around the idea with my Arena Team of getting PvP healing gear so I can heal when the team needs a healer. I do enjoy the feeling of just sheer power and adrenaline rush that is granted from beating the living daylights out of somebody. However, I have seen first hand that it is MUCH easier to get honor and rating up when you are a healer who is either first, or close to for healing done in a single battle. When Season 4 comes out on the 24th, I will need to get my Season 4 Boots, Bracers, and Belt, but each of those require not only 17500 honor points (I believe that’s what they will cost), but ALSO require an Arena Rating.
Koraag,
There’s a link to the talent calculator in the second paragraph
Gavin
Koragg,
For arena, this build is not good for 2v2, but more successful for 3’s and 5’s. All the pros use the resto/feral combo. I’m not saying it is impossible, for anyone can do anything successful with s3.
Druids are cc machines in pvp. I think I’ll right up an article about druids in arena to better explain why they are and what cycles should be used.
This is not a raiding build, but a PvP toy.
I realize that there’s a class called a moonkin, but just to play devil’s advocate for a second, I’ve never once seen a raiding guild looking for ranged-DPS druids. Plus raids don’t look for spell crit–as people keep flaunting the aura and how big their crits are–that’s just dangerous because it can unexpectedly pull aggro, especially if you like riding just under the tank on the tps chart.
Anyway sorry for continuing the digression from the actual topic of the article.
i couldnt be bothered reading everything, i just wanted to say that its not boomchicken, its laserchicken! everyone knows that, and also that it can dps, what do you think tanks kiggler in HKM fight, what do you think gives mages and locks their 5% crit bonus? that pet chicken they keep with em?
Im big fan off Restokinn spek, thou for the past moths i have been raiding mostly… our guild taking the first steps of MH and BT at this time.
Id imagine that if you chip a way few points to get Boomkin form and team up with a shadowstep rogue, youd do relatively fine in 2vs2 arena. Tweaking few points to do better in PvP is ofc reguired in both Balance and Resto tree…
Our guild is thinking of having one of our Restos specking for Dreamstate/HT… to try how it feels and to see if it does any good for the raid. Ideology behind this is that wed like to have Druid healer on active rooster( versatilty via re spec/innervate/combat ress)thou we atm have enough hot healers to do fine… we NEED more big direct heals. We shall see how this goes.
Of Druids in general… Be all you can be! My main is Oomkin (1130 spell dmg), My heal gear is 1650 unbuffed and i tank for Heroic runs regularily with my tank set. Im not on the top of the dmg charts in 25:s, but then again.. i dont see our locks, mages, rogues do healing OR tanking for the guild either
Spirit up… summer time is here
Khad
For people saying this is not effective in later raiding I say, you’re kinda wrong.
I’m a T6/Sunwell raiding DS druid. I love it and wouldn’t trade it for the world. Landing a 10k crit from a rank 10 healing touch on a tank at 5% on Illidan is fun and helpful. CoH priests and Resto Shamans are serious help in SW. Trees…not so much.
So may I ask please what is the order of importance for stats gearwise? is it
A) Int>> bonus dmg and healing >>stam>> spellcrit?
or is it :
B) Int>> bonus healing >>stam>> spellcrit?
I myself am a lvl 58 druid who wants to try this build for solo level up in outlands and occasionally heal 5 man instances …..should I have two stacks of gear ?? one for solo quests stated as A above and one for healing instances stated as B above?
Thanx for your time …would appreciate an answer!!
Square Mind dont go far…
im dreamstate balance/resto . i pvp instance and raid…. its good for the 3… u can do whatever u want…it depents of u…. rules and patterns are for loosers