Druid Healing After 3.1
Posted on April 2nd, 2009 by Lawbringer under General Tips, Patch, World of Warcraft, WotLK
So, we had a tiny bit of limited controversy, and I admit I probably could have stated the use of Wild Growth a little more completely, but the post was getting long as it was. I figure we’ll just hash those things out in the thread and move right along.
I know trees look paranoid all the time. Freakishly glancing over their shoulders every 10 seconds. But just settle down there, that’s not the sound of the goblin shredding machines you hear in the distance.
I’m not sure why people seem to think we are getting major changes, but I suspect it would only be if they are spam healing with Lifebloom. Which you now know to be a silly thing to do anyway. People also seem to be seriously concerned about this Spirit Mana Regen nerf. Don’t worry folks, let’s just look at what is really going to happen to you.
Here are the things in the patch note that effect trees, with a little commentary as we go along.
- Lifebloom: Mana cost of all ranks doubled. When Lifebloom blooms or is dispelled, it now refunds half the base mana cost of the spell per application of Lifebloom, and the heal effect is multiplied by the number of applications. No big deal for me folks. I like this one. If you are abusing LB this will force you to stop and play right. Plus, it was ALWAYS probably intended to bloom, not kept rolling as another HoT, so now they are giving you two huge incentives to do so. First, IF you let it bloom it costs the same mana as before. Second, the heal effect of the bloom is MULTIPLIED by the number stacked. Holy cow! Those of you who think think is a nerf are not allowed in tree form ever again. Not only is this a better system, it is making the spell up to 300% better if you use it like normal people. Huge Lifebloom(bloomed), no extra mana out of my pocket = I WIN.
Restoration
- Living Seed: This talent now accounts for total healing including overhealing. When you combine this one with the changes to Nourish it pretty much means Living Seed will go from about 3% of your healing to around 5% or more. That’s a big buff to a passive ability. Spec those points and leave them there.
- Improved Mark of the Wild: Now also increases all of your total attributes by 1/2%. Buff gets buffed – nice.
- Intensity: Now grants 17/33/50% of mana regeneration while casting. UP from 10/20/30% are you seriously still worried about Regen? So what if spirit based regen goes down. I am actually thinking that this will not only make up for whatever was lost, but our casting regen may actually go UP. Why the heck would you worry about a regen nerf and overlook this? Regen while casting almost doubled? L2read folks.
- New Talent: Improved Barkskin: Increases the damage reduction granted by your Barkskin spell by 5/10%, and increases your resistance to Dispel mechanics by an additional 30/60% while under the effect of Barkskin. PvP buff. Oh, and the “The pug tanks I run with suck” buff.
- Improved Regrowth: This talent is renamed Nature’s Bounty. Increases the critical effect chance of your Regrowth and Nourish spells by 5/10/15/20/25%. Now this is the first thing I can see where you might think – NERF! These numbers are half what you currently had. It’s just two words that make a difference – “and Nourish.” Blizz taketh away and Blizz giveth (yes it’s backwards but the right way round doesn’t apply now does it)? Once we cover how UBER good Nourish is about to be you won’t see this as a nerf either. If anything it will probably end up being a little better.
- Replenish: This talent is now re-named Revitalize and also works with Wild Growth. My goodness, another buff. Now your rank 1 and rank 2 HoTs BOTH have a chance to buff your party members. The two spells you SHOULD be tossing around like a clown slinging candy at a parade.
- Tree of Life: Now receives 240% increased armor. You can now use Nature’s Grasp and Thorns while within this form. Mana cost reduced to match the cost of Travel Form. PvP buff. Oh, and the “The pug tanks I run with suck” buff – part 2.
Druid (Glyphs)
- Glyph of Nourish: Your Nourish heals an additional 6% for each of your heal-over-time effects present on the target. OK, now THIS one is big. Replace Rejuv with this one the second you log in. Because IF you are doing it right already and stacking HoTs on EVERYONE from Rejuv UP, then almost anyone you will ever want to Nourish is going to have 2-3 hots on them anyway. With this baby a druid could probably come close to single healing two tanks on Heroic Patch. Ok, a bit of a stretch perhaps, but imagine LB blooming 3 times bigger right after a Nourish (and a Glyphed Regrowth on Regrowth Refresh) on top of Rejuv, Regrowth, LB X 3, and Wild Growth, followed by a Swiftmend critical with a Living Seed proc on the next hit? And at that point there is STILL a fresh Regrowth on the target. Yikes! Math that one up at a raid buffed 2300 sp and see what you come up with in that 3 seconds.
- Glyph of Rebirth: Target now returns to life with full health This one actually tempts me to some degree since there are times you would like to use Rebirth but it’s just not worth even trying because your target will just get insta-pwned anyway. Not sure if I could live without Lifebloom (or Wild Growth), Regrowth and Nourish, but tempting for sure.
- Glyph of Wild Growth: Wild Growth now affects up to 6 targets. Depending on what your normal role is in your raid, this is also worth serious consideration. No way this even comes close to Regrowth glyph, but if you are continuously on raid healing and not tank healing it is probably better than the Nourish glyph above. It also depends on if you are perfectly happy the way you heal NOW. If you like your style and don’t want to change to the Power healing system we are about to describe below, then just return to part 2 of this series and add this glyph and you’ll be perfectly happy.
As a matter of fact as I hint at above, perhaps THIS Glyph is better for the raid oriented tree, and Lifebloom for the foliage that does more tank duty. Both are better than either Rejuv or Innervate when it comes to overall healing power, and I’m all for raw boosts however much I’ve warmed up to Replenish/Revitalize.
So there are all the changes. Why in the world would anyone call them major? I can’t see a single thing that is going to change for the classically trained tree. The only thing I see is buffs, buffs, more buffs, and HUGE buffs to what I’m already doing and all I have to do is change 1 glyph and hit Nourish a bit more often.
Building on the concepts from Part 2, the only thing happening here is that Blizz is making your Rank 5 spell a Rank 6 spell. The Nourish glyph is nice, and when you add that to the little increased Living Seed proc deal it’s even better.
But if you find yourself running with really good healers anyway, like we have in Dominate, the nuclear conflagration of healing you can do with a glyphed Nourish and Regrowth might not be necessary anyway. In that case I may just leave things as they are and pop that Wild Growth glyph in there and keep facerolling HoTs.
So by MY count that’s 9 buffs, 2 decent items and zero true nerfs. And yes, the change to Lifebloom is a buff. Cry into your pillow if you don’t like it. QQ about it and I’ll suggest you just go feral and leave the healing to the true professionals. LB spam was dumb, and now it will just be idiotic. So instead of being nervous, flex those branches and get ready to show every other class what DOMINATING healing is all about. Save the Trees!
(We didn’t need help really, it was just something funy to say).
I do like the changes we’re getting for 3.1. I love the lifebloom change- if you’re keeping it up as an HoT you’re losing healing power and you’re a noob anyway o_o The bloom is gonna be intensified SO much.. and you won’t lose any more mana. I already have the Wild Growth glyph on the PTR. It’s useful if you’re a usual raid healer- but then I’ve never met a tree that wasn’t at least partially raid healing, seeming as how Wild Growth is so ridiculously awesome, and this just makes it more awesomer.. err.. wait, grammar fail. More awesome.
Though I’m a little sad with what we’re getting in 3.1 as far as Balance goes. With the bleed-crit thing.. there’s no way I’m going back to boomkin.
Thanks for clarifying the changes. But there is still one thing I am concerned about. Our spirit based regenaration gets nerfed. So innervate will regenerate far less (approximately 40%
). No more spam healing while being innervated and still end up with 100% mana QQ.
But all in all great changes, and I love how they make nourish more usefull.
That was great, TY. It would be even greater if you could do an article on pvp druid glyphs, specs, and general playstyle with the new patch.
GREAT post. Thanks! ’nuff said.
“saving mana”??
Pft, you have to be joking. Rolling LB as a HoT is the single most flexible way to tree heal, and I would argue the only way to keep a viable amount of mana going through Patch. As for “saving” mana with these changes… casting lifebloom 3 times as often is gonna cost you 3 times as much mana, ’nuff said.
Mark my words, you’ll be wanting to stick with a glyphed and talented 10 second lifebloom, and if it blooms it’s just a slightly more severe penalty than it is at the moment. Blooms 3 times as big means almost 12k crits with a reasonable amount of spellpower, and that’s got to be overheal if you have 3 stacks of LB up in the first place.
As for me, I’ve been boomkin the last few weeks anyway, but with dual spec I’ll be swapping between tree and chicken all day long, and I’d bet good money you won’t see me dropping my number 1 HoT
The real point is that most of the time Lifebloom is a waste on anyone but a tank. Wild growth is better. You need to read part 2. Start with Rejuv. If the damage is more than rejuv can handle, go with Wild Growth next. If there is still too much damage hit Regrowth. If your tank has a brain at all no one should be taking more damage than those three hots can handle.
This is not something I pulled out of a hat. 40 or 50 runs in heroics showed that by stacking the HoTs precisely in this order led to the absolute lowest amount of overhealing with virtually no change in HPS.
So yes, while LB may give you a more cozy feeling it’s also overkill most of the time and a waste of mana comapared to HPS. If your DPS is dying because they are taking more damage than Rejuv ticks for, you’re better off with Regrowth and Wild Growth than Lifebloom.
Plus, I’ve seen too many druid healers failing because of using LB as their first option for raid heals. You may be getting away with it, but it simply is not the best way to begin a rotation, even on tanks.
I’m not sure what you are actually even arguing to tell you the truth. I actually said LB for me is not going to change because I DONT spam it. Those of you who insist on doing so are going to see the difference.
I will never agree with anyone who hits LB first. And even less with those who use it on anyone but a tank anywhere but Sapph. And I’m not alone in this analysis either. I spoke with every top druid healer on our server and double checked their theories against the resto druid forums at elitistjerks along with my own analysis in heroic dungeon runs so I could watch the effect of solo healing.
So I think you have completely misconstrued what I was trying to say. But I will say that if LB is your number 1 hot it’s upside down, and the best of the best agree. nuff said?
Basicly for tank healing with Lifebloom, you will have to time it 7,9, or 10 secconds before a damage spike to make use if it’s incresed bloom?
Also, could you explain the changes with Living Seed a little more clearly?
And for Intensity, it goes up 20%. However, the effect of Spirit decreses 30%.
Please explaine “Regen while casting almost doubled?”
Actually, the mana regen is only slightly better while casting.
Currently:
100% OOC Regen * 0.30 Intensity = 30%
Real Example: 649 Unbuffed Mp5 OOC * 0.30 Intensity = 208 Casting Mp5
After 3.1
100% OOC Regen * 0.70 nerfed regen effect * 0.50 Intensity = 35%
Real Example: 649 3.0.9 Mp5 * 0.70 spirit Nerf = 454 Unbuffed Mp5
454 Unbuffed Mp5 * 0.50 Intensity = 227 Casting Mp5
So yes, your “while casting” Mp5 is going to go up. It isn’t going to double, but it’s going to be there.
I didn’t mean that our TOTAL regen would double, only that the effect from Intensity was going to nearly double. Glad you took the time to math geek the change above. Much appreciated.
The real point is that our regen is NOT going to go down, but up. As you can see from Smiley it’s a boost of roughly 9%. Somewhere between 7% and 10% MP5 boost is a lot.
649 * 0.3 = 195 casting Mp5, not 208. So with the changes to Intensity and spirit based regen, this makes for a 16.4% increase in casting Mp5.
Love this whole set of articles. I had recently started leveling my Resto Druid when this came out and even though it’s raid specific and intended for lvl 80 players, it’s helped me learn the basics much better than I could have alone. Happens to be one of my first Horde and am enjoying the feeling of dominating so early on in the game. Thanks for the help Lawbringer.
Love the set of posts. The theorycrafting behind your claims is a little lost on me but I trust that you did your homework. Terrific article!
I love the buffs they’ve got planned in general, although I do detest the LB mana cost. There was nothing wrong with LB being topped off constantly as a HoT, it kept tanks evened out easily. Meant I could raidheal and keep a tank topped off without worry. From most resto druids I know, they dont generally let it bloom by choice, since the bloom was always pants and we’re the HoT masters! As Tam said, with a 3stack of LB, its overheal when it blooms anyway.
The one thing I did want to know, the Nourish buffs… 5% extra for each HoT on the target…is 1LB = 3LB for the bonus? or is a 3stack 15% more? Same HoT but theres just more of it.
LB1=LB3, it counts as one HoT.
sorry if this double posts… I’ve refreshed a couple times and my post is not showing up.
If you seriously let lifebloom bloom intentionally rather than rolling it (on tanks, yes) then you made some serious errors in your theorycrafting. The *only* really good use for lifebloom pre-3.1 in pve was refreshing a 3 stack. Doing consistently just before it blooms was THE highest efficiency hot in the game AND the second highest HPSC (healing per second of cast time) – rejuv is slightly higher. This is pretty much without question, and its the reason they nerfed it. Any use of the bloom in the past was either on a single stack for a cheap heal (rarely needed) or letting it bloom when you happen to notice it about to expire while the tanks health is low (pure luck). Everything else is a waste of mana.
And stating there are no “true” nerfs in this patch is also complete nonsense, see what I just said. We lost the highest efficiency and second highest hpsc hot in the game. We lost our highest possible theoretical throughput (short of chain casting rejuv on an entire raid) which is rolling lifebloom on as many targets as possible (though yes its only practical if they are tanks taking sustained damage)
If you were using lifebloom for the bloom then … well you shouldn’t have been using it at all, and as it stands in 3.1 the only reason to use it will be to get another nourish multiplier and some extra hots for when you really need some high throughput (but low efficiency) healing. Mind you even this moderate level of efficiency is only achieved by “slow rolling” to three stacks, just before the previous stack blooms, and then allowing it to bloom at 3. This means the healing throughput is inconsistent, starting slow and ramping up till finally a massive bloom on a 28 second cycle (9 + 9 + 10) Bosses don’t generally dps in a 28 second cycle like that, so you will at a minimum need to vary the rate you are casting nourish if you want to maintain consistent healing, and this means your peak possible consistent dps is only what you would get from chain casting nourish with 1 lifebloom up. The bloom itself accounts for a large chunk of its efficiency and without it you will get significantly lower hpm than rejuv… and most likely you will rarely get any benefit from it since there are very few fights where you can predict the need for a 9k+ spike heal 10 seconds in advance.
And to call rolling spamming is completely backwards, spamming is when you let them bloom at random and just throw hots on everyone. Rolling lifebloom effectively required precision timing and if done correctly could heal the tanks for considerable amounts of health, helping to smooth out the damage spikes they take with the rapid frequency of the ticks, and still give you ample time to heal the raid. With the nerf to rolling this is no longer possible, to get an equivalent throughput to the tank will require direct heals, and there is no way to match the efficiency that multi tank lifebloom rolling provided anymore at all.
Did you actually read all 3 posts? Sometimes I wonder. Rolling LB spam on the RAID is backwards. Rolling LB on TANKS ONLY is the right way around. However, the real numbers do not back up your claim about LB. Regrowth has better throughput, not sure where you got your numbers.
And although you make an intelligently stated set of points, they are not accurate – sorry. You make it sound like healing as a druid is hard or something. If it were, then you might have to worry about teeny tiny details – even if you were right about the teeny tiny details (which you’re not) if you are more proactive as a healer instead of reactive those situations just never arise. Those situations arise only for druids who throw LB on everyone, which is a bad way to heal a raid, or even a party for that matter.
So, you didn’t read what I wrote, or didn’t understand it any better than you understood the patch notes. There are no nerfs to resto druids. You can claim otherwise, but I will not be disappointed in this patch. My regen is going to go up despite the spirit nerf. My healing power is going WAY up. AND, because I don’t depend on LB for freaking everything (because there is a better way to roll hots) it’s not going to effect me at all. Well maybe a little more OH, but I can live with that eh? All of this without moving a single point in my build? IWIN
Also, I DID say the Rejuv should be the go to heal for heavens sake. You weren’t paying attention. People have been complaining to me in other posts that that was wrong too. So who is right? You, them or me? I recommend using ALL of your hots all the time on the right players in the right situations. And you should not “waste” LB on raid members, rather, reserve it for tanks only. You are nitpicking about a point that I already made as though it was a divergent opinion about the spell. You’re sort of agreeing with me by telling me I’m wrong. Even though you are telling me I’m wrong by using faulty math I’ve NEVER seen before.
So while I appreciate the well worded post it is just more of the same upside down thinking that does not match the reality. If you like healing that way, more power to you. But to try to back it up with something solid really can’t be done.
Thx dude great post!!!!!
I have no idea how you got the idea that your “regen is going to go up despite the spirit nerf.”
According to the patch notes: “Mana Regeneration: The amount of mana regeneration derived from intellect and spirit has been reduced by 40%; however, talents that allow for mana regeneration while in combat have been increased. As a result, in-combat regeneration for classes with those talents will stay the same, while out-of-combat regeneration will be lower.”
Intensity got 40% better. Spirit/intel got 40% worse. Unless you were relying very heavily on Mp5 your regen will stay the same. The only difference is innervate is going to be 40% less effective.
You say the lifebloom mana increase won’t make a difference. Try keeping 2-3 tanks hotted now while keeping the raid up (with rejuv, wild growth, etc) and tell me it’s much better. The lack of an effective innervate doesn’t help. In dealing with raid member’s damage alone, true it won’t make a massive impact. I don’t think you’ve even thought about the time you have to waste re applying it after you let it bloom and how unlikley it is your tank will be sitting at -15k the exact moment your lifebloom runs out.
Under your comment about the nourish glyph you pretty much said “I can heal so much in a 3 second window”. Look what happens after. Swiftmend is on cooldown, and no lifebloom on the tank. You’ll have to waste 3 gcds putting lifebloom back on a single tank while probablly constantly casting nourish to dig yourself out of the hole you just dug yourself.
Also, I just wanted some clarification. At one point you say, “Not sure if I could live without Lifebloom (or Wild Growth), Regrowth and Nourish, but tempting for sure.” Does this mean you’re rolling with both glyphs for Regrow and Nourish? With the advent of Nourish, Regrow sounds like a nice way to throw out mana that you no longer have to spare.
Perhaps I’m wrong but judging from your post you’re not an exceptional healer and I would really like to see a wws to give me a bit of confidence in you before I go blindly following your advice.
OK, let’s try this again. Talented mana regen from intensity went from a max of 30% to 50%. Thirty is 60% of fifty, so from a verbal perspective the net effect is a wash. However, because of the way things actually work it turns out like this (as already stated above in this thread):
Currently:
100% OOC Regen * 0.30 Intensity = 30%
Real Example: 649 Unbuffed Mp5 OOC * 0.30 Intensity = 208 Casting Mp5
After 3.1
100% OOC Regen * 0.70 nerfed regen effect * 0.50 Intensity = 35%
Real Example: 649 3.0.9 Mp5 * 0.70 spirit Nerf = 454 Unbuffed Mp5
454 Unbuffed Mp5 * 0.50 Intensity = 227 Casting Mp5
So, mana regen DID go up, one for me.
And if you are relying on Innervate in your guild or groupings I believe it would be those you run with or yourself that are not exceptional. Being able to do it without ever using it means I don’t care what happens to Innervate. It normally ends up being used on a mage because all of our healers ARE exceptional. OOM is a very rare thing in Dominate runs.
Lifebloom heals for more, and the mana cost will not effect me at all so it’s better. More HPS out of the spell and no difference in mana cost to me = another one for me. If you were one of the ones misusing the spell then you hate the change. But not a single one of the top healing druids I have spoken to ever recommended spamming LB. Not a single master theorycrafter I have read ever recommended that. So again, it’s all subjective, but the real top healers haven’t uttered a peep.
As for the 3 second window. If you’re worried about the 6 second window after the monster burst I was mentioning either you, your other healers, or your tanks need some help. How is bursting for 30k heals putting you in a hole? I fail to understand the logic here at all.
If you are relying on LB to keep tanks alive so much that if they ever dropped so did the tank, you have to think something was wrong with that. SM only consumes one of RJ or RG, so you should still have at least one hot up even after the burst. You lost me on the ‘bad’ part of this.
Of course, it would be better to never get so far behind that you would need to blow it all at once, but couldn’t you say the same thing about LoH? At least with our burst I can be almost back where I was in about 6 seconds.
If this is really a bad situation, how the heck do any of the other healing classes ever get the job done when everything they do pretty much is one off healing? They have to cast again to keep heals up, and Nourish will get a buff from the one hot – I’m just shaking my head on this statement.
If you were rolling LB on tanks before, how is reapplying after a bloom wasting any more time? If anything since you’ll be casting it less you are saving time and getting more HPS out of the deal.
And sigh again about Regrowth. You can use whatever methodology you like to heal. There is enough flexibility in any build or healing rotation to do things a little differently and get the job done. I didn’t decide any of this without extensive research, talking to other top healers, and testing in real time in game.
So maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t recall ever seeing your name anywhere on any major forum outlining your complete healing system. I’m probably NOT the best druid healer in the game. But who could ever say that? What even constitutes an “exceptional” anything?
You don’t have to blindly follow my advice, test what I am saying and see if it works for you. Personally I tried half a dozen builds in relationship to other posts from guys like Paininabox and the druid resto spreadsheet and found that this works even better in practice than it seems in theory.
But you would have to ask other people whether they think I am an exceptional healer. I am probably not the best druid healer in my own guild – talk to Morondruid and see what he thinks.
The real point is that it doesn’t matter WHAT I think about LB now or not. You are forced to live with the spell the way it is whether you like it or not. What I’ve done is give you a way to use it that won’t hurt you. That I believe it’s the way it should have always been used is completely beside the point now. No matter what I think about mana regen, you have to live with what you have now.
And as for constantly casting Nourish – is that a bad thing? I can see myself using it a LOT more, especially the way it stands now. What a great heal.
So here it is in a nutshell. I wasn’t having mana issues before 3.1, and since the change is, at worst, a push – I’m not running out of mana now. Innervate dependency be blowed; people just really need to LTconserve and still get the job done, same with party members. LB can still be cast on tanks without costing you a single mana more than before, and it blooms for a ton, live with it. Regrowth mana didn’t go up, and Nourish is a wicked good spell with the new glyph when you can get it, so why not use it? ON and on and on and on and on . . .
Don’t trust me, it won’t kill either of us. Test everything I’ve said and offer a decent system to replace the whole thing in at least 2,000 words. We’ll publish it here as an alternative method and let people test it and question every little bit of your complete theory in the game and see what comes of it. It would be better for all of us to have more than one thing to test that I didn’t have to research myself and test myself to report on. It would mean DYS could move on to other topics and discuss those as well.
This is not related to the above, however, to my calculations the mana cost of Lifebloom went down. Tell me if i’m not doing something right here.
1 LB = 782 mana
1 LB bloom = 489 mana returned: 782 (cast) – 489 (returned) = 293
2 LB bloom = 979 mana returned: 1564 (cast) – 979 (returned) / 2 (stack)= 293
3 LB bloom = 1468 mana returned: 2346 (cast) – 1468 (returned) /3 (stack)= 293
(The above calculations have been rounded up and do not include T7 2 peice bonus)
Lifebloom 3.0.9 = 366 mana
Lifebloom 3.1 = 293 mana
After finding this, I then remembered that on the PTR, I saw LB cost 978 mana out of Tree form. I looked into the SPELL Tree of Life and saw that the spell no longer included HoT’s getting a 20% decrese in cost. I then looked at the TALENT and saw that it does say that our Hot’s get a 20% decrese in cost. From looking at the cost of HoT’s in and out of Tree form, I concluded that the spell is correct, and that there no longer is a 20% mana reduction specific to Tree form. However, the 20% reduction is still applied to our HoT’s, only the effect never goes away.
I concluded that this all fit together. The PTR had Lifebloom’s BASE cost at 978.
978 (base cost) * .80 (20% reduction) = 782 mana. The same mana cost as on Live.
How the system currently works is that the mana cost is determined by the BASE cost.
1 LB bloom = 489 mana returned; 489 * 2 = 978
So either there is a wording issue somewhere, or we are getting too much mana back then we should be getting.
Lifebloom: “…and the druid regains half the cost of the spell.”
366
I just got to 80 on my druid, and I’ve realised a little trick to countering the mana regen nerf.
Correct me if I’m wrong, as I’m relatively new to druids.
But using Lifebloom when your Clearcasting is up costs 0 mana, but refunds the 450~ when it blooms.
Easy mana regeneration.
Very nice guide, most of it is common sense but I’ve picked up a couple of tips, namely replacing Regrowth (my number 2 heal) with Wild Growth, which I’ve rarely used.
On the Lifebloom debate, it’s clearly called LifeBLOOM for a reason. If it was meant to be another HOT it would be, erm… Liferoll… ? With all the benefits of letting it bloom, I.E. a large “free” heal, refunded mana and extra threat for the tank (I read that the bloom is accredited to the castee, correct me if I’m wrong) you’d be daft to use it as a HOT, especially now the mana cost is so high.
I occassionally roll it on a tank, but only alongside normal heals waiting for a good time to let it bloom when anticipating a damage spike, or when I expect to need to focus on somebody other than the tank for some reason, but anything over 4 or 5 refreshes and I consider it a waste of mana.