But what does this mean? Lately it’s meant I have only once, maybe twice, used my innervate on myself. I have instead found it more useful to throw on recently Rebirthed priests. The plain and simple fact has been…I don’t seem to need it anymore. Unless we’re flying through Kara to farm badges and sitting down to drink would make us lose the race (Sunder groups try to get the shortest time possible), I don’t seem to need it. Even on tough streams like Hyjal, I always have 15-30 seconds to drink up that fourth or half of a mana bar I’m missing. And I was only down half a bar because I was missed with the Blessing of Wisdom spot buff.
I used to staunchly stand by the idea that “This is my innervate. There are many like it, but this one is mine.” A druid without his or her innervate was a dangerous combination, and we could only part with it under extreme circumstances or if we completely out-geared the instance/raid. Now with my mana pots past their expiration date, I’m finding myself questioning this logic.
Last night, we did 4/5 Hyjal and Naj’entus and Supremus in BT. I used my innervate three times.
- Priest died and was battle rezed. I innervated her.
- Priest needed mana to quick rebuff Shadow Resist between pulls. Innervate!
- Kaz’rogal fight. This is the one occasion last night where it was vital to use my own innervate on myself. I never blew up the raid, though people were detonating around me.
Other raids I have never used innervate on myself. Now that innervate shoots my mana bar to full, it seems wasteful to use when I’m only down to half. Barring mana-draining bosses, I’ve never had an issue with my mana since 2.4 in a full-buffed raid group. Innervate, far from being completely necessary to a druid, has now, it seems, become an integral part of their utility for the raid as a whole, or at least it’s mana-users who are unlucky enough, or squishy enough, to bite the dust.
10 comments:
Nothing wrong with having more utility.
Of course healing trees are already OP... >.>
*dodges incoming moonfire spam*
:D
Being a feral druid I've used innervate on the healer if I'm not the one tanking (which pre 70 so far is the case). Haven't gone into BGs yet so far but I'm sure I'll find some healer/caster dps to bless that buff on.
Just ask to be out of the shadow priest grp ;)
I'm still using on some mana intensive fights (and because I like my 1st healer rank). But good old "innervator" is now useless :(
Never useless! I think it has more utility now than before because you don't have to horde it incessantly. "Precioussssss"
Oh I love the 2.4 mana changes! But I really need to get more mana regen/casting >.<
(I'm a holy priest CoH)
Yesterday night i was assigned to heal the mage in Illidari COuncil, and my group didn't have Shaman neither Shadow priest. I was begging for innervate all the fight
lol =/
gratz for your blog =D
Ah, yes, that's a good point.
I had noticed that I wasn't needed my Ninnernatation, but hadn't actually moved onto "maybe casting it on someone else would be good".
Welcome to the joy of being a human priest with Spirit of Redemption (for the uninformed, that's a whopping 10% and 5% increase to Spirit!). Since the expansion was released I cannot recall ever needing an Innervate to finish a fight. In fact, I can count the number of times I've had to get one since TBC on one hand -- maybe even one finger.
I've been saying for months that Innervates should be used on druids (even Boomkins, who seemed to always get the shaft from my experience); don't undermine all of my hard work by claiming you don't need it any more!
While I agree that the regen changes this patch was nice, my approach has been a little different. I re-gemmed all my gear with Teardrop Crimson Spinels and picked up some Spell Haste, and am now sitting at ~2500 +heal and 150-200 spell haste, depending on which rings/neck I am using.
I find that the regen changes had similar effects on priests as on druids and they rarely need the innervate, and pallies/shamans still don't get much benefit, so I sacrificed a lot of my regen for the power-stats (healing/haste) and once again use the innervate on myself. I think I bring more utility to the raid that way, and I can output a LOT more healing.
It's amazing how much of a difference even a little bit of Spell Haste makes as a healing druid - I was skeptical at first, but now I feel like I'm being held back if I wear less than 150.
@anonymous - the only argument I have there is part of the utility of a tree druid is in its aura. When you remove things such as +spi gems, you remove +healing from your aura. If you're in the main tank group, that's +healing lost from the tank. And I especially see that where fights require spell haste, there have been opportunities to pick spell haste up prior.
Also, since innervate works with spirit, losing some spirit could lessen the effects.
Otherwise, it is a great alternative. Thanks :D
@Bell
Very true! My guild doesn't always prioritize a tree in the MT group, so that aspect of Spirit wasn't something I immediately thought of.
I should mention that with the Purified Shadowsong Amethyst (I think that's what it's called anyway!), and the gem vendor active, I RE-replaced all the red gems I'd stuck in blue sockets with the heailng/spirit ones instead!
As for innervate, I've yet to get to the point where it doesn't return a full mana bar, even while I'm spam-casting (except on Shahraz, nerf SR gear!), but I definitely wouldn't sacrifice so much spirit that my innervate became useless to me :) I suppose in my original response, I probably should have said sacrificing *pure mp5* for haste/+healing.
Along that note, I had some extra badges, and my trinkets were pretty terrible, so I bought two Battlermaster's Alacrity trinkets (+40 spell haste on each) to play with them. It's really quite amusing to watch a tree cast that fast! I'll admit, I've become a bit of a haste addict and now I feel handicapped if I'm not wearing at least 150! So try this at your own risk...
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