Restoration Post-patch

First, I'm a little frustrated with myself for starting a blog with high hopes of posting regularly, and then forgetting about it for eleven days. There's some epic fail for you. I'll try and be more punctual with my updates :)

I had a chance to try out post-patch Restoration in SSC the other day. My guild put together a PuG to take down Fathom-Lord Karathress and Lady Vashj for those of us working on the Medallion of Karabor and Vials of Eternity. I wish I had saved a WWS report for some detailed analysis, but the best I can give you are my surface impressions.

Wild Growth just blew me away, and I had to struggle hard not to simply blanket the raid with it instead of healing intelligently. It's fantastic to finally have an AoE heal! I would be excited to give this a spin on Hex Lord Malacrass, if it weren't for the fact that the raid nerfs mean that our "strategy" on that fight boils down to a prot Paladin tanking everything while the DPS AOE's them down. It was helpful in SSC as well, especially in Vashj Phase 3, when people were getting rooted in Sporebat poison.

Single-target healing is just as potent, too, albeit a little more mana expensive. Considering that I was almost unable to run OOM pre-patch except in the most intensive healing situations, this seems fair. Buffed with an Elixir of Draenic Wisdom, Brilliant Mana Oil, and Prayer of Spirit, and with a pair of Retribution Paladins keeping Replenishment more or less continuously up, I had absolutely no mana worries for the raid.

I healed a handful of heroic instances the next day, without any trouble at all. My strategy remained more or less the same as before - 3xLifebloom + Rejuvenation on the tank. The main difference was that I could throw up Wild Growth for party-wide damage, or even for just a little extra healing on the tank.

Depending on guild availability this week, I'll either be healing or OT'ing our ZA runs. I haven't had a chance to be a tree in ZA since the patch was released, so hopefully I'll be able to give it a spin tonight.