In any case, read this post on Tree Bark Jacket, in which Keeva outlines her concerns about the new druid healing style. She pretty clearly lays out what is on a lot of druids' minds, from what I can tell. That's honestly why I read her blog. She seems to have the same concept of what a "good" tree will be doing. That idea of being a support healer with a few defined, maintenance roles (Lifebloom, Innervate, Rebirth) and the tools to prevent a wipe when things get crazy, (Predicting raid damage, a few instant heals, ability to heal multiple targets effectively) assuming you have the skill. This idea of "we're there when you need us" is what I've valued for the entire time I've played a druid. Even though we're only discussing healing here, this same concept is why I love that our offspec can be any other role. I want to help the group however it's needed and I feel I'm losing that come 4.0.
Playing around on the PTR, I can't help but feel that Rejuvenation is almost entirely a third tier spell. It's nowhere near as amazing as Regrowth and Efflorescence. It's not as reliable as new staples like Nourish and Lifebloom. It's just not the pinnacle of druid healing like I'm used to it being. Whether that's really a serious concern or just nostalgia I'm not sure, but I'm leaning towards the former. In any case, I can't help but feel that this weakness plays a large role in our diminished state. Prior to blanketing, it was an amazing tool assuming one could throw it when and where we needed it. A well placed Rejuvenation was fast and reliable, whereas the new one is something I barely look at, except out of habit.
The issue is that there have been two major changes to the spell:
- The duration has been reduced.
- The cost is huge.
Yes, I agree that HoT-blanketing is boring. Yes, I agree that it needed to be prevented. I agree that these are both good ways to do that. But did we need both? Blanketing is exponentially more expensive because of this, but throwing out the odd at the Warlock who likes to stand in bad is also much more expensive. It doesn't seem like much at first, but next to the rest of your arsenal, the result is Rejuvenation just falls into the background.
What would I propose instead? In truth, I just don't want to be penalized for throwing out appropriate Rejuvenations while I do other things, especially if our new roles is largely tank healing. Doing this without enabling blanketing is a challenge, but I think it can be done. The best I could come up with is a bit complex to implement, but accomplishes this goal. Essentially, I propose having Rejuvenation's cost scale up based on how many times you cast it. There are two ways to do this.
- Every time you cast Rejuvenation, you gain a 5-10 second, stacking debuff that increases its mana cost by 50-100%. Rejuvenation would start off very cheap, perhaps around 300-400 mana. (At level 80, since I only have access to the PTR.) This would stack up to 3-5 times. Because the debuff is shorter than the length of the HoT, you could continuously cast one or two at a time, depending on length of the debuff, at the reduced rate. Any more than that would have to be used sparingly.
- The game would keep track of how many of your Rejuvenation HoTs are active in the group, and increase the mana cost by 50-100% for every instance, up for 3-5 times. This one is likely more difficult to implement and less transparent to the player, but probably less clunky to use. No need to wait a set duration if you want a stack of the debuff to drop off; the cost will automatically drop as HoTs expired. (If you want to show this to the player, maybe have combo-point like UI to keep track of the cost. Start at 5 points, and lose one dot for every HoT active. The more dots you have, the cheaper the spell. But this probably complicates things too much.)
Whether it's based on the number of your Rejuvenations are currently active or the number of times you've cast it recently, the idea is that the first few casts are relatively efficient, while any more get expensive, so you only use them if you really need to. It's a poor idea to blanket, but you could still throw Rejuvenations where needed. That's the idea, anyway.
P.S.: This was originally going to be comment on Keeva's post, but you can imagine why I moved it here...
