Amirdrassil Set Bonuses
Most Resto Druid tier sets are fairly straightforward, fit great into our rotation and are decently to very powerful. Every so often though we’ll get a set out of left field with little synergy that’s usually focused on a button that’s rarely used. Veterans will remember the Tomb of Sargeras Efflorescence tier set, or the scrapped Swiftmend set we almost got last expansion. These tend to break our rotation flow instead of enhancing it and the value is usually substantially worse than a more standard tier set. While experimentation can be good for the game, a druid bonus should still feel like a druid bonus. This current set is a miss, and we’ll discuss why further down the page.
2-Piece Set Bonus
I’m not quite sure when I last cast Nourish but I suspect it was in Cataclysm. Fortunately the two piece also works with the new Grove Guardians talent and it increases their raw Nourish healing by 80% (split across three targets). Numerically this is a fairly strong set bonus and you can expect it to contribute 8% healing or so if paired with a Tree of Life heavy build (which drops even more Treants).
Rotationally the 2pc is low impact. You’ll never play around it but it’ll do work in the background. That’s fairly standard for a modern 2pc bonus and isn’t a problem. The only downside is that it pushes more power into our new pets and away from our core rotation. This can have a knock on effect of reducing the skill expression of the spec since you get more of your throughput “for free”.
4-Piece Set Bonus
While the 2pc bonus is within the bounds of an acceptable set bonus, the 4pc is a much more problematic design. Both numerically and playstyle wise this is not a great development for the spec.
Playstyle Mismatch
Resto Druid has played fairly similarly since Legion. We use HoTs like rejuvenation to “ramp” or prepare for a mechanic and then we use Flourish to maximize our healings peak. Our healing tends to go in cycles built around our cooldowns. The value of our GCDs going into the ramp are very valuable since each is spent improving our HoT coverage across the raid.
This set bonus gives us random Nourish procs (via regrowth hard casts) several times per minute but there’s no clean way to fit them into our rotation. Clearcasting only lasts 15 seconds but the longer you sit on it the more likely you are to waste your next 4pc proc since they only stack to two (and that’s with an extra talent already). You end up in a log jam where you’re interrupting the most valuable sequence of the fight to drop healing on three random people. If that’s numerically worth it then it doesn’t feel very good to play, and if it’s numerically worse than the rejuvenation it’s replacing then it’s a very low value set.
Only during periods of downtime can you freely spend procs but the format is still poor and these also tend to be the least dangerous moments in a fight. The only benefit of attaching it to clearcasting is that you open up a double Lifebloom synergy but if anything this encourages a less interesting build in raid (and is no change to Mythic+ where the build already reigns).
Lack of Agency
I was extremely positive on the introduction of Grove Guardians last patch. You have a little bit of choice over where to spend your three charges and they’re off GCD so they don’t interfere with your core rotation. In 10.2 we’re getting twice as many Grove Guardians due to the change to the Cenarius Guidance talent. They also heal for 80% more due to our 2pc and now we have a 4pc that delivers the entirety of its healing to random targets. In total we’ll have little control over 30%+ of our healing. We’ve experienced this lack of target choice a few times over the past few expansions on other healing specs like Avenging Crusader paladin and Fallen Order Mistweaver. It’s almost always found to be a negative play experience and eventually changed but Druid is now headed in the same direction. For this reason I think moving the 4pc in a completely different direction with a new design might be a stronger choice than numerical tuning.
Nourish Design
Nourish is a fairly interesting spell in that it gets a 300% bonus from mastery. This means its healing increases substantially when you drop it on a target with a ton of HoTs already. However, your 4pc Nourish is randomly targeted, preferring simply any target with a HoT. Nourish becomes an unfortunate choice for the proc because you can’t harness the one strength of the spell. It’s just as likely to drop on the injured person with 1 HoT than the injured person with 5 even though the latter would be twice as much healing.
Numerically Weak
I am not as concerned about the tuning this early in the PTR since numbers are the easiest thing to change and they often hold that quite late. However right now this is a fairly weak bonus. Rough estimates in this 3-5% region should be fairly reasonable if spending all of your clearcasting procs is a good play. You’ll be able to get more value if you are playing Undergrowth but it remains to be seen if pivoting the build so heavily will be worth it.
Overall I’m not convinced this set is a good direction for the spec. The 2pc is mostly harmless enough but the 4pc will mostly be relegated to M+ play and what raid value exists will mostly come outside of major cooldowns.
