I swear, I have been trying to get a new post out for the old dual-boxing druid pair of Pattern and Recognition, but Blizz has been having a field day with Druids! Every time I think I have a post ready to go (I’ve redone them as Bear and BoomTree) they go back and muck about with the talents/skills again.

There is something just unsettling to see things reset every other login. *shudder*

That said, the relevant changes from Patch 4.0.6 aren’t as bad as could be feared. There are some nerfs to feral damage, but at the lower levels they aren’t going to be as obvious as they will on my main. It’s sort of rare for me too look forward to patches, but I can’t wait till some of this goes live!

Thus, the three things that have caused some hasty shuffling of spells and strats for me are:

• Healing Touch is now trained at level 78, up from level 3.
• Nourish is now trained at level 8, down from level 78.
• Rejuvenation is now trained at level 3, down from level 8. In addition, its mana cost has been reduced from 26% to 16%.

There is no enough YAY in the world to show my glee at the changes! The bump to Rejuvenation and the swapout of Nourish and Healing Touch is much loved, and gives me a lot more leeway in my strategies for dual-boxing the pair.

30% of base mana, 40 yd range, 3 sec cast
Heals a friendly target for giant amounts to crazy amounts.

Healing Touch is a great spell, if you are looking for a slow large heal that uses up a third of your mana.

Of course all three of the spells you get at low levels used to use up a third of your base mana, so in reality it was just a really slow spell that heals for a lot all at once (vs an instant spell that heals less over time) ((vs a faster spell that heals a bunch at the start and more over time)).

Still pair it up with enough speed (talents/haste/etc) for it to become tolerable and you have a decent ‘sometimes’ spell at higher levels– much like cookies are a ‘sometimes’ food. All in all a horrible choice for low level healing, which is why I was using Rejuvenation as a band-aid and Shadowmeld as a ‘oh-$#!&’ button.

But now… ah now.

10% of base mana, 40 yd range, 3 sec cast
Heals a friendly target for lots to even more. Heals for an additional 20% if you have a Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Lifebloom, or Wild Growth effect active on the target.

Achem.

10% base mana. … 10%.

True, it’s still taking me three seconds to cast and it does maybe a third of the healing that Healing Touch would, but 10% base mana. Which means I can toss a Rejuv on the bear (16%), then a Nourish (10%), then go back to Boomchicken goodness– and not be scraping the bottom of the big blue barrel.

Of course there aren’t many encounters where a four second break by the Boomchicken doesn’t mean the fight is already over (Bears are 4 fite!), but this gives me a chance to push my limits…

And now I really should go finish that new UI post.