It’s no secret that I’ve been less than pleased with patch 3.2. However, last night I finally found something worth cheering over. I realized mid-raid that I had enough Emblems of Triumph to purchase my very own Idol of Flaring Growth. I bought it just before we engaged Faction Champions, and my my. How did I live without this thing?
You see, I’ve always wanted to be able to equip wands like priests do. The druid idols have always been somewhat useful, but much less valuable overall than wands. In general, resto druid spellpower numbers lag a little bit behind priests, and that’s partly due to the wand slot. Gearwise, resto druids and holy priests have become identical in terms of stat allocation on our primary items, and in my mind that’s a good thing. It makes me much less likely to lust over a cloth item, except when no leather equivalent exists.
And now, we get a shiny new idol that gives actual spellpower. The one thing my druid lacks, this idol delivers. How do I feel about more spellpower? Pleased would be an understatement.
This thing pretty much blows my favorite past idols, Emerald Queen and Lush Moss, which gave spellpower bonuses to Lifebloom only, out of the water. I have to say, I enjoy this thing much more even than my days of idol swapping between Regrowth and Lifebloom idols (back when that didn’t incur an extra global cooldown). I’m keeping around my Rejuvenation-oriented idol just in case we ever do Vexaz hardmode, but I plan to make Flaring Growth a permanent part of my healing set.
Let me explain how the idol works. The bonus spellpower effect procs from used or unused tics of Rejuvenation, and it appears to have both a very high proc rate and no internal cooldown. I would compare its uptime to Illustration of the Dragon Soul–which means the item is awesome. Consider it a near-permanent boost. Even if I’m tank healing, I am keeping up one or more Rejuvenations, so I find that the effect is active most of the time. Even in the Faction Champions fight, where I was relying mostly on Nourish, I was able to put out enough Rejuvenations to keep the effect up.
And what, my friends, is the best thing about this idol? Anyone can get it–no raiding required. Just do your heroic daily, collect your modest 25 emblems of Triumph, and get thee to the vendor.
I picked up the resto shaman version that procs off of Chain Heal and oh my goodness do I ever agree with you. Rather than the previous totem of choice that increased every Chain heal by a static amount, this procs spell power, so all of my heals can share in the glory.
And with an apparent 70% proc chance and no cooldown at all, I have pretty much 100% uptime (likely more like 90%, but whatever). It’s an incredible boost to my healing and something that allows much more punch when using my entire, diverse toolbox as a healer.
Now my lesser healing waves, healing waves, riptides, earthshields and even well timed healing stream totems benefit from the large lump of extra SP. What a welcome addition for only 25 emblems!
-Z
You are SO right on this, it is wonderful to have for that extra spellpower bump on ALL your heal spells, not just one. The proc animation threw me off a bit as I wondered what was going on with my toon the first couple of times it happened! ::chuckle:: It is an absolutely great all-purpose tool for any resto druid to have!
And here I thought you were doing an article on me
Kimbo, you know I worship you, but if I wrote an article detailing how great you are you’d simply never be able to play in peace. Ner’zhul would get bombarded with Kimbo fans to the point that we’d have to queue every night to get in.
This idol absolutely rocks! It was the first thing I bought with my emblems of triumph and i expect to be using this idol pretty much full time, except for very specific fights where i feel the rejuv or nourish one is better.
I like it even more now knowing that in patch 3.2.2 resto druid tier 8 4 piece bonus is getting hit by the nerf bat and i won’t be relying so much on rejuvenation when raid healing.
.-= Lath´s last blog ..Patch 3.2 Shadow Priest Gear for the 25 man Raider =-.
I picked this little slice of heaven up last night, and I couldn’t be happier with it.
Its not often you can get a +234 spell power bonus for such a cheap price. I’d say this is the most useful item, pound for pound, from any triumph badge vendor loot.
.-= Eric´s last blog ..Haunted Hollywood =-.
yum, I got one today!
Almost all the new relics function this way. Something useful, high proc rate, with no noticable internal cooldown. I noticed this on my own Libram of Defiance. This change is a step in the right direction in terms of relic slots.