Leveling as resto

[:1]I'm currently leveling a resto druid (lvl41) and I've come to a point in the process that's rather dry as far as healing goes. I have toons of every other healing spec and the other 4 don't seem to have the gap that druids do, either because they're still acquiring actual healing spells or they're acquiring spells that they'll at least make regular use of (totems, cooldowns (Pain Suppression, et al), etc.)

However, there are 52(!) levels between Regrowth and Lifebloom. In that time, the only spells acquired that will see regular use by the resto druid are Rebirth (semi-regular, anyway), Remove Corruption, Innervate, Mark, and perhaps Hibernation. The rest are all Feral abilities or damaging spells for Balance. The talent tree has the same issue, in that a ton of points are geared toward Lifebloom which isn't learned until level 64. In the meantime, many of the talents suffer from the problem that the devs mentioned they would like to steer away from: minor percentage increases in a standard ability. Let's look at the tree:

Naturalist and Heart of the Wild are the standard picks to get out of Tier 1 and are usable: a half second decrease in the base heal (Nourish) and more INT.

Improved Rejuve is obvious in Tier 2, since it helps both that and Swiftmend. It is, of course, one of those percentage talents. The Shapeshifter talents in Tier 1 and 2 are useless for a resto druid until level 70, so PvE players will have to take Blessing of the Grove which is, again, a percentage talent but also boosts Moonfire, which is the primary way to activate Omen.

At Tier 3, we're 29th level, and we start to really see the problems. The only new spell until Wild Growth is Nature's Swiftness. There's a been a lot of talk among shamans and druids about how NS, as a raid or instance cooldown, is pretty sub-par compared to what priests and paladins can bring. At level 29, your use of NS gets you an instant Nourish, our weakest heal, or saves you 1.5 secs on Regrowth, our most expensive heal. Not exactly compelling. And now we start the Lifebloom train with Revitalize, when the spell most impacted by that talent is still 35 levels away. Living Seed has been complained about often enough (waiting for not only a crit on a non-HoT but also a follow-up attack to activate) that I don't need to do it again here. Fury of Stormrage, the oddest talent in the tree, is also here and is solely offensive. It doesn't even regain mana like the deep talent, Telluric Current, for shamans.

The Lifebloom problem really becomes noticeable in Tier 4. Nature's Bounty encourages the use of our most expensive spells, both casting Regrowth and spamming Rejuve to multiple targets. The cost of Regrowth leads many druids to avoid it and, thus, avoid this talent. But the other 4 points in this tier rely on Lifebloom to be truly worthwhile and when we enter the tier we're still 25 levels away from having that spell. So, we're essentially encouraged to take Nature's Bounty and use our most expensive spell and see a casting reduction on our weakest spell. Am I the only one to whom that sounds totally incongruous under the new healing model? Once everyone reaches lvl64, we're basically required to re-spec to make decent use of Gift and Touch. I don't think any other tree in the game sets up to require change along the way (in addition to the point that will have to be added to the shapeshifting talents.)

Finally, at level 53, still 11 levels away from Lifebloom, we get a new healing spell in Wild Growth. The talents here are all decent (assuming the upcoming upgrade to Efflo in 4.1; this still doesn't excuse Seed from being as bad as it is or the 6 points required to maximize Efflo) except Ward which is clearly PvP.

And then, we enter Tier 6, still a level away from Lifebloom and are presented with Gift of the Earthmother; yet another Lifebloom-focused talent, although this one brings a huge boost to Rejuve, as well.

My point, obviously, is that if we're to believe that the stated intent of the devs, to eliminate the "1% increase" talents and make the talent trees something to look forward to every other level, is valid then I think they fell short in the Resto tree. The majority of our talents are minor percentage increases and there are a ton of almost literally wasted points in those going to Seed and focused on a spell that we won't obtain until 3/4 of the leveling experience is over. Combine that with the dearth of learned abilities in that same stretch of levels and the resto leveling experience, compared to other healing specs, is pretty monotonous. I hope someone will look at this for 4.1 or 4.2.
Yeah, leveling as resto really isn't that fun.
The way they set up spells for druids has really confused me. I agree it's not well laid out for feral or resto. Do we need thorns at level 5? I really don't think so. Starfire at 8 didn't seem very useful either. The order we get spells was not well done.
Let me help you out, Resto just doesn't level well period.

Go to your trainer, and click thru the options to get dual spec.

Done? Cool, now make a Balance spec for leveling. You don't necessariliy need a new armor set, healing gear can get the job done for boomkins (not optimal of course, but not bad either). Now you have a more offensive powerhouse to level with, but can still play/gear for resto when you're playing with others or not leveling.

I started as balance (and as a Tauren incidently), and level 40 dualed into resto (just after the price dropped from 1,000g). At 85 went resto/resto, and just recently respeced into resto/feral. Pure resto specs are very hard for soloing and leveling, having two different specs gives you a much greater sensation of the druid's versiatility and power in the game, I highly recomment it.
Yeah, I'm dual-specced into Balance, so I have no problem when I want to take a break. But I like healing and so I've been leveling mostly through the RDF. I just think improvements can be made to the resto tree and spell acquisition to make it more interesting.