In my opinion this set is mediocre at the least. Not enough +healing in it. Only 98? Cauterizing Band drops in Molten Core and has +48 healing. Set bonus are mediocre. The three set bonus is good if you have Imp Thorns in the Balance tree. The five set bonus is just good but, the last one? Tranquility and Hurricane? How often do we use that really.

Wild Growth Spaulders are awesome and drops from Domo.
Or you could wait for Stormrage off Onyxia and Ragnaros.

With the addition of the 41 point talents, this set once again becomes viable in raids. If you're one of the few that will specialize into Tree of Life, the amount of spirit this set gives will increase healing by ~28 to 30. While that not seem like much, HoT's stack, other healers will love you and your Regrowth and Rejuvination spells have been decreased in mana costs. Something I look forward to wearing when my guild dives into MC soon (on Korialstrasz).

Locations (all in Molten Core):
Head - Garr
Shoulders - Baron Geddon
Chest - Golemagg the Incinerator
Pants - Magmadar
Gloves - Shazzrah
Boots - Lucifron
Belt - Trash Mobs
Bracers - Trash Mobs

All in all, the set isn't half bad if you're looking for some decent raiding gear. Personally, I only use the gloves, the boots, and the chest because my guild was able to supplement me with some better +healing gear, but I am looking at obtaining the whole set, if for nothing else than to say, ""Hey, I got it all."" But in all fairness, this set isn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. I has some downsides which, I hate to admit, are a little pricey. Druids are mostly called upon to be healers, but this set focuses more on the balance between a balance druid and a healing druid. Tier two is a much better choice for those druids who are straight up healers in raids and the such.

However, there are many pros to this set as well. It has decent mp5, which can make or break a healer in a raid, above average stats, which is very nice because the more mana you have, the more healing you can throw on the tank, and some nice set bonuses (in all fairness, the tranquility and hurricane cooldowns aren't the best ability, but traq has saved my groups more than once).

What I'm trying to get at is that this set while having both negative and positive impacts, is a very good set for those druids who are trying to get the feel for how their class runs through end-game material.

There is something notable about this old tier set about using it at level 70. When I was doing MC with some friends, a healing druid picked up a piece of the set just for fun, but pretty soon we started discussing the 3-piece set bonus and how it can still be useful.

The 3-piece bonus can essentially (ab)used just for buffing raid members. After buffing you can switch back to your shiny BC raiding gear and still get the benefit of 15min buffs that do a little bit more damage than usual. Note that the damage increase is amplified by the druid talent https://vanillawowdb.com/?spell=16840 Brambles , bringing https://vanillawowdb.com/?spell=26992 Thorns damage up from ~44 (already talented) to ~51. While it might not seem a lot, this can be helpful in endgame raiding, for example on Hyjal trash increasing your tanks threat by a bit.

There is something interesting to note about a peculiarity when the druid uses the items just for buffing and then switches to higher quality gear. It seems the additional damage is not applied in this case if the druid himself is hit by a mob. However the additional buff duration is retained and further testing revealed that the additional damage also remains in place when other people are buffed with it and then hit by mobs, even if the druid then switches gear. Seems like Blizzard intended to remove the damage bonus if the set is not equipped, but poorly implemented it, which can be exploited to a minor advantage.

A quick lookup of other old tier-sets revealed that there is no other set-bonus that can be exploited in a similiar fashion, though I might be wrong on that one and overlooked something.

Hmmm, now that Hurricane does not have a CD I wonder if they are just going to leave the bonus or change it

This https://vanillawowdb.com/?spell=23556 8-set bonus + https://vanillawowdb.com/?spell=17124 Improved Tranquility <i>apparently</i> give Resto druids a no-cooldown Tranquility, and according to a friend, it makes Loatheb a breeze.

Antlers! ^&amp;*! yeah!

this set has some novelty at level 80. for a resto druid at least. with the 8 piece set bonus and spec'ing into imp tranquility, tranquility generates absolutely no threat and literally has no cooldown. entire fights of nothing but tranquility....now yes, it does get a little boring sometimes when you can just sit there and spam one button for an entire fight, but hey, it's like being a hunter now!

In patch 4.0, Tranquility was moved to a level 68 ability, but the item bonus remains on this level 60 item set. This may be fixed in some future patch.

As of Cata, with the changes to thorns, this set is now incredibly valuable to a druid to have 3 pieces of, sure you lose some sp, but your thorns runs for 30 seconds out of 45 seconds. will shoot the damage thorns provides a group up from about 8% to about 14% from what ive seen on my druid. very valuable if your guild is running black temple for kicks, and your heals dont have to be top shelf!

as of 4.1 this with 2/2 malfurions gift only lowers it to 1.5m cooldown.

Strange that they added that note to the end of the 3-piece bonus saying ""REDESIGN, SPELL RETIRED"". Do any other items have a note like this? I wonder what they would change it to, if any developer ever notices it. Seems weird they'd go back and change the set bonus for an outdated set probably no one uses anymore.

What I love about this set, is how well it mixes with the https://vanillawowdb.com/?itemset=214"">(Item Set #214) . For my druid's transmog set, it took a bit to figure it out but here's what I used:

helm - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=16834"" class=""qundefined icontiny"" style=""background-image: url(images/icons/tiny/inv_helmet_09.gif)"">Cenarion Helm
shoulders - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=16836"" class=""qundefined icontiny"" style=""background-image: url(images/icons/tiny/inv_shoulder_07.gif)"">Cenarion Spaulders
cloak - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=9847"">(Item #9847)
chest - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=16897"">(Item #16897)
bracers - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=16904"">(Item #16904)
gloves - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=16831"" class=""qundefined icontiny"" style=""background-image: url(images/icons/tiny/inv_gauntlets_07.gif)"">Cenarion Gloves
belt - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=16903"">(Item #16903)
legs - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=16901"">(Item #16901)
boots - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=16829"" class=""qundefined icontiny"" style=""background-image: url(images/icons/tiny/inv_boots_08.gif)"">Cenarion Boots

Staff - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=65464"">(Item #65464) (Only available to horde!)
Alternate staff - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=37883"">(Item #37883)

1H mace - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=72827"">(Item #72827)

Off Hand - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=19315"">(Item #19315)
Alternate Off Hand - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=19312"">(Item #19312)
Alternate Off Hand - https://vanillawowdb.com/?item=29170"">(Item #29170)
https://vanillawowdb.com/?compare?items=16901:16897:16829:16831:16834:16904:16903:16836:9847.-19;...
3D Preview!

I personally believe this set looks great on druids, especially Night Elves. It ties in with the whole nature, floral aspect behind druids, and it's far different from most other class' typical transmog sets.