[Druid, 3.2.2] Free Nature spells! Sign me up!

As an anonymous poster pointed out, the 3.2.2 patch notes have hit the airwaves, and in it is this fairly interesting little mechanic:

• Predatory Strikes: This talent now also causes the druid's finishing moves to provide a 7/13/20% chance per combo point to make the next Nature spell with a cast time below 10 seconds instant cast.

As anon asks, should this be considered in the kitty rotation to make it even more challenging and awesome?

Well, quickly: the short answer is no. At least not in a standard way. Wrath does about 620 damage max per cast. Moonfire does 1276 possible, but it's arcane anyway so wouldn't be instant. Starfire also does 1200 damage or so, but is also arcane. Hurricane might be okay, but it being 'instant' doesn't really help things.

So an instant-cast wrath doing about 620 damage? Not worth losing 2 seconds of melee attacks and 2 GCDs (one to switch to caster and cast the spell, one to swap back). Especially when melee attacks are about .8 seconds long, they do at least 600 damage each, and can crit, proc OoC, etc.

So what about nurturing instincts and healing spells? Healing touch heals around 4k, and with Nurturing instincts you'll get about 700-800 spellpower, making that a decent-sized heal at NS/HT speeds. Could that be okay?

Well...maybe. It really depends on how long 'the next' means. If it's similar to clearcasting, where you have a 10-15 second window of opportunity, that could be a fairly decent deal situationally where you absolutely need to save someone. But the key here is situational; healing 5k on one random target every 10-12 seconds or so is about 500 health per second healing assuming no overheal, and it's not something that healers can reasonably rely on. It's also a decent chunk of DPS hit; again, you're losing at least 2 seconds of melee time, 2 GCDs, and potentially energy depending on your furor levels. You're also losing talents going into nurturing instincts; if you lose improved leader of the pack, you've traded having all melee and hunters heal themselves every 6 seconds for about 800 health for one 5k heal every 12 seconds on one target. That doesn't sound like a very good trade to me. I can see it being used in random points to save the day - things like a heroic that's gone pear-shape, or one random raid where for some reason all the healers aren't available, or even on something like Vezax to potentially help the tanks out a tad.

I think it's a good addition to PvP - probably mandatory to allow things like instant cyclones and heals - but I also think that it's not particularly useful to consider regularly. But that doesn't mean you should forget it - keep it in your box of tools and remember it now and then.