Kriegar

Just a general question for SSC/TK+ healers out there - how do you generally like to gear/gem?

It really doesn't feel like healers running out of mana is ever the cause of a wipe, but rather healers not being able to put out enough heals per second. Our guild's healers tend to run very low +healing (1500-1700) and high regen generally.

Opinions from both sides of the fence would be appreciated.

 

DrunkenDruid

I gear my enchants, gems, and trinkets towards mana regen. We get enough +heal on our gear and in my opinion a tank dies a lot less due to a 200 point smaller heal as opposed to his healers running out of mana.

 

tiberion02

I also very much doubt that any healer in the raid is using a top rank heal (other then Flash of Light), so scaling a heal up is very easy to do, therefor increasing your HPS.

I personally gem up with 9heal/2mana5 and 4int/2mana5 (keep 2 for Meta gem bonus)

 

CasT

Mana regen would be better for healers who overheal alot, which in certain encounters is a needed.

Do not matter how much you play, you will never get the carrot.

 

Shan

It's hard to quantify this. Healing is as much about skill and playstyle as it is about gear.

I honestly doubt that the problem here is a matter of gear selection. Can you elaborate a little here?

Some questions:
- Who are they healing, and who is dying? To what?
- How were the healers assigned, and what classes were they?

 

CheshireCat

A lack of (sustained) HPS is generally not the cause of a wipe, either, really. Very rarely is there an extended time period in which the boss simply puts out more damage on the tank than the healer corp can heal.

By far the most common cause of tank death is spike damage. The counter to that isn't really sustained HPS; it's timing. A single 2k heal landing in a nasty hit-special-hit sequence can save the tank-- but a second too early or too late and he's dead.

(Whether this is actually now the most common cause of wipes in general is debatable. There are now a lot more ways to lose a fight than having your tank die. But let's assume we're gearing to prevent tank death.)

The only way to combat spike damage is proactive healing, specifically pre-healing with occasional cancels. Stacked HoTs and low-rank spam counteract spike damage, and big heals recover from it in time to survive the next one.

Your role within a fight and within your healing corps should determine your gearing priorities. In any case, though, balance is crucial. Sustainability and throughput scale each other-- the more of one you have, the more valuable the other becomes.

 

◊ castille

Zen healing:

In this, as in all things, balance must be found.

Different encounters require different things. You have to be able to adjust accordingly. When I was a healer, I was a bit of a spirit whore, because I like to predict damage, land big heals, and then sit outside of the FSR when I can and come back. That's not becoming as needed these days as chaincasting is. So, I'd gear a bit towards +heal, and weight mp5 and spirit close together for recovering mana I'm spending. But, you have to find a balance unless you're going to be keeping 2 or 3 sets of gear around.

23:40:55> [Illidan Stormrage's] [Shear] was blocked by [Castille].
^ Yes, this actually happened. Yes, Castille is a shaman.

 

• Erongg

The fact that chain potting gives me 140 mp5 (as an alchemist, or 100mp5 without), plus the use of a flask, food, oil and if all else fails a shadow priest, has made me devalue mp5 of late. As someone said in another thread, it's a bit of a joke that mp5 costs as much as it does in itemization, since mana pots provide *so much*. That 6 mp5 from your shoulder upgrade just pales in comparison to the amount of regen gained from chugging mana potions.

Then I take the fact that Chain Heal makes overly-efficient use of +heal, and I lean more towards +heal than ever before. Bigger Earth Shields and Healing Streams are a perk. Mp5 to me has become a stat that I like on farm encounters because it means I don't have to pot.

Finite Simple Group of Order Two

 

◊ Jawbone

I think it depends very heavily on the class you are using to heal, too.

A paladin is going to prefer a mix of everything but spirit, while a priest or druid may suck up spirit gear like rogues suck up +hit and AP. I watch a few other healers running very high +heal and very minimal regen stats (for me those are scrit and mp5) and being able to burst heal for fairly good amounts, but sitting on a potion cooldown and manaless while I’m just spamming Holy Lights without a care in the world. Highest HPS among them, no less.

Balance has always served me best, and swapping out a few pieces for specific fights that offer me more of one stat or another.

 

• constantius

Realistically, there's only so many options for gearing at the moment.

Now, you're a rogue (not sure which class in particular you were looking for), but each of the respondents so far has unconsciously biased their response toward their own class. It's what we do - remember, healers are Tiny Gods, bow down to us.

What I found, as a priest, is that it's largely a moot point. Take your best piece of gear for each slot, put it all on, and check your stats. Take a look at things like set bonuses, and try to get the most optimum setup you can. Then take a look at rings, trinkets, and weapons, along with neck/cloak. That's where the real difference lies.

If I wanted to, I could stack 'regen' simply by choosing neck, cloak, rings, trinkets, weapon, and wand, along with selective enchants (shoulder, chest, bracer, and weapon). I have done so.

If I decide I want to have more +heal instead of regen, I can easily switch my neck, my cloak, my bracer enchant, my second ring, and my second trinket, and hit 2k+ raid-buffed.

There are at most 3 or 4 options for each slot, and I have to say (rare for me) Blizzard has done a good job at providing innate +heal along with solid regen. Without even trying, in my full regen gear (245 Mp5 self-buffed; 343 Mp5 raid-buffed, II5SR) I also have 1850 +heal. O.o If I scale my set back and focus more on OO5SR regen, I end up with about the same +heal, and well over 600 Mp5 OO5SR. And it only requires 3 or 4 pieces changed.

Your question really only has significant relevance pre-SSC, before we all start to get items for each slot that are unquestionably the best for that slot, so there's no "thinking" involved in gear choices beyond gems and enchants (which you can easily pick which way to go -- 18 heal, or 9 heal, 2 Mp5, etc, etc).

Hope this helped.

 

Sunchips

There's nothing wrong with running low +heal.

The problem lies when healers stack high regen......but then continue to use downranked heals.

That's where the output will begin to suffer; the point of stacking regen isn't so that you can sit at 80% mana the whole fight. Likewise, you don't stack +healing so that you can land 8k bomb gheals that overheal for 60% (even though I tend to try and do this when I have lots of free mana).

If the healers play towards their gear selection, it shouldn't matter whether they choose raw +heal vs regen.

The debate however is a little bit more class dependent than just, "Which is better +heal or mp5."

 

galzohar

It's an argument that will never end.
1. If mana isn't an issue, +healing is infinitely better.
2. If people are dying because you can't heal them fast enough, +healing is quite more important. What good is mana when people are dead?
3. If you're going oom, more +heal you might still go oom. In this case it's a matter of figuring out how many HPs you can give out with a set amount of spi VS mp5 VS int VS +heal. But the +heal also helps in situation #1 and #2.

At the end it depends on the fight, your class and your stats... Not to mention what kind of raid/party buffs you have and the likes (shadow priest, pots, wisdom, time out of 5SR, totems...).

 

Lazare

Regen and healing are, to some extent, interchangable. Imagine that your goal was to heal 1.5k HP/s for 5 minutes (note: arbitrary example). It's probably obvious that:

• If you stack +healing you could hit that HP/s target with lower ranked heals. Since lower ranks are cheaper, you can keep this up for 5 minutes despite having little regen.
• If you stack regen you would need higher ranked heals to hit that HP/S target. The high cost of the heals is negated by the regen on your gear, which keeps you from going OOM.

The key point is that enough of either stat will let you accomplish your goals. Given that, the only really interesting question that remains is "what stat mix allows me to accomplish my goals with the smallest item budget?" Or to put it another way "what stat mix allows me to accomplish the most with a given item budget?"

Some number crunching leads me to think that in general you need to strike a balance, and that as a priest with my healing style the optimal balance point is 1 mp5 = 3 points of +healing. That's highly class/fight/style/raid dependent though, of course. Something as simple as assuming that you will/will not be grouped with a shadow priest changes the balance point by quite a lot.

(Oh, actually, there is a case when only +healing will helps - if you find yourself in a position where chain casting your highest HP/s heal just isn't enough. In that case, you have to stack +healing; no amount of additional regen helps. However, I think you'd have to work quite hard to run into this problem in an actual encounter.)

 

• Playered

After being somewhat of a regen-junky, I finally looked around at our other healers and noticed how much more healing they have compared to me, and it wasnt as little as I thought.

In almost every fight I dont need to use any mana potions (assuming the more intense fights having oil/flask) or occasionally 1.
My spec is focused on MP5 (Dreamstate), and to a degree my gear choice is too and now its reached the point where im having much more mana than I need, and as a result im going to start dropping it in favor of healing.

Not to mention if im given a SP the mana issue is even more invalid than it is now, and even without one I can always take an extra potion or so.

I would say to just find a balance between MP5/Heal/Spi and then adjust them depending on your playstyle, I dont spend that much time outside the FSR nor do I use HT that often, so Spi is only worthwhile for me in terms of innervate potential and I try to keep it around 350-400 unbuffed. MP5 is sitting at 200~ unbuffed and thats really more than I need, as a result I know that aslong as my Spi doesn't go below 350, and my MP5 isnt below 180, then everything else can go on +healing.

 

BByte

One good thing to remember is that apart from gems the choice isn’t usually between stats but between items. Because the stats are somewhat interchangeable, choosing an item that provides as many of the needed stats as possible is often the best way to go.

For priests and druids it usually makes sense to use items that have all 5 of the basic healing gear stats: stamina, intellect, spirit, healing and mp5. Many items that lack either spirit or mp5 are usually overall worse than those that have both (assuming equal iLvl). And of course everyone should be picking up pieces that have no stamina, they provide the best healing output in those fights you really don’t have to worry about your HP.

I ignored spell haste here, it’s relatively new and hard to compare, but it should also be massively useful to some healing classes / specs.

For gems, a Royal Nightseye (9 healing, 2 mp5) seems too good to not put in any blue / red socket basically. For getting the socket bonus from an item with a yellow socket a Dazzling Talasite (4 intellect, 2mp5) or a Luminous Noble Topaz (9 healing, 4 intellect) can be a good choices, especially if you have some talents that benefit from extra intellect.

 

galzohar

The thing is the itemization cost of stats will *never* be the same as the value of the stats to you. A proof to that would be that while different scenarios change which stats are good for you, the itemization values will remain the same. Therefore while higher level items may generally be better, they may also be spending stat budget in a way that just isn't good and those items aren't worth it. Of course you should always compare item to item but base the comparison on the value you have for the stats.

 

ariesbeloved

I think with any healing class (maybe any class at all) how you gear (+healing vs. mana regen) depends on your play style. As a priest, I currently stack +healing with regen coming in as an afterthought (1847 +healing with 142 mana per 5 in combat) but this plays well with the fact that I have no problem downing mana potions like there is no tomorrow. I have also learned that timing your mana potion usage is very important, knowing about how much your mana potion will give you and using it as soon as possible to keep your potion cool down moving. I also went to alchemy to get the alchemist's stone for the 40% bump in my potions, making them do more for me.

Like other people said there is more to take into consideration than just mana regen vs. healing.

 

Nezralix

Considering that spell mana costs really haven't gone up much since pre-TBC, while stat allocation on gear has gone up by something like 75-100% on average, mana regen *should* be relatively even more valuable than it was pre-TBC. However, I think that's counteracted somewhat by more taxing healing situations.

 

Hitoku

Gearing varies greatly depending on play style and class, which have already been covered by a few people.

As a druid, I tend to lean towards MP5 and +healing and disregard spirit when I gem and enchant my gear. I look at intellect, but in most cases it will come with +healing and MP5. As a druid, my gear choices are mainly regen. This is mainly because I find myself in the MT healer role constantly. I find that the regen is better suited to an MT healer because there really are no healing breaks. So gem wise, I would go with Royal Nightseye and the Int/Healing gems. I choose enchants based on what I lack the most out of intellect, MP5 and +healing.

 

Ragnor

With ~7 healers required for many encounters healing power isn't really an issue, anyone with all the gear upgrades from kara/gruul's lair/magtheridon is going to have over 1600 +heal. Longevity and mana/5 become quite important especially if you don't run a ton of shadow priests.

Go look at the armory for the main healers for top guilds, you'll see Royal Nightseye for days and for good reason.

The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements. Energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.

www.retpaladin.com

 

Sunchips

http://armory.wow-europe.com/#charac...Kazzak&n=Kaita

Priest from last resort....

Just to point out, there are healers out there that still stack straight +healing.

Myself, I'm right under 2k +healing and 140 mp5 and I'm rarely "chugging" super mana potions. As far as I'm concerned, the only time you need more regen is when you're using mana pots properly and still running out of mana.

 

Phoe

I favour regen over +healing personally since i'm chain casting HoTs all the time in fights. Currently I have a fairly modest +1800ish healing raid buffed, but over 200mp5 with BoW. In most raid situations, this really benefits me in ToL form since the base cost of my HoTs is so low. The effects can be seen in the healing meters; i can keep up with the pallies no problem and I'm often top of effective healing - with the potential to last a fairly long time. The only fights i find myself needing more than an innervate on are Teron and Kael - Teron since it's so intensive, and Kael since it is a fairly long fight with burst healing needed at times.

So priority for me is mp5, with +healing and intellect somewhat less important. I hold onto http://www.thottbot.com/i28370 for the boost to innervate and the frequent proc rate - aside from that I get enough spirit from the tier items (resto druid tier 4/5/6 has plenty of spirit).

But with the gear that drops from the end instances having an abundance of all these stats anyway, you're basically tweaking your gear through gems and enchants - or carrying 2 or 3 sets of gear, as mentioned earlier in the thread.

Don't know which class you were enquiring about ofc. I'm sure a Paladin or a Shaman would tell you a completely different story about what's most important ^^

 

Kriegar

This is my rationale as well, as I used to play a priest. If you're willing to down the mana pots and you don't go oom - there is absolutely no reason not to gem for more +healing.

This question was mainly wondering about socketing, as many healers in my guild tend to match socket bonuses with mediocre gems like 4int/2mp5 just to make a 4 sta bonus, which boggles me. This mainly was directed towards priests and paladins. In our guild, they tend to have around +1600 healing, which seems ridiculously low to me when my shadow priest friend has +2000 when he respecs to PMC to heal.

We never wipe due to healers running oom, only to healers not being able to heal for enough to cover random spike damage.

 

Thruster

While I'm not one to say I know everything about itemization, I don't think that increasing your +healing by any realistic amount will add sufficient HPS to cover spike damage more effectively without changing your healing strategy. It seems to me that a large majority of tank deaths can be prevented with proper timing on heals as opposed to a mistimed heal landing for a couple hundred more HP. Granted, a well timed heal that heals for more HP doesn't hurt I haven't found that it will end up changing the overall outcome of the fight.

 

CheshireCat

Right, like I posted at the beginning of the thread, the threat to tanks is not sustained incoming damage that the healers can't match because their heals don't hit hard enough. It's spike damage-- enough incoming damage to kill them in, say, a 2-3 second window unless they get a heal.

But that heal doesn't have to hit for 5k to save them. Usually, 2k will do it-- it just has to be timed right.

So the question is, what gearing priorities best equip you to prevent those types of deaths?

Dedicating some healers to proactive low rank spam is the primary method of spike damage prevention. Sustaining it and making it do enough HPS to be effective overall are the gearing challenges. If you are happy with the level of stream healing you can consistently put out, then +healing is indeed the best way to go.

My personal choice to go with 9 heal/ 2 MP5 gems primarily has less to do with prioritizing regen over +heal and more to do with taking advantage of a rounding oddity-- they really should be 1.5 MP5, but you get 2. It's an itemization budget bargain.