Mishael

I honestly don't think it is ever the ideal HPS trinket. It's value comes in it's on use.

 

Deadbeatdad

While I respect what people try to do with HEP and equivalents, I believe its really a mindset that healers have to get away from. There is no magic healing gear set. You aren't going to find the make 20 items you always wear. If you are really good at what you do, you will have as many gear swaps as a tank, maybe more. We aren't dps, who get to theorycraft max dps sets. Our goal for a fight isn't to make HPS, or maximize HEP. If your goal is to see big numbers and be on the top of some chart, roll a rogue or a warlock.

I make gear swaps for most every fight in sunwell. Swapping MP5 vs haste based on length of fights, expected downtime, whether I have a shadow priest, tank group, etc. It ends up being way too many factors for me to ever evaluate with a spreadsheet. But for sunwell, my basic addage is if I'm not running out of mana, add more haste.

If I'm not running out of mana, Eye of Gruul = 44 HEP, and its pretty horrible. Even if it procs all the time, if its mana i finish the fight with, it doesn't count for anything. It's one of the reason's Battlemaster's alot, esp on twins. It is 40 haste I always have, that I can depend on. It will be there when I'm throwing that chain heal that just has to land. Not procing 2 seconds before i get shadowfuryed. When we started learning twins i had 120ish haste. Our farm kill this week I used 360ish. Healing on that fight continues to get easier and easier as our guild (esp our shamans) add haste.

HEP, HPS, and many other math calculations will typically undervalue haste because it neglects the timeliness of healing factor. A 5k heal .001 seconds late equals 0. A 4.5k heal works out a lot better. Further, a 5k heal that ends up with 100% overheal can leave you with 2.5s until your next one lands. Comapre that with the 4.5k one, that even when its 100% overheal is ready to land again in 2.1s. A lot can happen in .4 seconds. Damage is out of your control for that period of time, and haste just reduces the time you are out of control. You won't find that on a spreadsheet, but less people will die, and thats the goal.

As long as you can sustain your mana pool, i have found haste becomes THE most important stat in Sunwell. Faster casts = more timely heals, and timely heals just seem to be better then size of heals. More chain heals cast per fight means more chain heal magic jumping as well, meaning more decisions taken over by one of the most power spells in the game.

Sorry for the long post, but it just seems like there has been a lot of gear discussion comparing items that have different roles. I would recommend treating your Shroud of the Highborne and your Shroud of the Final Stand like a feral druid treats his tanking and dps cloaks. Figure out your role and group, and how it fits into a particular fight, and make a selection. Evaluating them in other ways just doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

Mandrachalos

I completely agree, Deadbeat (see my above posts).

As a healer item values, like the HEPs we are trying to use here, can only be a general guideline for chosing gear.
You will always have to adjust for the fight you are currently on, the group you are in, etc.
And that will often put +haste items in high value for you, as Deadbeat just described.
As long as speed counts for something on the fight and you know you won't run oom, haste is the way to go - for several reasons which we have discussed.

I also like the Battlemaster's haste trinket for some fights therefore.

 

Skyhoof

I did some testing to try to determine the actual proc rate of [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond]. While Wowhead says it's 5%, I have never observed a proc rate that high in a raid.

I cast Healing Wave Rank 2 for 7.5 hours. I cast it 17,428 times and the meta gem procced 622 times, giving us a proc rate of 3.57%.

Here's the WWS: Skyhoof - WWS

I used AutoHotKey to spam the spell for so long.

 

Daidalos

That def fits in better with observed values.

I don't think anyone disagrees with that and no one is arguing to only look at HEP values and ignore the situation. The purpose of this thread to to find out how much HPS a item will give or how much mana will be returned over a fight with a given setup etc. As for the variables you listed they aren't too complicated to be taken into account you can TC values for that as well.

Elemental Shaman calculations: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...IWuwb3e2IkuZKw

Restoration Shaman calculations:http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?k...IWv3sPmcYnEJUg

 

Deadbeatdad

This is where i somewhat disagree. I thought this was a place to help people better play their resto shaman. In fact I think I remember a sticky that says something like.

It may seem a bit nitpicky, but there were so many pages of gear discussion, that all centered around what I believe to be the core mistake a healer can make. Maximizing HPS.

Maxing HPS isn't going to help you be a better healer. Maxing mana return isn't going to make you be a better healer. Even comparing those two values and coming up with a Max HPS per X length of fight isn't going to make you a better healer. I'm sure i can TC a whole bunch of values, and make myself a theoretical healing beast. But when I don't get a heal to the right place at the right time, that entire gear set is a waste. And there is only 1 stat running that actually helps fix that timing issue.

I will never wear my haste gear because it increases my hps (even if in some cases it does). I wear my haste set because it decreases required reaction time and keeps more people alive, and helps my guild kill more bosses.

Look at most any guilds WWS for end game kills. 30-50% of healing is overhealing. You don't need MAX hps, sometimes you only need half of that...but you need it to get to the right places, at the right times.

 

Habanero

I'm running at roughly the same +healing as you but over 16% spell haste. I only use about 140mp5 from gear and it's amazing efficiency using Chain Heal 2 for 90% of everything. Gonna try to up my haste and +healing even more and leaving mp5 by the wayside there's much more room to do that.

 

jaredh

So this meta gem is over-valued at 45 HEP it appears and should be more around 32HEP (17.5 mp5 and 12 int). When comparing to [Bracing Earthstorm Diamond] with 26 HEP (not counting the 2% threat reduction) and the better gem requirement, I'm beginning to think the BED is better. I think I rank 2% threat reduction at higher than 8 HEP.

It appears you updated the Wiki to reflect this, but didn't highlight it (you have Bracing at 114 HEP with the gems difference while Insightful you have at 111 and you had to assume certain socket bonuses to get that high). Is this true, or is that math still due an update since your test?

 

Mandrachalos

I will still prefer the IED. Because the IED scales great with +haste. Since it doesn't have a hidden CD it just gets better and better the more haste you got.
Imo even considering the lower actual proc rate, as Skyhoof tested, the IED still blows the BED away easily - especially the closer you get (or already are) to/in Sunwell.
I know the BED also gains by haste but I am pretty sure the IED does more - though I don't have any numbers to proof that tbh.

 

Pitbuller

IED and BED scale exactly same way. More casts more benefit. Gutfealing tell allways what you wanna hear that is the reason to use numbers and only numbers. I think that World is flat - though I don't have any numbers to proof that tbh.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Skyhoof

You have misread the Wiki.

The value of 114 HEP is for Bracing + Teardrop Crimson Spinels x 4
The value of 111 HEP is for Insightful + Quick Lionseyes x2 + Royal Shadowsong Amethysts x2

However, I can see how the information could be confusing. I added the HEP values for IED to the table of stat weights.

I didn't update the Wiki right away with the results of the test because I wanted to submit them for scrutiny in this forum. However, it looks like no one disagrees that the actual proc rate on this gem is around 3.5% so I will update that section of the wiki.

EDIT: Also wanted to say that given the large amount of haste that we are getting on our gear, I am using IED for the extra mana regen. And as others have said, IED scales nicely with haste.

 

Mishael

I will continue to use IED as well. When I sat down and looked at all best in slot gear we end up with, suprise suprise, all red sockets except for 2 blues and 2 yellows. Use two royal shadowsong ametheysts and 2 quick lionesyes, get all your socket bonuses, and keep the meta.

While I understand that Mp5 is not the be all end all stat, there still is a minimum amount needed, particularly if you do not always have an spriest, and losing the IED is alot of Mp5 to makeup elsewhere.

 

shrink

I have a question regarding crafted gear to start heroics / kara and za.

I entered the HEP values from the wiki post in lootrank and to my surprise found that the tailoring epics like whitemend and primal mooncloth aren't looking as bad as some people say.
Of course i know that the spirit on this items is worthless for shamans, but in return these got lots of +heal and mp5.

So would say that it's ok to get the whitemend set and primal mooncloth set for a fresh lvl 70 shaman looking to start the badge farming?

 

Skyhoof

The whitemend and primal mooncloth items are excellent for resto shamans just hitting 70. If you have the cash for the mats, these items would definitely give you a head start on gearing up your shaman. Otherwise, try to have some better geared players take you to Magister's Terrace (even on normal mode).

 

Mandrachalos

/yawn
...and friendliness grows on trees it seems.
You didn't present any numbers to prove anything as well. You are just claiming to be right, congrats.
I only said I got the feeling that it scales better. I don't have a problem with people proving me wrong (which you didn't) - but in a sensible way pls.
Personally I value the IED with more than 17,5 MP5. Because this is based on a constant casting of 3 sec. casts. But the IED's mana is only important on spam fights anyway. And then I cast nearly every 2.5 secs - unhasted - which makes the IED worth 21 MP5 then.
So the IED is far better to begin with for situations where it counts imo.

Going with these numbers, I would be right even mathematically (X=extra haste speed):
IED: 21*1,3*1,X=27,3*1,X
BED: 26*1.X
So the IED would scale 5% better with haste than the BED. Ofc this is only based on my personal value for the IED's proc with 21 MP5 (on crucial situations, mind you).
Here are your numbers, happy? :P

Even if it shouldn't scale better mathematically, the IED is still the better gem for stacking haste imo. Because the more haste, the more mana needed.

 

Bungmeister

Well.....if you really want numbers:

400 haste will let you chain cast 180 CH's in 6 minutes with 0 latency and perfect spamming. Using a 3.5% proc rate, you get 6.3 or 6 procs on average.

With 0 haste, you get 144 CH casts in the same time. Using the same 3.5%, you get 5.04 or 5 procs on average.

So to say that it "works great with haste" is a little overdoing it as 400 haste will on average buy you 1 extra proc. Now is it a useful gem? Well, 6 procs over 6 minutes is 1800 mana? If you're short on 1800 mana, then it's invaluable.

Now going with the 26 healing meta and being overly simplistic, I would assume that you have 4 slots used for orange and purple gems which would be replaced by spinels. So that results in 26+4*11=70 healing you're losing out on. Continuing with the simplistic model, the amount of healing that equates to is approximately 70*1.05(purification)*1.1(t6 bonus)=80healing. Assuming 3 jumps, that's 140 healing. So with 180 casts, that's a possible 14.4k to 25.2k of heals that you can gain by going with BED. (obviously those numbers will go down with downranking as well as possible +healing socket bonus's you're getting)

At the end of the day, it goes back to the individual. It *SEEMS* like the average shaman on these boards boasts of having no mana issues, and if that's really the case, BED is the way to go. If you have mana issues, IED would probably be better for you.

Personally, I use BED. According to Skyhoof's experiment, one can imply that you get an average of 6 procs over 6 minutes making IED 25 mp5. I can easily get more than 25 mp5 by changing my relic,trinkets,cloak,rings, heal ranks etc.

 

Kyuki

Totally agree here, good posts deadbeatdad.

Actually I think I said something along these lines myself early in this thread when comparing metas etc.

Anyway, it's worth to consider these words morely so than to obey any type of HEP value out there.

 

Deadbeatdad

Thats a rough assumption. He could use yellow gems, and 10 haste, instead of really weak orange gems. Plus with socket bonuses, there is little issue working 2 purple gems without gimping yourself the full 11 healing.

 

Bungmeister

It's extremely rough. Like I noted, I'm fairly certain 90% of people use Royal Shadowsong for blue slots so its 11 per, and yellows are problematic due to haste which is hard to calculate. For instance, then I can't use 400 haste for my calcuations, it would be 380. Also, the T6 chest/helm have +healing bonuses totaling 16 more.

So, yes I was lazy in my modeling, but you all get the idea.

 

Shinwei

I completely agree with deadbeatdad, and I have been waiting a long time for someone to say something like this.

It seemed for 90% of this thread the way things were being handled were as follows:

NewGuy: "what's better, Item A or Item B?"
Veteran: "Well from my calculations Item B has more HEP than Item A so there you go."

This is just about the most useless answer you can possibly give someone. Healing is not about maximizing HEP and theorycrafting based on HEP values is largely a waste of time.

The only thing you can really theorycraft freely about is mana regeneration, and a few charts displaying "How long will it take you to burn through 10,000 mana?" one displaying constant CH5 spam at different MP5 values, another with constant CH4 spam at different MP5 values, and a few more with different haste values would be much, much more useful to any Resto Shaman than HEP values. These charts would actually be able to help Resto Shamans to select what gear to wear to which fight rather than plug in some HEP values into lootrank and go.

Also, despite the post being named "How to Heal like a Pro" it still has remarkably tiny amount of actual healing advice. To correct that I've put some of the strats that I employ while healing into writing. Here it is for your review:


Tank Healing

While assigning a Resto Shaman to tank-healing duty is generally a waste of potential (since we're such good raid healers), there are times when this is useful. The most important thing when healing the tank is to get a feel for what kind of damage said tank is taking. The idea is to match the DPS taken by the tank with a matching amount of HPS to counter it. E.g. if a tank is getting hit for 1000 points of damage every second, he should be healed for 1000 points of health per second, or 2500 points of health every 2.5 seconds (the standard cast time of our heals). Note that HPS given to the tank is often combined HPS since there is usually more than one healer healing the tank.

There are two methods a Shaman can use to heal the tank - one involves spamming Healing Wave and the other involves spamming Chain Heal. Both of them simply involve choosing the rank of either Healing Wave or Chain Heal that provides the amount of HPS closest to the amount of DPS on the tank that you want to counter, and spam it.

Healing Wave spam should be used in the following situations:

• You are just starting to raid and you don't have a lot of gear, meaning your Chain Heal is still too weak and insufficient for the job.
• You are the only healer assigned to that particular tank and your Chain Heal is not enough to counter his damage intake.
• The tank is taking an extraordinary amount of burst damage and you need your biggest heal to keep him alive.

In all other situations it is usually better to spam Chain Heal. As you gear up with a lot of +heal, and especially your T6 set bonuses, the mana efficiency of Chain Heal quickly outperforms that of Healing Wave - even with Healing Way, even if Chain Heal does not jump to any additional targets. The advantages of Chain Heal spam are further increased if there are people standing near the tank who occasionally take damage as well, such as off-tanks eating saber lashes, or melee when fighting a "skinny" boss.

Sometimes there were be a lot of healers assigned to a tank because the raid isn't really taking any damage. In these situations the amount of healing is being given to the tank is much greater than the amount of damage he is taking. In these situations I like to spam Chain Heal rank 1 to clean up any stray damage to that tank and anyone who happens to be standing near him - since CH1 spam is easily sustainable with any amount of mana regen.

Raid Healing

This is what Resto Shamans are going to be assigned to for most of the encounters in the game. Raid-wide damage is very different from tank damage, and it is very important to recognize when the damage is going to happen, who is going to get hurt, and how much damage the various members in your raid are going to take. There are going to boss fights with periods of intense raid damage and periods of no raid damage at all. There are going to be times when the damage is spread out amongst a number of raid members and times when only one raid member is taking the brunt of it. There are fights in which the raid is clumped up for optimal chain-healing and fights in which the raid is so spread out you can't even jump Chain Heal at all. With all of these variables it can sometimes be difficult to make decisions on who to heal and what spell to use. To make this decision-making process easier, I have attempted to come up with a few simple principles you should follow when raid healing.

Principles of Raid Healing

• Keeping people alive is our top priority. Topping people off is our second.
• Four people at 1 health is better than three people at full health with 1 dead. Heal that guy who's about to die before throwing your fatty chain heal to top off those three guys who just ran out of the fire. Use Lesser Healing Wave if you must.
• Worry about keeping people alive before worrying about your mana efficiency.
• Don't refuse to cast Lesser Healing Wave because its' mana efficiency is horrible. If it's going to save someone, cast it. Don't cancel your Chain Heal 5 just because that guy who's missing 4k health just got flashed for 2k by a pally when there's still two guys standing right next to him who still need a heal.
• Top people off.
• If they're missing health, they need a heal. Heal them as early as you get a free moment after you save anyone who's really about to die. People at full health are much better prepared to survive when that damage does come, so make sure they're prepared - that's your job.
• Stay calm, don't get stressed out.
• Being assigned to raid-duty means that you are responsible for the life of every single person in the raid. There are times, though, that you will have no choice but to let someone die. Don't panic when this happens. Remember that no matter what buttons you press, you can only heal a maximum of three people at a time.
• Always, always, always know how the raid is positioned. Know who you can cast Chain Heal on, and have it bounce, and know who you can't do that on. Play to your strengths. If everyone is missing a similar amount of health, and you know there isn't a huge fireball coming to finish anyone off, Chain Heal the people who are clumped up before you clean up the damage on the people who are spread out.
• If you really believe that he's about to die, save him - then yell at your tank-healers later. Only do this if you really really think he's going to die though, because if those tank healers actually have it under control, then you just wasted some mana or perhaps even sacrificed some raid members' lives for nothing. Do not hesitate to use Nature's Swiftness to perform this task, and if it is on cooldown use Lesser Healing Wave.

If anyone has different styles of healing or principles of healing I'd love to hear them.

Also, from my description of raid healing vs. tank healing it follows that gearing strategy for the two roles is also different. Tanks are usually taking a somewhat predictable amount of damage, so in order to increase your effectiveness in healing tanks, adding more +healing to your gear trumps everything. However, while raid healing, you will need a better balance of gear because: A) you are being more wasteful with you mana, so you need more MP5, and B) you need to heal a lot of people instead of just one, and the only way to increase the amount of people you heal in a certain amount of time is with spell haste.