Resto Guide (updated for Cataclysm release) - Page 3

Dav1l · 10/22/10, 9:01 PM

Originally Posted by RobotChicken

I'm actually testing this right now with the Forethought Talisman and I can confirm your findings. Therefore, my only conclusion is that we should still pass on the Scale to other healers first, but shouldn't look at it as junk anymore.

It was never junk before. Not only it had the highest spellpower of all the trinkets in the environment where mana wasn't a problem at all, but it also made some sort of effective healing (unlike Purified Lunar Dust or Solace). But that's not really the point.

It is now BiS without any doubt, and I don't understand why would you pass a BiS item to any other class. It's 21 Intellect raw increase from Dust and an average of 2-3% effective healing. If you had any problems whatsoever using it before the patch (you had to make sure that Swiftmend wasn't overhealing to gain hps over a Rejuv cast), you don't any more. If you can cover melees with Efflorescence for a hps increase, you should also use a trinket. If you can successfully land a Regrowth without overhealing on someone withing the range of trinket to proc (while the 'use' is still up after Swiftmend) on 10+ people, it's even better.

Originally Posted by Gasillio

I have a question about Tree of Life form. In a situation with a spike of raid damage (example: transition phase of Lich King heroic), is it worth it to use the buffed Lifebloom by attempting to blanket the raid or just use the instant-Regrowth to heal all who get low? I was using Wild Growth on cooldown, too, because it is buffed as well. But it still has a cooldown, and I'm wondering what to do for the rest of the time.

It's probably better to blanket hot during transitions, put up Efflorescence on melee, and let shamans/priests/paladins to patch up people dipping low. Damage is quite steady, if the raid is positioned properly, so nobody should be in danger of death at any time.

As for our raid, me and the other druid have a cooldown rotation on phase 2. We are using tranquility + tree + tranquility + tree on every Valk spawn (we didn't get 4th Valk spawn last time, but that was the plan). Infest and Soul Ripper, while other healers are dragged, are the most dangerous mechanics of the encounter. There's no other way for people to die. That's where additional healing is handy, not the trivial transition, healing on which can be solved by proper positioning of the raid in general.

EDIT: you want to use the Tree and not Tranquility on 2nd and 4th Valk spawns because you can't afford standing still and channelling when there's a danger of Defile landing on you.

P_H · 10/23/10, 4:40 AM

Originally Posted by Zhee, EU

Thank you Hamlet, for a long awaited OP of the Tree healing.

However, reading through it I stumbled over this:

I wonder why you deem the added 240 Haste (every one minute) largely useless, seeing as Haste is a top 3 priority?

The cooldown is ridicullously short, so with a proper spamming and a little planning you'll be at max Haste nearly all the time. Taking the fact that the Engineering gadget adds with an ordinary Enchant, I'd say its a great bonus.

It also gives a bit more flexibility when you look to Reforge, you dont have to be at the magic 1016, since you will hit it every 1 minute.

(Ok you shouldn't take Engineering just for the sake of this one bonus, but saying it is largely useless is a shame).

Or did I miss something completely?
<3

The issue with the engineering Haste cooldown enchant is precisely that it does not have a 100% uptime. If you are below 1016 haste without the enchant popped, then you will be casting weaker Rejuvs 2/3s of the time. Considering it's not difficult at all to reach 1016 haste with ilvl277 gear, and is still practical with a mix of 277s and 264s, there's no real reason to rely on a cooldown to attain that extra tick for only 20 seconds out of every minute.

It's true that Engineering isn't all about the Haste cooldown enchant, but Hamlet's review of the profession bonuses examined them with raw throughput in mind. From that perspective, Engineering is a weaker enchant, unfortunately.

Rijndael · 10/23/10, 4:55 AM

I don't understand why people don't like haste cooldowns in 4.0. Whenever heroism goes off, my throughput goes up, and it's not just because there are extra ticks to rejuv which lets you cover more people, it's also because each rejuv's HPS goes up. Same with Nature's Grace, and same with any other haste proc.

slourette · 10/23/10, 2:18 PM

Originally Posted by Rijndael

I don't understand why people don't like haste cooldowns in 4.0. Whenever heroism goes off, my throughput goes up, and it's not just because there are extra ticks to rejuv which lets you cover more people, it's also because each rejuv's HPS goes up. Same with Nature's Grace, and same with any other haste proc.

Why should we care about rejuv's HPS? The only time I care about rejuv's HPS is when I run out of targets to rejuv and I have to use a different spell. That has happens for me on exactly two fights: dreamwalker and saurfang. For everything else, rejuv HPS is meanless. To be honest, I would prefer a rejuv with lower HPS, because then it would have a longer duration, allowing me to cover more people. Stacking haste past the breakpoint actually lowers the number of people you can cover with rejuv, since the rejuvs last for a smaller amount of time. It also means there is a higher chance we can benefit from mastery.

For me, haste past the breakpoint only has value because we use other spells besides rejuv, which all benefit from a reduced cast time.

EDIT: On the topic of Nature's Grace: Since 9% haste would be enough to cap our GCD (less if you are stacking haste past the breakpoint!), at the cost of 1 GCD = 1.09 seconds of cast time (insect swarm/moonfire) we would gain 14 * 0.09 = 1.26 seconds of cast time, which results in a maxium gain of 1 GCD every 6.4 minutes, assuming no rejuv usage. Since rejuv is already GCD capped and our most used spell, this will almost always result in a HPCT loss.

P_H · 10/23/10, 4:12 PM

Originally Posted by Rijndael

I don't understand why people don't like haste cooldowns in 4.0. Whenever heroism goes off, my throughput goes up, and it's not just because there are extra ticks to rejuv which lets you cover more people, it's also because each rejuv's HPS goes up. Same with Nature's Grace, and same with any other haste proc.

Extra ticks in your Rejuv from Haste does not allow you to cover more people. Haste packs in the ticks more closely together, so our Rejuv's duration will always be in the ballpark of 12s. It will, however, add to its HPS and its healing per cast.

If you're given a tank healing role, then I could see use for the Engineering cooldown. Having a significant Haste boost every minute would be great for our abysmally long Healing Touch. However, even with the cooldown, you should still try to reach the 1016 Haste break point from gear and gems alone regardless, I think.

oopsminded · 10/25/10, 6:32 AM

Originally Posted by P_H

Extra ticks in your Rejuv from Haste does not allow you to cover more people. Haste packs in the ticks more closely together, so our Rejuv's duration will always be in the ballpark of 12s. It will, however, add to its HPS and its healing per cast.

Between 1014 and 1016 haste, while the HPS of one Rejuve goes up by a tiny tiny value, you can actually cover one more target. Probably true for the next haste breakpoint as well, but increasingly difficult as the difference in Rejuve duration around those breakpoints starts to go bellow that of the GCD.

All of the above courtesy of this graph:

Greentouch · 11/05/10, 3:34 PM

Many of you seem to be missing the main reason the RJ breakpoint is so important. Whether it's from mana constraints at 85, or gcd constraints on live, you can only cast so many RJ's per fight. Going from 1014 to 1016 haste won't enable you to CAST anymore RJ's. However it does increase every single one of the RJ's you cast total healing, and more importantly (at 85) hpm by 20% due to an extra tic.

20% healing and 20% more HPM is the entire issue. You might have 1 more person covered, due to the duration increase, but that doesn't mean you are casting any more RJ's, so its not that which is adding much of the healing.

Tassdrummer · 11/12/10, 4:58 PM

Wanted to ask what your thoughts are for the buff that this trinket Darkmoon Card: Greatness - Item - World of Warcraft got as soon as 4.0.1 hit. If we assume 45sec ICD with 15sec duration, this will give an uptime of 33% if I'm not mistaken. Wouldn't that bring the passive int of this trinket around 240ish and thus make it much more powerful than it was? Sorry for the napkin math.

• Hamlet · 11/13/10, 4:44 PM

90 + 300*15/45 would be a mean value of 190 Int. That makes it weaker than some other trinkets we have, but still usable if you don't have anything else with high Int.

Fallenangel · 11/14/10, 7:06 AM

The value of Int takes a big hit when it's a proc and not a static buff, since you miss out on the initial mana pool increase. I therefore see healers favoring trinkets with passive Int and throughput / Spi procs, rather than the other way around, as long as regen is still a concern. Such are the oddities of tying together SP and mana.

Mesitara · 11/22/10, 5:54 AM

You might add restoration spells influenced by Omen of Clarity: Healing Touch, Swiftmend(bug? can't test now), Regrowth. Would like to see Rejuvenation and Tranquility added into the list by blizz.

• Hamlet · 12/03/10, 7:01 PM

Updated. Pretty much near-final. People can make any comments in the next day or two, but then I'm going to be looking over this one and the Moonkin one one more time, and then posting them in their final locations along with the respective spreadsheets while I go on a little break from this stuff for leveling.

Couple thoughts:
--Playing with the sheet and going over stat values more (and thinking about the discussion over in the other thread), I probably have been valuing haste and Spirit too strongly. This doesn't really mean that I expect crit and mastery to be good, just the effects of all of them are kind of unimpressive. Haste is weak because we still use Rejuv a decent amount, and Spirit is weak because it's . . . just weak. I tried adding on Spirit and holding longevity constant by increasing the usage of Rejuv, and it didn't add much HPS. So I'm not totally sure what to think of secondary stats at the moment.
--Some trinkets are crazy good. I don't know what they're thinking with [Shard of Woe].

oopsminded · 12/03/10, 7:27 PM

Thank you for the guide.

I have one question which I asked in the FAQ sticky but no response so maybe you could do it here: could you please tell me if Lifebloom ticks on full health targets proc OoC under Malfurion's Gift and if there is an internal cooldown (similar to what Nature's Ward has) or ppm mechanic regarding the procs - I noticed that even with Lifebloom ticking on 5+ people while in Tree form there sometimes are "long" periods of time with no proc.

Greentouch · 12/03/10, 8:38 PM

Thanks for the guide Hamlet! Very well done, and put together.

I do strongly feel its missing more information for maximizing Mastery usage, as I described on [RESTO] Cataclysm pre-raid itemisation, as well as the continuing discussion.

What exact stat weight in comparison to other stats you decide to attach to our Mastery is a personal decision based off of what percentage of the time you feel you are gaining the benefit.

But even the base 10% is free healing and should change our healing style at least somewhat.

Mainly you do this, by prioritizing raid heals on those that have a Wild growth, or other hot first. I don't see a downside. A WG hot by itself is such a small percentage of a persons hp on the one hand, besides that it already smart targets the lowest hp people on the other hand, that targeting them for your other raid heals has no downside.
1. Overhealing is unlikely, or at least not more likely than anyone else.
2. They are the lowest hp people who need it most anyway.
3. This works for any raid heals, it will mostly be Rejuv of course, but maybe Regrowth or HT if you have a spare clearcast, or they need instant spot heals.
4. Our raid heals are expensive, whether its Rejuv, Regrowth, or Healing Touch, using them on a target that will give them a 10-20%+ boost is just a natural.
5. Obviously this is a style recomendation to increase hpm and throughput, not a law. The first 2 heals after Wild Growth can probably always go over the WG hot, subsequent ones may or may not, as other healers may have topped them off and other raid members may have taken more damage. It's just something to keep in mind.

If you do, not only do you boost hpm and throughput, but you also boost the relative stat weight of our Mastery, even when in a 25 man raid healing scenario.

Originally Posted by Hamlet

--Playing with the sheet and going over stat values more (and thinking about the discussion over in the other thread), I probably have been valuing haste and Spirit too strongly. This doesn't really mean that I expect crit and mastery to be good, just the effects of all of them are kind of unimpressive. Haste is weak because we still use Rejuv a decent amount, and Spirit is weak because it's . . . just weak. I tried adding on Spirit and holding longevity constant by increasing the usage of Rejuv, and it didn't add much HPS. So I'm not totally sure what to think of secondary stats at the moment.

Spirit is almost pathetically weak. However when you are severely mana constrained, as we are for much of the first tier (full heroic gear, and shard of woe will help a lot) any mana is appreciated.

However this is why I'm planning on valuing hpm above all else for the first tier. Haste, outside of breakpoints, doesn't give any hpm, and as you said doesn't effect RJ at all. Crit and Mastery are 100% HPM gains. Crit is still pretty weak, but the hpm boost does raise its value for the first tier. Mastery at 1.25% per point is absurdly good boost to hpm, and in my opinion, well worth adapting your style to try and keep it benefiting you over 70-80%.

Gearing wise however, I would probably prefer to have Haste on an item, and reforge down to 915 rather than vice versa. When regen is a little more comfortable it'll make it much easier to spike up to your next goal. (probably 2004 or 1777, or if you can rely on Dark torrent maybe something else.)

Shelendil · 12/04/10, 8:03 AM

Tranquility hot cannot crit.

Averaging the haste procs from gear (Shard of Woe) into the current stats display can potentially be misleading when comparing to the haste breakpoint table on the same page.

I've been appending a column to the haste breakpoint table to show the haste rating needed while Nature's Grace is active. It might be useful to add that to the sheet.