[Resto] Mists of Pandaria 5.3 - Page 5

Venomous · 10/04/12, 3:46 AM

Originally Posted by Hamlet

Spirit: yeah, my experience in Heroics might not be that informative, will see what I think after a few challenges. My logic though is that in hard content you need actual throughput too; I'm not sure that being undergeared favors Spirit as much as people think. I think it's clear to favor it as the best secondary for now, but favoring it over Int (except in the 2:1 gem situation) is probably a bit much. Trading a 2000 Int tailoring proc for a 3000 spirit one may be relevant for some people right now, but that's probably short-lived.

Alchemy once again gives you potions that are both cheap and have a health component in addition to the mana--small gameplay benefit since you can use your mana pot as a healthstone sometime during the fight.

1. @Hamlet: As I rank you as a Druid guru (haha), I'm just a little confused as to why Tailoring is considered 'bad' (maybe the word bad is too strong) for Resto now - your coming to this conclusion through maths or the simple fact static stat vs. proc will always be better?

2. Am I correct in assuming that outside of a Haste breakpoint - aka once we reach 3043 raid buffed we should reforge additional Haste (gem pure Int/Spirit) into Mastery until we have the gear to carry us to 6652 (or 5730 with SotF)? For example I'm currently sitting at 3517 (3692.85 raid buffed) - I should be able to cut excess Haste off correct? Or am I completely missing this?

If you havern't already seen it fellow Trees - Halmet made a great post here summing up certain things for us at this current stage.

3. @Lazerdollarz: Got all excited until I remember the PvP gear just got nerfed to 458 - I'm in 463 heroic gear now - I'm thinking that the 4pc will be an overall downgrade in lost stats and not worth our time if we already have the heroic gear?

Payday · 10/04/12, 4:12 AM

Originally Posted by Lazerdollarz

The lack of a gem slot on the boots from Sha makes them suboptimal compared to heroic 5-man boots.

How so?

Gem slot is worth 160 primary or 320 secondary plus 60. 220 or 380 in total.

Gains from the linked boots in his post: +129 stamina +166 int +120 spirit +85 secondary

Aside from being able to focus a single stat in the gem (320 haste for instance), it's a landslide in favor of the epic boots.

♦ Earen · 10/04/12, 10:24 AM

Originally Posted by Venomous

1. @Hamlet: Am I missing something about Alchemy - the only bonus it has is Mixology now - they don't have their own BoP Mana/HP pot like they did in Cata no?

Alchemists have access to [Recipe: Alchemist's Rejuvenation]. Which I should probably add into the guide.

2. Am I correct in assuming that outside of a Haste breakpoint - aka once we reach 3043 raid buffed we should reforge additional Haste (gem pure Int/Spirit) into Mastery until we have the gear to carry us to 6652 (or 5730 with SotF)? For example I'm currently sitting at 3517 (3692.85 raid buffed) - I should be able to cut excess Haste off correct? Or am I completely missing this?

Yes, you should reforge excess haste. Haste is our weakest stat outside of breakpoints. If your gear is insufficient to get to the higher breakpoints, opt for a more useful stat until you can get there.

3. @Lazerdollarz: Got all excited until I remember the PvP gear just got nerfed to 458 - I'm in 463 heroic gear now - I'm thinking that the 4pc will be an overall downgrade in lost stats and not worth our time if we already have the heroic gear?

As discussed above, the PvP gear has sockets, and access to some set bonuses that can be valuable. It will ultimately be your decision on if the trade off is something you find beneficial.

• Hamlet · 10/04/12, 12:23 PM

Few more thoughts.

--Your change to Nourish. I'd go even further and say there's often little reason even to use Nourish to refresh Lifebloom. You can use Lifebloom to refresh Lifebloom, and it's cheaper and faster. The tiny efficiency gain of getting both the Nourish heal and free refresh if the tank happens to not be topped off when Nourish completes is really not commensurate with the attention it takes to set that up (especially if you haven't needed to HT the tank in 15 seconds anyway). With Harmony 20 seconds and Swiftmend 15 (and Clearcast HT/RG), I don't see how Harmony is a reason to cast Nourish either.
--Even HT is unexciting these days. RG costs the same, does the same healing, and is faster. Glyph of RG also works very nicely given our desire to run otherwise low crit.

Even I've not shifted out of my old habits yet, but just looking at it now--why would you cast Nourish or HT over Regrowth? (In generally meaningful situations--I can see idle things like chain-canceling Nourish when the tank's staying near full and you're not doing anything else.)

--Glyph of Lifebloom is really convenient. I still have to get in the habit of taking advantage of it more. In 5-mans where oftentimes the tank is taking little to no damage, you can shift your Lifebloom around to anyone who's taking damage or just to top people off.

--Thinking about modeling SotF in the sheet more, I kept realizing that it's kind of underwhelming. Practically the only meaningful use of it is buffing WG (buffing a Lifebloom maybe? Does that work? Even if so, not really impressive). The problem is that 1) the timing is awkward in the first place, depending on your WG/SM cooldowns (for example, the standard 10 and 15). And more generally, you're locking into using these spells together (or wasting the talent)--you're imposing a constraint on yourself. Even in the most favorable situation (10s WG, 12s SM), if it beats Incarnation on paper, you've given up flexibility. Incarnation is a talent that gives strong numbers and adds a lot of flexibility (it's in the form of a powerful timer). For the cost of a constant added constraint in your head of what order to cast spells in, I think you'd need a much stronger benefit than SotF is giving.

--Random fact that might help put stats in more perspective: over the course of a 3-minute period, you get to cast one extra Rejuv (9600 mana) for roughly every 480 Spirit added. Putting those 480 into Mastery instead would make all your heals 1% stronger.

♦ Earen · 10/04/12, 4:28 PM

I would love to see some additional modeling with SotF. I have the same issues with it that you do, it's just so uncoordinated. I've run a few of our 25 mans with it, and I do think it works well in some circumstances, and the numbers we've seen so far do appear that it can be strong, but it is also fairly unforgiving if you make a mistake or mis-time using it (perhaps unforgiving is a bad word, maybe "wasteful" is better), not to mention tracking when to use what - even with auras to help - is cumbersome. In addition to the flexibility and ability to be more dynamic that you get with ToL, I also think it is easier on your mana pool, which isn't insignificant at this stage.

oneplus999 · 10/04/12, 6:54 PM

Great thread! One question I don't think I've seen brought up...

If you have 4P and SotF, would glyph of HT become worth using, since it would effectively let you cast both SM and WG 1 second faster?

• Hamlet · 10/04/12, 7:07 PM

Wouldn't be too hard to see how much raw power that gets you, but it's a bit of a trap I think. The whole reason it's easy to model it's locking you into more of a rotation (for about 5 seconds out every 11 you HT/Rejuv/SM/WG). I don't see why we want to take a talent that puts this tight of a limitation on how we use Swiftmend. If the competition weren't as good maybe, but Tree of Life is a good talent. Also now you're using two Glyphs on HT and WG, so you have to give up either Lifebloom or RG.

Situation might be different in a real "blanketing" situation--something where you want to run a max-output rotation for a while without too much variation. People who raid a lot can say if there are encounters like that, but it was definitely more common in WLK than it was in Cata.

• Hamlet · 10/06/12, 7:07 PM

I guess NS-RG is slightly better than NS-HT for now, since they heal for basically the same average (at low crit) and RG will be slightly more consistent (assuming Glyph). That does include the Living Seed, but if you're NS-ing someone with no overheal and they're at risk of heavy damage again soon, the Living Seed will get full value.

♦ Earen · 10/07/12, 12:49 AM

Originally Posted by Hamlet

I guess NS-RG is slightly better than NS-HT for now, since they heal for basically the same average (at low crit) and RG will be slightly more consistent (assuming Glyph). That does include the Living Seed, but if you're NS-ing someone with no overheal and they're at risk of heavy damage again soon, the Living Seed will get full value.

Added a note about this into the Regrowth description.

Lazerdollarz · 10/07/12, 2:25 PM

@Payday: Assuming a spirit gem in [Treads of Corrupted Water], the Sha boots have +104 int, +109 mastery, -229 spirit, which equates to roughly .17 mp5/hps lost. So it's not a landslide in my opinion in favor of the Sha boots but I will say I was wrong. Given no other available options Sha boots are probably superior to the 463 ones.

@Venomous: I posted that before the Dreadful set was nerfed from 464 to 458, so it's worth taking a second look. The value of the SM set bonus is fairly easy to calculate. Using my logs from Wednesday, one point of int being worth 4.7 hps, and assuming SM + the Efflo part of SM is ~15.4% stronger, the PvP SM set bonus is worth about +210 int for me. The chest, legs, shoulders, and gloves from 5-mans give +402 int, +753 spirit, -54 secondary stats compared to the PvP set. Assuming spirit gems in the PvP set's 2 extra slots and mastery=half int, that means the PvP set has the equivalent of -165 int and -113 spirit. From there, it's a judgment call whether the cooldown reduction on Ironbark is worth losing those extra stats. Having 40% Ironbark uptime on a tank or debuffed target is quite valuable, so I'd say personally it's probably worthwhile to use the PvP set until you're getting a significant ilvl upgrade.

Payday · 10/07/12, 3:36 PM

@ Lazerdollarz - I don't see how it's not a landslide. You are trading the equivalent of 160 primary stat for 114. That's 40% better. Then add the extra 1290hp. If it were crit instead of mastery, you'd have my support, but these are stats we use anyway and more is always better.

106 int 109 mastery (160 primary) + 129 stamina

vs

229 spirit (114 primary)

Lazerdollarz · 10/07/12, 4:18 PM

When evaluating gear choices you have to look at it as trading x amount of throughput for y amount of regen, whether the trade off is worthwhile is a playstyle decision. Given that you're not gaining much regen for the throughput loss, the Sha boots are probably better in this situation. Assigning arbitrary values to stats based on whether they're primary or secondary isn't helpful for gear decisions because they don't convey any information about the impact on regen.

• Hamlet · 10/08/12, 11:53 AM

I tried to write up someone my recent comments on Spirit, should be relevant here:
Why More Spirit is not the Answer to your Healing Problems | It's Dangerous to Go Alone

It doesn't get to deeply into math, but that's what TreeCalcs is for. It just outlines how to try to start thinking about these tradeoffs.

Akusei · 10/08/12, 4:22 PM

I enjoyed that write up a lot Hamlet.

Coming from a long time DPS point of view, I think people undervalue throughput compared to longevity.

Given current scaling factors, there is almost no way--it would have to be a very niche situation--a DPS would sacrifice sacrifice 1000 primary stat for a 1000 secondary stat. If you're talking 2 for 1 on secondary for primary, respectively, the choice at least becomes a bit more "interesting." Thankfully Bliz helped out secondary stats in terms of gemming.

I think you put things in very good perspective with your "Flask of 2 Rejuvenations" comment. Spirit is great but it's only part of the equation. A lot of people are probably losing the forest for the trees on this.

I'm glad you're taking a leading role in analyzing these trade offs in your TreeCalcs thread.

I must admit, I have not fully gone over your spreadsheet--it is quite "thorough

--but I'd like to bring up the efficiency of RG vs HT, especially with the RG glyph. I know it's been brought up but I find the subject very intriguing.

With our typically low levels of crit, the benefit of RG always critting, giving the Living Seed buff, in addition to the base expected value of the RG vs HT heal per mana cost should essentially make HT an unnecessary spell to cast. When you also consider the cast time of RG vs HT, I think we can bench HT along with Nourish (as discussed earlier in the thread). You mentioned that RG is superior to HT even when NS'd. I'm just looking for a compelling argument to keep HT on my bars.

It would be interesting to know if there's any combination of factors or gearing stats which would bring HT back to the game (assuming HT is indeed inferior to RG across the board). As it stands, if the healing target is taking damage, a glyphed RG just seems so much better.

magiama9 · 10/08/12, 5:05 PM

Originally Posted by Akusei

I enjoyed that write up a lot Hamlet.

When you also consider the cast time of RG vs HT, I think we can bench HT along with Nourish (as discussed earlier in the thread). You mentioned that RG is superior to HT even when NS'd. I'm just looking for a compelling argument to keep HT on my bars.

It would be interesting to know if there's any combination of factors or gearing stats which would bring HT back to the game (assuming HT is indeed inferior to RG across the board). As it stands, if the healing target is taking damage, a glyphed RG just seems so much better.

RG not only stands out when it comes to the numbers, but when it comes to real healing situations. From my experience healing the fights so far up through Elegon, raid damage is coming in big bursts with sustained high tank damage. In those types of situations, using rejuvs and wild growths to heal the raid up before the next big burst of damage is usually sufficient, while the tanks need much more constant healing. Regrowth simply allows us to react SO much faster than healing touch, with few downsides.

Taking Elegon as an example, when the Protector uses Total Annihilation, the raid takes a large amount of damage, but you have a significant period of time(15+ seconds) to heal them before they are in any danger. On the other hand, the tank has to contend with the Total Annihilation, the breath, and the high sustained physical damage. Huge tank health drops are fairly common and using HT simply isn't fast enough. The only time I would consider using an HT over a RG currently is if I'm precasting a spell in preparation for large tank damage. Just my two cents.