• Playered

I'm sorry but insisting that an 800-1000 instant heal (2%~ of a tanks life, 4%~ of a generic raid member) will ever be a "lifesaver" is dubious at best and even 2k was not so clear cut in that regard. If you care about meter padding then yes the 4T8 will still be good for that purpose in 3.2.2 despite only being at half power compared to 3.2.

The 4T8 set bonus has almost nothing to do with the function of RJ/SM because the useful healing done was from the SM after RJ and one annoying aspect of getting 4T9 is that we will go from 2k+12k to 0+11k on our RJ/SM spike heal due to the loss of both bonuses.

 

rockshassa

I try to pick up as many socket bonuses as possible. If the socket bonus is +SP, then it is usually a good trade-off to put the proper color gem into that piece. (take a look at my armory to see what i mean)
Personally, i gem Runed in red sockets, Purified in blue sockets, and Reckless (+SP/+haste) in yellow sockets. I really like the extra haste, mana is not a problem for me. However i think i'm in the minority, as many trees gem for +SP/+int instead. If you aren't having mana issues, i would go with the haste.

Edit: looking at your shoulders, they are a difficult decision...

If you take the socket bonus, you will gain 31 SP and 20 spi
If you gem Runed, you will gain 46 SP
On the margin, you are trading 15 spellpower for 20 spirit.
Point for point, i would guess that gemming Runed in the shoulders is the "better" decision.
Personally, i might still gem Purified, because i am OCD about socket bonuses, and i like stacking spirit.
in the end, its up to you

 

Arythorn

If you went from a pure stat-weighting methodology on gemming, you would gem for Runed Cardinal Rubies in every socket with the following exceptions:

1) ONE Purified Dreadstone to satisfy blue gem requirement for IED meta (best-practice would be to use this in a socket it matches and on a piece of equipment that has a spell power socket bonus).

2) ONE Luminous Ametrine to satisfy yellow gem requirement for IED meta (as above, best-practice would be to use this in a socket it matches and on a piece of equipment that has a spell power socket bonus).

3) Use of additional SINGLE Luminous Ametriine or Purified Dreadstone (beyond the 1 of each required) if a socket bonus is +5/+7 sp. You would not do this if you need to use TWO or more of these hybrid gems to activate a +5/+7 socket bonus. Then you would use Runed Cardinal as per normal.


You can see this gemming strategy in practice at:

Loot Rank for WotLK

The one thing it shows incorrectly is ESD as a meta instead of IED but this is because it doesn't understand how to valuate proc-based regen and so just places the 25 sp of ESD above in ranking. All of that said, hard-fast rules don't always apply -- you may be completely fine from a regen / mana standpoint and gem exclusively Runed Cardinal outside of the two hybrid gems required by IED.

One final step, if you had milked all the other regen out of your gearing (using throughput trinkets, throughput idol, etc.) and you still have excess mana -- you could also use ESD as a meta and go exclusively Runed Cardinal. But swapping out IED for ESD is the final step you would take and you would only take it after you had gotten rid of regen items everywhere else. For instance, going ESD and then using Spark of Hope to deal with mana issues would be a numbnut move. It would be better in that case to retain IED and replace Spark of Hope with a throughput trinket.

 

Hatesfury

Exactly... i can't decide if stacking spi is worth it or not. I have a hard time evaluating if i have enough MP5 or not. I'm normally a raid healing tree, and even on fights like kologarn (constant blanketing, and spot nourishes to ppl in hand) i still normally end the fight with ~50% mana without using my innervate, but by that same token if we go an do ignis and i'm stuck pushing out more nourish to compensate for crotch pot i end up burning my own innervate and biting my nails waiting no it come to back the 2nd time.

Since 20 spirit = 4 sp and 7.5 mp5. On my shoulders this mean i'm giving up 11sp for 7.5 mp5... according to loot rank this is ofcourse a negative, but with mana being so random from fight to fight, i'm almost afriad to go straight throughput.

 

Fafhrd

There is nothing "dubious" about it being a literal lifesaver. I'm sure many of my fellow trees with quick reactions agree with me when I say that I've saved many many lives with it during abilities like Tympanic Tantrum, Frozen Blows, Iron Roots, Heat Wave, Mark of the Faceless, Arctic Breath etc etc, where you know that a player will die to the next tick, and you don't have time for anything with a cast time. A T8 RJ tick will keep the player just above dying, and some other player have time to land a heal, or you can SM.

The number of times you can save a person like that will go down by 50% with the nerf, of course.

The T8 bonus has always been way too good, and like you point out, even the 2 part bonus has a very good synergy with 4p. This is not true at all for T9, where the 4p bonus, like I pointed out before, is actually quite meh (I'd like to even say counterproductive, since it makes you want to get more half assed crit rating, and screws up your talent choices).

I suggest mainly ignoring the bonuses and spec/gem for the raw stats of the gear, and weighing the T9p4 as a straight 10% RJ spelldmg gain.

 

Arythorn

Confirmed 4 pc T9 will crit even on a full health target:

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

9 lines down, full overheal crit of 4389.

 

Drane

Odd. Is that the only one you can find? I literally looked for half an hour through all my current logs to find any pure overheal crits and, for the life of me, I couldn't =/

I'll have our 25m Freya3 kill and 10man H-ToC uploaded soonish, I'll sift through that tonight.

EDIT: Found a few more in our Faction Champs kill, World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis.

[20:30:06.330] Draenna Rejuvenation Magisterial +*0* (O: 4389)
[20:30:08.192] Draenna Rejuvenation Arrena +*0* (O: 4389)
[20:30:09.368] Draenna Rejuvenation Magisterial +*0* (O: 4389)
[20:30:10.257] Draenna Rejuvenation Xiah +*0* (O: 4389)

 

grimtage

This argument is terrible. You're saying that using the instant heal part to, as you put it, "snipe" is a purely bad thing. It's an instant heal with a 1second cooldown. Why on earth would you want to give that up? At the moment it's basically riptide with no cooldown. I understand that often it's used badly, but I also understand that it has the potential to save lives. If anything the fact that you change your healing to use it like this is a reason to hold it in higher regard than the numbers purely show, not the opposite. Though I admit taking numbers as high as 10% seems like it's been used to "snipe" too often, I find my actual usage of it to be more like 6%, becoming 3% or less with 3.2.2 as the fact that it will become a 1k heal probably makes it worse than just using Nourish without HoT.

 

OnyxShadow

I clearly can't speak for all resto druids, but for me the only reason it would seem like I was "sniping" heals with T8 rejuv is that I prioritize my blanket hots for the players who already have taken some damage. If damage might be incoming and a swiftmend might possibly be needed on the target in the near future, why the hell would you not rejuv players who are already damaged first. It ends up "sniping" heals that could be picked up elsewhere, but in reality its just a good practice.

I agree with Fafhrd that the instant healing aspect has periodically saved lives and suits our style of healing better than some random bonus healing that may or may not happen later. My style is based on consistency, and its what works best for me. That being said, of course I'll switch to T9 when 3.2.2 hits. Playered is right about the nerfed heal from T8 being marginal and the overall benefits of T9 being greater. If I could get all 258s I might even switch now, but that's just not in the cards.

 

• Playered

It was from a design point of view. Druids have a fairly solid arsenal of spells (if not the best of all the healers) and half get ignored in no small part due to 4T8 making Rejuvenation cross too many boundaries. Having near unlimited mana was great and you wouldn't want to give it up but that doesn't stop it being bad for the class/game as a whole either.

I'm not trying to imply all our spells are perfect and that RJ became so overwhelmingly overpowered that they couldn't compete either. Nourish is poorly designed and overtuned as a result, Regrowth still needs some tweaking to bring it into a solid role (a slow weak and expensive direct heal with a long weak hot doesn't seem great), Wild Growth is potentially too cheap and Tranquility/SM have been mostly ignored for a couple of expansions.

 

Arythorn

Posted this in the Resto Healing thread in response to a discussion about stacking crit but am posting it here again (somewhat modified) as an update to what I have found to date because this is where most of the conversation around 4 pc T9 has been occuring:


I have been continuing to scour WoL for druids with 4 pc T9 to review their parses and start placing a value on the crit bonus. I've spent far more time than I care to admit trying to find these and then reviewing the rare nugget that I find. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of 4 pc T9 out in the wild at the moment, but I'm actually starting to build a reasonable amount of data (and I'm sure more will come as more and more folks finally achieve 4 pc T9).

But, even at this very early juncture, some of my earlier theorizations about what the bonus would be worth are being challenged. The basic gist of it is, when overheal is 0% and your crits are able to tick for full value, a % of crit adds a reasonable amount of effective throughput to the point that ~4% of crit might buy you another 1% of total effective throughput just based on 4 pc T9 Rejuv crits. However as overheal rises (60, 70, 80%), the value of crit drops because your Rejuv crits are more often than not either a) pure overheal, b) clipped such that they don't tick for anymore than your normal tick, or c) tick for more than your normal tick but not 1.5x value of normal. Situation a) is fairly easy to understand. A description of b) is your buffed normal tick is 2200, your buffed crit is 3300. Your crit procs on a target at -2000 health and it's effective heal is 2000. In this case, it has no more value than your normal tick that could have accomplished the same job. Situation c) would be a target at -2500 health and your crit RJ procs to heal for the full 2500. This is more than your normal tick would've done so there is value but it is only net 300 hp versus 1100 hp so not 1.5x


So, as overheal goes up, we can reasonably theorize that situations a, b, and c will happen more often and the value of crit as it relates to 4 pc T9 will effectively drop. And, from the parses I have been able to grab, I am definitely seeing this play out. At the moment, higher overheal is not lowering the value of crit as much as I would expect and not in the linear fashion I would expect but I *think* this is due to small sample size and randomness. Once I get a larger sample size, I'll post a formula that should give you a reasonable expectation of what each 1% of crit will buy you in 4 pc T9 RJ crit effective healing given two criteria: 1) % Rejuv of total effective healing, 2) % Overheal.

I'm still trying to tweak how much downward force overheal should play on the value of Rejuv crit but I can tell you the amount of crit needed to accomplish 1% throughput has been going up not down as the sample size of data I get grows. Right now, if I plug in 55% Rejuv of total effective healing and 65% Rejuv Overheal (a ToC heroic type profile that includes all fights -- note Twin Val'kyr tends to drop overheal average and other fights are higher), early indications are looking like you would need to stack a substantial amount of crit to net 1% total effective throughput. It is not ~4% but closer to ~7% crit to accomplish ~1% effective throughput.

To the first question of valuing T8 vs T9: At 30% crit rate, Rejuv as 55% of total effective healing and Rejuv sitting at 65% overheal (a heroic ToC type profile we can tweak), the current forumla is valuing 4 pc T9 bonus at ~3.7% uplift to total effective healing. Any review of prior posts will show that this number has moved as I've gotten more data, found out that crit RJ procs will happen on full-health targets, and tweaked the formula. Formula aside, the real data I've gathered on T9 (across more than just ToC) looks as follows: 21.5% crit, Rejuv 48.14% of total healing, and 60.10% Rejuv overheal outputting a 2.55% effective overall healing uplift in actual, live data directly attributed to 4 pc T9. My formula estimates 2.57% effective uplift using the same 3 pieces of data.

Now, if we take post-nerf T8 and put that at 5% value in ToC and then adjust it downward some amount for the "robbing peter to pay paul effect" I'm still of the opinion that we are close enough on the bonuses (control and utility conversation aside) to valuate gear based on other stat itemization increases.

As to the second question of whether to stack crit, if you need to stack ~7% crit to get 1% throughput, how far out of our way should we go to push crit from 30% to 35%? Now, I will say I have not yet factored in Nourish crits, Regrowth crits, etc. and depending on the percentage those make up of your ToC heal selection, that will factor in to crit value more or less as well. Cast time spells are gaining a higher value in ToC so I expect this will cause % crit required to gain a % of effective healing output to go downward but I fully expect at least 5% crit required to get 1% effective throughput given what I am seeing now (inclusive of 4 pc T9 bonus).

 

Vokodlok

i'm having 4x tier9, used this week on NB hard (25). Not that impressed. The crit is low to count on it (23% for me), and the fight profile doesn't allow you to fully use a rejuv. Still, as I tested 4x tier 8 as well, the healing output with tier9 is simply 5% higher on the same fight. U have extra stats, and the rejuv crit which counts a bit as well. I dont think i'll go back to tier 8 again, not even on twins, where the crit will clearly count more then the ~1.8k intial heal. But I am considering breaking tier once I put my hand on some 258.

 

ganuard

Hey guys, just wanted to throw tonights logs in here:
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

It was a 25m Normal ToC, 10m normal ToC, and a heroic 10m ToC. I have 4pc t9 and Val'anyr, but nevertheless, it's there.

Specifically on 10m Heroic Twins, I was getting 29% crit on Rejuv, critting for about 4-4.3k (WoL screws up the crit tick amount). Not a bad set bonus imo.
World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

I set up my gear to be only right over the hast softcap for 25s, and crit all out elsewhere. I do run close to 30% crit in raids, so the set bonus is right on.

-Gan

 

Leandra

I decided to go with the lv232 set just recently, mainly because my dkp situation makes it impossible to get a higer level set for a while yet.

Here is a log from our raid yesterday. I'm wearing 4 pieces of the lv232 set and my fellow druid (Sjerra) is wearing the lv226 set (pre nerf).

World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis

Also, there is no doubt that the set bonus crits on overheals. Just throwing a few rejuvenations on myself resulted in several crits. I have a screenshot of it but I cant access that at the moment.

 

goodolarchie

Anyone have a parse running both t9 4pc and Glyph of Rejuv with a respectable amount of crit in TOC hard?

I'll post mine later this week.

 

Arythorn

Surprisingly most everything I have been seeing on hard is in the 20-25% crit range. Go to World of Logs - Real Time Raid Analysis and select parses after 9/18 or so and you'll find 4 pc T9 in maybe 10% of them. It takes time and work has gotten the better of me the past week so I haven't had much of a chance to review many more. When I have gotten the chance, I'm definitely seeing more and more (used to be if I was lucky I'd find 4pc T9 in maybe 5% of the parses) and some impressive output even in that 20-25% crit range.

 

Kirbie44

I would tend to agree with this. I have noticed it in some on server parses, as well as top guild parses. I have broken tier 8 4PC due to more tank healing. I have received a few 245/258 upgrades, and I did notice one thing. My haste had sky rocketed, while my crit stayed around 24% (full raid buffed as read on spell tab). I went into AC at 394 Haste, and now I have a bit over 525. I need to get a couple crit rings and neck to counteract this, but as we 258 gear, we should bid/roll for more crit if we want to stay close to the 359 mark.

Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity.

 

kieu

I just got my 4pc t9. Here are some logs:

WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay


ignore me getting rocked in faction champions.

 

konaraistlyn

so with the way my guild is doing trophies I wont be able to get 4pc for awhile unless I get 232 t9... is it worth it at all??

what int do you want to have the ember skyflare be better than the insightful?

ty for input

 

Benita

I wouldn't call it impressive. I'm getting about 30% rejuv healing done by rejuv crits. This translates to about 10% more output from the set bonus on only rejuv. In aoe damage heavy fights like twins im getting up to 60% healing done by rejuv, so its around 6% more output, which is in the ballpark of other non-broken set bonuses. On other jobs than steady raid aoe healing rejuv can go as low as 30% or lower in which case the set bonus is really bad. The t8 set bonus has the same issue though on these kinds of fights. After some napkin math i think it's in the area of 4-500 extra spellpower on only rejuv if you are fully raidbuffed.

Sadly it does not proc NG (even though the tooltip would hint that with "All spell crititcals") and therefor is a situationally good set bonus at best. It still does not achieve Blizzards apparent goal of shoehorning druids into crit. Just another small attempt of making druids believe crit was not a trash stat.

 

ganuard

Crit is not a trash stat. Now more then ever it's a decent secondary stat. Running in raids with 30% crit, 5% crit on nourish from 2pc, and 25% crit from talents, I dont really mind having a 60% crit chance on nourish. Also, rejuvs critting 2 out of 6 ticks isn't all that bad. For tank healing or raid healing really past the softcap Crit is a much better stat then haste. I went from 600 haste to 360 and my Nourish is still 1.3 seconds, 1 second with NG. Living seed procs are nice too, especially in TOC.

 

Arythorn

We just differ on the definition of "impressive" I guess. Prior to the imbalanced T8 4-pc bonus, 6% more effective output on the fights that require it most would be considered fairly strong. As you have noted, it is in line with "non-broken" set bonuses. I took it outside of the realm of napkin math and really drilled into multiple parses. Even in the low 20% crit range, I was seeing overall 2.5% overall effective healing output across a broad spectrum of content (Ulduar, ToC, Koralon, 10s and 25s). As crit goes up toward upper 20s to low 30s, I'd expect 3+% effective output across all ToC heroic encounters and greater uplift on the fights that really require it.

As to RJ crits proc'ing NG, that would just be silly. The periodic critical bonuses to moonfire and rejuv were meant to be uplifts to their parent spell not a perma-up 20% haste buff. Think about it, RJ x 10 -15 targets + 25-30% crit rate = always proc'd NG = unbalanced. The tooltip does need to be rewritten to look more like the tooltip on this trinket: Reign of the Dead - Item - World of Warcraft (i.e. "Non-periodic spell critical strikes have a 100% chance to grant you with a blessing of nature . . ."). That said, this is just a tooltip issue. I don't think anyone with a sane mind expected periodic RJ crits to proc NG.

As to the crit vs haste post 4 pc T9 discussion, I've been going back and forth on this. I have seen 5/5 Heroic ToC on 10s but only have the benefit of seeing 2/5 heroic on 25s ToC. That said, my experience to date has been that, due to damage profile and specific debuffs, Regrowth and Nourish are taking a more prominent place in my arsenal. Based on this, my current plan is to shoot for 541 haste to get to 1 sec post-NG Nourishes and also allow me to drop 1 point out of GotEM and put that in 2/2 Living Seed (Post 4 PC T9 / 541 haste Resto Spec). After that, I'll push some crit into my gear selection as itemization of available drops allows. I definitely value extra crit on Regrowth / Nourish / Rejuv ticks, but ToC content is making me value speed of direct heal casts even more.

 

Kirbie44

Nourish gets +29% critical from regular restoration talents (not counting 3 from Natural Perfection). You are missing Nature's Majesty in the early Balance talents. Many druids overlook the talent and what it does. With our 2PC T9, Nourish is 9% higher critical rate than Regrowth.

As for 541 haste to drop 1 point out of GotEM to get post NG 1 second Nourish, I found it really easy to come by that extra haste. The 258 Leather chest, with 4PC 245 T9, can easily put us their. I am running haste in :
Neck
Wrists
Belt
2xRings
MH

With my T8 Chest, switching that to [Vestments of the Shattered Fellowship], that will put me close to this mark, making up for haste on my 226 wrists and neck. I believe that haste is still going to be viable over 359, but it wouldn't hurt to pick up critical pieces for fights encounters like Twins, and future encounters in ICC. The standard 5xRejuve->WG rotation will call for 359 haste, but we also need to look out for different fights and what healing rotation/spells they call for. I hope that none of you are using this rotation on a fight like NRB, which is where more haste would come into play as it scales better in Nourish and Regrowth than critical does.

Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity.

 

Toadfoot

I wasn't one of the biggest supporters of the new T9 4 piece bonus until I actually got a chance to use it. I have 3 pieces of 232, but most of my other gear has gotten a decent upgrade and it isn't a bad bonus. It isn't something you really ever notice, but it does a decent job. Cleared heroic 10 man Coliseum and did 25 NB and ended up feeling quite good about the 2 and 4 piece bonuses. Not having that initial rejuv heal is a bit strange and I have to remind myself to cast something besides rejuv in certain situations.

I really thought the 2p bonus was the bad one, but with nourish making up a large part of my heals in coliseum it isn't so bad either. Overall, I am happy to actually do something besides casting rejuv x5 wgx1. If druid healing had continued that way I don't know how long it would have kept my interest. I actually use rejuvs, wgs, lbs, nourishes, regrowths and swiftmends and it makes for a much funner game playing experience.

As for the crit vs. haste with T9-I am not sure. I tried it with almost 500 haste and with the gear I currently have on 385 haste and 20% crit. Both sets seemed ok. Strangely enough losing the 120 or so haste wasn't really that bad. Stacking haste past the soft cap changes your Nourish and Regrowth. Crit now changes your Nourish, regrowth and rejuv with rejuv being 40% of your healing so I am inclined to go with the crit. Nourish crits a bunch and is only going to continue to go up giving you the haste proc from NG and more living seeds. I am not so sure that haste is our best thru-put stat past soft cap-although somebody smarter than me could probably figure it out.

 

Arythorn

I am aiming at that chest item being the one piece I swap out from T9 as well. Seems to be the largest gap between BiS and T9 in that slot. Really nice item. I'm near enough emblems to get buy 4 pieces of 245 now so I'll start picking up the trophies out of 10 man tribute and bidding DKP for the ones that drop in 25s. Not a bad idea to swap in some pieces of higher crit gear on Twins and higher haste gear on other encounters. Though, we've definitely had some issues with people failing at the game of dodge ball and we need some high-burst spike raid-heals even in Twins as a result.