malthrin

[Illustration of the Dragon Soul] was nerfed to 18 spellpower/stack. Still best in slot, but not by quite as much.

 

• Playered

Hopefully it makes it less attractive to DPS classes (lack of a Use: to stack with cooldowns) now so that we have a higher chance of getting it.
Doubtful but some small glimmer of hope to grasp on to.

 

ithecho84

I don't think there should ever be a situation where you would use a Autumn's Glow gem. That being said, haste to reach 1 second GCD for GotEM spells, and then int. Crit should come on gear and there is no reason to actually gem for crit. But pretty much, you should only use Monarch Topaz's to fill yellow sockets. SP/haste or SP/int

Int will probably be your best bet.

 

Vazu

Honestly, this discussion about whether Spirit is > than MP5 (for regen) boils down to personal preference. Some players really pay attention to the 5 second rule and manage their mana. Other players find themselves in guilds where they have to heal more aggressively. Because people don't raid in a vacuum, the math behind which is better is really just information for players to consider. I don't believe there is truely a right or wrong answer. I'm not saying resto Druids should look for MP5 on every piece of gear because they are spam healing. But choosing 3 MP5 on a gem over a small amount of Spirit probably isn't going to break anything. Again, the player should decide what they need based on how they heal.

 

ithecho84

If we had one total gem slot for all our gear I would agree, hesitantly at that. However, since we have many slots, all of which compound to a sizable amount of stats, this mentality is not correct. A "small amount of spirit" eventually adds up, and this stat benefits, increases, synergizes, with talents and buffs. If you can honestly show me a combat log where you are in the 5sr 90% of the time I will retract my statement that gemming for mp5 is incorrect.

 

Anaram

Personally I disagree with this at least. In many 25-man raids in many encounters there's no reason to ever stop casting other than lack of mana. As long as you got mana to throw around there's almost always* some value in casting rejuvenation on someone who does not previously have it (and in 25-mans there's always someone unlike in 10-mans). With top end gear and decent regen you should have the mana to chaincast for extended periods.

 

Adriel

As I said, ithat's acceptable when you outgear the encounter. (ie. have beaten Naxx more than a few times :o) But otherwise there's no reason.

Blizzard doesn't tune these encounters with the expectation healers are going to be chaincasting 100% of the time. Not mostly anyway. They do expect players to breathe once if awhile.

 

Anaram

I don't really see why outgearing an encounter should make you cast more instead of less. Mana pools at T7 are perfectly suitable for chain casting in a wide variety of encounters so why should Blizzard expect healers not to do it?

 

Adriel

You're saying you don't see how outgearing an encounter makes you cast more. And yet you're also saying with T7 you expect people to chaincast. :o

At this point in the expansion, anyone who has T7 gear outgears everything. Raid difficulty is undertuned for the gear that's currently available.

Outgearing an encounter makes you cast more because you just don't worry about mana. You can spam in a pinch, you can pre-cast HOTs on everything, you can overheal 50% of the time, and you still won't die. Basically you just brute force your way through it. If you are undergeared however, or rather geared at the level appropriate to the encounter, then you have to pick your heals. Time your ticks, limit your targets, conserve mana. You can't just put HoTs on everything ;p

 

Paininabox

Nature's Splendor increases the length of the hots, and consequently the number of ticks you gain.

Unfortunately, the only thing haste does for us in terms of hots is to decrease our GCD, which is further made less-than-fabulous by the fact that Gift of the Earthmother takes us almost to the cap already. This is why druids don't much like haste, because we gain like tidbits compared to the benefit we could receive if they reitemized the gear more optimally for us. For our casted heals, haste is nice, but the majority's playstyle hasn't adjusted much past the "MORE HOTS!" mentality of BC. I expect blizzard will change something about haste so it will actually be noticably beneficial, such as the things you suggest in your question. Or, they could leave us out to dry. I hope not.

Ticks of all hots do not crit. This is why your friends are probably passing on crit rating, because they're still playing mostly with hots and they gain almost nothing from it. I do not know about Living Seed, I have not done much testing with it as of yet.

Of course playstyle will dictate gear choice. If you think glyphed HT is the greatest thing since sliced bread, you will probably like crit rating more than the trees that like to run circles around the raid while chucking out hots like rain.

Level 80 Restoration Druid Spreadsheet here.
(v1.41)

 

Aicha

Living Seed isn't that good in my opinion.
I logged three of our 25-naxx Raids and I healed something around 150k in every Raid with it.
This is because of the way Living Seed heals:
LS heals when someone is receiving another hit, for most topped of tanks it works out as a heal at about 99-100% effectivly healing ~nothing.
For raidheal after aoe LS seems to be as effective as on tanks, because a critical regrowth/glyphed HT brings the hp of your target to a point where LS heals for small amounts.
At least thats what I thought after analysing the Wws Logs.

 

• Playered

Living Seed is currently bugged and *should* be fixed in 3.0.8 - needs confirmation if it has been.

I wouldn't base your value of the talent on current reports as it is rather worthless until fixed (and who knows, it might remain somewhat useless then too).

 

Paininabox

I have written a mana regeneration analysis document that attempts to mathematically determine the value of intellect and spirit versus mp5 in order to make accurate gear decisions. It's nine pages long, divided into two sections. The first section is the in-depth mathematical proof of my formulae, and the second section is designed for the average wow player to understand and apply in the game without being bogged down by the math. The article makes frequent reference to my spreadsheet, which I highly recommend using; however, the analysis document only reflects features that are present in v1.3 of my spreadsheet, which is still in development. I *think* v1.21 (the one linked in my signature) is pretty good, but it has an error and lacks flexibility that is present in v1.3. It is still a good indicator, though it may be somewhat inaccurate. Please read it through and let me know of any errors or fallacies that I may have missed. Thanks!

Mana Regeneration Analysis

Level 80 Restoration Druid Spreadsheet here.
(v1.41)

 

Altamont

[Nobles Deck]

Do you guys think the base Int is better then get the spirit to proc (even with 90 int, I can make myself have more spirit) or just get the raw +90 Spirit and have it proc Spirit.

 

• Playered

Int one with Spirit proc is superior.

 

Altamont

I'm thinking the raw spirit, seeing Spirit does add some Spell Power.

If I use [Illustration of the Dragon Soul] I think it would make an awesome combo.

 

• uliko

Take the intellect version because it is so superior in the mana department that you could easily swap some gear/gems/enchants around to make up for the 17 spellpower the spirit trinket gives you.

At 1000 intellect, 1400 spirit and 7m fight the intellect version gives you 6032 mana if you innervate yourself and 4547 otherwise while the spirit one only provides 2529 mana over the same period. 17 spellpower just doesn't make up for it. Formulas here if you want to change some values around (make sure to add in living spirit/kings correctly).

Why hit food is bad
"You have to spend 10 seconds to apply it, you have to fish it and you cant use the feast."

 

Tipperton

I wanted to ask what you would prefer after you reached the "hastecap" (1sek globalcd for LB,RJ,WG)
crit / haste?

I'm not sure what to prefer, since i haven't found any good calculations about it...

(thx in advance)

 

KrinKer

OK

I've asked this before in my longer post but I'd like to know if someone would be able to tell me/us how much haste does crit rating gives when u factor in nature's grace when spamming regrowth ?

It is probably slightly complex but I'd like to know.

Thanks in advance !

 

Adriel

After many runs this weekend, these are my impressions.

* No matter how wide our arsenal of spells, we are still primarily HOT healers in raid environments. This is because quite simply, other classes are better at direct heals. While at the same time, we are gifted in the hotness department. Invariably this means our assignments, particularly in 25-mans, will favor us using HOTs.

* Because HOTs don't crit, it becomes less desirable as a stat. As such, we should favor haste over crit, since haste lets us throw HOTs faster.

* That said, in the end crit = mana. We all know the routine. We throw HOTs on everything. Then when our targets lose too much life, we do a direct heal with Nourish/Regrowth. If this doesn't top them off, we usually follow this with a HOT. Thus the more you can get Nourish/Regrowth to crit, the less followup you need to do, which turns into saved mana. Crit also has the side benefit of making single target (tank) healing more effective. As we can put out more average HPS, while at the same time not spending more mana.

So while crit is not as desirable as haste initially, because haste helps our primary function more. There comes a point where more haste won't help spread the HOTs any faster, ie. the "softcap. From that point on, crit should have a higher priority since our remaining spells (direct heals) and mana benefit more from that stat.

That's my take anyway :o

To sum it up.

1. Crit > haste until you don't have any mana issues. Most important thing in any fight is don't run out of mana, and crit doesn't hurt.
2. Once mana regeneration is good, then it becomes haste > crit until you achieve 1-sec global cooldown with 5/5 Gift of the Earthmother. This is to benefit our HOTs, which are our primary function.
3. After reaching the soft cap, then crit > haste again. To benefit our direct heals after we've polished our HOT effectiveness.

Also don't get MP5 if you can avoid it. Get spirit. Or even get haste+crit. Straight MP5 is just not worth the cost in terms of item budget ;p

 

Tipperton

In a Raid Environment you should only need 175 Haste to reach the Hastecap,
You get 5% of the Wrath of Air Totem of the Elemental Shaman
and another 3% of the improved Moonkin Aura.

Adding up to:

20% Gift of the Earthmother
5% Wrath of Air Totem
3% Improved Moonkin Aura
5,34% Haste of yoour 175 Haste Rating
33,34 Spell Haste for LB, RJ & WG

But this "much" haste you are "forced" to have, because so much Items in WotLK have haste on them...
Having said this I would even go so far to say you should prefer crit over haste.

 

Kermit

Indeed much of the gear have either haste or crit - almost too much tbh. The 50% talented crit to Regrowth makes crit mostly valuble for when you need to use nourish (which, tbh, isn't that often when you got regrowth). The hastecap you will probably reach without trying very hard too.

I hope to see more items like for example [Bands of the Great Tree] in future content updates - we need more sp/manaregen and less crit/haste on our gear imo.

 

GTtheBard

I'm of this mindset as well - Haste is sorta useless, even without the cap (if only because we don't *need* to squeeze our heals into a 7 second cycle). Crit is rendered useless by the natural 50% on Regrowth, though it does help Swiftmend/Nourish/HT, and we get bonuses from Nature's Grace/Living Seed with our Crits. Straight mp5 costs far too much, I'd much rather just see straight stats + SP gear if anything. Though really I think they need to give us some way to scale with Crit, like Shadowform or that Lock talent. Though that might be a different issue entirely.

 

Fallenangel

What you're saying flies in the face of how itemization currently works. The amount of SP on an item is more or less fixed (+- a few), given it's slot and item level. In addition, as tiers progress, you get more stats, not less. Blue items usually have 4 while the T7 epics have 5.
The only real way to cheat on SP is via gemming. Hence, as a general rule of thumb, items with sockets are better than ones without - assuming the same ilevel, of course.
The lack of scaling from haste and crit has been rehashed here, dating back to WotLK beta. Yes, we scale poorly with both stats - but our SP scaling is unmatched. In blizzard's eyes, this evens out.

 

• Playered

Improved Regrowth does not make Crit Rating useless.
Without any Crit Rating you have around 60%~ raid buffed for Regrowth? not exactly reliable - you would have to assume it will not be a critical and enjoy the bonus if it does because it is not far off a 1:1.
Crit Rating will help you push that up into the values (75%+) where you can almost always count on it being a critical which is obviously a much better place to be in for healing.

Our magical SP scaling is nothing different from a Shadow Priest or Affliction Loc however? or have I missed something where they lost a chunk of that before they got crit conversion talents?.

Haste also will allow you to dump out points in GoTEM which might be useful - this is generally not worth it if you intend to put those points in Natural Perfection though.

It does all depend on your healing style in the end. If Nourish, RG or even HT end up being a high % of your healing then it will be worth investing gear into enhancing it provided that this does not compromise your SP in any significant way.
With WG having a CD and the unknown in Ulduar we might end up having to use direct heals for raid healing as HoTs will not cut it like they do on Sapphiron and such - who knows.



Don't forget about Haste though - just because your spells are cast faster, allowing you to put out better HPS per spell, this does not mean that you are spending more mana to do so.
If you only need to cast 10x RG then Haste will allow you do to do this much faster without any additional cost - if you are just going to spam (stupidly) RG for 20 seconds then Haste will end up costing you mana but you will also get a larger return of HPS from doing so (wether it is effective or not... another story).