Restoration Itemization - Page 6

Adriel · 12/09/08, 6:37 AM

The old druid thread had a section on healing rotations. :o Definitely need an updated version.

As far as gear, the ideal gear seems to be something that has Stamina, Intel, Spirit, Spellpower, and nothing else. You will horde these like a squirrel hording acorns. If you must give one of those stats up, stamina is first, ha ha. But since we're not that lucky, will probably lose spirit for either crit or haste. It comes down to preference I suppose. But crit seems more useful as it will make Regrowth/Nourish/Swiftmend that much better. There is also the impending "dual-specs", under which high-crit transitions to Moonkin all that easier. Haste almost seems to fall in your lap, especially with GotEM and raid buffs. So I wouldn't really worry about that stat at all.

Fallenangel · 12/09/08, 9:39 AM

Most raid gear has stamina, int, SP and 2 of : spirit, mp5, haste and crit. So giving up stamina isn't really an option. Mp5 is generally inferior to spirit - that is, per budget point, you get more regen from spirit than from mp5. If going for maximum throughput, items with haste and crit (and without regen) are the best, but they are also desired by the DPS casters and are probably better used in their hands.
I wouldn't ignore haste on gear at all; It won't fall into your lap if you pick up the spi/crit gear which is quite prevalent. I'd say reaching the soft haste cap and then going all out on SP is the way to go, shifting out points from GotEM as you gain gear.
Scaling at higher gear levels is a concern, but blizzard have quite clearly stated that they don't consider scaling off a limited number of stats a problem. Our scaling with SP is excellent due to high coefficients and it's possible to scale based just on that. That is, the extra crit and haste on the T8 gear will not give us much, but we'll gain more from the SP leap compared to other healers.
Slightly related question - does celestial focus stack multiplicatively with other haste effects? I was thinking of shifting some points from GotEM into it and was wondering about the needed amount of haste on gear.

GTtheBard · 12/09/08, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by Fallenangel

Most raid gear has stamina, int, SP and 2 of : spirit, mp5, haste and crit. So giving up stamina isn't really an option. Mp5 is generally inferior to spirit - that is, per budget point, you get more regen from spirit than from mp5. If going for maximum throughput, items with haste and crit (and without regen) are the best, but they are also desired by the DPS casters and are probably better used in their hands.

I wouldn't ignore haste on gear at all; It won't fall into your lap if you pick up the spi/crit gear which is quite prevalent. I'd say reaching the soft haste cap and then going all out on SP is the way to go, shifting out points from GotEM as you gain gear.
Scaling at higher gear levels is a concern, but blizzard have quite clearly stated that they don't consider scaling off a limited number of stats a problem. Our scaling with SP is excellent due to high coefficients and it's possible to scale based just on that. That is, the extra crit and haste on the T8 gear will not give us much, but we'll gain more from the SP leap compared to other healers.
Slightly related question - does celestial focus stack multiplicatively with other haste effects? I was thinking of shifting some points from GotEM into it and was wondering about the needed amount of haste on gear.

The problem is, we can hit a soft cap on Haste with Naxx gear (not even looking for Haste, it's just that prevalent on most gear), and very few items exist with just Stam/Int/Spirit/SP. For an iLevel budget, only using four stats increases the cost of each stat by a decent amount, and therefore we suffer from not splitting the budget into a fifth point. However, since we don't scale with either Haste or Crit (and mp5 is such a budget eater), splitting points into them isn't ideal either. I'm not sure how Blizz can say that scaling off few stats isn't a problem - Afflic Locks and SPriests scaled poorly towards the end of BC because they didn't scale from anything but Spell Power. Regardless, if the current itemization trend continues into t8/t9, we'll likely see Resto Druids fall behind in output compared to other healers.

Shifting points out of Gift of the Earthmother seems like a good idea, until you put it into practice. Where would you put those points? As it stands, a 14/0/53+4 talent build is fairly standard, and those four points can easily be thrown into 1 Nature's Reach/3 Celestial Focus, giving you all the talents involving Haste before you remove points from GotEM. I'm unsure of how Celestial Focus stacks, but I'm seriously considering 18/0/53 as my build rather than 14/0/57.

Playered · 12/09/08, 11:11 AM

The cost of ditching points out of GoTEM is so expensive compred to keeping it and taking the rating on crit or something though.

I would rather get more crit from gear and have GoTEM + the softcap on haste than need an extra 350 haste to re-reach the softcap while only gaining two talent points (to spend on what?).

You are rarely 'forced' to take haste on your gear, you could probably justify 4/5 at some point but..

Vazu · 12/09/08, 1:35 PM

Originally Posted by Playered

The cost of ditching points out of GoTEM is so expensive compred to keeping it and taking the rating on crit or something though.

I would rather get more crit from gear and have GoTEM + the softcap on haste than need an extra 350 haste to re-reach the softcap while only gaining two talent points (to spend on what?).

You are rarely 'forced' to take haste on your gear, you could probably justify 4/5 at some point but..

Hey, 4/5 is one more point in Brambles!

Rogaine · 12/09/08, 8:35 PM

Never posted before on these forums but I am an experienced resto druid killed KJ pre-3.0 patch and I have cleared all the current content.

What I have seen so far is first and foremost is that healing is very easy currently so no matter what you do you'll probably be fine.

1. Spell power is still the best stat.
2. Spirit is not very valuable until you get stronger gear, the spirit -> mp5 conversion got nerfed pretty stongly so until your intellect increases it is of little value. In my opinion spell power/mp5 gems are better for those with weaker gear ([Royal Twilight Opal]). Much more MP5 and the Imp ToL extra healing is negligible even when raid buffed. I don't have issues getting a full mana bar from innervate and get a substantial amount even when I use it on someone else because of the glyph of innervate. Replenishment aura starts to have a huge imapct as your mana pool increases.
3. Crit seems to be better than haste given the choice between them. I am specced for Nature's Grace and I have the regrowth glyph so I've found myself making use of that spell much much more. Half a second off your next cast is very valuable, and with a decent amount of using regrowth and nourish living seed can be very useful.

Totally unbuffed stats (In tree form but no mark):
HP:16357
Mana: 16671
Bonus healing: 2124
MP5 while casting: 318 (you should never find yourself in a spot where you aren't casting, I never find myself with mana issues and cast for an entire fight)
Haste: 283 (8.63%)
Crit: 296 (16.68%)

Hope this helps some people!
-Gyn

Edited for clarity of the spirit being bad at lesser gear quality. As gear improves so does spirit.

ithecho84 · 12/09/08, 8:42 PM

Originally Posted by Rogaine

2. Spirit is now useless in my opinion, the spirit -> mp5 conversion got nerfed pretty stongly. In my opinion spell power/mp5 gems are better now ([Royal Twilight Opal]). Much more MP5 and the Imp ToL extra healing is negligible even when raid buffed. I don't have issues getting a full mana bar from innervate and get a substantial amount even when I use it on someone else because of the glyph of innervate. Replenishment aura starts to have a huge imapct as your mana pool increases.

I'm not sure what you are implying, but druids never gemmed with pure spirit anyways. I think once the purified twilight opal is put in the game blue slots will be easier to fill. Once that's done, I don't see spell power/mp5 gems ever touching a piece of druid gear.

Rogaine · 12/09/08, 8:51 PM

My point was that the [Royal Twilight Opal] is better than purified twilight opal.

George · 12/09/08, 8:53 PM

I have come up with a simplified way to calculate the spirit regen given from individual item pieces.

I have based this off the formula: Value of spirit equal to 1 mana/5 = 119.5 * INT^(-0.5)

On a single item is it calculated as follows:
(Living spirit: 1.15, kings 1.1 - remove these if you don't have those buffs).
mana/5 from spirit on an item = (SPI(1.1)(1.15))/(119.5*(INT^(-0.5)))

e.g. if I have living spirit only and 843 intellect then the value of the regen from Talisman of Troll Divinity (73 spirit) is:
(73*(1.15))/(119.5*(843^(-0.5))) = 20.39

Round down to 20 and for an intellect value of 842 it is a 20 mana/5 while casting trinket (verified in game)

limitations: if the item you are looking at changes your max intellect then the result will be a good estimation but not precise, the larger the difference the larger the error. you can always adjust your int value to compensate but generally 40 int either way will only put you out 1 mana/5 at the most.

Sometimes I like to know this stuff without having to bid/buy the item to look at my character screen in order to find out.

So far it has been correct for items I have tried but if there are any glaring errors or if I am over looking something please correct me :)

ecit: on the topic of gems... in order to get 3 mana/5 from 8 spirit (8 spirit = 10.12 spirit with kings/living spirit) you need around 1290 intellect for the 8 spirit gem to be on par with the 3 mana/5 after that point the spirit gem gives you more regen. i guess the point to make there though is once your gear is that good you should have no reason to gem for anything but spell power.

also does anyone have any insight into how/where/when blizzard works with rounding?

Rogaine · 12/09/08, 9:07 PM

I should have noted that my comment was taking the MP5 perspective, and as gear improves the purified twilight opal will become better.

A purified twilight opal would give me 10.5 healing and 2.8MP5 (raidbuffed).

Paininabox · 12/09/08, 10:01 PM

Originally Posted by George

also does anyone have any insight into how/where/when blizzard works with rounding?

Well, I've learned a few things (I think) about how they do some things. Blizzard tends to floor numbers instead of rounding them. A gem I picked up after a couple hours of being frustrated is that when blizzard calculates your spirit with living spirit, they do it strangely. Here's what I think they're doing:

Without LS=

Spirit on gear + Base spirit = total spirit as displayed on sheet

With LS=

FLOOR( Spirit on gear * 1.15) + FLOOR( Base spirit * 1.15) = total spirit as displayed on sheet

I don't know if this has been found already, but it has been accurate for me thus far. Before, when I would do what you think would be right ( (Gear + Base) * 1.15 and then floored)), I would either be right or off by 1-2, and I would always be giving a high prediction.

I've found that they floor mana costs, all stats after modifiers, MP5, etc. I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced this.

Playered · 12/09/08, 10:27 PM

Okay, 3 differing stats on gems and we will assume they are rare quality (9 Spell Power + [8]Int, [3.2]MP5 or [9]Spi) and include Living Spirit.

(Please note EU servers are down and its late, rounding happened but changing it only makes MP5 fare worse)

I tested some stat brackets (800/1000, 900/1100, 1000/1200) and they didn't change dramatically so assume:
MP5 = 3.2 MP5
Int = 1.2 MP5 (Intensity)
Spi = 2.2 MP5 (Intensity)

8 Int also gives two additional attributes:
1) Replenishment = 1.5 MP5
2) 120 bonus mana (double result to include Innervating yourself):
*3 min fight = 3.33 MP5
*5 min fight = 2 MP5
*7 min fight = 1.4 MP5

As you can see, even on a 7 min fight where you don't Innervate yourself or spend any time OO5SR (...) 8 Int will give you (1.4+1.5+1.2) 4.2 MP5 and it only gets higher as the fight gets shorter.

Spirit will walk over MP5 when you Innervate yourself or spend a small amount of time OO5SR.

I cannot even justify MP5 for trash mobs sadly so gem it at your own risk, but it does eventually come out equal on a 20 min fight assuming no Innervate or OO5SR.

Adriel · 12/10/08, 5:45 AM

MP5 is very over budget for us.

Consider a druid who has intensity/living spirit and...

0800 intel, mana regeneration per spirit is: 0.91 mp5 not casting, 0.27 mp5 while casting
1000 intel, mana regeneration per spirit is: 1.01 mp5 not casting, 0.30 mp5 while casting
1200 intel, mana regeneration per spirit is: 1.11 mp5 not casting, 0.33 mp5 while casting
1400 intel, mana regeneration per spirit is: 1.20 mp5 not casting, 0.36 mp5 while casting

Even at the lowest level (which it's hard to imagine 800 intel in a raid situation), 16 spirit (Sparkling Sky Sapphire) = 14.5 mp5 not casting and 4.32 mp5 while. For that same socket, you can get a constant 6 mp5 (Lustrous Sky Sapphire). So just slightly less mana in-combat, and a whole lot worse when you're not casting.

Even assuming a 30-sec chaincast, where you're maybe not casting only 5 secs, for 16 spirit that's still 14.5 mana + (4.32 mana * 5) = 36.1 mana. Compare that to a straight 6 mp5 (x6)= 36 mana. Basically same benefit. And this is while chaincasting at a relatively low intel; from there regeneration by spirit only gets better. That is also to say nothing about innervate, spellpower via TOL aura, multiplication with Blessing of Kings... Don't take mp5 over spirit :o Take mp5 over crit or haste, or stamina if you can. But definitely not spirit.

Rogaine · 12/10/08, 6:08 AM

I was getting .35 mp5 per spirit tonight fully raid buffed (wearing top notch geat for right now). Assuming a rare quality 9 spell power 8 spirit gem that's 2.8mp5. At lower gear levels this will be even less not to mention the fact there is no 9 spell power 8 spirit gem in the game yet. Thus, for people ust starting raiding 9 spell power 3 mp5 is not a bad gem choice.

I also believe if you're not casting you're doing something wrong. There is no reason for anyone to have down time, I never run out of mana even without innervate.

Fallenangel · 12/10/08, 6:21 AM

Originally Posted by Playered

The cost of ditching points out of GoTEM is so expensive compred to keeping it and taking the rating on crit or something though.

I would rather get more crit from gear and have GoTEM + the softcap on haste than need an extra 350 haste to re-reach the softcap while only gaining two talent points (to spend on what?).

You are rarely 'forced' to take haste on your gear, you could probably justify 4/5 at some point but..

The thing is, the haste cap is indeed a soft one, that is your cast-time spells still benefit from haste once you're over the cap. Hence, it's not like you're spending 350 haste to just gain 2 talent points, but rather that the extra haste boosts regrowth/HT/nourish and has the side benefit of those extra talents. The open question is whether haste or crit is better for these spells, which is still in the air and is mostly down to personal preference.