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).

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

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.

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.

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.

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

WoW Meter Online - Combatlog Replay


ignore me getting rocked in faction champions.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.