Restoration Itemization - Page 69

OnyxShadow · 11/03/09, 6:17 PM

I've been watching this thread closely for a while, and I haven't seen this be asked.

When 3.3 hits, will it be worth dropping the T9 4-piece set bonus right away if that's what it takes to get to 850 haste? Which is better? T9 4P w/500 haste or no set bonus with 850 haste?

cuddlekin · 11/03/09, 9:00 PM

Originally Posted by OnyxShadow

I've been watching this thread closely for a while, and I haven't seen this be asked.

When 3.3 hits, will it be worth dropping the T9 4-piece set bonus right away if that's what it takes to get to 850 haste? Which is better? T9 4P w/500 haste or no set bonus with 850 haste?

Being haste capped will be better than the crit on Rejuv, so yes I would drop the 4 piece to get haste capped.

Norfair · 11/04/09, 1:49 AM

Originally Posted by cuddlekin

Being haste capped will be better than the crit on Rejuv, so yes I would drop the 4 piece to get haste capped.

You can have 2 haste pieces with 4-set already. All you gain is 2 haste pieces for 2 crit pieces, or ~4% haste (and lose 3% crit) for the setbonus. So I doubt it's worth it to break the 4-set.

It also depends on how RJ-spam-heavy the fights in IC are.

Blackpatch · 11/04/09, 12:08 PM

When you're raid healing with RJx5, WG, Hamlet's TreeCalc sheet indicates that if you have 4T9 you get (very ballpark) 4 HPS from a point of SP, 5 HPS from a point of haste rating, 1.4 HPS from a point of crit, 0.45 HPS from a point of INT, and 500 HPS from other assorted buffs giving you INT/crit. If you break 4T9 you get 3.7 HPS from a point of SP, 4.6 HPS from a point of haste, and nothing from crit, INT, or various INT/crit buffs. (To reiterate, we're in the strict Instants-Only Raid Healing regime here.)

This means that you need to pick up a lot of stat upgrades to make it worth your while to break 4T9, because losing 4T9 makes all your stats worse across every piece of gear. You need (around) +110 haste to beat losing 500 HPS from INT/crit buffs, another +110 or so haste to beat losing 500 HPS from INT (with 1100 INT), +110 haste to beat losing 500 HPS from crit (400 crit), and then you need to multiply that by 1.2 because of the drop in value of SP and haste. So you need about +400 haste or +500 spellpower from your T9-breaking pieces (SP worth 3.7 HPS, haste worth 4.6) or some mix of that to make it worth breaking your 4T9.

This makes it seem like we won't be breaking 4T9 until 4T10, and that's in the case of 100% perfectly optimal 4T10 going where you need it.

Fallenangel · 11/04/09, 12:48 PM

Playing both sides here - keep in mind that you usually (always?) won't have access to all T9.258. Picking the ones with haste first (in particular shoulders) makes the most sense as they should be the most long-term useable, although if indeed it turns out that you need 4T10 to make the transition in which case it matters less.
The slot this matters most in is the chest since there are 2 258 pieces that are easily attainable. There are no non-tier helms and the only gloves drop from Anub, although they might still be easier to get - they also don't have spirit.
The gain of haste from dropping 4T9 should be regarded as gain of SP, assuming you have to gem for haste to keep 4T9 and be capped. If you don't, then the gain is less significant.
Most fights aren't 5 rejuv 1 WG so this calculation is overvaluing 4T9.
Finally the value of 2T10 needs to be taken into account.

On the other hand, your statement about multiplying the lose by 1.2 doesn't seem right. For instance, if SP goes from 4HPS to 3.7HPS and you have 3.5K SP, you just lost 1050HPS, which is a larger lose than what your calculation would suggest.

Sinalos · 11/04/09, 2:26 PM

Originally Posted by Fallenangel

There are no non-tier helms and the only gloves drop from Anub, although they might still be easier to get - they also don't have spirit.

The high haste items that most people have been going with in those slots are the [Helm of Abundant Growth] and using Moonkin Tier gloves [Runetotem's Gloves of Triumph]. Personally as haste affects everything I do, I'm planning on dropping the 4pc in order to get haste capped. It's just personal preference, but I would much rather have consistency in my healing than having the 30% chance that a rejuve tick is going to crit when most rejuve ticks are partially overheal anyway.

Fallenangel · 11/04/09, 2:47 PM

Yes, I meant to say 258 items. If there were 258 for gloves and helm too, keeping 4T9 would cost more than was indicated. In the chest slot, you can get a 258 nonset item over your 245 set one.
Another possible update is [Pants of the Soothing Touch] if you forgo T9.

Blackpatch · 11/04/09, 3:11 PM

Valid points about gear options in ToC.

I agree that in most fights you'll be doing some tank healing. The nonideality of most fights can be addressed by setting Hamlet's sheet to RJ/RG/Nourish 1 tank and seeing where this opposite "boundary condition" places you. Haste becomes a fairly insignificant contributor to HPS (0.4 HPS). Crit is 1.2 HPS, INT is 0.35 HPS and SP is 1.6 HPS. This actually weakens the argument for breaking 4T9 for haste.

2T10 is weak and does not scale, it's 210.5 HPS. That's worth about 42 haste in the RJ/WG scenario.

Finally your point about losing value from your "existing" SP and haste shows up a mistake I made in the original post. Full buffs actually only contribute about 150 HPS to the 4T9 bonus. Then there's an amount of HPS that actually comes from gear SP, haste, and SPI-SP (through Tree Form) that contribute to more/bigger 4T9 crit effects. I think this HPS is what the increased value of SP and haste is doing.

Something feels off about the math though. If you count up the losses from SP, crit, haste, INT, and SPI for losing 4T9 from a situation of 3500 SP, 400 crit, 500 haste, 1100 INT, 1100 SPI, you get a loss of 2515 HPS. But the spreadsheet only calls this a loss of 1700 HPS for dropping 4T9. Whatever the exact truth is, I think the point stands: 4T9 is not to be dropped lightly.

cuddlekin · 11/05/09, 5:43 PM

I came up with a list comprised of T9 gear that will be Best In Slot for Icecrown, being that it gets you haste capped with the new GotEM.
BiS for ICC with T9 gear

• Hamlet · 11/05/09, 6:21 PM

Originally Posted by cuddlekin

I came up with a list comprised of T9 gear that will be Best In Slot for Icecrown, being that it gets you haste capped with the new GotEM.
BiS for ICC with T9 gear

[Conductive Seal] is better than [Band of the Invoker]. Otherwise, pretty good. A few things that might be relevant:
--[Belt of Pale Thorns] is the same as [Cord of the Tenebrous Mist], but without cloth competition.
--There's a good haste option in [Lightbane Focus], which is important to keep in mind, as you'll probably need it if you can't construct this set perfectly. Notably, if you can't get [Sandals of the Mourning Widow] over cloth-wearers, and have to use [Boots of the Harsh Winter].
--[Cry of the Val'kyr] will be hotly contested by all casters. The next best items are all from Ulduar: [Pendant of Fiery Havoc], [Charm of Meticulous Timing], and [Sapphire Amulet of Renewal].

Also, as noted above, there's still the option to keep 4T9 (which at the moment I think I'm inclined to do). This requires giving up two haste items (hat/gloves). If you do that, you'll definitely want haste items in every other slot, which means [Lightbane Focus] and [Sandals of the Mourning Widow] are important.

Finally, Celestial Focus lower the haste cap from 856 to 735, which is another option to keep in mind. You give up Living Seed, resulting in this build:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
This may be what I use after 3.3, still thinking about it.

cuddlekin · 11/05/09, 6:52 PM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

[Conductive Seal] is better than [Band of the Invoker]. Otherwise, pretty good. A few things that might be relevant:
--[Belt of Pale Thorns] is the same as [Cord of the Tenebrous Mist], but without cloth competition.
--There's a good haste option in [Lightbane Focus], which is important to keep in mind, as you'll probably need it if you can't construct this set perfectly. Notably, if you can't get [Sandals of the Mourning Widow] over cloth-wearers, and have to use [Boots of the Harsh Winter].
--[Cry of the Val'kyr] will be hotly contested by all casters. The next best items are all from Ulduar: [Pendant of Fiery Havoc], [Charm of Meticulous Timing], and [Sapphire Amulet of Renewal].

Also, as noted above, there's still the option to keep 4T9 (which at the moment I think I'm inclined to do). This requires giving up two haste items (hat/gloves). If you do that, you'll definitely want haste items in every other slot, which means [Lightbane Focus] and [Sandals of the Mourning Widow] are important.

Finally, Celestial Focus lower the haste cap from 856 to 735, which is another option to keep in mind. You give up Living Seed, resulting in this build:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft
This may be what I use after 3.3, still thinking about it.

With my playstyle I could never give up Living Seed. And you do have the option of taking two points out of Tranquil Spirit to get 1% more haste from Celestial Focus, but again I use a heavy Nourish playstyle and thought the 4% mana reduction would serve me better. And I chose the Cord of the Tenbrous Mist because the sockets are better, 10 spirit vs 10 haste(putting you further over the haste cap, and I just prefer more regen as well as the minimal spellpower when compared to the haste.) Also, thanks for heads up about the ring, fixed.
In the spec you suggested you lose 20% healing on nourish...which is a hard pill to swallow.

• Hamlet · 11/05/09, 7:03 PM

Originally Posted by cuddlekin

With my playstyle I could never give up Living Seed. And you do have the option of taking two points out of Tranquil Spirit to get 1% more haste from Celestial Focus, but again I use a heavy Nourish playstyle and thought the 4% mana reduction would serve me better. And I chose the Cord of the Tenbrous Mist because the sockets are better, 10 spirit vs 10 haste(putting you further over the haste cap, and I just prefer more regen as well as the minimal spellpower when compared to the haste.)

Don't get your point about Tranquil Spirit and CF. How are the two related? The difficulty in picking up CF is that you need to drop points in Resto tiers 8-11 to get it. Since GOTEM, iTOL, and Revitalize are all very strong and wouldn't be worth dropping for CF, the only option is to give up Living Seed.

Unless you use Nourish/RG instead of Rejuv/WG a huge percentage of the time (like, over half), CF looks better than Living Seed at first glance.

e: I pretty much never cast Nourish now, but the the rare times I do are the reason I picked up 2/2 ET. After 3.3, I'll use it even less because Regrowth will replace it. The spec I linked is anticipating heavy Rejuv/WG usage (just like now), with some small supplementary usage of Regrowth.

cuddlekin · 11/05/09, 7:12 PM

Originally Posted by Arawethion

Don't get your point about Tranquil Spirit and CF. How are the two related? The difficulty in picking up CF is that you need to drop points in Resto tiers 8-11 to get it. Since GOTEM, iTOL, and Revitalize are all very strong and wouldn't be worth dropping for CF, the only option is to give up Living Seed.

Unless you use Nourish/RG instead of Rejuv/WG a huge percentage of the time (like, over half), CF looks better than Living Seed at first glance.

e: I pretty much never cast Nourish now, but the the rare times I do are the reason I picked up 2/2 ET. After 3.3, I'll use it even less because Regrowth will replace it. The spec I linked is anticipating heavy Rejuv/WG usage (just like now), with some small supplementary usage of Regrowth.

Tranquil Spirit and CF are not related, I didn't say they were. I was merely pointing out that when I was devising that spec I came up at the end with 2 points to either get 1 in CF or 2 in Tranquil Spirit, I chose Tranquil Spirit.
Why would you replace Nourish with Regrowth? Nourish, at a 1 sec cast, crits for 13k on a tank, and 10k on a raid member, whereas Regrowth takes longer to cast and only crits for 8k. Any time you are called to tank heal you NEED Empowered Touch, not only does it help tremendously with Nourish it also helps even more when you need to NS+HT someone who is about to die(be it the tank or whomever.)

• Hamlet · 11/05/09, 8:22 PM

Originally Posted by cuddlekin

Tranquil Spirit and CF are not related, I didn't say they were. I was merely pointing out that when I was devising that spec I came up at the end with 2 points to either get 1 in CF or 2 in Tranquil Spirit, I chose Tranquil Spirit.

Yes, that's what I'm getting at, I don't see how that could happen. The difficulty with taking CF is that, between 18 points in Balance and 35 points required in Resto tiers 1-7, there's only room for 18 points in Resto tiers 8-11. But pretty much all of the talents in those tiers are very good, and definitely not things you're going to give up for Tranquil Spirit (except maybe Improved Barkskin, but there are still 21 points to spend beyond that). You'd never consider spending additional points in TS once you have the good part of the tree unlocked.

Regrowth also leaves a HoT which is roughly twice the total size of the direct heal. And spreading some healing out over time is generally stronger than dropping it all at once for raid healing purposes. It's probably more worth using currently than people gives it credit for, and a 10% buff from GOTEM next patch is a nice bump.

Will the boost to Regrowth, Nourish will be largely for tank healing. And yes, if I have to tank heal a challenging fight I'd have to respec for ET. That's no different from now--if I have to tank heal a challenging fight I have to respec for Nature's Grace. It never comes up anyway. I switched from mainly playing Moonkin to Resto two months ago and not once have I had to tank heal something serious enough that I felt the need to pick up NG.* In a 25-man with at least 3 non-Druid healers or a 10-man with at least 1 non-Druid healer, I don't see why you'd ever wind up spamming Nourish on a tank.

*One exception maybe, when I was doing 10-man Earth, Wind, and Fire. I was solo-healing Emalon with one tank tanking the boss and all the adds, and was having trouble keeping him up. But, tellingly, instead of having me respec we just swapped assignments so someone far more appropriate could cover that.

Fallenangel · 11/05/09, 8:32 PM

At T9 gear-levels Nourish and regrowth's direct heal heal for roughly the same on a target with no hots. Nourish does have a higher coefficient if you have 2/2 ET so it will widen the somewhat small gap it has now.
Then again, nourish doesn't proc a 27s SMable hot, nor does it gain from NG.
Regrowth is also not haste capped like our other spells. A 1s NGed regrowth is not out of the realm of possibility with 3/3 CF - 1180 haste with raid buffs. Some gear setups thrown around pack close to 900 haste with a few crit items. If the rapid rejuv becomes useful, gearing for haste will boost that as well, whereas gearing for crit will only help nourish.
And as before I will advocate the 2 resto builds mentality. If you're raid healing one time and tank healing on another fight, there's no reason to make compromises by finding a middle road.