What I was trying to say is that Nourish efficiancy has been counted with only nourish mana cost and I believe that the cost of the Hots should also be included in the cost of Nourish when the efficiancy is in play
What I was trying to say is that Nourish efficiancy has been counted with only nourish mana cost and I believe that the cost of the Hots should also be included in the cost of Nourish when the efficiancy is in play
Sure, and when you do that, you also need to take into consideration the healing done by the hots themselves, as HoTs are not consumed by Nourish. If you assume that hots should always be on your primary target, then you compare the HPM of "buffed-up" Nourish and Regrowth. The comparison you're doing isn't a fair one as far as I can tell.
The problem is that as mana becomes a problem we would tend to over-use Lifebloom a tad more due to its strengths as we are not able to afford to throw around RG/Nourish as often as normal. Rolling 3-4x LB was pretty much a "you win" on the healing meter provided those 4 targets actually took steady damage and it was pretty sustainable, reverting to that again would of had bad consequences.
As I perceive it the usage of lifebloom has never been governed by mana scarcity but rather by the number of tanks participating in an encounter. For raid healing purposes rejuvenation is superior save for a few special fight mechanics so that is irrelevant in lifebloom's contribution to aggregate healing done. Because of this even if mana becomes an issue that likely won't result in us falling back to excessive lifebloom usage. It may be what you call a "you win" in current content but as bosses start hitting harder paladin effective healing is bound to increase relative to lifebloom.
Also I do not see why you believe not allowing us to heal multiple tanks effectively is justified. Together with mobility, mana efficiency and strong multi tank healing has been our niche whereas paladins are traditionally the best single target healers. The fact that they received beacon of light does not suddenly mean they should reign this aspect of healing not to mention I have yet to see them run out of mana. Right now when you look at numbers they fare better when there are one or two tanks to heal, anything above that and we take over which is just fine.
Not that the current implementation on PTR means we can not do multi tank healing, it is just down to a choice of double mana cost or -33% HPS. Which boggles me frankly as lifebloom already has its drawback of not scaling well with gear and as stated above its relative value is bound to decrease as a function of damage dealt. If we are forced to itemize more heavily for mana efficiency, intellect seems to be the reasonable choice but since lunar guidance can not be reached with a deep resto build we lose spell power. Coincidentally paladins needing more regen - although they don't - have the choice of intellect or critical strike rating, both of which increases their throughput.
The only justification I see for the proposed change is the extra decision we are presented with. But introducing it in parallel with the double blow of the out of combat regen nerf and not adjusting innervate accordingly while neglecting the need to make lifebloom scale better with gear seems unreasonable at best unless they already have hard numbers from Ulduar testing that says otherwise.
If only they add some sort of Test dummies for healing.
Which wouldn't even be that complicated. They only need to script a fight between several NPCs, which may or may not stop when reaching low HP (think Shattered Halls or Black Temple), and respawn them if necessary. Of course there would be flaws in the inital implementation (how to make this work with group targeted spells like PoH for example). But still, i would like to be able to test healing strategies using test 'dummies' (of course dummies won't really work, even though they surely could be implemented to take RNG damage, and start over when reaching 0) just like DD classes (and now even tank classes) are able to, even if it would mean that it would only be very basic to begin with.
Sure, and when you do that, you also need to take into consideration the healing done by the hots themselves, as HoTs are not consumed by Nourish. If you assume that hots should always be on your primary target, then you compare the HPM of "buffed-up" Nourish and Regrowth. The comparison you're doing isn't a fair one as far as I can tell.
I wasn't trying to compare anything. It's just that to me, even if on a main tank the hots are always there, the mana cost of Nourish and it's mana efficiancy should account for the mana we have to spend to make it good. Doesn't it ?
I wasn't trying to compare anything. It's just that to me, even if on a main tank the hots are always there, the mana cost of Nourish and it's mana efficiancy should account for the mana we have to spend to make it good. Doesn't it ?
No, mana efficiency is HPM, which is health restored per mana, by definition.
If you're going to compare the build-up effect of Nourish and the mana cost associated with it along with all hots, then you need to include the healing of HoTS with it. If you just want to compare the viability or mana efficiency on various targets, then you just compare the healing of Nourish (adding bonus healing to Nourish if any hots present, since it gets bonus healing from that, not because of HoT's healing themselves, in this case) and regrowth versus their respective mana cost.
The math you're doing right now is incurring additional cost (hots) on Nourish, without taking into account that the HoTs themselves are not just there to set up for Nourish and do zero healing, which is going to make Nourish look really bad. I can't think of a good analogy, but say you go to fast food restaurant, and you order a combo meal. Then you look at the menu and wonder why the burger in the combo meal is more expensive than another "better" burger, because you fail to take into consideration the fries and drinks are there (in this case, HoTs innate healing). If you are just comparing the prices of the two burgers, then you cannot consider either the cost of the fries or the drinks, or you need to add the costs of the fries and drinks to the "better" burger as well in the analysis to set all things equal.
This isn't exactly a perfect analogy, but i do hope the point gets across.
I was just thinking of the LB changes in a different light as I drove to work this morning. Specifically, how is blizzard rationalising these changes? They've already stated they don't want to discourage us from rolling a LB on up to 2 tanks. They just want to discourage us from rolling LB's over half the raid.
With that in mind, lets assume that druids currently can top the healing meters with LBx2+RJ+RG on two tanks plus weave in WG's and nourishes and that we can do that with infinite mana (ie. we break even on mana in and out).
The LB change at 100% increase works out to an aditional 370x2 mana every 9 secs, or 370x2/9*5=410 MP5.
Now, with an average mana pool of around 20K raid buffed, this deficit would OOM a drood in 20000/410*5=243 s.
Additionally, our innervate has been nerfed, so even if you factor innervate on cooldown, our innervate will only extend this time limit by roughly 50% of our mana bar, or another 243/2=121 s. (ie. a resto drood is intended to be OOM @ 6 minutes?)
Now, my premise that we have infinite mana is obviously disingenuous so I am having a very hard time reconciling this mana increase. Even with innervate on a shorter cooldown to allow it to be employed every boss attempt, mana will be a real issue for resto druids without any increase in HPS.
(Edit: I am ignoring the potential benefit of OoC here, but I can't see it affecting the 410 MP5 deficit by more than 10%)
I was just thinking of the LB changes in a different light as I drove to work this morning. Specifically, how is blizzard rationalising these changes? They've already stated they don't want to discourage us from rolling a LB on up to 2 tanks. They just want to discourage us from rolling LB's over half the raid.
Err I rather think they want rolling it on two tanks to be one of our 'choices' rather than something we do regardless on top of everything else.
Err I rather think they want rolling it on two tanks to be one of our 'choices' rather than something we do regardless on top of everything else.
But this is the crux of the argument. Why would you bring a druid for their direct heals? LB is over 50% of our HoT throughput. If the druid is not providing a 'dampening' effect on tank damage then what heal capacity does the druid really fill?
Any other healer is a better nuke healer than a druid. If dual HoT rolling becomes unviable to sustain for a druid, then unless some other buff appears, I a druid becomes weaker in comparison.
Perhaps my math is off, but the nourish changes are not going to bring resto druids in line with other healers on pure sustained throughput in HPS.
(Edit: Didn't want this to appear to be a QQ. In short, if LB rolling becomes a 'choice' then there needs to be commensurate buff in HPS effeciency of druid spam heals - Nourish/RG)
I was just thinking of the LB changes in a different light as I drove to work this morning. Specifically, how is blizzard rationalising these changes? They've already stated they don't want to discourage us from rolling a LB on up to 2 tanks. They just want to discourage us from rolling LB's over half the raid.
The problem with that assumption is there is no reason to discourage us from rolling LB on half the raid because there already was never any point to doing so. There are no bosses where rolling more than 3-4 stacks at a time doesn't result in 90% OH on the stacks that are not on tanking targets. Maintaining LB stacks is simply a waste for healing raid damage as you'd be better served from a GCD and mana efficiency standpoint by using rejuvenation. Simple mechanics of the spell and fights already discouraged using LB on non tanks so trying to discourage said practice further is rather redundant.
I don't truly buy the mana efficiency being too good either as pallies can generate considerably more HPS at a similar HPM on a single target. It takes quite a few tanks taking consistent damage for LB stacks to even reach the same HPS the pally can do on a single target.
I agree with you Merendel, but I'm literally finding it hard to comprehend the changes any other way. As it stands, the changes encourage me to roll LB as a raid heal more often due to the way the mana refund works. If it let LB bloom, LB now becomes my most effecient raid heal HoT (better than rejuv without the rejuv idol).
But, this change does stop a druid 3 stacking half the raid (ignoring the fact that we don't do that) as the mana cost is just insane: @400 MP5 per LB stack, I'd OOM myself 3 stacking 8 people in under a minute.
My view on druids is not that LB is too effecient: It isn't in comparison to holy pallys (as a counter example). The problem is we simply don't spend enough mana (we have to virtually spam heals to go OOM). If they increased LB cost by 100% and then increased the HPS of HoTs across the board by 25% then things become very interesting. Now, I can choose to either 3 roll LB if all tanks are taking equal consistent damage, or roll one tank and spot rejuv/RG the others. (ie. Rejuv+RG HoTs actually become meaningful in HPS terms)
Unfortunately even with the mana back mechanic lifebloom still doesnt prove to be a very effective raid heal outside of alot of luck or you being the only healer on that job. The ticks of a single stack are rather small, I think it takes around 5 LB ticks to match a single rejuv tic. The bloom itself only comes into play on raid healing for times when you can time the bloom (loatheb) or if you get lucky and that same person took another hit 8-9s after you cast the bloom. Otherwise someone else will have healed the person or they died if you wait for just that bloom to go off. Rejuve on the other hand is still very effecent and lasts a good long time. in a raid healing situation there's a good chance that the person will take a hit in its 18s duration and a couple of ticks will heal resulting in more healing than lifebloom unless you get lucky on the bloom timing.
I believe that the reason we do not spend much mana is because in general our hots are efficient and our casted heals are not. Other healers do a much better job at casted heals and some have ones that are much much more efficient for that job. Yes we do use our heals like regrowth, HT, and nourish when the situation demands a much higher HPS than our hots can handle on their own. If they want us to spend more mana they should give us more of a reason to cast our more expensive heals, not just add a tax to one of our bread and butter spells.
I actualy liked the look of the patch when I saw the nourish changes. I thought that this will cost me more mana to use than just scattering hots but it would be quite useful to use regularly. That is a valid healing choice, spend more when you need it and your other tools are not enough on their own. Forcing me to pay more for a tool that I'm going to have to use in the same way either way just means that my innervate isn't available to anybody else anymore. If their goal was to make us run out of mana eventually in a fight they should have just nerfed our regen more instead of just making a key spell more expensive to use in its only viable role.
In short, if LB rolling becomes a 'choice' then there needs to be commensurate buff in HPS effeciency of druid spam heals - Nourish/RG
And consequently make us drift away even more from HOTs? Allow me to humbly object. They are already pushing nourish down our throat which is a curious design goal considering it fades the very reason why druid healing feels unique.
I posted some wrong figures earlier, thought I better fix it.
Assuming raid buffs, druids regen about 1100mp5. This includes temporary regen buffs like innervate and mana tide.
Rolling LB on 3 tanks costs roughly that figure. So, if all you're doing is rolling LB on 3 tanks, you can sustain that.
Assuming a 20K mana pool, using WG on CD on top of the 3 tank LBs will run you OOM in about 4 minutes. It seems clear that picking up more regen gear will give the biggest throughput boost in such conditions, and as such I think that the spirit+mp5 gear will gain in popularity - badge boots and bracers, malygos leather belt, pure-regen trinkets etc. 18/0/53 can collapse to 14/0/57 to get revitilize and more points in GotEM as they shed haste for regen.
Last edited by Fallenangel : 03/02/09 at 10:59 AM.
And consequently make us drift away even more from HOTs? Allow me to humbly object. They are already pushing nourish down our throat which is a curious design goal considering it fades the very reason why druid healing feels unique.
The point I was trying to make is that our direct heals don't have the oomph right now so there isn't really any 'choice'. I can't eschew HoTs for Nourish/RG spam and expect to not go OOM keeping a tank alive. If they choose to push us down the direct heal path we need either buffed nourish/RG/HT or a minor class spec redesign.
The Restoration Druid Mana Budget v3.1
These are just rough figures which *should* be okay as a rough estimate.
Fight Duration:
5 min
6 min
7 min
8 min
Wisdom
110
110
110
110
Mana Spring
105
105
105
105
Mana Pot
72
60
51
45
Replenishment
200
200
200
200
Mana Pool
350
292
250
219
Intensity
375
375
375
375
Innervate(1)
250
208
179
156
Mana Tide(1)
88
73
63
55
OOC
122
122
122
122
Total MP5
1671
1545
1454
1386
This table assumes:
1) Pretty much BiS.
2) 2T7.
3) Raid buffed.
4) 1 use of Innervate/Tide (just double the select value if you want to assume 2).
5) OOC with a 2PPM used on Lifebloom.
Then we can budget some "jobs" which we would do:
1) Roll LB on a tank - 407 MP5 drain. 1a) LB incurs a start up cost of 1348 mana which means sticking a fee per LB roll which diminishes over time:
5m: 22 MP5, 6m: 19 MP5, 7m: 16 MP5 and 8m: 14 MP5 - exclude this if you intend to build up LB slowly (as in not rush a 3 stack) - thanks Dukes.
2) Roll RJ on a tank - 123 MP5 drain.
3) WG on cooldown - 536 MP5 drain.
4) WG once per 10 sec - 322 MP5 drain.
5) Nourish once per 10 sec - 286 MP5 drain (Glyph assumed, no Tranq Spirit yet).
6) Swiftmend once per min - 47 MP5 drain.
So rolling LB/RJ on one tank will be a 530(544, 8m) MP5 drain (HPS average 2300 - overheal not factored).
Sustaining RJ/Nourish per 10 on another tank will be a 409 MP5 drain (HPS average 1660 - overheal not factored, Living Seed and 44% crit raid buffed on Nourish).
You can then see that on an 8 min fight we couldn't sustain adding a WG on cooldown to that but we could throw in WG once per 10 sec, Swiftmend per min and maybe the odd bonus Nourish per min too..
Alternatively we could do LB/RJ x2 with Nourish per 10 sec and Swiftmend per min too and forgo any raid healing at all which would put our HPS cap at around 5500~ on the combined tanks.
I do not know if Regrowth will be worth using on the tanks when our mana is this constricted either considering each LB is now costing 200 MP5 more to sustain and we have lost our ability to surge through spells with a 120%~ Innervate making sure we still end up with 100% mana at the end. Needless to say our "winning" the Sartharion 3d meter will sink faster than a tauren tied to an anchor now that we will be unable to do 2x tank rolling with decent raid healing too.
Need to try and find some rough estimates on RJ/LB overhealing too which shouldn't be that hard to do with some controlled tests but it needs to be on Sarth3d to be a more reliable test which complicates things :P
Honestly though I am fine with increasing LB mana cost but they need to somewhat compensate it with the increase to the healing to keep the HPM roughly equal in order to not fuck us around on it. LB on more than one tank is a choice rather than something assumed is fine, being crippled and still having that choice is not so good without some heavy implications. Having the choice of really solid MT healing + (solid OT healing/solid raid healing/mix of both at a weaker level) does not seem unfair compared to what we have now (which is solid MT/OT/Raid combined).
Having more time to test without this specific change would be greatly appreciated because a lot of Druids will be pretty grumpy without visibly being able to see that they were too strong on top of the other changes which warranted this change too.
ps: I would laugh if there was ever the idea of these changes trying to make MP5 more attractive but I would not be surprised if we started picking MP5 as the lesser of 3 evils (Haste, Crit, MP5) on gear once past the haste softcap with these changes.
ps: I would laugh if there was ever the idea of these changes trying to make MP5 more attractive but I would not be surprised if we started picking MP5 as the lesser of 3 evils (Haste, Crit, MP5) on gear once past the haste softcap with these changes.
It has been a week or two since I visited the resto druid loot rank, but was wondering why all of a sudden, they are spamming Lustrous Sky Sapphire, revitalizing skyflare diamond, and dazzling forest emeralds as the gems of choice.
Is our saving grace in 3.1 uber regen? It appears to be as of yet.
I was going by your initial cost in the 1a line... shouldn't that be doubled, as well? Or am I just completely insane(it's early on a Monday, forgive me).
Playered, I agree with your math on using OoC for LB, but I'm not sure you should be counting it on your mp5 table, as it was stated in the big blue post on mana regen that they are very seriously considering changing it from a free spell into something more akin to a mana return proc (at least the way I'm reading it). Now granted, no details on this change have been forthcoming as of yet, but it is worth bearing in mind as we consider these changes. If the ppm stays roughly the same and it returns more mana then the cost of one lifebloom, our effective mp5 goes up, but it could also easily go down if it returns less.
Honestly though I am fine with increasing LB mana cost but they need to somewhat compensate it with the increase to the healing to keep the HPM roughly equal in order to not fuck us around on it. LB on more than one tank is a choice rather than something assumed is fine, being crippled and still having that choice is not so good without some heavy implications.
Yep, this is exactly the point we need to make clear to the developers. In itself, the mana change is not the problem. Resto druids have lower raw HPS throughput than the other healers and that needs to be balanced in some manner. Our preference, is for that balance to be met by increased HoT HPS. Time will tell what the developers feel.
That being said, I still think it would have been more reasonable to just increase our HoT cost across the board by 25-40%, and buff our HoT HPS by say 25-30%. This would have increased our HPS and also increased our mana usage whilst still giving us the choice of rolling LB on multiple tanks. They could have left RG as 50% crit because it would have been 25-40% more expensive to employ making nourish far more attractive for spot heals (and maintained a real differential between them). RG now becomes a reasonable spam nuke with the glyph comparable with the other healers whilst being too expensive for us to maintain. Nourish would then become our general tank spot heal because of it is fast cast time, cheap cost and reasonable heal. This would also have retained RJ as our 'goto' raid heal for more significant raid dot dmg instead of an LBx2 stack.
The developers do need to come clean and admit that LB is not out-of-the-ballpark HPM efficient and provide their real justification for the mana increase. (eg. wanting to make druids spend more mana? perhaps just dungeon design made LB too strong? etc etc).
Resto druids have lower raw HPS throughput than the other healers and that needs to be balanced in some manner
Is this really true? It's certainly not true for raid healing, where druids dominate. I haven't noticed doing worse than other tank healers at keeping up a tank (I can keep up a tank mostly solo vs Maly 10 while still having time to throw out Wild Growths and Rejuvs on the raid). What am I missing? Is there some math you have in mind that's behind your assertion?
Is this really true? It's certainly not true for raid healing, where druids dominate. I haven't noticed doing worse than other tank healers at keeping up a tank (I can keep up a tank mostly solo vs Maly 10 while still having time to throw out Wild Growths and Rejuvs on the raid). What am I missing? Is there some math you have in mind that's behind your assertion?
Looking at raw healing, not effective. If we ever get to a min/max situation where exactly how much hps each healer can output (sustain) is put to the test and overhealing for everyone becomes very low, then druids will fall behind the other healers. The last time we saw an encounter like that was probably M'uru. If the content never gets that razor edge again, then it may not become a problem.
03/01/09, 2:22 AM
