Ezarg

@ Playered: wonderful summary of crit.

I guess for me the main problem with making hots crit is that this *will* be compensated for by nerfing the said hots in the first place, to account for the "virtual" increase by the expected average crit factor to sort of make the averages the same. So in effect, making hots crit is going to be really a nerf for hots in the sense that they will be less reliable (say you have 20% crit, 50% crit factor, you'll end up with 10% healing bonus from hots critting and to account for this the hots would heal for 10% less OR the encounters will be balanced around 10% more overall damage...)

While it would make some gear pieces more valuable since we'll suddenly want to bump our crit up, it most likely won't put the crit over the haste because haste is cheaper in general, unless you happen to be haste capped, and it's not like there are no haste alternatives.

But as long as the secondary effects of hots critting are zero, it really doesn't amount to that much of a gain.

 

• Titanstrider

The tough part is finding some balance where crit becomes just as effective without becoming by far the most powerful stat, due to the sheer number of HoTs that can be put out. Crits on HoTs can be useful where your sole goal is trying to keep up with raid wide damage by spamming HoTs to everyone, but outside hard modes heal snipes will negate your HoTs effective healing and relying on crits to keep up with raid healing seems iffy. Perhaps when a HoT ticks it has your crit rate chance to extend the duration of the HoT by 1 tick?

Having crits reducing damage taken or increasing healing done has already been covered by other classes, so the question would be what type of bonus would be unique and balanced for the proportion of druid spells that can already crit. Perhaps something similar to revitalize, your crit heals could either give a chunk of mana/rage/energy, or say increases the target's total stats by X% for X seconds, and could stack 2-3 times? What better buff to get from a tree, but the Miracle Grow buff!

 

Grizabella

I'm gonna play Devil's Advocate here for the sake of the conversation and to maybe spur some more research.

By your own words, people want crit to boost healing as a secondary effect. Now, as far as I can tell, a well-geared Druid has more haste on his gear than he needs, and nowhere substantial to swap GotEM points into... except maybe crit! With 3.2 looming and the T9 4pc bonus.

Won't we have to start thinking about crit in a new way? Getting soft haste-capped should be even easier with new gear with higher stats, so we will start looking to crit gear over hast gear will we not?

Think about what you are saying here. How is ADDING crits going to make your hots unreliable? We will have crits shooting off all over the place, and who knows what our crit rating will be once we are decked out in 3.2? Will we be running around with 30% crit, I dunno, I'm not sure anyone knows yet.

You also claim our crits will get sniped more often than not, which I find hard to believe. We have hots on over a dozen people at any given moment, and we will be keeping their health riding even higher with crits going off as we have a dozen ticks going off. How can 3 healers snipe that? How is that any different than them sniping us now in 3.1?

Has anyone taken the time to model an optimally geared tree in known 3.2 gear yet? Find the best, fewest pieces to haste cap with, then see where we can get our spellpower and crit rate. Then, we can more accurately judge what Blizz is going for.

/possessed

EDIT: With some really rough estimations, I see us at about 27%+ crit when in high-end 3.2 gear.

 

• Playered

RJ seemed to have a rough 50-60% overhealing rate from what people tested some time ago (pre and early 3.1) which is why I said that it was a fair amount of overhealing there.

Blizzard have also said in the past that if they made hots able to crit they would have to nerf them so that they do not become overpowered.
HoTs are balanced around healing x amount over y seconds and if suddenly they could crit you would have say a 10%~ boost in healing done (50% modifier 20%~ crit rate?) which would make them stronger than intended. A nerf by roughly 10% would balance it out so that with assumed crit levels each hot cast would heal the same amount while allowing crit to scale the spells slightly.

Following this you would need to assume each tick was healing the non crit amount for your 'reliable' value and while this is slightly less of an issue for raid healing it is somewhat more important regarding tank healing (fair enough that is mostly covered by Nourish now instead of hots).


note: math may be a little off but the principal is fine.

 

Grizabella

So far it seems like the consensus is that the T9 4pc is subpar to the T8 (but do the stats on T9 outweigh that?) and I haven't seen any hint of Blizz intending to nerf us, especially our crit.

I guess it's a little early to predict anything definite, but I'm not aware of who, if anyone, is grinding the numbers on the questions I've been asking so far.

 

• Playered

4T9 is a set bonus and not the same thing as making hots able to crit in general.

"I did not say your hots will just start critting in the next patch. I said we had the technology to do that if we think it is necessary. We would certainly have to nerf Resto in other ways to compensate for those higher healing numbers. "
- I couldn't find the other quote I was remembering yet but this one will suffice.

 

Ezarg

Keeping 4T8 will require from you to sacrifice at least 273 spellpower - assuming you'd get heroic 4T9 ilvl 258 to replace that - also that does not include increase in spirit.

At the same time, 273 spellpower doesn't sound so bad. Assuming the goal will be to get a mix of gear in ilvl range of 245 and 258, you're looking at ~20% overall stat increase. So simply put if you're raid buffed at 3k +healing now, you'd be around ~3500 in full T9 and ~3250 if you keep 4T8. So keeping 4T8 will mean you'll sacrifice 8 - 10% of your total spellpower. Based on previous posts on this, assuming 4T9 crits with 150% factor and 20-25% chance, you're looking at roughly half of the power of 4T8. 4T8 typically comes out at 10% of my total healing on rejuv heavy fights, so half of that is 5% which is what I lose by switching to 4T9. 10% spellpower should contribute more than 5% of my total healing so 4T9 gear should overall come ahead by about 5% total healing.

 

goodolarchie

On a rejuv heavy fight like ICU: Steelbreaker, the t8 tick usually accounts for about 13% of my healing. On other fights where I still use Rejuv but perhaps wild growth is also viable (heartbreaker, mimiron, etc), its closer to 8%. I see this in other top druid parses as well. That's a pretty hefty chunk. Assume the spell coefficient of rejuv is untouched (per Playered's quote), if Rejuv is 60% of your healing and you're carrying about 25% crit, you should expect those rejuv crits boost healing by 7.5%. Lets say crit stacking becomes possible from raid gear and you reach 30% crit. Now you're looking at a 9% increase in healing. Would the 273 spellpower make up the other difference? Probably.

The problem is the nature of the instant tick on rejuv application... it becomes really important in practice. It's reliable, saves lives, and is rarely overhealing. I can't say I'm crazy about the nourish 5% crit either. This seems kind of moot since you'll be using crit rating anyway with the other set bonus. Did any of you try it with the rejuv glyph? Another long shot I know.

It will be tough leaving the 4pc t8 behind, and I don't imagine I will until I have all four pieces of 245/258, at which point the challenging content is pretty moot. Funny how that works out?

 

Toadfoot

Yeah I was thinking the same thing. The 2 piece T9 is so horrible and the 4pT8 so good, that I can't imagine anyone will wear the T9 until they get the 4 piece bonus. When Ulduar came out my goal was to get 4pT8 asap, next patch I guess I will just get everything else first. I wonder if the new weapons, rings etc. would increase our healing more than our new T9-Sigh.

 

goodolarchie

Well, to be fair we got a pretty amazing t8 bonus. None of the other healer t9 bonuses (or t8) are really all that good.

I suspect that by 3.3 / icecrown we will have either hot crits (on regrowth and WG too) as a baseline talent, or rejuv will get its instant heal back. Blizzard likes to test the waters with set bonuses to see what might make good permanent class changes. They have to address the issue of gear scaling /itemization, because after t9 what are we going to do with crit, or even haste after the softcap? At that point a supergreen of spell power becomes BIS resto. I don't see them reaching into their bag of tricks to come up with some other use for crit, like extended hots or shields/buffs/gain procs. They'll most likely go the lazy/simple route that they've been traversing for the past year and nerf the spellpower coefficients and make them all "crit." Brace yourselves.

 

Anaram

I feel that druid as class really only needs two things: one more stat to properly scale with and some form of a "saving" ability.

Lack of saving abilities is the primary reason for when druids get benched for boss fights. Lack of proper scaling with stats other than spellpower makes the class somewhat less fun (and less complex) to play than many others.

 

Lenaldo

Additionally, I feel we need some sort of armor buff similar to inspiration/ancestral fortitude. While I don't consider myself the best main tank healer, it cripples me even more knowing that I can not provide this very useful buff. This is probably overstretching our reach, but it seems like as bosses hit more or faster(Algalon) this sort of talent becomes critical.

 

Kaloryth

It's always hard to compare abilities from class to class and very easy to say "we don't have this, therefore we're gimped." Even though we don't have that tank mitigation, we do have living seed which acts as a buffer and absorbing damage. It's not the same thing as an armor buff, but it serves a similar purpose: it reduces the total damage taken by the tank.

But to reiterate, it's hard to compare abilities when our main tank healing style is different than a shaman or priest.

I don't really feel we need more "saving" abilities as far as tank healing goes. We have our NS+HT, but usually we can use our swiftmend which provides use with enough buffer to cast a nourish. And, I really don't feel that druids get benched for boss fights, we're amazing raid healers and we can provide some serious single target HPS.

 

chocritmilk

Just to throw out ideas more than anything, what about something more finesse than just armor which is a lot like other classes, or shields... what about something like a dodge boost? Or some sort of avoidance burst if you are main tank healing on a boss?

Feline something or other - tank gets a 12 second dodge boost, or something of that nature that may fit into the "style" that is us druids.

That is just brain storming of course, it popped in my head so thought I would share it.

 

goodolarchie

They want to move away from avoidance, that's the problem. Since they're nerfing dodge and changing the armor buff to 10% physical reduction, they're instituting a sunwell-radiance type effect that will result in tanks getting hit more often but for less damage. Now tanks can stack extra armor to greater effect without coming remotely close to the armor cap. It would be nice if revitalize did add some sort of mitigation through armor instead of rage/runic/mana.

 

ttyl

I really like this idea. It would add much needed diversity to RJ spam. Instead of just going down a list and starting over every 15/18 seconds, we could watch each individual timer to increase our efficiency and throughput (possibly distinguishing "skill" among Resto Druids?). Also, longer HoTs would give more opportunities to use the spells Blizzard wants us to use (Nourish/RG).

Since we're in a creative mood: Resto Druids need more to do. They are so painfully boring to play in 25mans (except Algalon), I only do it because it is so powerful. We could use a cooldown like Avenging Wrath ("meta ToL" GC suggested could do this) and a damage reduction cooldown. Possibly add it into Improved Barkskin: Allows the Druid to cast Barkskin on other players. I'm hoping for something along the lines of: chance on RG ticks to erase current cooldown on Swiftmend. A bit of RNG in our steady healing will be fun. But, let me be clear, I do not want HoTs to crit, that is not fun RNG. Like the others above me have said: HoTs are meant to be reliable heals. Crit is not reliable.

 

chocritmilk

Good point I did not remember that.

I agree about revitalize however the name then wouldnt be revitalize (just a play on words).

How about an "armor over time".

Starts off with a small chunk of armor boost and progresses OR starts off with a big chunk of armor and then "falls off".

4% -> 3% -> 2% -> 1%

Thoughts?

Edit: I realize this might be in the wrong forum or thread to post this sorry if it is.

 

Wahinkto

On an interesting side note: If you gain a clearcasting proc from Omen of Clarity, and use set proc on a life bloom, you will get mana back from the bloom. In other words, if you get a clearcasting proc and then cast life bloom, you will gain mana as if you had spent the full mana cost.

To sum up, if given 2 GCD's, you can get double the worth out of your clearcasting by casting lifebloom and then rejuvenation, because the mana you gain from the lifebloom will cover the cost of the rejuvenation. (Assuming you would have used the clearcasting on a rejuvenation)

This is of course taking up 2 GCD's instead of only one, but on fights that are innately slow, or where casting a lifebloom instead of a rejuvenation wouldn't cause you to fall behind on keeping the raid topped off (or the tank, depending on your assignment), this can be another tool that you can utilize to net a couple thousand mana on most lengthy fights.

 

Anaram

Sitting out is the reality for some fights. When that happens the reason most often is a lack saving abilities (either cooldowns or inspiration).

 

chocritmilk

Along these same lines recently I have been doing something a little different (at least for me) with raid damage on slower fights, you mentioned this and made me think of it... I use rejuv + 1 lifebloom on raid wide targets and dont use regrowth as often.

Reason being if there is an unusual spike, or a player goof, the bloom will help with that spike and the rejuv will do what it normally does anyway.

I am sure others do this but I am still learning "spell weaving" the interesting dance we do on various fights weaving our various spells around.

 

Grizabella

Eh, if they wanted to give us some sort of mitigating cooldown, why not just let us cast Barkskin on any target?

 

• Playered

On what? I've done every hard mode in every encounter sans Alone in the Dark with 2 for the most part and there is not a single encounter you would suffer from having a Resto Druid in instead of someone else. The fact several fights require you to drop healers doesn't really point to "kick all the Druids" out first so I guess it comes down to a mixture of the performance of the player and the guild in general.

 

Kaloryth

Along with the person above me, I have to find this completely ridiculous. Is your guild treating you badly? Do they have a grudge against druids?

90% of the 10 man hard modes are done with 1 druid and 1 holy priest. Why? Because they're the best two healers to get the job done. Admittedly, this isn't 25 man, but saying that we're only good in 10 mans is a bit of a stretch. We have amazing raid healing. Our hot blanketing is more effective in 10 man, but just as useful in 25 man. And our inability to provide the tank with armor isn't going to get us kicked out of a raid.

And how many saving abilities do we need? 3? 4? Swiftmend is arguably a 'saving' ability, and NS+HT certainly is (assuming you haven't glyphed for raid healing). These aren't GS, but they certainly have saved my butt a few times.

 

• Playered

That is not the point, we could have a button which healed for 30k health and while amazing it would be of very little use when the tank would get one-shot from the majority of hard mode encounters from generic hard-strike abilities. This is also why Shield (Divine Aegis) effects are superior to that of heal after damage effects especially for the majority of Ulduar encounters - time will tell how things stand in the Coliseum but as far as I am aware they said they would not have so many "CD or die" style bosses but until we see how the hard modes work I would not want to trust them on it yet.


The game in general needs to move away from that type of damage and also from the vast amount of "tank cooldowns" that we have available because while they remain it is very hard to balance encounters to be hard without making them trivialized with heavy cooldown usage.

 

Agromgmt

Our saving ability is Battle Res. Everyone else who has a CD is playing catch-up to that. I don't want another saving ability if that means no BRez (never going to happen, unless they make Ankh sharable via talents and make BRez talented at least, if they go that route than I'd expect an armor booster).

If GC's Q & A left me with one impression: the devs are having trouble tuning fights around us. Not sure why that's an issue with them now, after doing everything to improve us since TBC, and I hope I'm wrong.