I have a feeling that we are going to see encounters with big breaks between phases and with alternating phases of intensive and slow healing. This is prob why blizzard nerfed ooFSR regen. Priests and druids would have a full mana bar before every healing intensive phase. I think it will mostly come down to mana conservation during the slow phases and high HPM during the intensive ones. Will be interesting to see. I hope I manage to get a character copied onto the PTR by the time ulduar is released.
I could not agree with you more Havoc -
Looking at the changes overall as a whole, rather than concentrating on the individual changes themselves, I believe we can start to see what's ahead for us in Ulduar. (I posted the following comments on the WoW forums yesterday)
By allowing us to cast party specific PoH, PW:S with no cooldowns, Renews with a front loaded instant and the fact that CoH got a 40% healing increase I believe that we can expect extensive wide spread burst and/or periodic waves of sustained raid dmg in Ulduar that will require large scale preventive mitigation (Power word shields with no cooldown or the power word: barrier that was discussed) and more large scale group healing (targetable PoH, near instant GH with the new serendipity and the 40% buff to CoH).
It was stated by GC that cheating the OOFSR and the existing mana regen ooc would not allow the level designers to model mana regen properly for the new encounters. Meaning (in my interpretation) that there will be extended periods of time when we are moving (possibly in a vehicle), where the raid will be taking "bursts" of dmg with 10-15 seconds in between or even periods where we cannot heal (Loatheb) making it possible to return a large amount of mana. These mechanics, given the current state of mana regen (and where it could possibly go with Ulduar gear) makes the encounters harder to effectively design and in the end much more trivial.
I keep reading how everyone feels spirit will not be as good in 3.1.
The way HC will now work and how mana will be more of a problem, wouldn't trying to get 05SR be something we will want to aim for more.
What I mean is that I will be taking SoL and if I get a SoL proc, use my spirit trinket, cast my flash heal, use IF and milk some O5SR time. Yes it will not be as much as before but It will still be something we will need to be doing.
On another note, I'm seeing crit as something I'll be geming / stacking more then haste come 3.1, anyone else see this?
On another note, I'm seeing crit as something I'll be geming / stacking more then haste come 3.1, anyone else see this?
Thistle, I will definitely be dropping my haste quite substantially to pick up more int/crit/spirit now. Those three stats (Spirit, Int, Crit) all synergize very well with how holy concentration now works. Serendipity makes it so haste is less important (imo) and is on demand haste. You can save it for a rainy day when the crap hits the fan, kind of like pre-casting a greater heal and letting it land, well now you just keep a 3 stack of Serendipity and when you need it, us it.
Again, mp5 is left in the dust... thankfully.
[edit] Oh also, please don't ignore Inner Focus. It is still a great ability to have.
I wouldn't be so quick to drop Inner Focus. True, the uses of it for OFSR regeneration has diminished, but don't forget the 25% increase chance to crit. And of course, free mana is free mana.
By my estimations, Inner Focus Binding Heal should give an 80% chance to put up HC and [unless it is a bug] it will also give 2 charges of Serendipity. Looks like we'll be able to use this 2-4 times per a fight too. (And of course 25% increase crit on a Circle of Heal or Prayer of Heal is good for throughput... it appears at least two bosses in Ulduar will do 15k+ raid-wide damage (with one doing 20k)).
Last edited by Starfire : 02/26/09 at 4:17 PM.
Reason: Clarity, see brackets
Originally Posted by arison
Everyone should start from the same place and rise based on their abilities, desires, and schedule. No one plays MMOs to *be* powerful, they play MMOs to *become* powerful. It's the journey, stupid. The rarer loot is, the more cherished it is when you get it, but only so long as there is a reasonable expectation to get it. The rarer loot is, the better it feels when you kill a boss or when $AWESOME_TRINKET drops.
When thinking about crit stacking, I find a little problem.
While SoL procs scale quite well with crit, HC uptime doesn't. Every single point in crit will lead to an increasingly smaller increase in HC uptime because of overwritten procs. Thus, though the safest bet will still be to aim for well rounded stats, purely stacking crit for regen will be less effective than int or spirit stacking. At least when it comes to HC.
It was stated by GC that cheating the OOFSR and the existing mana regen ooc would not allow the level designers to model mana regen properly for the new encounters. Meaning (in my interpretation) that there will be extended periods of time when we are moving (possibly in a vehicle), where the raid will be taking "bursts" of dmg with 10-15 seconds in between or even periods where we cannot heal (Loatheb) making it possible to return a large amount of mana.
I suspect they simply don't want us 'cheating the OOFSR rule' by setting up healing rotations, where 1 healer at a time takes an extended break to regenerate half their mana bar back.
That's somewhat short sighted. As Nidaba has repeatedly pointed out.
You almost never choose between int and crit, or int and haste. (There might be 1-2 items and they're probably greens or some obscure piece not worth considering).
And while it is possible to choose between mp5 and crit, or mp5 and haste, there are a grand total of 2-3 items where you make that choice.
You can almost always choose between haste and crit however. For pretty much every slot.
Some items also allow you to choose between spirit and haste or crit.
And mp5 is never a choice (with the above exception (and don't you dare nitpick the mace, that's common sense)).
In terms of GEAR there is no choice between int and any other stat. There's also no choice between spellpower and any other stat. All gear has int and spellpower. And most of it has spirit. The choice is primary between crit or haste.
[e] Also, interesting to point out, in theory haste will also increase your HC uptime. The more haste you have, the more spells you cast within the period, the more likely you are to crit. There's certainly a relationship there.
Originally Posted by arison
Everyone should start from the same place and rise based on their abilities, desires, and schedule. No one plays MMOs to *be* powerful, they play MMOs to *become* powerful. It's the journey, stupid. The rarer loot is, the more cherished it is when you get it, but only so long as there is a reasonable expectation to get it. The rarer loot is, the better it feels when you kill a boss or when $AWESOME_TRINKET drops.
I haven't had a chance to go on the PTR yet, but the spec I'll probably be trying is some variation of this. I think at least 1 point in healing prayers is valuable, or even 2 by dropping a point from test of faith.
Dropping Inner Focus is a tough decision. With the change to OO5SR and HC, it's only use now is as an emergency heal when you're OOM, and I think the constant return from a point in Healing Prayers is more useful. How useful ToF is will depend on the encounter design, but I'm anticipating less frequent/higher damage instead of the constant low damage that we have to deal with now.
I don't think SoL is optional at all. When you look at the only 2 "new" encounters in WotLK, mobility is a large of part of the raiding game now and you have to figure Ulduar will continue that trend. That's really where SoL shines to me, the mana savings is just a bonus.
I think with the new change to PoH you'd want the largest radius possible so that the heal hits everyone that it needs to. I'm of the mindset that SoL is far from required. The fact that it doesn't crit and as a result can't reapply HC is one thing that will tempt me from speccing out of it again. I have one other very distinct issue with it: when I'm trying to chain cast flash and get a proc of SoL, often it throws off my chain casting "rotation" (for lack of a better word) and causes me pop it on the target that I just healed with the SoL flash. That's just me being picky though. For an instant heal on the run it's good but I see Empowered Renew filling that void.
I'm also considering moving the points in Test of Faith to Blessed Resilience. The 12% is good IF the recipient is indeed below 50%. The 3% to heals from BR is always there. Just my two cents.
I've been on the PTRs for a few hours now, and I am loving Serendipity. It opens up new levels of dynamic healing, flexibility, and raw HPS. I was a fan of renew anyway, and the new talent buffing renew is perfectly adequate(The instant heal effect is convenient.)
Despite these great changes, the new Holy Concentration and it's interaction with Surge of Light leaves a lot to be desired. It may be intended, that as we use the four HC-procing spells(None of them are true AoE heals) with higher frequency during a fight, the HC uptime will be supplementing our mana. The 8 seconds of regen granted by Holy concentration scales questionably with higher crit rating, due to the detrimental tendency for it to overwrite. Holy concentration may have a weighty effect on the value of intellect vs. spirit, because the amount it will regenerate during it's uptime is dictated by these values. Naturally, if HC is found to be pervasively powerful, it will affect our gear choices. Since holy concentration can proc from Flash Heal, Binding Heal, Greater Heal, and Renew, I certainly would not feel less inclined to stop spamming flash heals, or rolling excessive amounts of renews to obtain HC uptime if it proves worthy. Whatever the case, I think that before analyses of our new talents and healing stratagem are conducted, that the value of HC uptime, and how HC scales with gear need to be defined. Overall, I do not hope the current version of HC makes it onto live realms.
That's somewhat short sighted. As Nidaba has repeatedly pointed out.
You can almost always choose between haste and crit however. For pretty much every slot.
Some items also allow you to choose between spirit and haste or crit.
And mp5 is never a choice (with the above exception (and don't you dare nitpick the mace, that's common sense)).
In terms of GEAR there is no choice between int and any other stat. There's also no choice between spellpower and any other stat. All gear has int and spellpower. And most of it has spirit. The choice is primary between crit or haste.
.
That was what I was trying to get at. Most of us have mixed sets of gear right now to balance out crit and haste. I really need to get on the PTR and raid so I can see how much our mana regen has droped. I'm probally going to pick up some more crit gear to help out regen.
[e] Also, interesting to point out, in theory haste will also increase your HC uptime. The more haste you have, the more spells you cast within the period, the more likely you are to crit. There's certainly a relationship there.
You bring up a great point with this and I would love to see some numbers on haste vs crit as far as mana regen in concerned.
Speaking of mana, I'm looking at equiping my alch trinket more if mana is a problem and it should help me out with mana.
That's somewhat short sighted. As Nidaba has repeatedly pointed out.
You almost never choose between int and crit, or int and haste. (There might be 1-2 items and they're probably greens or some obscure piece not worth considering).
(..)
[e] Also, interesting to point out, in theory haste will also increase your HC uptime. The more haste you have, the more spells you cast within the period, the more likely you are to crit. There's certainly a relationship there.
I don't know if you your post was an answer to mine o someone else's.
Anyway, I was just comparing regen stats, and my only conclusion was that crit has diminishing returns as a regen stat (for HC, not so much for SoL), while int and spirit do not. Obviously itemization works is the way it does, but still this could guide which gems to choose.
Regarding haste, while theoretically it may increase HC uptime, its net regen would be negative, as its contribution to HC uptime would not outweigh the mana spent to proc it.
Just some napkin math and a very crude model:
I have 320mp5 i5sr unbuffed.
Getting 50% more are 160 mp5 (it probably does scale with BoK but not with BoW. Where are the paladins when you need them?)
The chance for a proc is roughly 1- (1 -crit)^3
I will just multiply the percentage with the 50% mp5 gain to roughly get the gains over a longer period of time:
15% equals (0.38*160) = 61 mp5
25% equals (0.575*160)= 92 mp5
35% equals (0.725*160)=116 mp5
45% equals 145 mp5
My napkin math would indicate that there are indeed diminishing returns on crit, but with the current crit % attainable it isn't very big.
The current direction Blizzard wants to take healing to seems to be limited by mana instead of limited by gcd/throughput as it is right now.
Before 3.1 i was trying to get haste versions from the items i could choose from.
If this change goes live i will try and get crit versions.
It would be interesting to estimate if the few items with sta/int/spi/mp5 provide more regeneration than the sta/int/spi/crit items, especially since crit (and int) scales very well with other stats while mp5 stays constant.
I have a feeling that the so-called "diminishing returns" are not that bad. With higher regen you can cast for longer when your other healers have run dry. So you're still healing and still getting mana.
It's a bit like diminishing returns on armor. There used to be on mitigation, but not on lifespan. If you assume that people die when you run out of mana then you can model it very similarly.
Say you have some 250 static MP/5 from buffs, 250 MP/5 from Spirit regen and 25000 mana. And let's also say you need to spend about 200 mana per second (I'd be happy to do a more realistic number if someone has one).
With 100 regen per second and 25000 mana you'd be out of mana after 250 seconds.
At 25% crit (92 MP/5) you can last 306 seconds, or 22.4% longer. 5630.4 mana gained from HC.
Now if you bump your crit up to 45% (80% more) for 145 MP/5 (only 57.6% more) you can last 352 seconds. 10208 mana gained from HC. (~81% more).
So ultimately you get less and less MP/5, but you get it for longer and longer, so it balances. Crit-stacking is fine.
It's important to point out crit does increase throughput too. So therefore efficiency. And from what we've seen from the boss abilities, it sure sounds like it won't be wasted throughput.
For example there is a boss ability that does 15k raid-wide damage and another doing 20k raid-wide damage. Reports coming in of bosses hitting main tanks for 25k damage too.
Certainly in a situation like that, Crit heals will absolutely increase throughput and won't be overheal like we are custom to today.
Originally Posted by arison
Everyone should start from the same place and rise based on their abilities, desires, and schedule. No one plays MMOs to *be* powerful, they play MMOs to *become* powerful. It's the journey, stupid. The rarer loot is, the more cherished it is when you get it, but only so long as there is a reasonable expectation to get it. The rarer loot is, the better it feels when you kill a boss or when $AWESOME_TRINKET drops.
First excuse me if my english is bad : it's not my native language...
Originally Posted by Havoc12
Well its been confirmed and its 100% proc on crit plus it also includes renew!, thus the new regen formula for spirit regen for priests is
where k' is the new spirit regen constant, FSR is the time spent in FSR, C is crit rate and n is the number of HC procing casts per 8 seconds.
Nice job! and thank you..
I just see a little problem with this formula :
you assume that n (number of HC procing casts per 8 seconds) is the same in FSR and out of FSR. According to me, n should be lower out of FSR. For example n=3 could be a good value when you are in FSR, but if n=3 your are never ooFSR.
If you take this into acount, you could have the next formula :
where n is the number of HC procing casts per 8 seconds while you are in FSR
and m is the number of HC procing casts per 8 seconds while you are out of FSR
Probably, m=1 or even lower (depending on the fight)
I have one other very distinct issue with it: when I'm trying to chain cast flash and get a proc of SoL, often it throws off my chain casting "rotation" (for lack of a better word) and causes me pop it on the target that I just healed with the SoL flash. That's just me being picky though.
This only happens both the following are true:
1) You're spamming your Flash Heal button
2) You've got someone targetted who doen't need to be healed.
To avoid it you should pick a new healing target before your current cast finishes. But don't pick it too early, otherwise someone else may heal the damage. Somewhere around half-way through your current Flash Heal you should change target to whoever you're going to heal next. There's also no point in spamming for the full ~1.3s of the cast, only for the last quarter I'd say.
The only problem I see if you specifically want to heal the same target in ~5k pulses every ~1.3 seconds. Then a SoL does interfere by making it ~10k (with lots of overhealing) followed by a ~2.6s break before the next heal hits. That can only be avoided by stopping to spam (and losing cast-time), mixing in other spells (like Renew) or not having SoL.
I've moved a lot of 3.1 posts to the "new thread": I'll keep doing it until everyone migrates over there. Keep the discussion going, just focus it. This thread will probably die fairly soon when I update the compendium (3.0->3.1 is a pretty huge change to priests).
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - R.A. Heinlein
I've moved a lot of 3.1 posts to the "new thread": I'll keep doing it until everyone migrates over there. Keep the discussion going, just focus it. This thread will probably die fairly soon when I update the compendium (3.0->3.1 is a pretty huge change to priests).
Yeah and again if you need help writing anything let me know.
Eagerly anticipating 3.1 Guide, been thinking heavily on regemming, different enchants and gear itemisation itself.
We did Hodir, Iron Council & Freya and Regen wasn't as terrifying as I had anticipated. I was more so surprised at how much I did end up using Prayer of Healing, which really justifies Improved Prayers 2/2. Circle of Healing is by no means redundant, but PoH does have its uses, there is a lot of AoE damage.
I think a change of Glyphs is also inevitable, if all these proposed changes make it Live. I will miss Hymn of Hope though, I loved using it with Essence Flow
Eagerly anticipating 3.1 Guide, been thinking heavily on regemming, different enchants and gear itemisation itself.
We did Hodir, Iron Council & Freya and Regen wasn't as terrifying as I had anticipated. I was more so surprised at how much I did end up using Prayer of Healing, which really justifies Improved Prayers 2/2. Circle of Healing is by no means redundant, but PoH does have its uses, there is a lot of AoE damage.
I think a change of Glyphs is also inevitable, if all these proposed changes make it Live. I will miss Hymn of Hope though, I loved using it with Essence Flow
How did you do all three of those bosses? Do you play on both the US and EU realms?
The good thing about the Glyphs and our talent changes is there is no longer the "no-brainer glyphs" (Flash, CoH, +choice as holy). You now have to choose between CoH, Flash, PoH, Renew, GS (which I find awesome).
I'd see the Glyphs themselves being changed before release though, they don't really reflect the changes.
I'm not really a fan of Renew, be it cause I value it less then it is or really is as bland as I feel, it just doesn't put out as much as I would think would make it worth using regularly, but the raw heal of it is sought of like the Dispel Magic & PW:S Glyphs which I really like, so its the change I'm hanging on for mostly.
That is if its not still bugged as it is on PTR :p
I really think that Dual Specs make this concept interesting:
SPEC 1: Deep Holy through GS, with Renew talents and Renew Glyph, CoH Glyph and FH Glyph
SPEC 2: Medium Holy through CoH with a few extras (no Renew talents, no DP, no GS), and Disc through Mental Agility and Mental Strength, with PoH, CoH and FH Glyphs.
This allows me to use the Deep Holy spec for fights where Renew is helpful and regen isn't a concern, but the other spec whenever regen is really strained.
The other option is just to Gem/Gear for regen and be a little heavy on regen for fights one doesn't need it. I already thought about a Renew vs non-Renew spec anyway, so adding a high regen component to it seems reasonable.
For those who don't need the 2nd spec for PvP, like myself, it allows me a pretty big adjustment on a fight by fight basis through an instance. Other talents could be adjusted as well.
While the theoretical output and HPM of renew is back into respectable territory, I can't help myself thinking that a hot that ticks every 3 seconds is a horribly outdated way to heal. If it ticked every 2 seconds I would be more likely to invest a lot of talent points in it. If it ticked every second it would obviously be awesome.
Renew, as buffer on tanks, will be mostly negligable outside of fights with silences or extreme movement demands on healers. The amount of damage Ulduar bosses will throw on tanks completely dwarfs even a 2k tick every 3 seconds. And with the amount of healing required to keep the tank up there is a pretty big chance most of it would be overhealing.
Now for raidhealing we have PoM, CoH, PoH, Chain heal, Wild Growth and Flash heal that will make Renew rather redundant. If the glyph took 25% of each tick and added it to the initial heal, I would see it as a much potent raidheal tool. But now it still has the huge drawback of 3 second ticks. If HoTs are needed for raidheals, druids will do a lot better than priests.
The more I think about it, the more I lean towards investing 0 talent points into any of the renew talents. These days it is all about topping up people and 15 seconds is an eternity.
While the theoretical output and HPM of renew is back into respectable territory, I can't help myself thinking that a hot that ticks every 3 seconds is a horribly outdated way to heal. If it ticked every 2 seconds I would be more likely to invest a lot of talent points in it. If it ticked every second it would obviously be awesome.
I raid as a resto druid when I'm not on my holy priest and I can tell you that rejuv is my most frequently cast raid healing tool. On fights like Saphiron and Malygos it's an amazing tool even though it only ticks every 3 seconds.
I understand that we're not druids, and that we don't have all of the talents to support renew that druids have for rejuv, but I don't necessarily agree that renew's biggest problems are its slower tick speed. Rather than the front loaded heal (since we have so many instants) I really would have preferred if Emp Renew buffed our other heals on that target in some way, kind of like Swiftmend makes casting rejuv worth a GCD since you have that emergency button as a back up. Something that increased HPS or burst on targets with renew would have helped to fill a niche that we don't have, or as an alternate making Emp Renew some type of single target mana efficiency talent, i.e. GH is 25% cheaper when cast on targets that have your renew on them, etc.
02/26/09, 3:40 PM
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