WotLK Healing Compendium v3.2: Same Old Thing - Page 19

Vintoran · 05/14/09, 2:56 PM

To add some (heuristic) numbers to this discussion I've "adjusted" yesterday's WWS logs of our guild:
Wow Web Stats (please excuse my horrible performance on Hodir)
I did a total of 29 063 380 healing with a 5/5 Empowered Healing, 0/3 Blessed Resilience build. (the one one currently on my armory)

The method of adjustment:
multiply all healing that is not FH/GH/BH with 1.03

reverse engineer the average spellpower with this formula:
[measured average heal out of the log] = 1.2 * ([base heal size] + SP*(1.88*[casttime]/3.5+[emp heal bonus]))
and just solve towards SP. (1.2 is an estimation of multipliers: 10% from Spiritual Healing, ~5% from imp ToL, ~<5% from ToF and a little bit from GS)
Then use this amount of SP with the modified [emp heal bonus] to calculate the new average heal size and calculate the percentage of decrease and multiply with the total amount of healing done with this spell.

for example FH:
5867 = 1.2*(2040 + sp*(1.88*1.5/3.5 + 0.2)) -> sp = 2833

[new average heal] = 1.2*[2040 + sp*(1.88*1.5/3.5 + 0.08)] = 5459

5867/5459=1.0747 -> 6 638 221/1.0747=6176589 (This treatment should not skew the data further, since the amount of crits stays the same and the crit multiplier is getting... multiplied)
Now we just have to multiply this with 1.03 and get 6361887, new new amount of healing done with FH.

same treatment for GH: 943 287 -> 922 427
and BH: 1 311 977 -> 1 256 677

now add up all those numbers: 29 319 178 (opposed to the 29 063 380 of my current specc).
This is an increase of 0.88% with the BR specc. (for that particular parse and my rough treatment)

edit: Damn, can anyone tell me how I can get that "top" link out?
edit2: Nevermind, I just cheated with [code]

tedv · 05/14/09, 2:57 PM

Originally Posted by constantius

Not taking one side or another, but I can almost never justify using GS on a raid member on a hard mode. It's saved for a tank, typically on enrages or "uber abilities" (Thorim, Mimiron, Hodir). And I also wouldn't use Flame Jets, Tantrums, or Kologarn as an example of anything that has to be thought about. They've all been nerfed into the ground.

If you want to talk about raid damage and how to heal it, go to Frozen Blows on Hodir.25-hard (4 healers), Freya.25-hard (7 healers, say), or Mimiron.25-hard (7 healers). Those are situations where there's real decisions to be made.

I haven't found Flame Jets or Tantrums particularly challenging either, but might in fact be hard for other guilds that are still working on normal Ulduar progression. Looking at the achievements for Havoc12 showed his guild only had 2 keepers down in Ulduar 10 and 1 keeper down in Ulduar 25, obviously with no hard modes. So I wanted to cite the challenging healing situations that he'd be most familiar with.

Naturally as your guild gains more skill/gear/experience, the older stuff will seem trivial. It still seems like the really challenging situations are all AoE healing situations though, where Flash Heal and Greater Heal simply don't put out enough HPS.

Kashir · 05/15/09, 2:25 AM

Just revisiting the Replenishment uptime discussion; I think we tend to assume 100% uptime when calculating the mana returns, but I'm not sure that's really valid either.

A parse from last night's raid gives me the following:

XT-002: 314 seconds, 274 ticks, 87% uptime
Kologarn: 238 seconds, 202 ticks, 84% uptime
Auriaya: 297 seconds, 267 ticks, 90% uptime
Hodir: 304 seconds, 267 ticks, 87% uptime
Freya: 480 seconds, 367 ticks, 76% uptime
Thorim: 445 seconds, 358 ticks, 80% uptime
Razorscale: 401 seconds, 296 ticks, 74% uptime

We did Mirimon and Vezax too, but WWS doesn't seem to recognise Mirimon and Vezax isn't particularly helpful. We had 4-5 Replenishment givers at varying points during the raid, so that shouldn't have been a limiting factor.

Why are the uptime values so low? With the number of Replenishment buffs available, I can't see any reason why I shouldn't have 99% uptime for most of the fights (except Thorim, Razorscale and maybe Freya), but even on straight burn fights it's sitting on 85% to 90%.

Is there some fundamental mechanic for Replenishment that I'm not understanding?

Jamora · 05/15/09, 4:24 AM

Originally Posted by Kashir

Is there some fundamental mechanic for Replenishment that I'm not understanding?

I assume that your mana pool was not low enough to be assigned the replenishment buff. Remember that only the 10 raid members with the lowest mana pools will be assigned the buff. Even if 4 people are tossing out replenishments, that does not mean that 40 raid members get the buff. More likely something like 13, since mana usage is somewhat spikey and 3 new people managed to get into the lowest 10.

I am not actually sure whether raid pets can also get replenishment. If so, then warlock pets can also steal "your" replenishment, not just those trigger happy arcane mages.

However, it is difficult to judge which percentage would be a good estimate for replenishment uptime. Basically, the more you need mana regen, the higher your uptime will be. Which, when considering gearing, translates to the more you value regen, the higher the uptime percentage of replenishment should be. However, I assume that 80%-85% is reasonable to calculate your regen, if it is less then you do not need it anyway.

summlan · 05/15/09, 7:39 AM

Hi. Ive got an alt-priest that im running ulduar with and ive been playing around with some different specs.
My main is a feraldruid but ive played alot of resto so im used to the jump-around-and-hot-stuff kind of healing.

Im mainly on raidhealing since we got holypaladins and shamans taking care of our tanks. That being said theres times when i do have to keep the tank up, like during plasma on mimiron.

this is the spec ive been thinking of using. Basicly the plan is to use as many instants as possible, CoH, PoM, Renew, Flash heal on SoL procs to keep serendipity up for fast PoH.

Would it be foolish as a priest to try to not use flash heal more than on SoL procs?
I wonder if i should max out mental agility and take one point from holy concentration since the only thing that procs it is the initial heal from renew since most of my flash heals will not be able to crit (SoL)
Or take one points from empowered renew for maxing out mental agility.

I havent played enough on my priest to know if im way out of line with my thinking here.

Havoc12 · 05/15/09, 8:30 AM

Originally Posted by tedv

First, a bit of context .... blah blah blah.....

This is the crux of your argument..... more blah......

By the way, it's a lot harder to waste Guardian Spirit if you have the glyph for it, as the 70 second cooldown is enormously useful.

We raid with 4 healing priests, one of whom is pretty much always disc. What part of 30% crit rate with 8-10 heals per 15 seconds you do not understand?
My views on SoL are well known in this forum. I have explained why its optional elsewhere and I dont like the mechanic.
Our raid uses lightwell well. For the fights we use it in has an excellent return and I am glad to have it. I dont miss the 1% healing I would gain from moving that point over to blessed resilience in the remaining fights.
My glyphs change depending on what I am doing at the moment. That may be raids or it may be dailies. I have an inexaustible source.

My guild atm in on Yogg-saron on 25 man (cleared on 10), we have done some medium modes (e.g. counci). This reset it took us 7 hours to clear to yogg. We should have him down this week and next week start on hard modes.

As for the rest to me you sound like one of those healers that fits snuggly into a healing team that rarely changes with raids that have already learned the encounter and thinks that because they are high on the meters they are god's gift to priests. Sorry to burst your bubble, but your style of healing fits only subsets of what priests can do and are good at in skilled hands, who understand that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Also healing meters in ulduar are purely a matter of the fight and assignment.

A) Theory is not practice especially on progression fights. On most occassions where I choose to single target heal a target low on health and in danger I am not going to use my GS even for fights where I have it glyphed. The reason is that if I have it glyphed its because there is a CD rotation on the tank I am not going to blow it on situations I can deal without it. Flash, gheal or PWS/PoM are my first port of call in emergencies. You may decide to leave it others. I am confident I can do is without compromising our job. Dont assume that your limitations apply to everyone.

B) Err perhaps your raid has everything on farm, but in my experience random spike damage to raid members is part of most of the non trivial fights, while people are learning the fight. Sunbeams and adds on freya, death runes and chain lightning on council, rapid bursts or hand pulse or napalms on mimiron.

C) This is exactly the part where we dont see eye to eye. In every fight there are abilities which are meant for single target heals and abilities which are meant for aoe heals. Single target healing is nearly always at the limits of what you can output, especially when people make a mistake, examples include mimiron, freya, hodir and thorim. AoE healing on the other had is usually well below your HPS threshold and the main determinant is not exactly how much they heal but whether you manage to hit all targets in time. 3% more healing on aoe heals which nearly always out HPS the incoming damage significantly is far less important than extra healing on single target heals which by design often have HPS at or below the incoming DPS.

Ultimately every healer no matter how specialised will have to deal with a single person taking massive damage, even if its rare. The 3% to blessed resilience will never make aoe healing easier, it will never make a difference between beating an encounter or losing. Underhealing on single target heals on the other had will kill ppl. Not in every encounter, not even in every raid, but it will happen. If you can justify to yourself that 1-2% extra healing on the healing meters is worth losing a DPS or a wipe somewhere along the line that is fine. That is a decision that is purely personal however and a player is equally justified to not make it, given how trivial the increase in healing from blessed resilience is.

Ofc in my case I could rearrange my talents to get both emp healing and blessed resilience, by losing convenience talents like lightwell, or inner focus, but the buff is so minor that I choose convenience over efficiency and I am not in the slightest ashamed to admit it.

On a side note the fact that you don't use gheal at all has nothing to do with gheal being a bad choice and everthing to do with your specific playstyle. I have both the awareness and the reaction time to heal with gheal and do not hesitate to use it, when I feel the situation calls for it. If I cast 1 gheal every 30 seconds, its 33 mp5 from improved healing or 11 mp5 per point instead of inspiration which contributes nothing at all. Something for nothing is always a no brainer.

Hi. Ive got an alt-priest that im running ulduar with and ive been playing around with some different specs.
My main is a feraldruid but ive played alot of resto so im used to the jump-around-and-hot-stuff kind of healing.

Im mainly on raidhealing since we got holypaladins and shamans taking care of our tanks. That being said theres times when i do have to keep the tank up, like during plasma on mimiron.

this is the spec ive been thinking of using. Basicly the plan is to use as many instants as possible, CoH, PoM, Renew, Flash heal on SoL procs to keep serendipity up for fast PoH.

Would it be foolish as a priest to try to not use flash heal more than on SoL procs?
I wonder if i should max out mental agility and take one point from holy concentration since the only thing that procs it is the initial heal from renew since most of my flash heals will not be able to crit (SoL)
Or take one points from empowered renew for maxing out mental agility.

I havent played enough on my priest to know if im way out of line with my thinking here.

Your uptime on HC will be terribly low with your playstyle and its return is not particularly brilliant in any case. You are not going to get anything more than 50mp5 from those 3 points by my guess. I would say blessed resilience is what you really want to get for those points.

Using only SoL procs I would estimate it will take you between 15 and 45 seconds to get a full serendipity stack most of the time with an average of 30. Its not a very reliably way to stack it.

The single target HPS of your being is terrible beyond description. If you are ever called to keep the tank up, you are better off taking on some targets from another healer and letting them do it, your contribution aside from GS will be negligible and more likely to add to the tank healer overheal than actually save the tank. If there is any chance of a wipe on plasma blast, use the GS glyph and use a cooldown rotation.

Elimbras · 05/15/09, 9:26 AM

Originally Posted by tedv

First, a bit of context about this poster's holy spec so that other people can see the perspective he's coming from:

0/3 Inspiration
0/2 Surge of Light
0/2 Body and Soul

5/5 Empowered Healing
3/3 Improved Healing
1/1 Lightwell

Glyphs: Flash Heal, Circle of Healing, Power Word: Shield
(Note: No Guardian Spirit or Prayer of Healing glyphs.)
[...]

First of all, and most importantly,
I really don't think it is ever needed to use ad-hominem attacks.
You should convince people that blessed resilience is better by showing it, not by trying to say that your opponent has a bad spec...

For the second point, I can find justification for such a spec. If you have a disc. priest or two in the raid, they will maintain inspiration.
Body and Soul is a good talent, but no way mandatory, especially again if you have disc. priest.
Surge of Light is a talent I indeed love. But it hardly qualifies as mandatory.
Lightwell is highly efficient, if your raid knows how to play with it. All numbers shows it. Yes, it requires a good raid and good people.
When arguing a choice between empowered healing and blessed resilience, you can hardly expect your opponent not to take the talents they advocate. And there are reasons also to take it. It's not mandatory, but it's really useful talents.
Improved healing is not very good, but if you don't take the renew route, you have points to use there. Or if you don't take inspiration. I like to throw fast gh on the tank, when I have serependity stacked and there is a need.
In short, I don't think such a spec disqualifies anybody. It's not the most common, but it's meaningful.

On the hard point of the debate, I would say I agree more with Havoc on this point. We have four healing priest and four healing shamans in my guild, and only 2 holy paladins and at most one healing druid. So raid damage is usely ok for us. Four priest spamming POH is insane healing throughput, whatever their spec. choice. We don't have always four priest in raid, but at least two, and often three. SOmetimes four. In most case, we have more than 5 priest + shamans anyway.
On the opposite side, damage on a random raid member is more problematic for us. And gh and fh are really the good tools for it. Finally, when somebody dies, I am often required to take back the tank healing duty (our shamans hate to heal tanks, I'm double-specced disc. and holy, so I like both, even if I obviously prefer to be disc for doing it). Empowered healing is needed in this case.

Blessed resilience is not a bad talent. It's not fantastic either, and there are other good talents with good reasons to take.

Hegen · 05/15/09, 10:22 AM

Originally Posted by Elimbras

In short, I don't think such a spec disqualifies anybody. It's not the most common, but it's meaningful.

Tedv did not disqualify anbody. Most discussions here start from a baseline of expection of what a priest does in a raid and how he or she thinks. Havoc is arguing from a baseline that's quite different from many holy priests here. This was in fact helpful to point out. I would never have assumed that he argues in favor of flash heal to react towards random raid damage but not speccing SoL and inspiration.

It is, however, contradictory to argue that it's important to throw quick flash heals to random targets to save their virtual lifes and then not speccing at least SoL, especially when running at 30% crit. If it is that important, then it's also important to have an instant non-critting SoL flash. I'm not sure I see his point.

Edit:
Additional note: with the current progression phase in Ulduar, I think it's really important to have a clue about the baseline of the player. I can see that with every new boss I encounter in Ulduar, my perception on "how to heal" changes subtly. So it did for most priests far more progressed than I am. If someone talks about 3% more healing on AoE damage, this definitely carries a different weight if said person has at least worked on hard mode Mimiron.

Let's play this with open cards - actually, isn't it seriously enjoyable to have a very interesting healing class to play that allows and calls for different tactics depending on the encounter, progression phase and raid composition? Let's thrive on this and try to put on focus on understanding why someone has a very different view on this instead of focusing on how to prove he or she is incorrect.

Not one of us has seen it all, so far.

tedv · 05/15/09, 11:12 AM

Havoc12: I've been posting arguments based on mathematical theory and a lot of your responses have the form "I feel". But the real measure is how well healers perform in a raid. Since we can't have a helpful discussion about our feelings as healers, can you instead post a WWS report of your raids? I think some concrete examples would do a better job of explaining your point than a reiteration of why you feel confident that a particular spell must be the right tool for a given situation.

The Not So Evil · 05/15/09, 11:32 AM

I'm a bit afraid that this will spiral into a healing/damage granularity discussion. If your raids is having problems keeping the entire raid up (Too many too often on low HP), its probably better to take Blessed Resilience and Test of Faith. If single people die while rest are being kept up, its probably better to take Emp. Healing.

Elimbras · 05/15/09, 1:06 PM

Originally Posted by tedv

Havoc12: I've been posting arguments based on mathematical theory and a lot of your responses have the form "I feel". But the real measure is how well healers perform in a raid.

Troubles for healers is how you measure performance.
Our real performance is preventing death, which is not strictly equivalent to raw or effective hps. There is a correlation between both, but when speaking of the choices we are doing, the difference between both "performances" is really not negligeable...
I, for instance, have a rather good hps, at least compared to the other healers of my guild. However, I do not consider myself as better healer, because I tend to die more easily (I play more risquly), and because I'm less focus on keeping tanks alive when raid healing (our shamans do an excellent job of healing the tank if needed, on the fly).

Kilborne · 05/15/09, 2:51 PM

Originally Posted by The Not So Evil

I'm a bit afraid that this will spiral into a healing/damage granularity discussion. If your raids is having problems keeping the entire raid up (Too many too often on low HP), its probably better to take Blessed Resilience and Test of Faith. If single people die while rest are being kept up, its probably better to take Emp. Healing.

I agree, but going further (starting the spiral), if you are having trouble keeping a single person up in a raid (particularly 25 man) then it might be better to switch out or dual spec a raid healer into a single target healer. If the 'extra' 300 points on your flash heal is all that is saving the raid, spec disc.

Healing is healing, if specing into BR improves your numbers, then it improves your healing. Maybe if your AoE spells were more effective you wouldn't run into as many situations were you had to worry about a couple hundred extra points on your flash heal. So I don't buy into the argument that a slightly improved single target heal is always a lifesaver, but slightly improved AoE heals can never be.

If a raid member dies by a small amount, did they die from the last heal being too small, the AoE heal being too small, or the next heal not getting there in time? Any one of those is a viable answer, so promoting one of those to the exclusion of all others is a mistake imo.

No one heals in a vacuum, and there is no challenging 5-man group content in this game. If one holy priest can save a target with a a slightly better flash heal, then two holy priests can save two targets with a slight better flash....but that should never happen as both holy priests could use CoH and save 6 targets...

It comes down to the spells that you use most often, concentrate on those. If flash and gh consistently top your charts, go for empowered healing...I guess, but wouldn't you be better off specing disc?

giraffe · 05/15/09, 4:44 PM

A hiatus back to the SoL discussion.

Currently I am using 1/2 into Surge of Light. This is because:
a. I like the proc, it is handy for keeping my serendipty up until I need it,
b. it is handy for dropping a ~5k heal on someone who needs it right away, and
c. I am only 1/2 into it because I have noticed there is a bug with SoL. If you get a SoL proc while you are casting Flash Heal (from PoM usually, and other things in heavy latency situations), the SoL effect is consumed upon completion of the current Flash Heal, without being instant, or free.

I am definitely considering having SoL 2/2, barring the bug I have noticed.

------

On the matter of BR vs. Emp. Healing,

It's really a matter of a combination of things. i.e.:

- raid healer makeup. Ratio of shamans/priests/druids

- your roll as a raid healer. Are you on keeping the bulk of the damage suppressed, or being on top of those who are hp-critical?

With a higher ratio of shamans to other healers, you're going to be seeing more Chain heals bouncing around, hitting the most hp-critical targets. In that situation the +300 vs +90 won't make much of a difference, which points towards BR.

If you are the healer who tends (or is assigned) to focus on lowest-hp people first, Emp. Healing wins out.

Note: Yes, it is every raid-healers responsibility to get the lowest hp people up, but in some situations it may be beneificial for a certain class/person to focus on them first, and let the raid-wide damage healers hit the low people with a CoH or Wild Growth or something.

For myself, I am looking at respeccing out of Emp. Healing healing and into BR, because with my latency, (consistently around 260ms) someone usually gets to those hp critical targets first, causing my Flash Heal to overheal a great deal.

I am looking at putting the extra 2 points into lolwell and something else. I may also just go 3/3 into BR, and 2/5 into Emp. Healing, leaving myself a bit more flexible, seeing as I do cast Flash Heal fairly often.

With BR vs. Emp. Healing, I believe it is almost-entirely situational, and the rest of the decision depends on the play style of the healer.

Bossi · 05/15/09, 5:08 PM

Originally Posted by giraffe

A hiatus back to the SoL discussion.
Currently I am using 1/2 into Surge of Light. This is because:
a. I like the proc, it is handy for keeping my serendipty up until I need it,
b. it is handy for dropping a ~5k heal on someone who needs it right away, and
c. I am only 1/2 into it because I have noticed there is a bug with SoL. If you get a SoL proc while you are casting Flash Heal (from PoM usually, and other things in heavy latency situations), the SoL effect is consumed upon completion of the current Flash Heal, without being instant, or free.

I am definitely considering having SoL 2/2, barring the bug I have noticed.

SoL proved very very useful on Freya + 3 - any instantheal is worth gold when she casts tremor. I always try to have CoH and PoM ready for it.

Also I can confirm that c. is absolutly correct - I hate that when it happens.

Kilborne · 05/15/09, 6:05 PM

"c. I am only 1/2 into it because I have noticed there is a bug with SoL. If you get a SoL proc while you are casting Flash Heal (from PoM usually, and other things in heavy latency situations), the SoL effect is consumed upon completion of the current Flash Heal, without being instant, or free. "

Yeah I hate that too, but I thought it was non-instant, but mana free...maybe I wasn't paying enough attention though. Either way, it blows.

"If you are the healer who tends (or is assigned) to focus on lowest-hp people first, Emp. Healing wins out. "

True, IF you are going to focus on the lowest-hp people with flash or GH. Generally I am focused on the lowest hp people but end up using Prom, CoH, serendipity enhanced PoH, shield or renew (which I don't think gets enough credit now that it has an instant heal component, but that is another thread). This is especially true in Ulduar, where when raid damage hits, it is often multiple, multiple raid members.

"Blessed resilience returns 1% to all healing per point. Empowered healing returns roughly 2% per point to gheal, fheal and binding heal."

Doesn't Empowered healing return ~2% per point to GH, and more like ~1% to fheal and binding heal? That was what my own testing and the tooltip seemed to indicate, but just want to be sure.