For me, the issue of gearing for throughput instead of regen comes down to this: will gearing for throughput change the way I heal? And the answer that I've always found is, no.
Say I'm raid healing, and one of the DPS is down 5k HP. I cast FHeal on them, healing them up to full. If they aren't at full health, they'll be pretty damn close, making casting another FHeal a huge waste of mana. Whether or not I had geared for full throughput, the target would still be at or very near full health. So the extra throughput would do nothing in this case.
Now let's say that DPS is down 10k health. In most cases I would still use FHeal, as using GHeal on squishy DPS is often a very real gamble. If my first FHeal hits for ~5k, then I'd still need to cast a second FHeal to top them up. Assuming that 5k heal was with regen gearing, let's look at throughput. I don't know realistically how much a FHeal would go up by, but let's say it will hit for ~5.5k. Meaning after my first FHeal, the targe would still be down 4.5k HP instead of 5K. Since 4.5k is still a lot of missing health, even with gearing for throughput, I would still need to cast a second FHeal. And that would most likely result in overhealing.
Of course, you could also take the case where the target was down enough HP for two 5.5k FHeals exactly. Then, if that was the case, the target would still be down ~1k health after being healed by two FHeals if the healer was using the regen gear. So the worst-case scenario for regen is that your target will have a slight health defecit (1k is generally nothing), and the worst-case scenario for throughput is that your extra healing will be overheal and wasted. Both cases are nothing of major consequence; but with regen gear, you're gaining a lot more mana to work with, while having basically the same healing style as someone who geared for throughput.
To sum all of that up (which I may not have typed clearly) - for me, throughput only becomes important when it can actually save me a spell cast.
But this will generally never happen, because especially these days, pretty much all of the healing gear a Priest will take is balanced between regen and throughput. Gone are the days when you could really go all-out in gearing for one particular stat (I remember running DM endlessly for MP5 gear when I first hit 60).
What that means is, the only places where we really have choices in terms of throughput or regen are gemming and enchanting. And while those add non-trivial stats to our gear, I don't think you can realistically get enough throughput from just gems and enchants alone to significantly alter the strength of our heals. Which again means you wind up casting the same number of heals as someone who geared for regen, except they're getting more mana back.
There are other reasons why I prefer regen as well, but others have touched on most of them already. For me, regen will always be my primary objective of gearing unless something drastic changes.
I should note, however, that when I say throughput, I'm really talking about spellpower. Haste is another story, and does indeed have its own tangible benefits. Regen and spellpower become meaningless when a target dies because it didn't get a heal in time. While in an ideal world healers would be prepared and haste generally wouldn't be necessary, it can help a lot if your ping is a little high, or if you're just a little slow sometimes.
So, I can understand healers (well, maybe non-Druids) that go for haste. I personally still prefer regen, but haste is also a pretty good choice. What I don't really understand is healers going for all-out spellpower. I understood it back when downranking was king, but these days? It just doesn't make much sense to me.
When looking at my healing gear I like seeing a lot of spellpower, haste and willpower.
I do never play Discipline, as my primary spec is Shadow, so mp5 is close to useless to me, as is crit for healing.
Willpower seves both purposes: throughput and regen.
Spellpower is the most reliable healing stat. It also makes your heals not only more effective, but more efficiant.
Haste is not only a cheaper stat than crit, but lesser GCD and casttimes are the kind of throughput you're looking for: The abitility to heal more than one target as fast as possible.
Crit is lackluster as you it might make you proc HC, but it's too unreliable. Stick with 20-25% raidbuffed and that armorbuff and HC should have an alright uptime.
Isn't regen vs throughput just a manifestation of the very old risk vs performance problem of raiding? After having healed in raids for more than four years I've always geared for regen if I was uncertain on the risk of the pull. I.e, most of our harder progression pulls has been done in regen heavy gear as opposed to throughput. It allows for a far superiour flexibility when something doesn't go as planned - and it very often does on the harder bosses. Fellow healers might die or disconnect, DPS might fall off which will make the pull much longer - and in both cases you might be able to salvage the pull much more easily with a manabar that lasts as opposed to heals that still overheal.
You might provide math that quantifies spellpower as the single most potent stat. But the math of being OOM is rather easy to fathom as well and of a much more absolute value in terms of the end result of the pull.
Mana versus output really just depends on the fight, which is why having or gemming for balanced gear is probably the best route. What's that mana regen going to do for you against General Vexas, are you going to have mana, or will your heals be potent enough for hard mode fights? Versatility is everything for a priest. Playing on the priest strengths and not being sloppy will take care of your raid and your mana bar. When you're at the point that you're not running out of mana then output should become important. What good is lots of mana when you or half the raid is dead. (as of now there really isn't any limping across the finish line. Much of uld is all or nothing when it comes to people standing. Hard mode is all or nothing.)
As long as we're (or were) on the topic of trinkets, it looks like there is yet another Je'Tze's Bell-esque trinket dropping from Yogg-Saron on Hard Mode called Show of Faith. This is obviously a direct upgrade from [Sif's Remembrance], assuming similar uptime on the proc.
In terms of spell power, the new [Titan-Forged Rune of Audacity] from Wintergrasp Marks of Honor equals the [Forethought Talisman] yet has an (arguably) better effect with it, since the Talisman's HoT is effectively useless in a raid environment. I considered using the Rune for Yogg-Saron to remove his "soft" mind control (read: not the 0% sanity one) when Will of the Forsaken was on cooldown and there were no dispels available. I'm sure there are other Ulduar 25 encounters in which it could be useful. A "your mileage may vary" thing, but could have some PvE use if you are out of luck trinket-wise, or could benefit from the PvP dispel.
As long as we're (or were) on the topic of trinkets, it looks like there is yet another Je'Tze's Bell-esque trinket dropping from Yogg-Saron on Hard Mode called Show of Faith. This is obviously a direct upgrade from [Sif's Remembrance], assuming similar uptime on the proc.
Yuck, I hope there's some decent trinkets from algaron. The trinkets based on [Je'Tze's Bell] have never been a favorite of mine. Well, the original version was good before they tacked on the cooldown on the proc of course, but since they nerfed that they are pretty terrible. Even Show of Faith only have 2/3 the mana regen of [Soul of the Dead]. I'd prefer a trinket with spell power on it, but not when the secondary effect is so bad. It's pretty amusing that [Spark of Life] has a better secondary effect than a ilvl 226 epic.
I feel like a lot of this discussion is getting astray in "general healing theorycraft", and isn't going to be that useful to a typical priest reading the thread. There's also an awful lot of anecdotal evidence and stories, and very little data. To summarize, people are saying three different things, either through math or examples. They are:
I don't benefit much from marginal additional spell power
I don't benefit much from marginal additional haste
I don't benefit much from marginal additional regeneration
And often that claim is follow by "and that's why I stack spell power / haste / regeneration instead".
However, all of these stats are useful in large quantities, and if they were totally useless in small quantities, we wouldn't care about gear upgrades either. Clearly the small upgrades matter too. Additionally, all of these stats have theoretical effective caps on usefulness, but we will not reach any of these caps with current gear. Those caps are:
Spell Power: When all heals are overheals
Haste: When all spells cast faster than the minimum global cooldown
Regen: When you can chain cast any spell and not run out of mana
None of those situations will ever happen (barring strange fight mechanics like Vaelastraz). It's crucial to note that when people say "spell power is worthless because it's just overhealing", the real argument is that sometimes the extra healing is just overhealing. Other times its not. Similarly, sometimes extra haste lets you cast a heal in time and other times it wasn't needed. Sometimes you can spend the extra mana you regenerate and sometimes you can't. The real dispute is over how often a marginal increase in a stat actually prevents a raid death, and the numbers are so low for all stats, it's hard to say which is "best", even if you know both the fight mechanics and duration.
However, I think everyone can agree that some gear trade offs are always worth making. Even if you think regeneration beats throughput, everyone would give up 1 spirit for 100 spell power, or probably even 1 spirit for 10 spell power. Many people would trade it for 1 spell power but not everyone. This calls to mind the immortal words of Captain Jack Sparrow:
Jack Sparrow: [Talking about Jack's debt to Jones] You already have my payment. One soul to serve on your ship is already over there. Davy Jones: One soul is not equal to another. Jack Sparrow: Ah-ha! So, we've established my proposal as sound in principle. Now, we're just haggling over price.
At this point, we are haggling over the price of stats. Is it worth trading 100 spell power for 200 int? 100 int? 50 int? There isn't an optimal solution for this explicitly because some fights favor regeneration more and others favor throughput more.
I acknowledge that there are also feedback loops between the stats. For example, the more mana you have, the better spell power is because it makes each point of mana buy more healing. But the reverse is true as well. If you have a bunch of spell power, you get greater returns from an increased mana pool than if you had less spell power. However, if you crunch the numbers on feedback, it's never enough to substantially change your stat valuation. In other words, if you pick one stat for your yellow gem stat, all yellow gems you use should provide that stat.
Rather than try continuing to argue over whether its better to stack throughput or regeneration, perhaps we should try to derive three basic stat equivalences, one for maximizing throughput, one for maximizing regeneration, and one for balancing the two. It's still up to the individual priest to decide which gear set is appropriate for which fight. That's a useful mathematical thing to model, and we can leave the decision of which model to use up to your own discretion.
Right now I only can refer to Holy-Raiding because thats what I'm doing all the time.
Glyph: Flash Heal
I think its a must have because even if you don't use it that often its one of the main spells as Holy.
Glyph: Guardian Spirit
There are so many occaions where your tank needs extra protection or someone is getting too much dmg...
Every Minute you are able to protect someone form dying and therfore its really helpful in every boss fight....
That leaves one slot and two Glyphs you have to choose from.
Glyph: Circle of Healing
I do not have the exact data but in Ulduar you do not stand so much next too each other and therefore one additional Target isn't that good....
In my last Raid it did a avarage of 2746 on one Target.
Glyph: Prayer of Healing
I am pretty suprised about the date I am getting from WWS every Raid... I usually cast it after Flame Jets(Ignis) ore Earthquake(XT-002) and it only produces about 4% overheal.....
It does singel Target about 5537 on 5 Players and leaves 5*20% hot --> like one extra target you get from coh....
So in the end:
Better Range and Higher Heal....
You could argue that its only a group heal and coh is smart target and so on, but I think you cast CoH in the same situations where you need to cast a PoH.... If you first cast CoH you save thoose with low health and then you cast PoH and overall you get more heal.
Glyph: Power Word Shiled
I think we need to do the math on this Glyph once we figure the T8 bonus out
Right now I only can refer to Holy-Raiding because thats what I'm doing all the time.
Glyph: Flash Heal
I think its a must have because even if you don't use it that often its one of the main spells as Holy.
Glyph: Guardian Spirit
There are so many occaions where your tank needs extra protection or someone is getting too much dmg...
Every Minute you are able to protect someone form dying and therfore its really helpful in every boss fight....
That leaves one slot and two Glyphs you have to choose from.
Glyph: Circle of Healing
I do not have the exact data but in Ulduar you do not stand so much next too each other and therefore one additional Target isn't that good....
In my last Raid it did a avarage of 2746 on one Target.
Glyph: Prayer of Healing
I am pretty suprised about the date I am getting from WWS every Raid... I usually cast it after Flame Jets(Ignis) ore Earthquake(XT-002) and it only produces about 4% overheal.....
It does singel Target about 5537 on 5 Players and leaves 5*20% hot --> like one extra target you get from coh....
So in the end:
Better Range and Higher Heal....
You could argue that its only a group heal and coh is smart target and so on, but I think you cast CoH in the same situations where you need to cast a PoH.... If you first cast CoH you save thoose with low health and then you cast PoH and overall you get more heal.
Glyph: Power Word Shiled
I think we need to do the math on this Glyph once we figure the T8 bonus out
A spell is not one of the main spells of a spec "even if you don't use it that often." For something to be a "main spell," it has to be used often. For me, greater heal is turning into a spell that I "don't use that often." Flash heal is not.
I'm not sure what fights you're doing in Ulduar where you "don't stand next to each other" enough that circle of healing couldn't find a sixth target. The only fights where circle of healing shouldn't be a significant portion of your healing are the ones with little to no aoe damage.
You're misinterpreting the data you're getting on glyph of prayer of healing overheal. HoT tics that don't heal for anything don't show up in the combat log, and aren't counted for overhealing. For example on my Ignis kill last week, I healed for 505k effective healing with prayer of healing with 28% overheal. That should mean I had 129k in glyph healing, but the actual number was 66k. That's almost 50% overhealing from the glyph, but the combat log parse says I had 3.2% overhealing with the glyph.
While going over the debate as to what stats ect are priority in 3.1+ I have assemble a spreedsheet with all current 226 known gear. I have come to a personal BiS slot for 3.1 using the information in this thread.
Please let me know if there is anything you would like to update or items that might fit better per slot.
Cord of the White Dawn Belt
Sandals of the Ancient Keeper Feet
Asimov's Drape Back
Pyrelight Circle Ring
Signet of Manifested Pain Ring
Legwraps of the Master Conjurer Legs
Robes of the Umbral Brute Chest
Constructor's Handwraps hands
Shackels of the Odalisque wrist
Mantle of Dissemination Shoulders
Conqueror's Cowl of Sanctification Head
Totals (unbuffed ungemmed):
751 664 448 1026 0 590 154 2 2 2 1
Stam Int Spirit SP MP5 Crit Haste Red Yellow Blue Meta gem
Rather than try continuing to argue over whether its better to stack throughput or regeneration, perhaps we should try to derive three basic stat equivalences, one for maximizing throughput, one for maximizing regeneration, and one for balancing the two. It's still up to the individual priest to decide which gear set is appropriate for which fight. That's a useful mathematical thing to model, and we can leave the decision of which model to use up to your own discretion.
The problem I have is that most caster gear of the same ilvl is very similar: it has roughly the same int and spellpower with a choice of crit/mp5/spirit/haste so you're only going to be able to min/max certain stats with gear that actually exists. The only notable exceptions would be trinkets and a choice of gem slots. This is not to say that theorycrafting this wouldn't be useful (it would be very useful as it shows what is possible), but I'm just worried that people coming here for information would end up wondering just how feasible it is to carry around 3-4 pieces of gear in the same slot just to have a "haste" set, a "spirit" set and a "crit" set, for example.
Still, a good approach might be to try and build sets of gear that max each desired stat and see just how much you gain or lose. If they show more than marginal differences, then we can go from there and see what those differences are. If they don't actually amount to much that is different, then at least we'll know for sure that, other than choosing a few obvious best in slot items, the choice about whether to stack any one stat after a base amount is more of a personal preference than anything.
The problem I have is that most caster gear of the same ilvl is very similar: it has roughly the same int and spellpower with a choice of crit/mp5/spirit/haste so you're only going to be able to min/max certain stats with gear that actually exists. The only notable exceptions would be trinkets and a choice of gem slots. This is not to say that theorycrafting this wouldn't be useful (it would be very useful as it shows what is possible), but I'm just worried that people coming here for information would end up wondering just how feasible it is to carry around 3-4 pieces of gear in the same slot just to have a "haste" set, a "spirit" set and a "crit" set, for example.
Still, a good approach might be to try and build sets of gear that max each desired stat and see just how much you gain or lose. If they show more than marginal differences, then we can go from there and see what those differences are. If they don't actually amount to much that is different, then at least we'll know for sure that, other than choosing a few obvious best in slot items, the choice about whether to stack any one stat after a base amount is more of a personal preference than anything.
A note on this in the spreadsheet I have included 226 iLvl sets fo mix maxing SPR SP INT Crit and Haste.
Yes, I'm looking at it now. It's very helpful for this discussion (though there's alot to go through still). Also one possible error in the sheet is that Hood of Rationality seems to be listed on both lines 5 and 7. I don't think it matters though.
The way stats seem to be distributed with the ulduar 226 items seems to follow a pattern of Stam int Spr being very similar on most peices of the same slot and 1 of each type of item for that slot.
IE 1 sholder peice with high crit, andother with high haste ect. all of the different Min / Max combos focusing on 1 state end up with about the same overall stats with a larger concentration on the selected stat. Also there seems to maintain the same number of Gem slots no matter the mix.
Hope this helps to focus the stat disscusion in a more direct way. Its easy to say +100 int -200 SP however I find once looking at the actual gear and the WWS reports posted so far a better sum of stats can be made.
I've been looking over the gear available to us and virtually all items come down to "Pick two of Spirit, Haste, Crit". In general, it appears that items with m/5 instead of spirit should be valued at a tier lower than they are. In other words, a 213 item with spirit is roughly equivalent to a 226 item with m/5, but an otherwise similar distribution of stats.
If there are two pieces with the same kinds of stats but different numbers, the one with the lowest stamina is almost always the best. For example, [Conqueror's Leggings of Sanctification] versus [Leggings of Lost Love]. The t8 piece is the better of the two (though I personally think other pieces are better than both).
So to make gearing choices, we only need to decide on an ordering between spirit, haste, and crit. The value of Spell Power and Intellect is rather meaningless, as you don't have many gearing options regarding these, though it does matter for gemming. The math I've run says Crit > Haste > Spirit, since I haven't had mana issues healing. This means my first choice is Crit + Haste, second choice is Crit + Spirit, third choice is Haste + Spirit. Pretty much all gearing choices fall out automatically from this ranking system.
For the record, I'd suggest that both Crit > Spirit > Haste and Haste > Spirit > Crit are logically implausible options. Haste and Crit are primarily throughput stats while spirit is primarily a regen stat. If you think throughput matters more than regen, then Spirit has to be the worst stat of these three. If you think regen matters more than throughput, then Spirit has to be the best.
Any of the other four options have credible arguments behind them, generally depending on when you think you might run out of mana.
On the subject of the gear choices put forth by that spreadsheet, I'd suggest that [Conqueror's Mantle of Sanctification] is flat out superior to [Mantle of Dissemination]. You gain 6 spell power, 2 crit, 6 int, and lose 3 spirit. Yes, it's the shadow set piece, but it's really good. The holy piece might be good depending on how useful the set bonuses are. I'm still undecided.
I didn't add the Holy sholders mainly because of there lack of crit an high haste. I would think that the shadow ones would be a viable healing alternative if stacking crit?
So to make gearing choices, we only need to decide on an ordering between spirit, haste, and crit. The value of Spell Power and Intellect is rather meaningless, as you don't have many gearing options regarding these, though it does matter for gemming. The math I've run says Crit > Haste > Spirit, since I haven't had mana issues healing. This means my first choice is Crit + Haste, second choice is Crit + Spirit, third choice is Haste + Spirit. Pretty much all gearing choices fall out automatically from this ranking system.
How does your math put crit above haste if you haven't had mana issues healing? At 0% haste and crit, 1% haste costs less than 1% crit in itemization points and is twice as effective at increasing your throughput.
Besides losing the effects on death (which is obviously non-trivial), wouldn't Guru's + Mighty Thoughts be strictly superior to Distilled Wisdom in terms of regen?
One of the issues I have had between choosing flasks versus elixirs is the loss in some flexibility when experimenting.
For pure regen, I favor Guru's + Mighty Thoughts (before 3.1 i would use Draenic). So when trying to figure out new fights, I may start with pure regen, then either move to Lightning Speed + Mighty Thoughts or Spellpower + Mighty Thoughts. Obviously, then the gearing becomes, is 67 spell power worth 45 Intellect? I think even if you can show that there are slight gains to the 67 spell power over the 45 intellect, I would probably persist in using mighty thoughts until I can get comfortable enough with a fight and know that i won't have too much mana or i have enough throughput.
For instance, when i first started healing razorscale, i started with pure regen (guru's + mighty) and when it became clear that my mana pool was manageable, i switched over to Lightning Speed and Mighty thoughts.
I do think there is nothing wrong with figuring out whether there are some intrinsically superior choices in both gear and buffs, but the instances are new enough and the variables large enough, that i suspect that it will take more experimentation before we can really figure out the +/- of these choices. Personally, while i am most definitely a quantitative type of person, when it comes to healing encounters I favor trial and error. And at least for now, it appears that elixirs would be the way to do that.
One more thing that has to be mentioned - all throughput stats scale really well together.
When considering throughout - Stacking haste makes crit/SP more effective - all 3 stats help one another become stronger. I'll give haste stacking as an example - haste effects all spells/globals meaning you cast more often, which means everytime you cast another spell all your crit/spellpower is considered. Continually stacking these stats make the others proportionally stronger. Stacking Int (which is best atm for pure regen in a raid environment) does not scale with other stats so well on our standardised gear.
The arguement that more Int lets you cast more spells is an encounter by encounter proposition. The fact remains that the scaling of all throughout talents means stacking one does infact make the others more effective.
Rather than try continuing to argue over whether its better to stack throughput or regeneration, perhaps we should try to derive three basic stat equivalences, one for maximizing throughput, one for maximizing regeneration, and one for balancing the two. It's still up to the individual priest to decide which gear set is appropriate for which fight. That's a useful mathematical thing to model, and we can leave the decision of which model to use up to your own discretion.
I agree except I'd say two stat equivalences: one for maximizing throughput, and one for maximizing regeneration.
You've done a good job explaining why coming up with a consensus on a standard stat equivalence balancing the two is probably not feasible. Balancing requires that you quantify you much you value throughput versus regen. Because circumstances vary so much, I'd suggest we just leave it to individuals to sort out themselves how much they value regen versus throughput when selecting gear.
Another option that might help the mathematically averse is to simply post a table of equivalence at different balance levels. So you'd essentially say, "Here's the equivalences for a 50:50 split", "Here's a 60:40 split", etc. That way you give them numbers but leave it for individual to decide for themselves how to weigh the split.
Originally Posted by tedv
For the record, I'd suggest that both Crit > Spirit > Haste and Haste > Spirit > Crit are logically implausible options. Haste and Crit are primarily throughput stats while spirit is primarily a regen stat. If you think throughput matters more than regen, then Spirit has to be the worst stat of these three. If you think regen matters more than throughput, then Spirit has to be the best.
Yeah, those seem like unlikely rankings, although Crit > Spirit > Haste would be defendable if you wanted a balance of throughput and regen and slightly favored throughput. Haste will increase you mana burn, so if you want throughput but are still worried about mana, it might make sense to put haste last. Another case might be a disc priest who wants a bit more throughput but is already close to the soft cap on haste when borrowed time and other buffs are considered.
But if you are always picking 2 of 3, there are really only 3 arrangements since the stats you pick would be entirely determined by the stat you want least. So "Crit > Spirit > Haste" is equivalent to "Spirit > Crit > Haste" because haste is left out in both cases.
If you don't care at all about regen, then it's easy: leave spirit out. Otherwise it's maybe harder to decide since you need a balance of haste and crit for throughput since there is synergy between them. So leaving the same throughput stat out all the time is a bad idea.
Originally Posted by Rezzy
One more thing that has to be mentioned - all throughput stats scale really well together.
When considering throughout - Stacking haste makes crit/SP more effective - all 3 stats help one another become stronger. I'll give haste stacking as an example - haste effects all spells/globals meaning you cast more often, which means everytime you cast another spell all your crit/spellpower is considered. Continually stacking these stats make the others proportionally stronger. Stacking Int (which is best atm for pure regen in a raid environment) does not scale with other stats so well on our standardised gear.
The arguement that more Int lets you cast more spells is an encounter by encounter proposition. The fact remains that the scaling of all throughout talents means stacking one does infact make the others more effective.
Yes, generally spell power, crit, and haste are synergistic. But mostly what that means is that you don't want to completely neglect any of the three. If we suppose all three have the same value, then it is always better to add one point to each of those stats than it is to add 3 points to any one of them. Even when they have different values, neglecting any of these stats is eventually bad.
That isn't really a valid argument for taking throughput stats over regen stats, however, and for two reason:
First, throughput and regen stats are also interdependent. For throughput to matter, you need mana and vice versa. In addition, haste is especially dependent on regen because it increases your mana burn rate. So for haste to be effective as a throughput measure, you need enough excess mana and regen to support it.
Second, there are diminishing returns on all throughput stats (and most stats in general). So as you stack sp, crit, and haste, the value of adding one more point to each of them decreases in a relative sense. Eventually for the same stat cost to increase your throughput by 1%, you could instead increase your mana and regen by a much larger amount.
One more thing that has to be mentioned - all throughput stats scale really well together.
...
Continually stacking these stats make the others proportionally stronger. Stacking Int (which is best atm for pure regen in a raid environment) does not scale with other stats so well on our standardised gear.
The same applies to the efficiency stats spirit, int, and crit. Each of them reinforces the others, but in terms of mana regeneration. Spirit also provides a noticable chunk of our spell damage (for holy priests).
We're stuck again with the choice of whether we think throughput or efficency is more important to us right now.
I'm fairly certain any holy priest running Ulduar.10 with 2 healers will find him/herself running dry now and then (or intentionally not healing players that are making mistakes). Too many mistakes are made while learning the encounters. In Ulduar.25 (Ulduar.10 with 3 healers), things may be different when running more healers than strictly necessary.
It's an issue that's not going to be settled anytime soon. It's really an individual choice that depends on many things, including personal healing style and raid composition.
Last edited by Hegen : 04/28/09 at 7:05 AM.
Reason: fixed wp vs. spi
Originally Posted by Pewsey
Many of our snakes are 3m+ in size. They'll just take the lawnmower off you and beat the shit out of you with it to make you tender, then bite you and eat you.
One more thing that has to be mentioned - all throughput stats scale really well together.
[...] Stacking Int (which is best atm for pure regen in a raid environment) does not scale with other stats so well on our standardised gear.
I assume that you count everything in absolute values (other way, the relative decreasing effect on each throughput stats will be dominant).
Then you need to realize that regen stats have increasing effect when considering the maximum total healing done (or time to oom). Basically, if you're spend around 500 MP5 for your spells, and your stuff / buffs gives you 0 MP5, adding 10 MP5 won't change a lot. But if you already have nearly enough MP5, going from 490 to 500 will make your time to oom infinite.
The fact that throughput stats scale really well together suggest mainly one other conclusion for me: you don't want to ignore any of them in favor of other, you want to equilibrate all throughput stats (that's a standart conclusion for all dps classes).
The last. In german "spirit" is translated to "Willenskraft" which can be translated back to englisch as "Willpower" ("Kraft" means "power"). In normal contexts you would never use "spirt" as a translation for "Willenskraft". To be honest "spirit" is hard to translate to german at all since there is no direct translation. But if you ask WWW leo.org (one of the most used english-german online translation tools) "Willenskraft" is not among the possible traslations.
Back to topic:
The discussion started around the question wether SP is more valuable than Int (or regen) combined with the question why someone favoring regen would also go for haste.
I think most of us can agree that sometimes mana/regen is needed and sometimes throughput.
There are two (for holy) stats that are usefull in both situations up to a given point: crit and spirit.
If we consider total manapool you have 3 stats: int, spirit and crit. As someone said you would need all three of them for good mana-gear.
Crit gives SoL and HC-regen. Spirit gives Meditation and HC-regen. Int gives initial Mana, every external Mana restoration, Holy Hymn, the little ghostie, Meditation and HC regernartion. And above all also gives some crit for additional HC-chances.
Since the effects of int are so many int-stacking is a very good option for mana-gear. So gemming for int is common even among holy-priests. The same will be true for elexier/flask-choices.
Since int is on nearly every gear-piec. gear-decision for regen would be for crit and spirit. So this is simple. (It gets hard if you have to decide between spirit or crit for some slots. If you only think about regen that would hugely depend on your FH/GH/BH-usage.)
If you look at throughput you mostly have SP, crit and haste. As someone stated a combination of all would be best since every stat works best combined with the others.
Your gear comes with big SP anyway. The only decisions to boost it are with gems and food+elexier/flask (and maybe a trinket or two). Since the SP allready present on the gear is something between 2.5k and 3.5k the difference you can make is very small. That will be little more than the random-margin for the spell-sizes anyway. So maybe you would not feel them at all. (Sorry as I'm not a nativ speaker I don't know the correct word for the range between the smalles possible outcome of a spell and the highest non-crit outcome of a spell.) Anyway your SP will be boosted by your Spirit in a comparable size anyway.
Haste is the only stat that can make you faster and that sometimes will safe lifes simply because someone got the heal before the next hit. Some changes in haste may make a difference (but chances are low). Anyway since not every piece we get will have haste and you maybe will need some spirit-parts anyway to uphold the faster casts evry decision for a haste-piece makes a difference. Most times you CAN feel it when you got another haste-piece (or eat food or something). The drawback for haste is it does not work with PoM and CoH. And you need more mana if you take it.
If you crit you surley will feel the size-difference. And you will get Inspiration. (And maybe some other regen-stuff). So a crit can make the difference between life and death. As for haste: You may not have crit on every piece. So the decision for crit will make a bigger change in crit-chance than a comperable SP-value would have made.
So deciding for haste or crit will do more for your thourghput than going for some more SP. Because you allready will have high SP-values anyway. While Crit and Haste also come with deminishing returns (and haste has a theoretical cap) in most situations you would help your throughput mor with crit or haste than with SP.
Conclusion: So while int IS a good thing to boost for mana/regen, SP is not as good to boost for throughput.
I would go for the following: If you have mana-issues gem for int, take regen food/elexiers and pick some crit+spirit-pieces. If you think your heals are to slow OR you do not know where to put your mana switch some pieces for crit+haste. Don't gem them for Int but for crit or haste. If you are happy with your distribution OR have reached a silly amount of crit go for haste+spirit. Take SP whenever there is no choice but do not take it to boost your throughput more than that. Crit or Haste would boost it more since you will have less of them and the difference would be greater.
Has anyone thought more about a BIS list yet?
Im thinking about keeping 2 pieces of tier 7.5 for the POM bonus and have 2 peices of tier 8.5 for the POH bonus I think that seems the best way to go for holy as the 4 piece seems more geared towards disc, what are your views on this?
04/25/09, 9:06 PM
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