Shinwei

You make some good points. There are certainly quite a few encounters in the game where the raid does get jacked quite horribly, and you are spamming chain heal desperately to try to keep everyone alive. I'm going to go ahead and make a bold claim in saying that during these times and these times alone do you truly appreciate crits on your heals - the rest of the time there is a very high chance that those crits just turn into overheal. However, at the same time, you, as a member of the raid, are also very much in danger of dying at these times. The probability of you dying is something that is very difficult to describe -- but it should be said that even the most experienced raider can make mistakes. Ever miss a heal on yourself because the healthbars of other raid members were much more dynamic and interesting? 2% extra spell crit won't save you from these mistakes, and it certainly won't save you from the plethora of other horrible things that may happen to you because of someone else's mistakes. That said, there are a great number of mistakes that can be made during the course of a fight that do not call for an immediate wipe. Being able to Ankh with a decent amount of health and mana is godlike in these situations, and critting 2% more often over an entire year's worth of raiding still isn't enough to replace that.

 

Shinwei

This observation is true, but you are ignoring the other way to look at it:

If you have enough haste to cast 5% faster, and do not sacrifice a significant amount of +heal to do so, you are also able to top the raid off 5% faster. Even if you don't cast that extra heal you get from your spell haste, you did what you had to do in less time.

Hard to quantify, yes, but I'm sure we can agree that there exists situations in which such an ability can be very useful.

Also, on a slightly less important note: spell haste really helps our performance on healing meters. While this doesn't really matter very much in terms of raid success, if you already have everything on farm, what harm is there in trying to gear for the meters?

 

Thud00

---
If you must have improved reincarnation, then yea spell crit is the obvious place.

But you dont need it. Almost every time you die its a wipe anyhow. If its not you can pop and drink a mana pot or MT. Spam CH1 if you have to. We dont heal on our mana pool but on our regen. Having a few more mana doesnt matter much. There are times when you are healing simply because of the armor buff on the tank and you want that crit.

---

Thats an odd way to look at haste. Most fights I am spamming non stop. 5% haste is 5% more healing if I have the same +heal. Clearly you are not spamming CH5 or HW12 for long unless you have an SP. 47s doesnt matter I am spamming much longer than that.

Lag is a factor on how much you can gain, as is the spell and your current stats.

Haste is very expensive you have to give up a lot of stats to get it. Its not valueless however. Even 5% haste has a value in terms of +heal.

 

galzohar

Every crit that doesn't overheal is more healing as at the very least it saves you the mana from casting another heal even going with my assumption that you never rely on crit to provide sufficient hps. Evaluating how often your crits actaully don't overheal (or how much of the crit healing is overhealing) is extremely difficult, and I've yet to figure out a way to evaulate it, especially if you keep in mind that your regular heals overheal as well.

 

Lugklash

I gathered some info about Gift of the Naaru since Skyhoof has a section for it and requested input.

Gift of the Naaru
40 yd range
1.5 sec cast
3 min cooldown
Heals the target of (Level * 15 + 35) damage over 15 sec.

-Heals 70 * 15 + 35, or 1085 damage at level 70, before factoring in +healing.
-Ticks 5 times, once every 3 seconds. Heals 217 damage a tick. (once again, before +healing)
-Receives 100% of your +healing over the 15 second duration.
-Costs no mana, and can be used to get out of the FSR for full mana regen.
-Counts as a holy spell, and can be used while locked out of the nature school. As a holy spell, it cannot be made instant by Nature's Swiftness.
-Gains no benefit from Purification or Healing Focus. Unsure if Healing Grace effects it. (anyone care to confirm/deny?)
-As a HoT, it obviously cannot crit, and thus cannot proc Ancestral Healing.

I've found it useful for casting before a silence or stun/incapacitate, such as with Murmur's Touch, Nalorakk's Deafening Roar, Reverberation/Stoned on Gruul, and Maiden of Virtue's Repentance. If the tank isn't in need of a big heal and you know that one of these is coming, it can lessen the pain of inactivity during this period. I've also used it on lifetapping warlocks, myself if I'm a little low but healing myself isn't urgent, individual ranged dps that aren't close to anyone else for Chain Heal, and on anyone if I want to conserve mana. The cast time makes it a pain to use in mobility fights, but it's a rather short cast time to be honest.

 

Kilted Raven

I'd agree that my main use of Gift of the Naaru tends to be on Warlocks. I'll keep an eye out for the tap and drop Gift on them at the time, or if we're not hectic I'll throw a quick 'Regen - Tap Now' whisper in their direction.
There's a macro out there for whispering your target which I keep meaning to set up for that.

A couple of the more savvy Warlocks in our team also like to run in closer to the melee group before tapping where it's practical to do so, that way they catch the free tail-end bounces off Chain Heal to fuel the Lifetap.

edit : In terms of performance, I'm getting around 2200 from GotN at the 1700-1800 healing level, which makes it a fairly poor heal except for use in very specific circumstances as you're losing the chance to cast a superior heal in its place. The only real benefits are that it's free, and that it isn't affected by any lockdown on your nature spells. As it's only 5 ticks, I find that timing it to be used effectively on fights like Bear is very difficult.

 

Fodla

What is the value of each different healing relic?
I currently don't have the Totem of Healing rains after umpteen Kara runs, but have picked up Totem of Spontaneous Regrowth, Plains and Maelstrom. Not everyone will have access to Kara runs either, so some values on each would be nice.
I tend to use the Regrowth. However, after having set up a spreadsheet for myself, i'm not sure how the 'upto' is applied. Am i better off using the Maelstrom or picking up the reduced cost Chain Heal one. (after all it is the heal i use most).
Does Regrowth benefit from healing way? Does it suffer the full downrank co-efficient penalty or just the speed penalty?
i.e. at what point in the calculation is it applied.
Something on the first page for further analysis of relics would be nice.

 

Kastr

Very easy formula for which totem to use. It is as follows:

If you have mana problems (no spriest) use the reduced cost totems. If you have mana-a-plenty, use the +healing totems. Are you raid healing? Use the chain heal totems. Are you on the tank or mostly casting [lesser] healing wave? Use the [lesser] healing wave totems.

Offtopic... I'm not sure what the bias against haste procs I've seen in this thread is about TBQH. I would say the number of fights where I'm raid healing and almost continually casting are in the majority (w/ the obvious exceptions). And a large portion of my casts are 2.5s so getting a half-cast or 2.0s CH off is a godsend in some cases and just plain nice in others. My 2c.

 

Naginda

I was wondering if the purge macro is corect because when I use it against a mob the last line in the macro is said in the current chat I am using.

 

Skyhoof

Opps. Try this:

 

Daidalos

The amount added to healing from relics is applied the same way +healing is applied to your spells.

If you have purification and healing way (assuming you aren't down ranking) it would be
e.g. for Regrowth the its calculated as (base healing wave + additional healing* 3/3.5) *1.1*.06X
where X is the number of healing way stacks.

So assuming you have 1500 +healing then you add the additional pus healing from the relic for healing wave then throw it in the calculation. (base + (1588)(3/3.5) )*1.1 *.06X
So yes it does benefit from purification and healing way.

 

Shae

Yep, two /casts or one /cast with a ; should work. Alternately you can drop the redundant spell info, and optionally add some targettarget conditionals, resulting in something like:

If you use some of the casting & relic switching macros posted in this thread, you can use both of those particular relics. The question for PVE essentially then becomes whether you want reduced mana or more healing for the spell you're casting. As a previous poster suggested, this is probably best decided by individual circumstance, and how frequently you find yourself going out of mana.

 

Skyhoof

Very nice. Will update the first page

 

Skyhoof

Excellent info. Exactly what I wanted. I added it to the first post. Thank you very much.

 

Skyhoof

Very good questions. I added a section called "How to Calculate +Healing." I'll add something in the gear section on relics but the replies to your post pretty much say it all. If you need mana, use one that reduces the mana cost. Otherwise, pump up the +healing.

 

Habanero

You don't have to choose between them. Totem swapping can goof up the GCD if you spam instead of casting at the proper time, but it's not bad if you get used to using Quartz or similar for a cast bar. I like to use combination mouseover/assist-heal/totem-swap/trinket-pop macros like the following:

 

Fodla

Nice one.

The point though is, although this was more a personal question, it applies anyway. That is, whilst i don't run out of mana generally, through judicious use of downranking, would i/anyone gain more benefit by using a reduced mana cost relic thereby enabling a higher rank of heal. It's not so simple as 'if you don't run out of mana stack +heal', especially considering Chain Heal uses the largest chunk of mana. Reduced mana cost on heals will enable higher ranks to be used, and therefore, higher effective +heal and more healing.

 

Skyhoof

Ah, now I see what you were asking. I usually base whether to downrank more on how much damage the raid takes than my mana situation. Usually, I can pot more if mana is an issue. Here is a chart of the two relics. I prefer to have more +healing. Probably shaman with T5 and T6 (or the equivalent) will prefer +healing. Howvever, shamans in blues of T4 equivalent will probably appreciate the mana efficiency totem more.



EDIT: This is with talents and 1800 +healing

 

Yekkom

Each Chain Heal with [Totem of Living Water] equipted you do per minute is the equivalent of 1 2/3 mana per 5 (20/12=1.6667) so if you do:

10 casts per minute you get 16.667 mana/5 10X20/12

15 cast per minute 25 mana/5 (equals a resto flask) 15X20/12

24 cast per minute 40 mana/5 24X20/12

To do 24 casts per minute (still dropping totems and watershield as needed) is not possible without either a high haste rating (300?) or bloodlust up as a 2.5 second cast averages around 3.0 seconds from my experiences.

My last VR fight (healing inside four assigned targets including myself with no shadow priest in group) was 122 chainheals with 284 hits in 7 minutes 18 seconds time for 16.7 cast per minute which equals 27.83 mana/5 16.7X20/12 My overheal was 17% approximately.

Using the [Totem of Living Water] saved me the use of a flask on that fight giving me the option to use elixirs and plus healing potions instead

Yekkom - WWS

 

• Binkenstein

FYI, the divide by 12 figure is 60 seconds divided by 5 seconds, to get the number of mp5 ticks per minute.

 

galzohar

The thing with downranking, is that if it provides enough HPS you're not really going to uprank if you have more mana. However on shitty scenarios when the raid takes a huge burst, wether predictable or unpredictable, you probably want max rank so they don't die, and want that max rank to heal for as much as possible.

So it's not impossible to never have mana problems due to downranking while still benefiting from higher HPS.
Not to mention higher HPS also means you'll need to uprank less often, saving even more mana - the effect from this isn't huge but it's there and gives HPS additional efficiency value (as in, +healing gives additional efficiency due to more of your spells being downrankable on top of making them simply more heal/mana, and even haste makes you not need to uprank as much). Again the HPS->efficiency conversion is generally a small secondary benefit from HPS but it's there and shouldn't be ignored.

 

Skyhoof

I had a chance to use three pieces of Tier 2 on our kill of Naj’entus last night. Due to the holidays, we didn’t raid much this week. It’s not a perfect comparison because Khairis died. She had about 1900 +healing. With my 3T2, I had about 1740 +healing. Here are the highlights.

Here’s the full WWS Wow Web Stats

As we expected, the first hit of chain heal is weaker but the set bonus gives the second and third jumps added power. My first jump of chain heal is under 3000, while Khairis does well over 3000. However, my second jump heals for 1800 and the third for 1200 while Khairis’ second jump heals for 1600 and the third for 800.

I'm sure Thud00 is reading this saying "I told you so." You were right. I'm impressed enough just from this one fight that I think it's worth putting some enchants on the pieces of T2 I have. I want to get a whole raid's worth of data before I propose to my guild that we add BWL to the schedule.

 

• Binkenstein

Or at least Razor/Vael/Broodlord anyway

 

Skyhoof

I did some testing with haste yesterday. The sample size is small so please keep that in mind when drawing conclusions.

I was wrong about a small amount of haste not boosting your healing. And once again Thud00 was correct. It does increase the healing done – just not as much as I was expecting. I wore gear with 6% haste and saw my healing increase by 1.55%. The faster casting time was offset by the gear having less +healing and spell crit. The haste effect was also reduced by lag and by the test lasting only 1 minute.

With 6% haste, it theoretically takes 39 seconds to get an extra cast. Because I ended the test after 1 minute, I didn’t receive any benefit from the haste for the last 21 seconds. So in a raid situation, the haste benefit would be greater as long as you spam chain heal and never stop – not even for a few seconds.

No Haste
+Healing=2007
Crit=8.99%
MP5=247/149
Total healing=270,871


Haste=95 or 6.03%
+Healing =1962
Crit=8.31%
MP5=238/140
Total healing=275,067

Lag had a bigger impact on haste than I had expected. For example, theoretically with 6% haste I should be able to cast my 2.5 second chain heal in 2.35 seconds. However, in reality it took me 2.67 seconds to cast (versus 2.8 seconds with no haste). This was standing still just spamming the spell on myself. In most raid situations, a shaman spamming chain heal will probably cast the spell every 3 seconds. So if you had 6% haste, it would take you 47 seconds to cast the first extra heal, not the theoretical 39 seconds. You would have to spam cast for 47 seconds. If you stopped for even a few seconds, it would basically reset the clock on when you benefit from haste.

Does this mean that the benefit of haste is reduced by 20% if it takes you 3.0 seconds to spam chain heal in a raid versus the theoretical cast time of 2.5 seconds due to the long period of time it will take you to get the extra heal?

I also did some testing with the [Scarab of the Infinite Cycle]. As expected, the results were unpredictable. It really depended on when it procced – even while spam casting. Sometimes only one heal got the full benefit of the haste. However, I think it would be the best trinket to wear with a Spell Haste set. It’s a shame there’s no helm with spell haste. It would be the perfect place to use a [Mystical Skyfire Diamond]. It is probably worthwhile for shaman to try to get two helms and put [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond] in their main helm and MSD in a second helm to use as part of a spell haste set.

Haste = 95 or 6.03%, plus Scarab
* These were tests where the trinket procced at just the right time. Without the lucky proc, I was unable to squeeze in more heals than without the trinket .

I also did some tests to see if there was any difference between mashing your heal button and clicking it well before the cast was finished. It looks like mashing the key is slightly more advantageous. You really can’t go wrong mashing the key. If you don’t want to abuse your keyboard or mouse, you run the risk of either starting the next heal too early (and it doesn’t go through) or too late. It’s not a huge difference but there did appear to be a difference.

 

Shinwei

I was able to finally get my Tier 6 helm last night, and wasted no time in slapping in a [Mystical Skyfire Diamond] to try it out. We went to Black Temple and cleared up to Shade of Akama.

Here is the log: Wow Web Stats

Most notable is the High Warlord Naj'entus fight, a fight where I am spamming Chain Heals pretty much nonstop. Both the MSD and the [Scarab of the Infinite Cycle] procced 4 times each over the 4 minute duration of the fight, essentially giving me two super fast heals each minute. It's quite amazing.

I'm going to raid a little longer before giving an ultimate conclusion, but if this continues I really see no reason to ever go back to using an [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond]. The only times my mana pool is ever in danger of draining faster than I can replenish it are times when I am spam casting Chain Heal, and during those times the [Mystical Skyfire Diamond] clearly has the upper hand.

Skyhoof, with your Scarab tests, were you just spamming chain heal on yourself? Because as with all procs, our chain heal triples the chance of proc when all 3 targets hit, making it slightly easier to get it to proc "just at the right time". During High Warlord Naj'entus and other such fights though, "just the right time" is essentially "all the time".