As I've said earlier in this thread, Glyph of Lesser Healing Wave is a bad glyph for 25 man content -- not because it's bad, but because it encourages bad behavior. Since all your wave spells should be under Tidal Waves effect, LHW is limited by gcd and HW is almost at gcd. With two heals that take the same time, the bigger one is better. LHW can be useful as a "downranked" heal to reduce overhealing, but even that will be less relevant with the 3.1 AA overhealing change.
Back to the glyph, though, its effect is only felt on one target out of 25. If you're assigned to tank-heal on that target, Healing Wave is more hpm and more hps, so you shouldn't be using LHW. If you're assigned to raid heal, you're not going to be casting single target heals on your earth shield target enough to make the glyph effective.
I really don't find this is the case if you are a dedicated tank healer. For example, sarth tank healing on 3d10, I do not use CH at all, and I almost always let Riptide tick full duration (unless I need to heal while mobile--which happens often enough to _not_ use Riptide on cooldown because I may need it later). Sure, Healing Wave is a very good choice for my two Tidal Waves casts (though LHW can still beat it in this situation; you need your tank topped off always and want to limit overheal, but spike damage isn't always high enough to justify letting HW land), but I probably average over the total fight no more than 2 of those per 10 seconds. That leaves me with 7 seconds at least that I am filling with LHW.
You specified 25 man content. I have tank healed that fight on 25man as well, but honestly, there are enough other healers in this situation that my glyphs have a much smaller impact. 3d10 has a higher HPS requirement and is far more likely to run you oom. Even on the 25 version though, I genuinely think liberal LHW use is safer gameplay.
Bigger is not always better, and the AA change (while great!) won't affect that. Overhealing only matters when mana is an issue. If mana is an issue and you are a dedicated tank healer, the AA change won't allow you to spam HW where before you had to rely on LHW.
I did forget that glyphs no longer require a lexicon. That makes reglyphing by fight viable, but it was both viability & necessity that made me say I probably wouldn't. For difficult progress content, this might be important, but once the fights are being farmed (even hard modes), I doubt I will feel compelled to reglyph for fights every week unless there is a serious gimmick involved. And... if that is the case, I am guessing that LHW will be the better gimmick than ES, for all the reasons I discussed. Numerically it is worse while you are raid healing, but I think it is a far superior tank healing glyph.
And... if that is the case, I am guessing that LHW will be the better gimmick than ES, for all the reasons I discussed. Numerically it is worse while you are raid healing, but I think it is a far superior tank healing glyph.
Whether you're a dedicated tank healer, or pure raid healing Chain Heal spam, the Earth Shield glyph is the best glyph in the arsenal for improving our healing. If you're a dedicated tank healer, HW with healing way is more than 20% better hps than glyphed LHW, for the same mps, as shown by Adramelech over in the Resto Best Practices thread. If you're not a dedicated tank healer, you will never get the benefit from the LHW glyph. LHW is situational for 25-man healing for avoiding overheals. It suffices for T7 content (which we all outgear by now), and is vital for pvp.
If your regular healing environment is 25-man content, even the awkward Riptide glyph will serve you better than hanging onto your LHW glyph. Your practice of saving Riptide is keeping you from fully utilizing HW.
Also if as you say, bigger isn't better, we would all be eschewing spell power and crit and focusing on haste. A pure haste set is fun, but not general practice. Bigger heals are better, especially if they're just as fast to deliver.
Edit: To put it another way, you should use CH & ES glyphs. If you want to spend your third major glyph on LHW, I don't recommend it. I don't see how it would prevent you from using CH or ES though.
The thing with the LHW glyph though is that it makes it viable for quick spot LHW's on the MT (provided you're keeping your ES there, which most of the time you should be) in between CH's on the raid. A couple .8 LHW's here and there that are 20% more effective can make or break a lot of tank situations (especially for top offs before predictable damage).
It's a pretty valuable glyph and you don't need to be solely assigned to MT healing or raid healing - it effectively allows you to spot the MT very effectively while still sitting on the raid. Following a strict healing assignment as a shaman (unless you absolutely have to fill in for a missing paladin) is just sort of counter productive. Do it all.
As for the glyph discussion, I am a big proponent of carrying all the situationally useful glyphs and reglyphing for each situation. We are talking about minimal cost here, find your friendly guild inscriptor and have them make a stack of each of your favorite glyphs. We are talking about a few gold per glyph here. Glyphs are consumables. You can't be optimal and not use pots/flasks/food. If you do not do this, you are not a good raider in my humble opinion.
As far as the discussion on the effectiveness of LHW glyph vs. ES glyph, if I understand correctly, people are assuming the ES glyph will replace the current place of the LHW glyph as a "default" glyph, and the argument is which of these glyphs increase your throughput more.
I would think that ES glyph will increase your throughput more than LHW glyph in MOST 25 man raid situations and typical Shaman healing assignments.(I attempted to analyze some WWS but i failed at getting a breakdown of who my LHW's were hitting) There are plenty of examples where LHW glyph would be very useful based on your assignment. But in those situations, I would contend you should use BOTH ES and LHW glyphs. (For instance, Patchwerk) Then we are back to the glyph swap thing.
I believe the best "all purpose" Glyph setup for raiding resto shaman is:
Mana Tide Totem
Earth Shield
Chain Heal
As for the glyph discussion, I am a big proponent of carrying all the situationally useful glyphs and reglyphing for each situation. We are talking about minimal cost here, find your friendly guild inscriptor and have them make a stack of each of your favorite glyphs. We are talking about a few gold per glyph here. Glyphs are consumables. You can't be optimal and not use pots/flasks/food. If you do not do this, you are not a good raider in my humble opinion.
As far as the discussion on the effectiveness of LHW glyph vs. ES glyph, if I understand correctly, people are assuming the ES glyph will replace the current place of the LHW glyph as a "default" glyph, and the argument is which of these glyphs increase your throughput more.
I would think that ES glyph will increase your throughput more than LHW glyph in MOST 25 man raid situations and typical Shaman healing assignments.(I attempted to analyze some WWS but i failed at getting a breakdown of who my LHW's were hitting) There are plenty of examples where LHW glyph would be very useful based on your assignment. But in those situations, I would contend you should use BOTH ES and LHW glyphs. (For instance, Patchwerk) Then we are back to the glyph swap thing.
I believe the best "all purpose" Glyph setup for raiding resto shaman is:
Mana Tide Totem
Earth Shield
Chain Heal
This is the general consensus as well, it seems.
It would seem to me that two of our major glyphs are set in stone, those being ES and CH glyphs and the third is still subject to variation.
From what I can tell MTT is still the best for longevity or if there is a mana reduction aspect of a given fight. At the current gear levels this glyph beats out WM pretty easily and also gives more of a group benefit. So for longevity it is going to be MTT.
However if throughput is more of the issue, things get a little more complicated. LHW, EL, HST and even the new RT glyphs seem to have either specific fights or assignments which would be valuable to have them on. Personally I feel that if MT healing, LHW is still going to be preferred but maybe not required with the AA change and healing way being easily accessible now (It never hurts to have options though). For massive aoe fights, or consistent damage aoe fights I would say the HST or EL would be the obvious choice but the RT also makes a case of increasing the total of the chain heals and with the set bonus being what it is that might come out ahead. But I have not seen conclusive evidence of either just yet, though after they fixed restorative totems this last build I suspect that mathematically HST will pull ahead of EL depending on where the shaman is placed in the raid and if the aoe is on that group.
As someone said earlier, you might as well just make a few stacks of each since it's really cheap and you can now swap them out at will.
As for the glyph discussion, I am a big proponent of carrying all the situationally useful glyphs and reglyphing for each situation. We are talking about minimal cost here, find your friendly guild inscriptor and have them make a stack of each of your favorite glyphs. We are talking about a few gold per glyph here. Glyphs are consumables. You can't be optimal and not use pots/flasks/food. If you do not do this, you are not a good raider in my humble opinion.
As far as the discussion on the effectiveness of LHW glyph vs. ES glyph, if I understand correctly, people are assuming the ES glyph will replace the current place of the LHW glyph as a "default" glyph, and the argument is which of these glyphs increase your throughput more.
I would think that ES glyph will increase your throughput more than LHW glyph in MOST 25 man raid situations and typical Shaman healing assignments.(I attempted to analyze some WWS but i failed at getting a breakdown of who my LHW's were hitting) There are plenty of examples where LHW glyph would be very useful based on your assignment. But in those situations, I would contend you should use BOTH ES and LHW glyphs. (For instance, Patchwerk) Then we are back to the glyph swap thing.
I believe the best "all purpose" Glyph setup for raiding resto shaman is:
Mana Tide Totem
Earth Shield
Chain Heal
This is the general consensus as well, it seems.
I concur with everything said here 100%. I will more than likely be running MTT/ES/CH as my primary setup with extra glyphs in the bag for certain situations. I was merely defending the LHW glyph - especially against those that state it's worthless to spot heal a tank with LHW when the GCD makes HW just as effective. While the GCD sentiment may be true, sometimes a heal landing in .8 serves a better purpose.
Regardless, It's hard to argue against those 3 glyphs - but I'd say that depending on the fight, MTT/LHW are interchangeable.
While it is true that Tidal Waves causes LHW to bump up against the GCD, LHW still has an important place in high-movement encounters or phases where casting HW can be a risky proposition. A TW-hasted LHW can be cast through a Malygos vortex if timed properly, and on Sarth+3 you can generally afford to get off an LHW if a void zone spawns under you while casting chain heal (if it looks like someone won't survive the next 1-2 seconds while you adjust). Just because LHW has GCD conflicts when spammed doesn't negate its usefulness in other situations, particularly as our toolbox is very poor when it comes to mobility.
With regard to the EL Glyph discussion that we have gotten into recently, even if the numbers happen to work in EL's favor, one factor that we haven't touched on is whether the Earthliving heal itself actually alters healer behavior in 25 man raids. In other words, how much of that ~650-750 HoT is actually effective, and how much is just causing overheal for someone else further down the road? Earthliving is smaller in terms of healing per tick than everything but the Prayer of Healing Glyph and its proc cannot be controlled by the shaman; I'm not convinced that other healers alter their healing styles for it. This is one case where the raw numbers alone don't tell the whole story.
With regard to the EL Glyph discussion that we have gotten into recently, even if the numbers happen to work in EL's favor, one factor that we haven't touched on is whether the Earthliving heal itself actually alters healer behavior in 25 man raids. In other words, how much of that ~650-750 HoT is actually effective, and how much is just causing overheal for someone else further down the road? Earthliving is smaller in terms of healing per tick than everything but the Prayer of Healing Glyph and its proc cannot be controlled by the shaman; I'm not convinced that other healers alter their healing styles for it. This is one case where the raw numbers alone don't tell the whole story.
From my yet to be released version of shaman_hep (Soon(TM)) from my most recent 25-man clear:
Earthliving proc rate: 20.7756%
Total Duration: 3 hours 11 mins 24 secs
Combat Duration: 2 hours 48 mins 58 secs
Overhealing ticks that did not tick: 2568
Combat ticks: 2201
Total healing w/ overheal ticks: 2695902 (8.38%)
Combat: 2391133 (7.87%)
Actual Overhealing: 1870178 (69.37%)
Combat: 1614107 (67.50%)
Since removing the Glyph of Earthliving Weapon my proc rate has gone down about 1%, so it looks like my theory that its increased proc rate is 20% * 5% = 1%, seems to be holding with the data I have so far. None of the theorycrafting I have seen so far treat it as a 1% proc rate with around 70% overhealing, and that seems to be the reality of the Glyph of Earthliving Weapon at least for me.
Thanks for that nice summary from your parser, Stassart, as it provides some hard numbers that tell us what the combat log cannot. I'm looking forward to the next public release.
However, my previous post was more raising the issue of whether Earthliving affects how other healers do their job, not how other healers affect earthliving's actual effective healing. Earthliving is not a reliable proc unless the target is in execute range. On top of this, the raw value of the heal is so low and raid HP values so high that the earthliving proc is almost in the realm of rounding error. Obviously, as a passive effect it doesn't incur any sort of opportunity cost for us to apply it; however, the effect is unrealiable and of a low magnitude, so in practice it doesn't cause other healers to say, "That person is covered. I'll heal someone else." With Wild Growth, Rejuvination, or even Renew, the effect is significant enough to cause other healers to make different triage decisions.
I like the Earthliving effect; it has no opportunity cost. However, I don't depend on it and don't expect the rest of my healing team to watch for it. That's like depending on a priest getting an instant FH from a Surge of Light proc. Procs are nice, but unpredictable.
Going off on a bit of a rabbit trail here. Druid and priest hots are significant enough to in theory affect triage. In practice does everyone check a heal target's buffs and hit a /stopcasting macro if the heal isn't needed?
Jessamy, it depends entirely upon incoming damage velocity. If I'm not tank healing and they aren't in danger, I let the HoTs (or bored paladins with infinite mana) do the work.
My first thoughts on 3.1 Glyphs are ES/CH like everyone else, but I plan on giving Riptide a fair shake. Our healing crew is pretty good about playing nice with HoTs (exception of bored paladins above) and I'd like to see how it plays out. The numbers on paper look good, even with expected levels of sniping/refresh/overhealing.
Going off on a bit of a rabbit trail here. Druid and priest hots are significant enough to in theory affect triage. In practice does everyone check a heal target's buffs and hit a /stopcasting macro if the heal isn't needed?
I have Grid set up to put a little orange dot in the corner of a unit frame if that unit has druids or priest hots rolling, or a PW:S. The presence of those orange dots does affect my healing target selection in thick of things - I will skip over them and heal something without hots or shield first, and check them again on my next scan of raid health bars.
It would seem to me that two of our major glyphs are set in stone, those being ES and CH glyphs and the third is still subject to variation.
From what I can tell MTT is still the best for longevity or if there is a mana reduction aspect of a given fight. At the current gear levels this glyph beats out WM pretty easily and also gives more of a group benefit. So for longevity it is going to be MTT.
I agree about ES and CH, but I am not so sure about GoMTT for longevity. From math I've done (I would need someone to check my math) Water Mastery is more effective mp5 for us individually. However, if you are 1 of 2 or more shamans in your group with GoMTT, then GoMTT is worth more effective mp5 than GoWM individually. To make GoMTT more effective for you individually, you would need something like 60k mana pool.
With my holy priest companions worried about mana in 3.1, though, GoMTT will be more beneficial to the raid. But if you are a lone shaman without other healers in your group and you're worried about mana, Water Mastery seems to be the way to go.
I do like GoLHW very much though. I am assigned to MT heal about 50% of the time and I tend to spam LHW for fights with unpredictable damage dealing bosses. I keep up healing way all the time though. There are always moments when a well-timed HW is the best heal. HW with healing way is more hps, obviously. But as Philondra implies, LHW is still so very important for us especially in fights with limited mobility. When you know strats in and out, then you can watch bosses for when they use high damage abilities and throw HW's for when you know the tank will take a lot of damage. At other times, you may risk overheal, especially when there are other healers assigned to your tank.
Mana Tide glyph provides more than half as much regen over 5 minutes as Water Mastery glyph does. So even with rogues warriors and DKs in the raid, if I can share my totem with even one other mana user the Tide glyph is providing more (raid) regen.
Its benefit only improves for fights that aren't a perfect multiple of 5 minutes in duration. For a 3 minute Patchwerk kill, Handyhoof's numbers change to:
Water Mastery = 30mp5, over 3 minutes = 1080 mana.
Mana Tide = 4% mana every 3 minutes.
Mana Tide can return more when 1080 < 4%, or your mana pool is over 27000.
Mana Tide glyph provides more than half as much regen over 5 minutes as Water Mastery glyph does. So even with rogues warriors and DKs in the raid, if I can share my totem with even one other mana user the Tide glyph is providing more (raid) regen.
Its benefit only improves for fights that aren't a perfect multiple of 5 minutes in duration. For a 3 minute Patchwerk kill, Handyhoof's numbers change to:
Water Mastery = 30mp5, over 3 minutes = 1080 mana.
Mana Tide = 4% mana every 3 minutes.
Mana Tide can return more when 1080 < 4%, or your mana pool is over 27000.
Right, and with most fights pre-ulduar, MTT will provide more than WM (as your math just stated) - Ulduar may be a different story (at first at least), but then again mage mana will be a priority, so MTT will beat out WM once again in my opinion.
Usually I can time my tide with greatness so I'm dropping it with a 37k mana pool anyways, so it's a huge return on shorter fights.
Yes, I think we're all on the same page for that. I was just clarifying the math for Altsobadoli, who was unsure. Personally I don't even consider Water Mastery anymore. There's little doubt in my mind that MTT is going to be our go-to Glyph in mana intensive fights, if only for the mana hungry dps. The question of which Glyph to use when we want to eek out a little more hps/throughput is looking like "Depends on the fight" or "Personal playstyle." I think we can at least agree that situations will come up that will make one Glyph more valuable than another, and swapping in between fights is a good option for those who want to get that benefit.
Few fights past present or future required that level of detail. What people have to realize is their own role in the raid and glyph accordingly. If you have a guild that kills bosses quickly massive egen is just simply not necessary so ou should glyph to increase your hps and vice-versa. All this advice is well and good but some players have to start taking personal responsibility.
Whether you're a dedicated tank healer, or pure raid healing Chain Heal spam, the Earth Shield glyph is the best glyph in the arsenal for improving our healing. If you're a dedicated tank healer, HW with healing way is more than 20% better hps than glyphed LHW, for the same mps...
Also if as you say, bigger isn't better, we would all be eschewing spell power and crit and focusing on haste. A pure haste set is fun, but not general practice. Bigger heals are better, especially if they're just as fast to deliver.
Really I do agree with this. I love my HW button and put a lot of effort into favoring it over LHW whenever possible. However, HPS is not our only concern, which is one of the things I love about healing raids--you can balance your gear without gimping your throughput at all. If bigger were always better, we would eschew any mana5 and haste for pure spellpower, more like the play many saw during BC.
Thanks (all) for the glyph discussing. Lots of good input. I think LHW has versatility in its favor (and clearly worse on overall contribution). With the lexicon requirement removed for glyphing (which I had originally forgotten), I probably will just keep the glyph in my bags. It is still my preference, because min-maxing doesnt seem required for any wotlk content and I appreciate the custom versatility--I wish more glyphs tweaked mechanics instead of just passive 1-2% bonuses. With lexicons dead, though, the only argument against min-maxing is really gone too.
even the awkward Riptide glyph will serve you better than hanging onto your LHW glyph. Your practice of saving Riptide is keeping you from fully utilizing HW.
This is not my practice, but if it were, the riptide glyph would make it worse. My goal when healing the sarth tank on 3d10 is not to maximize my use of HW--that's the point. Just like glyphs, this decision (HW over LHW) isnt a categorical truth; it is very sensitive to the boss, your guild and role. I have no doubt that if I tried to overwrite riptide when it wasn't needed just so I could pump out more OH with HW on this one, very specific encounter, I would run out of mana before I want to, or would be cast-canceling HW longer than I am comfortable with for this fight. If there are players out there doing this without the LHW glyph and using HW almost exclusively, more power to them--I don't think I could and know I wouldn't want to try.
Last edited by realillusion : 04/07/09 at 11:33 PM.
Anyone think that Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem might be useful for a few hardmode encounters? It provides a 4340 damage shield every 30 seconds. Since we will be able to change glyphs between fights, using a glyph for a single fight might become more popular.
Anyone think that Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem might be useful for a few hardmode encounters? It provides a 4340 damage shield every 30 seconds. Since we will be able to change glyphs between fights, using a glyph for a single fight might become more popular.
Being able to apply a damage shield on the tank, now that could be useful. Putting it on yourself is not so useful in my opinion. I mean how many raiding shaman even spec Nature's Guardian in WTLK?
Anyone think that Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem might be useful for a few hardmode encounters? It provides a 4340 damage shield every 30 seconds. Since we will be able to change glyphs between fights, using a glyph for a single fight might become more popular.
I can see the damage shield being useful in a few rare situations like Maly phase 2, but in any phase like that where you know you're taking damage, I'd just use Glyph of Healing Wave instead.
Anyone think that Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem might be useful for a few hardmode encounters? It provides a 4340 damage shield every 30 seconds. Since we will be able to change glyphs between fights, using a glyph for a single fight might become more popular.
How would this actually work, you drop the totem, it procs the shield you put the armor/SoE totem back down then drop the shield again after the CD is up? If the shield will proc the moment you drop the totem, you can use it to prevent some burst damage on a moments notice.
Say there is some cast, when you see it casting you can drop the totem before the completion of the cast. hmm shounds interesting.
I wonder what fight or situation we might be able to utilize this effectively and warrant giving up a glyph slot for it.
04/05/09, 8:37 PM
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