[Resto] Best Practices: PvE Healing Discussion - Page 90

Allonze · 03/07/10, 12:28 PM

Originally Posted by Darbycrash

^ Id like to know if they changed it.

Also Recently I find myself swapping in some heroic non-tier peices in place of tier eices while still maintaining the 2 set bonus. Alot of fights, like heroic Marrowga 25 for instance LHW is just plain stronger. you can cast it quicker, and move out of fire/WW while quickly saving lifes. (phase 2 only ofcourse) So I find that taking better stas over a chain heal tick to be more beneficial for me.

an example, i am now using tier gloves/helm and for my shoulders i use the ilvl277 Horrific Flesh Epaulets and for the chest I use the ilvl277 Mail of Crimson Coins.

Anyone else making off sets like this that favor LHW throughput over CH throughput?

What? Chain Heal is a Godly spell on Marrowgar Heroic. If you use Chain Heal on the tank, as I assume you do, you spread Ancestral Fortitude to all 3 tanks and it has nearly 100% uptime. Removing 10% physical damage from an entire fight on the people who take the most is just awesome. That's just phase 1! Not only that but I really dislike LHW, I prefer HW much more purely due to the glyph and I've almost exclusively removed using LHW. I run raids with 50%~ crit, the extra 25% from TW for a couple of LHW's isn't going to make a difference, glyph or not, HW is far better given Shaman don't go OOM and we have huge haste and crit values. The fights where LHW's "speed" is useful, RT > HW > HW is just as useful, if not more useful due to the suprerior hps value.

I don't understand why you'd skip using Chain Heal on any fight personally. It's superior throughput no matter what type of fight. I'd even go as far to argue Shaman, for the reason of AF, are stronger than Drids on some fights.

• Jessamy · 03/07/10, 4:29 PM

Originally Posted by Allonze

Not only that but I really dislike LHW, I prefer HW much more purely due to the glyph and I've almost exclusively removed using LHW. I run raids with 50%~ crit, the extra 25% from TW for a couple of LHW's isn't going to make a difference, glyph or not, HW is far better given Shaman don't go OOM and we have huge haste and crit values. The fights where LHW's "speed" is useful, RT > HW > HW is just as useful, if not more useful due to the suprerior hps value.

I don't understand why you'd skip using Chain Heal on any fight personally. It's superior throughput no matter what type of fight.

The HW vs. LHW debate was a hot topic about a year ago. Obviously HW provides superior raw hps. However the eventual conclusion was that, because more of the heal is overheal for HW, the two spells provide surprisingly similar ehps. If you know that most or all of the heal will be effective (e.g., healing Valithria), choose HW, otherwise LHW is superior. The better hpm from LHW might not matter much to you with current gear levels, but it also allows you to react faster.

I assume since you are a fan of CH, that you mostly run 25 player content. In 10 player content it's not the right choice as often.

Allonze · 03/07/10, 5:57 PM

Originally Posted by Jessamy

The HW vs. LHW debate was a hot topic about a year ago. Obviously HW provides superior raw hps. However the eventual conclusion was that, because more of the heal is overheal for HW, the two spells provide surprisingly similar ehps. If you know that most or all of the heal will be effective (e.g., healing Valithria), choose HW, otherwise LHW is superior. The better hpm from LHW might not matter much to you with current gear levels, but it also allows you to react faster.

I assume since you are a fan of CH, that you mostly run 25 player content. In 10 player content it's not the right choice as often.

Well, my experience of ICC10 Heroic is limited, I've been slacking and haven't done Putricide or Sindragosa, but for the fights I have done I found myself using CH/HW as per usual, similar to 25 man. With my haste values, LHW's cast time is similar to HW so the only thing I gain is the 25% crit vs 30% haste on a heal, that when crits, will almost double the LHW heal, and when it doesn't crit, it matches LHW's crit heal.

Perhaps I'm living in the past, but it's also something to do with the HW glyph I guess. I think the glyph is wonderful. Anything that improves a Shaman's own survivability on HMs is a good thing... and let's be honest, it's not as if Shaman have awesome survivability. I can't count the amount of times the HW glyph heal has saved my bacon!

Airraid · 03/07/10, 9:51 PM

Agreed, Chain Heal is great for Heroic Marrowgar 10 and 25. I bounce around CH and Riptides during P1 and during P2 I'll use LHW more as a quick top up. There's no great guide to it all however because I don't buy into the argument that one spell is right for an encounter; I've always believed in what spell is right for that exact moment - that's the fun of healing.

In fact I've found in ICC Heroic I'm using my full repertoire of healing spells more often than I have ever done in the past which, in my opinion, is a great success for the designers (at least from a shaman healing perspective). I don't feel compelled to use CH all the time nor am I a LHW sniper as I felt I was during large parts of Ulduar. Of course some fights are favorable for certain spells but it's definitely a massive step forward from the Sunwell days.

Bloch · 03/08/10, 3:14 PM

Originally Posted by Airraid

Agreed, Chain Heal is great for Heroic Marrowgar 10 and 25. I bounce around CH and Riptides during P1 and during P2 I'll use LHW more as a quick top up. There's no great guide to it all however because I don't buy into the argument that one spell is right for an encounter; I've always believed in what spell is right for that exact moment - that's the fun of healing.

In fact I've found in ICC Heroic I'm using my full repertoire of healing spells more often than I have ever done in the past which, in my opinion, is a great success for the designers (at least from a shaman healing perspective). I don't feel compelled to use CH all the time nor am I a LHW sniper as I felt I was during large parts of Ulduar. Of course some fights are favorable for certain spells but it's definitely a massive step forward from the Sunwell days.

I agree 100% with this-- but I have been using HW in conjunction with T102P more than I ever have in the past--having a 15-20k+ heal on a 1s cast is amazing, not to mention the 30% additional "smart" healing from AA that procs every time it crits (which is about 50% of the time with raid buffs).

However, I also have found myself using LHW quite a bit as well, but for different reasons:
1. LHW is cheap mana-wise. I know we don't have "mana issues" per say, but 4-5 healing content does put a bit of a strain on mana depending on how stupid your DPS are.

2. LHW has a 70%+ crit value with TW up, which means 2 things: ~42% chance to get 492 mana back from IWS and a 70% chance to proc a 2-3k "smart" heal. Compared to HW's ~50% chance to return 492 mana, over the course of the fight LHW tends to be more mana-friendly than HW. The other point I'd raise here is that a non-talented, non-crit HW at ICC gear levels heals for about 12-13k. A LHW crit heals for about 9.5-10k, so you are in effect paying nearly twice the cost for ~135% of the healing on non-crits.

3. LHW is ~0.25s faster than HW at 1269 haste, which does add up over the course of the fight.

All of that being said, I think HW has become a viable part of our healing arsenal, and it definitely has its place in ICC content, which I am very glad to see.

Allonze · 03/08/10, 5:23 PM

Originally Posted by Bloch

I agree 100% with this-- but I have been using HW in conjunction with T102P more than I ever have in the past--having a 15-20k+ heal on a 1s cast is amazing, not to mention the 30% additional "smart" healing from AA that procs every time it crits (which is about 50% of the time with raid buffs).

However, I also have found myself using LHW quite a bit as well, but for different reasons:
1. LHW is cheap mana-wise. I know we don't have "mana issues" per say, but 4-5 healing content does put a bit of a strain on mana depending on how stupid your DPS are.

2. LHW has a 70%+ crit value with TW up, which means 2 things: ~42% chance to get 492 mana back from IWS and a 70% chance to proc a 2-3k "smart" heal. Compared to HW's ~50% chance to return 492 mana, over the course of the fight LHW tends to be more mana-friendly than HW. The other point I'd raise here is that a non-talented, non-crit HW at ICC gear levels heals for about 12-13k. A LHW crit heals for about 9.5-10k, so you are in effect paying nearly twice the cost for ~135% of the healing on non-crits.

3. LHW is ~0.25s faster than HW at 1269 haste, which does add up over the course of the fight.

All of that being said, I think HW has become a viable part of our healing arsenal, and it definitely has its place in ICC content, which I am very glad to see.

I agree with number 2 to a lesser extent now that I have done more 10 man content than 25. Doing Blood Princes on 10 man today (using 2 tanks, 1 pally on both melee and 1 feral on the caster) I found myself healing tanks with HW but due to the spreading, I was often sniping people with LHW just before they'd take damage from the Empowered Flame, or from the Empowered Shock Vortex. On 25 though, often I can just CH the tank for the AF proc and heal the melee with ease...

I really hope Blizzard are able to destroy my love of CH in Cataclysm with their "new" view of healing, I really, really dislike doing 9-10-11k hps just spamming 1 button with an occasional Riptide here and there purely to keep up the relic proc...

In other news:

* Item - Coliseum 25 Normal Healer Trinket - Now affects all spells instead of just helpful spells.
* Item - Coliseum 25 Heroic Healer Trinket - Now affects all spells instead of just helpful spells.

Solace is back to proccing from totems and water shield.

Also, Sixthy, I'm jealous of your Trauma.

Darbycrash · 03/08/10, 5:26 PM

Originally Posted by Allonze

What? Chain Heal is a Godly spell on Marrowgar Heroic. If you use Chain Heal on the tank, as I assume you do, you spread Ancestral Fortitude to all 3 tanks and it has nearly 100% uptime. Removing 10% physical damage from an entire fight on the people who take the most is just awesome. That's just phase 1! Not only that but I really dislike LHW, I prefer HW much more purely due to the glyph and I've almost exclusively removed using LHW. I run raids with 50%~ crit, the extra 25% from TW for a couple of LHW's isn't going to make a difference, glyph or not, HW is far better given Shaman don't go OOM and we have huge haste and crit values. The fights where LHW's "speed" is useful, RT > HW > HW is just as useful, if not more useful due to the suprerior hps value.

I don't understand why you'd skip using Chain Heal on any fight personally. It's superior throughput no matter what type of fight. I'd even go as far to argue Shaman, for the reason of AF, are stronger than Drids on some fights.

Im not skipping chain heal on any fight, it' OUR spell, I build around it. The 4pc is sitsuational, you can throw on other gear and boost your HEP value by breaking the 4pc. when not needed. Have fun keeping people alive on Marrowgar WW phase while people are spread and you are moving. Note the phase 1 only part. And also druids are support healers. You seem like the type of person that LOVES healing meters. The type that says Throughput > All. That's how I see it anywho.

TeKniciaN · 03/08/10, 9:09 PM

As this is the "Best Practice" thread I thought I would share a recent practice I found to be very effective and perhaps submit to the community to find a way to improve it.

I recently added and AF check to my focus target (where I keep the MT) in Power Auras. When the target does not have AF, an Aura appears. I did this to attempt to increase AF uptime.

From a night of LK attempts, I saw a 50% increase in AF uptime compared to the passive uptime on the other tank. This of course, when I was assigned to heal raid, and backup our two paladins on the tanks when needed.

I found this to be very successful for me and hopefully others will either expand upon this or use it to benefit themselves somehow.

Allonze · 03/08/10, 9:51 PM

Originally Posted by Darbycrash

Im not skipping chain heal on any fight, it' OUR spell, I build around it. The 4pc is sitsuational, you can throw on other gear and boost your HEP value by breaking the 4pc. when not needed. Have fun keeping people alive on Marrowgar WW phase while people are spread and you are moving. Note the phase 1 only part. And also druids are support healers. You seem like the type of person that LOVES healing meters. The type that says Throughput > All. That's how I see it anywho.

3 of our 5 tier pieces have haste/crit itemisation which is perfect, really. Losing x amount of haste, when you're already reaching the soft haste cap with ease, for a 4 piece that generates an extra 5-10-15%~ effective healing is something I just cannot give up.

My point was that I think LHW has no place whatsoever in ICC, the damage on Marrowgar (in the WW phase) is pretty much negligible with decent Druids rolling HoTs over everyone, and for those "Oh God!" moments, HW performs the task much better especially as I use the Glyph of Healing Wave.

Regarding the post on AF uptimes, any unitframe addon worth it's weight can be set to show only "your" beneficial buffs, and using Grid you can see who AF has hit and it's duration. On LK 25 I generally heal the raid off of the tank for Infest and throw the occasional Riptide heal. It hardly matters though as in our raids we have 1 Disc and 1 Holy with Inspiration all the time.

Regarding the 4 piece, I think a nifty way of increasing it's uptime is by adding Chain Heal as a buff to Grid, similar to Riptide (the HoT), ES and Ancestral Fortitude. This works well because I can see who has it, and thus who I should "try" to keep it up on. Although don't get me wrong, I'm not going to let someone die just to keep a HoT rolling, I just think it's nifty and quite good use of the Grid features. Does anyone else do this?

stassart · 03/09/10, 4:56 AM

Originally Posted by Allonze

Regarding the 4 piece, I think a nifty way of increasing it's uptime is by adding Chain Heal as a buff to Grid, similar to Riptide (the HoT), ES and Ancestral Fortitude. This works well because I can see who has it, and thus who I should "try" to keep it up on. Although don't get me wrong, I'm not going to let someone die just to keep a HoT rolling, I just think it's nifty and quite good use of the Grid features. Does anyone else do this?

I would like to correct that. There is no advantage imo in keeping the Chain Heal hot up on specific people (with the exception of tanks when raid damage is light). When you refresh the hot it only adds the new amount to the remaining total of the old hot. You can get really large hots by constantly refreshing it, but there is no advantage to doing that over putting the hot on lots of people in terms of total hps. By creating large hots you are likely raising the overhealing the hot produces and thus lowering your effective healing. You can check the spreadsheets and calculations thread for the exact math behind how the T10 4-piece hot stacks.

Sarudomin · 03/10/10, 12:06 AM

So, my guild now has HM Rotface on farm. Is Heroic Trauma > Val'Anyr or should I let all the druids take it?

Levanu · 03/10/10, 12:12 AM

Originally Posted by Sarudomin

So, my guild now has HM Rotface on farm. Is Heroic Trauma > Val'Anyr or should I let all the druids take it?

Val'anyr's proc scales with your gear, does it not?

Sarudomin · 03/10/10, 12:15 AM

That it does, but Val'Anyr comes out to anywhere between 3 and 9% of my healing per fight. Trauma is a 200 SP upgrade which is a sizable amount.

Chanek · 03/10/10, 5:32 AM

Originally Posted by TeKniciaN

I recently added and AF check to my focus target (where I keep the MT) in Power Auras. When the target does not have AF, an Aura appears. I did this to attempt to increase AF uptime.

I too have been using a similar system to this, though mine is on grid as a corner icon. I suggest you also expand this to include Inspiration (the same armour increase priest ability) as obviously they don't stack.
_

Also a note about Val'anyr vs Trauma. The long and short of it being that you should always pick Val'anyr for several reasons:

- The proc scales with your gear. That includes spellpower, haste, everything. Trauma's proc only scales with haste (no ICD).
- The proc isn't dependant on range, and can't be taken away from other people like Fountain of Light (Trauma can). The problem with Trauma in this way is that if you're healing Lord Jarraxxus for example, and it procs on somebody in melee, then they have to run out for the legion flame, the buff and thus the healing will also be running out and thus the hot effect from it will only be healing that one person thats now standing on their own with a legion flame.
- Trauma overheals a lot. Obviously due to the nature of absorbs, Val'anyr can't overheal.
- Trauma's healing is what I call "silly unnecessary healing". Yes, every little does help but a ticking hot for 300 healing really doesn't make a lot of difference in the grand scheme of things apart from making you look better on meters, Val'anyr proc can really prevent a death.
- Trauma simply doesn't do as much "healing" as Val'anyr does. The % of your total healing that both maces do is simply much higher on Val'Anyr.

That said, they are both very very good maces, and I would reccomend anyone to pick up a Trauma. This screenshot is the mace working at full capacity, on 25-man Blood Queen heroic mode. Constant pulsing damage, high bursts at times, four targets on chain heal every cast. Max chain heal spam for the whole fight, healing only melee + tanks (everyone in range of procs at all times). This log was also at the time rank 5 for HPS by resto shamans on WoL (including private logs).

For those that don't know - Trauma is "Fountain of Light". Oh and just as point of reference, the paladin and both priests in this screenshot are both using the fabled Val'Anyr. Also note the obscene amount of overheal on Fountain of Light,

Koe · 03/10/10, 5:42 AM

Originally Posted by Sarudomin

So, my guild now has HM Rotface on farm. Is Heroic Trauma > Val'Anyr or should I let all the druids take it?

Rough comparison between Trauma HC and Val'Anyr for my character:

8150 (Current HEP on my gear)
8.1 % of my ehealing is Val'Anyr proc
5.5 % of our druids ehealing is Trauma proc

858 HEP Val'Anyr + 0.081*8150 = 1518 Val'nyr HEP
961 HEP Trauma + 0.055*8253 = 1415 Trauma HEP