Mistweaver Healing Compendium - Page 17

yrhi · 12/08/12, 3:59 PM

I'm confused about the level 45 talents.

Now personally I like Chi Brew a lot, simply because it's so useful as a burst cooldown, but I've been trying out Ascension lately, and I must say, mana does feel better.

Now in your calculator Chi Brew obviously fares a lot better in terms of mp5, but how come that the felt mana relief is better with Ascension? CB should both save you mana and generate 1 mana tea, but I feel better using Ascension...

Any ideas why that is? And I use CB often.

Another thing: Apart from the felt mana difference, why would one, following only and strictly the numbers, ever use Ascension? Is it really for the added Chi? I don't see how the additional Chi slot is even remotely as useful as CB burst.

Spleener · 12/08/12, 9:16 PM

The mana value of a free chi assumes it was a chi you were going to generate and spend even if you didn't get it for free, and depending on how you're using CB that doesn't necessarily apply. The general way you'd use CB is to build 4 chi, sit on it until a spike, spend it, pop CB, and spend that chi. If without CB in the same situation you simply spend the 4 chi then maybe build/spend 2 more before the spike ends and you go back to a "normal" healing mode, you're not really gaining mana from it, just throughput.

I put CB there for completion's sake but honestly it shouldn't be compared to PS or Ascension because you use it as a burst throughput cooldown, not as a regen ability. Ascension and PS, however, pretty much can be validly compared to each other, and as math I've done several times shows, Power Strikes will always provide better regen.

As far as the value of a higher chi cap, it's valuable for the same reason why CB can be valuable- it lets you throw out more hps in sit on full chi->burst healing situations, because instead of 2 chi abilityX2->generatorX2->2chi ability you can do 2 chi abilityX2->generatorX1->2chi ability. It's sort of an edge case in my mind, but I can see situations that would call for it.

yrhi · 12/09/12, 12:13 AM

Thanks for your answer and I'm relieved because this confirms what I suspected. I was just a little mixed up.

I don't like Power Strikes. I like being in tight control of my Chi and PS feels like a proc, even if it follows the 20 sec rule. I don't want to have to keep 20 sec PS CD in my head to plan Chi. It feels bad.

Chi Burst "regen" implies that you would use the same extra 4 Chi that CB provides even if you didn't have CB, that you would generate them conventionally.

Now you said that if you would not generate that additional Chi otherwise it's just a throughput gain. Perfectly understood.

The question is: should one not use CB according to whether the throughput is necessary in the first place? I mean yeah, sure, I could use it to snipe heals in farm content, but in heroic progression, when the throughput is necessary, Chi Burst becomes more viable I feel, because the throughput becomes more important and CB is both free and a lot faster than normal Chi generation.

Ascension feels kind of like a talent for low risk fights. So I guess what I'm saying is that in higher difficulty content CB's actual usage approaches its optimal usage more and more.

Hulkling · 12/11/12, 3:48 AM

Originally Posted by Spleener

Xuen is a pretty solid second healing cooldown, relatively speaking. Dude does 800-900k damage per summon for me on a single target fight, more if you have multiple targets (tiger lightning is the lion's share of his damage, and it's a cleave,) which amounts to ~1 million healing over 45s. That's a little less than revival in the worst case scenario, but it's a smart heal that distributes itself over 45s rather than a dumb heal that does it all at once.

Meanwhile, RJW is rarely good- it costs 2 chi, so it has to be compared against other things you'd spend that chi on, most notably CB, since that's the talent you're going to take in most fights where you use SCK enough to even put RJW on the table. In the best case scenario spending your 2 chi on RJW and then chaining SCK for the entire 12s duration of the buff is going to 200k edge in hps, though in practice it's less becuase you're probably going to use 1s to throw out another ReM and 1s to spend the chi you're generating so you don't cap. But still though, in the hypothetical world where it's 200k hps, that means you have to use it 6 times within Xuen's 3 minute cooldown- which means you use it exactly on cooldown- for it to be better overall than Xuen.

I can see RJW maybe being good in situations where you need another cooldown but Xuen can't hit the boss for whatever reason, but aside from that, it's never going to a good choice.

I still need to get around to properly modeling Chi Torpedo's healing (Xuen too, for that matter)- from all I've heard it does decent healing for zero mana cost, but is awkward to use and using it rotationally effectively nerfs your own mobility.

Firstly, thank you for your insightful response. I wanted to get some time to try this out before responding, which has so far only been LFR and heroic dungeons as my guild is on hiatus until after the holidays (*grumbles*).

After having used all three talents in similar situations now, I actually prefer Chi Torpedo. The healing output is less than a RJW/SCK because I believe I'm losing a GCD to the animation and travel time and possibly more if I jump to shorten the travel distance since I'm now adding a keystroke and introducing delay waiting for the jump. I would imagine that the overall efficiency of the talent is less than Xuen as well given his 45s up-time in 3 minutes and substantial damage and thereby healing output.

I found RJW to be extremely useful to push out very high healing in aoe while the raid was stacked, but with the recent efficiency changes, mana consumption to produce this aoe is somewhat alarming at my current low average item level. I also found that properly spreading our HoT prior to an aoe damage phase and using uplift and resorting to SCK if needed worked better for me than seeing a window to use RJW and doing so, even when I did have the talent due to the cost of SCK and essentially purging my chi for RJW.

The ability being free and entirely independent of other skills, however, is what pushes Chi Torpedo over the top for me. I find that in general as a healer, mana tea aside, I am playing within a 10-15 second window ranging from reactive to events in real time to proactive to events I know are coming and it is difficult for me to find the optimal usage of a 3 minute cooldown in a window like this, which means I rarely used it. I used CT as a sort of aoe filler ability, not for substantive throughput and found that it fit my play the best of the three talents. It also offered me a last resort when living from tea to tea when I've overextended.

I hope that some of this is valuable to those questioning the top tier of abilities. I'm actually rather impressed that it is a difficult choice.

Kluian · 12/15/12, 7:30 PM

Was Smoothing mist ability to proc power strikes removed recently or is it just bugged?

Spleener · 12/15/12, 9:36 PM

Originally Posted by Kluian

Was Smoothing mist ability to proc power strikes removed recently or is it just bugged?

Doing some testing just now it appears that it won't proc when self-cast, only when cast on other people.

Vapes · 12/18/12, 3:33 PM

It's worth noting that one reason Ascension might feel better for mana regen is that though you gain a little more chi and consiquently mana from Power Strikes you still have to drink the tea. Ascension lets you restore you mana faster due to the higher pool. With Ascension and Metagem you get 28k and change (up from 24k) back each drink with the glyph or 14k and change (up from 12k) per second without. Being able to convert it faster can be very helpful at times (and at times unneccesary of course, like fights with big pauses in transitions).

Just to give an idea, with mana meta and ascension vs. no mana meta/ascension, 17 stacks of mana tea will give you about the same as 20 stacks. So you save 3 seconds (or effectively drink 15% faster).

Spleener · 12/21/12, 2:57 PM

Update on the crab man re: Jab mana cost increase only applying to fist weapon/glyphed jab:

http://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/stat...11699828858880

No real update. It probably won't be fixed before 5.2 but we think we can fix it.

In light of that I'll get the calculator updated to reflect it staying at 9k for now. Going out of town tonight through wednesday though so it might not get done until I'm back.

Sasazuka · 12/22/12, 12:27 AM

Lots of changes coming that makes mastery better but still no control over when we can benefit from it. Buffs to Zen Sphere (I believe to be PVP focused). Chi Wave CD nerf and buffs to Chi Burst - guess they are trying to make the other talents better choices.

I'm curious about the Enveloping Mists nerf - is it a nerf or just tooltip fix? If it's a nerf, I can't really understand why they keep making our Chi-dependent big heal weaker while continue to nerf our AOE heals.

Kluian · 12/22/12, 1:19 AM

Originally Posted by Sasazuka

Lots of changes coming that makes mastery better but still no control over when we can benefit from it. Buffs to Zen Sphere (I believe to be PVP focused). Chi Wave CD nerf and buffs to Chi Burst - guess they are trying to make the other talents better choices.

I'm curious about the Enveloping Mists nerf - is it a nerf or just tooltip fix? If it's a nerf, I can't really understand why they keep making our Chi-dependent big heal weaker while continue to nerf our AOE heals.

The orbs will only heal if they expire within 6 yards of someone. I'm no so sure the Zen Sphere is really that great. It will get dispelled quickly which will essentially create a 10 sec CD 30k heal. Chi wave is a big crutch to MW in PvP, so the longer CD hurts. If the healing is truly increased by 100% that will offset it. Enveloping Mist is a tooltip fix I think, it was already nerfed when the haste change to serpent stance kicked in.

Spleener · 12/24/12, 9:48 AM

PvE-wise the ZS changes actually make it a viable tank healing tool, especially in situations where you have two simultaneous tanks taking damage. Previously the chi cost made it pretty bad, especially considering that in a tank heal situation the chi could be better spent on enveloping mist. You should also look for opportunities to abuse the detonation mechanic.

CW goes from "use on cooldown unless Uplift will do more healing" to just "use on cooldown." Which further solidifies its position as the "go-to" talent for when neither of the other two options particularly shine.

The CB change has the biggest consequences- currently your game plan for "raid stacks in one spot and gets facefucked in glorious unison" damage is SCKx2->CB, maybe substituting uplift if you have a TFT level of ReMs out. Now Uplift becomes your filler for those scenarios as well- which isn't too big a nerf assuming you're good about keeping your ReMs flowing, though it's a bit harder to do that flawlessly during an SCK-based rotation than a sothing or jab-based one.

The CB cooldown is also a significant buff to RJW- the main thing holding it back was the fact that you'd do about as much if not more healing spending the 2 chi on a CB than you would on an RJW, especially considering that RJW distributes its effective payload over 12 seconds during which you have to be spinning.

Sonrisa · 01/10/13, 4:16 AM

So, neat little trick I discovered by chance, which is moderately useful in some encounters. Mages, especially when pulling, will use Alter Time, to get longer trinket proc durations, Blood Lust and what not, you can use this to your advantage by casting ReM on them before they use Alter Time and have it jump to 2 other people. Here comes the good part: when alter time takes them back in time, they will again have 3 stacks of ReM (I haven't tested this extensively but it seemed as if though it was always 3, regardless if they had less when they cast Alter Time) so you are getting 5 procs total from one cast. On our pulls I usually put it on our arcane mage 2 seconds prior to pull and the next one on our fire mage (since they take longer to get their stuff rolling). Doing this I am quite frequently able to get a 12-13 ReM TFT, which obviously has huge Uplift potential.

Mopatop · 01/22/13, 4:28 PM

Originally Posted by Sonrisa

So, neat little trick I discovered by chance, which is moderately useful in some encounters. Mages, especially when pulling, will use Alter Time, to get longer trinket proc durations, Blood Lust and what not, you can use this to your advantage by casting ReM on them before they use Alter Time and have it jump to 2 other people.

Arcane mages pop alter time once they get to 6 stacks + 2 AM procs, so you want to be putting it on them about 9 seconds into the fight. I think this is a difficult window to aim for.

• Hamlet · 01/23/13, 3:09 PM

They're buffing DPS output of CJL, Blackout Kick, and Tiger Palm, and reducing Eminence healing to compensate:
5.2 PTR - Build 16486 - Spell Changes, Icons, New Set Bonuses, and More - Wowhead News

So all in all a little DPS buff? And reducing the heal value of a few random things like Jab. Well, and also Xuen, which is kind of sad.

Which reminds of something else--I see little discussion of Expel Harm as a Chi generator. This was curious to me even in 5.1, but this Jab change (along with mana cost change) reinforces it in 5.2. The healing done by Jab is insignificant, and even a 0-healing Expel Harm is a much cheaper Chi. So assuming you were using Jab at all (at any point during the fight, since Jab is just time-independent machine for churning mana into Chi at whatever rate you like), you're better off using Expel Harm on cooldown.

Even a Chi via 3.33 ticks of Soothing Mists costs 10k mana before the Mana Tea rebate, while an Expel Harm costs 7.5k (and a Jab is going to be 11.7k).

Spleener · 01/23/13, 7:18 PM

Yeah, EH's value as a generator is pretty small when jab is 9k mana, but at 11.7k it's much more appealing.

That said, note that EH won't proc muscle memory while Jab will, which means that unless you actually need the self-healing you'll be way ahead hpm-wise with jab assuming you're using that chi for a TP or BoK.

For some ballpark off-the-top-of-my-head math:

The healing of Jab->TP without muscle memory is 17% less than live. The healing of Jab->TP with muscle memory is 117% higher than live.

Jabx2->BoK with one target and no MM is a straight 50% drop. With MM and one target it's a 145% increase. Each additional target is a bonus equal to ~55% of the live healing, so that's +200%/255%/310%/365% of live healing at 2/3/4/5 targets.

Xuen being nerfed by 50% is pretty shitty, though, ideally they'll buff him back somehow. Still though, overall these buffs are pretty exciting.