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Resto in Cataclysm: My thoughts so far...
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Post by
oberondreaming
Caution, this post contains lots of math, most of which probably borders on pseudo math. I've tried to highlight relatively important parts or summaries, so you can skip to them. If you want builds, they're at the end of the post.
Spells
Four of our spells have no restrictions on casting: Regrowth, Nourish, Healing Touch and Rejuvenation. I'm going to talk about these four together as "Go To Spells." We also have three spells that have some restrictions but will figure in fairly regularly: Lifebloom, Wild Growth and Swiftmend. In addition, we have Tranquility which is going to be pretty awesome, but has a long cooldown. Collectively, I'm calling these our "Situational Spells."
I make this distinction because we have to assess the usefulness of these spells in different ways accordingly. Let's look at the go to spells first.
Regrowth, Nourish and Healing Touch make up our trifecta of Cataclysm healing spells. They are respectively our Flash Heal, Heal and Greater Heal where the idea is to have three types of spells:
A fast spell that gets health to a target who needs it now, but is inefficient in terms of Healing per Mana
A healing "autoattack" a spell that's very mana efficient but isn't necessarily great in terms of HPS.
A big heal, that does good healing per second, but isn't very mana efficient
For us, these are Regrowth, Nourish and HT respectively.
Regrowth
, if we assume we have
MS
and
Genesis
, heals for 3722 immediately and 1191 over six seconds, for a total of 4913. With a 1.5s cast time and a 35% mana cost, this means the spell gives 140 healing per 1% mana and 3275 healing per 1s cast time.
Nourish
(with
Naturalist
,
MS
and
Empowered Touch
) heals for 2961 without a HoT on the target or 3552 with a HoT. This means HpM of 296 and 355 (with and without a HoT respectively) and HpCT of 1184 and 1421.
Healing Touch
(with
Naturalist
,
MS
and
Empowered Touch
) heals for 8964, giving it a HpM of 236 and a HpCT of 3586
As you can see, these three spells seem to fit fairly appropriately into their respective buckets. Regrowth is fast to get on people but inefficient. Nourish is slow, efficient but doesn't have high output. Healing Touch gives high throughput but at the cost of being slow and inefficient.
But we also have
Rejuvenation
, which we have
a lot
of talents available for. If we assume we have
Genesis
,
MS
,
Blessing of the Grove
,
Improved Rejuvenation
,
Swift Rejuvenation
and
Gift of the Earth Mother
as well as the
Glyph of Rejuvenation
, Rejuv heals for 8531 putting it at 427 HpM and 8531 HpCT
This means, for multiple targets, Rejuvenation is nearly as efficient as a HoTed Nourish and gives better throughput than Healing Touch. Raid healers seem likely to continue to rely heavily on Rejuvenation.
HpM Efficiency
(in healing per 1% base mana)
427 Rejuv
355 HoTed Nourish
296 No-HoT Nourish
236 Healing Touch
140 Regrowth
HpCT Efficiency
(in healing per 1s cast time)
8531 Rejuv
3586 Healing Touch
3276 Regrowth
1421 HoTed Nourish
1184 No-HoT Nourish
Note that these numbers are for the target of the spell only (and ignore splash healing from Efflorescence) as well as ignoring the effects of crit and haste (crit will make Regrowth more useful thanks to the 60% bonus crit from Nature's Bounty).
The situational spells are each going to have their own niche within the general healing strategy.
Wild Growth assuming, MS, Genesis and
Glyph of WG
and six targets in range will heal for a total of 18,896, giving it a HpM of 700 and a HpCT of 12,597. Wild growth's usefulness and efficiency will vary widely based on the amount of targets actually receiving heals from it. If there aren't six targets who need healing within range of each other, the efficiency drops dramatically. It will continue to be useful on cooldown for AoE damage heavy fights.
Lifebloom has a new, curious restriction though: we can only have it on one target. It's fairly obvious why when you look at it in comparison to other spells. It's significantly more mana efficient that most of our spells while remaining competitive on throughput, clocking in (with Genesis, MS and GotEM) at 655 healing per 1% base mana and 3057 healing per second cast time. If we could spam LBs that's probably what we'd do. It's going to factor into tank healing rotations, though in an unusual way, thanks to Empowered Touch. Raid Healers probably won't use it, unless outside factors (like the 4t11 bonus) encourage them to.
Swiftmend is, similarly, a very efficient spell. With MS, Genesis and Improved Rejuvenation it heals for 6536 giving it a 654 HpM and a 4358 HpCT. It's probably going to be useful to use it on CD if possible, especially when glyphed.
The Effects of Crit and Haste
As a tank healer, Crit and Haste play pretty standard roles. Crit will increase the output of all of your heals, and notably reduce the CD on swiftmend.
If we start looking at how Crit is going to alter our play as raid healers, we have to look especially at Nature's Bounty, Living Seed and Efflorescence. If we assume we start with a 25% base crit chance, then using the raid healer build above our most common spells have the following crit chances:
Rejuv - 29% chance to crit for 150% base healing - a 14.5% increase in healing effectiveness
Swiftmend - 29% chance to crit for 150% base healing and Living Seed for 45% of base healing (30% of 150% normal) - a 27.55% increase in healing effectiveness
Regrowth - a 89% chance to crit for 150% base healing, a Living Seed for 45% more healing and Efflorescence for 45% more healing per target in the area. On a single target, this is a 124.6% increase in healing effectiveness. This increases significantly as the targets increase.
Effect of Crits on Effective Regrowth
healing per Target in range of Efflorescence
2 targets - 164.7% effective healing
3 targets - 204.7% effective healing
4 targets - 244.8% effective healing
5 targets - 284.8% effective healing
6 targets - 324.9% effective healing
7 targets - 364.9% effective healing
8 targets - 445.0% effective healing
9 targets - 485.1% effective healing
With three targets (including the target of Regrowth) in range of Efflorescence, Regrowth becomes as mana efficient as fully talented Healing Touch. With four targets in range it becomes as efficient as fully talented No-Hot Nourish. With five targets in range, it becomes as efficient as Rejuv. With six or more targets it becomes our most mana efficient spell.
But again, like Wild Growth, Efflorescence requires a lot of
damaged
targets to be effective. But on high AoE damage fights, I expect that casting WG on the melee stack followed by Regrowths on the people who got it (to take advantage of the mastery bonus) will be a viable tactic.
Haste also plays an interesting role for both healer types. As usual, haste will increase throughput, but it will also interact with HoT spells to make them more efficient. As we pass certain thresholds of Haste, HoTs will get extra ticks per cast, increasing their total healing done without also increasing their cost. This will notably include Rejuv and Regrowth.
Mastery
As a Tank Healer, the mastery is just going to come naturally, and will probably be a good stat to stack, since your target will almost always have a HoT on your target (especially with LB rolling).
As a raid healer, it will be slightly less useful. You'll be casting a lot of Rejuvs, which won't benefit on their own (unless you have a WG down already), but those rejuvs will in turn boost any other spell you cast on the target (including SM, Tranquility or Regrowth). How much use it is in comparison to Crit or Haste will have to be tested by someone better with math than me.
Builds
Druids are going to be able to tank and raid heal in Cataclysm. These are my two preferences for builds for those roles.
Raid Healer
This build relies heavily on Rejuvenation. Rejuvs should be targeted, rather than blanketed though, because GotEM's instant heal portion provides a significant portion of the healing done. Notable talents that are missing: The build doesn't have Naturalist or Empowered Touch, meaning it remains in the WotLK role of not having great direct healing capabilities. Regrowth will provide some, but it will be fairly inefficient (though a high crit chance and efflorescence will help with that some). Nature's Swiftness remains available for an instant HT when SM is on cooldown.
Tank Healer
This build will utilize the standard method of stacking HoTs on a tank then spamming direct heals. Empowered Touch will keep Lifebloom rolling at three stacks, which will in turn provide a significant number of Omen of Clarity procs for free spellcasts. If you still find yourself short on mana, moving points from GotEM to Furor is a good option. To help out a bit on AoE fights, move points from GotEM to Efflorescence. On the other hand, if mana isn't an issue, moving points from Fury of Stormrage/Malfurions Gift into Efflorescence will increase your healing output. Other talents that are notably lacking from this build are Swift Rejuvenation and Blessing of the Grove, sacrificing a bit of Rejuv efficiency in exchange for better direct heals.
Post by
skribs
I'm curious to see how SP works with Nourish compared to other spells. If it has the same coefficient as HT (which cast time would suggest) it could quickly become nearly as powerful but at < 1/3 the cost (e.g. just like a downranked spell in TBC). It's a bit early to be going into numbers though, as I believe they're doing a lot of tuning now.
That said, haste will add extra ticks at intervals of X/N, where X is your % haste (after factoring in buffs) and N is the base number of ticks. So rejuv, with 4 ticks, would gain an extra tick at 25%, 50%, so on.
On talents, the effect of GOTEM will go down as you get haste.
Revitalize will be an impressive mana return at 1 point (that gets better as you have more and more rejuvs ticking in addition to WG), while 2 points and 3 points will be considerable worse than the previous point. My rough spreadsheet assumed 20% haste and 2 rejuvs + 1 LB active (read: tanks) and you're looking at:
1.22% of max mana as MP/5 at 1 point in Revitalize
1.64% at 2 points
1.86% at 3 points
Now with 30% haste and 5 rejuvs + 1 LB
1.56% at 1 point
1.92% at 2 points
2.08% at 3 points
As you can see, there is a significant drop in effect past 1 point. You also get replenishment with 1 point, which does not scale with points 2 or 3.
Blessing of the Grove looks very weak to me as a throguhput stat. Compare 2% healing on rejuv to Imp Rejuv (5% on rejuv+SM) or Genesis (2% healing on hots+SM). I'd rather get mana talents.
10/0/31
Is the build I'm looking at. I pick up 1 point in balance of power so that I can get CCs off a lot better if I have to (most things I'd have to CC will probably not be boss-level, so I could get away with 1 point). I will have spirit on my gear as a healer, anyway.
EDIT: I didn't pick glyphs for my build, those are what was leftover from Ober's.
Post by
340332
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
oberondreaming
On talents, the effect of GOTEM will go down as you get haste.
That probably depends on how it's calculated. If it takes Haste into effect, then it won't. That is, if it's 15% of the total effect, including extra ticks from haste, then GotEM doesn't lose (relative) value at higher haste.
Revitalize will be an impressive mana return at 1 point (that gets better as you have more and more rejuvs ticking in addition to WG), while 2 points and 3 points will be considerable worse than the previous point.
This is probably more true for raid healers than for tank healers. With a lot of Rejuvs ticking, your out-of-CD time on Revitalize will be minimal even with a low proc chance.
Still, I suspect it'll end up being better than points in moonglow, which benefits you more when you use more expensive spells.
Blessing of the Grove looks very weak to me as a throguhput stat. Compare 2% healing on rejuv to Imp Rejuv (5% on rejuv+SM) or Genesis (2% healing on hots+SM). I'd rather get mana talents.
It certainly is worse than the other two, and potentially even worse than the 3 points it takes to get 4% healing from MS. But if you've got all those things already and still need throughput it's the place to end up putting points (as a Rejuv focused healer). If you end up needing more mana, it's definitely the first place to drop points.
10/0/31
Is the build I'm looking at.
I'm not sure I see any way to justify Moonglow over Furor. Furor is more "mana" per point, and has good synergy with Revitalize (both the self only part and Replenishment) and Innervate.
Is 4 points for OOC really worth it? If you can keep LB rolling indefinitely, it should be worth a mana saving of somewhere in the region of 25-30% base mana - a rough average cost for all spells - roughly every 14 - 17 seconds depending on how much haste you have. How is this likely to compare over the course of an encounter with the 15% extra mana from HoTW and the extra mana that will be provided from the new Revitalize?
It'll depend, probably on how effectively you can use your OoC procs. I put it in the tank healing build since tank healers will be rolling LB anyway with Empowered Touch, and a lot of OoC procs will let them use more HTs than Nourishes for significantly higher throughput without having to worry about the increased cost.
Weird... I'm not sure how Glyph of Shred ended up in my builds.
Post by
524425
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
oberondreaming
SP or Intellect coefficients will certainly affect things interestingly. Though I know they're hoping to have the coefficient play less of a role, making the base portion of the heal (and therefore the role the heal is designed to play) more important.
Post by
skribs
That probably depends on how it's calculated. If it takes Haste into effect, then it won't. That is, if it's 15% of the total effect, including extra ticks from haste, then GotEM doesn't lose (relative) value at higher haste.
My mistake, I meant to say Swift Rejuvenation. Maybe my comment will make more sense now.
This is probably more true for raid healers than for tank healers. With a lot of Rejuvs ticking, your out-of-CD time on Revitalize will be minimal even with a low proc chance.
Assuming 15% haste, 1 rejuv, and lifebloom:
Rank 1 = 1.05%
Rank 2 = 1.48%
Rank 3 = 1.72%
So yeah, the penalty is less when you have less haste and less active rejuvs, but with a 6 second ICD you're going to have diminishing returns per point. So I'd say 1 point in Revitalize should be in all builds, but the 2nd or 3rd point will be optional.
Still, I suspect it'll end up being better than points in moonglow, which benefits you more when you use more expensive spells.
I'm not sure I see any way to justify Moonglow over Furor. Furor is more "mana" per point, and has good synergy with Revitalize (both the self only part and Replenishment) and Innervate.
We'll have to see. Furor's max mana bonus will wane on longer fights, while Moonglow will grow in power on harder fights, where you use more of the higher mana cost abilities (harder and longer are both qualities of higher end content). At the same time, of course, your maximum mana scales with gear, so you'll benefit on harder fights (where you go in with better gear than the first time you went in to the easier fights).
It certainly is worse than the other two, and potentially even worse than the 3 points it takes to get 4% healing from MS. But if you've got all those things already and still need throughput it's the place to end up putting points (as a Rejuv focused healer).
If you end up needing more mana, it's definitely the first place to drop points.
That was the major point I was trying to make.
SP will be on gear, you get 1 SP per Intellect. So it's a bit less on most gear, but more on weapons.
Post by
oberondreaming
That probably depends on how it's calculated. If it takes Haste into effect, then it won't. That is, if it's 15% of the total effect, including extra ticks from haste, then GotEM doesn't lose (relative) value at higher haste.
My mistake, I meant to say Swift Rejuvenation. Maybe my comment will make more sense now.
Ah yes, that makes much more sense.
Once you hit a certain haste threshold you can be GCD capped on rejuv with only 1/2 switf rejuv and a second point is simply wasted. Even as you approach that point, the second talent point becomes less and less worthwhile as it drops from a .25s GCD reduction down towards 0.
Post by
oberondreaming
Of course they day after I do the math, the go and change the cost of Rejuv.
It's going to make it an even more efficient spell though. It's definitely looking like raid healers will make heavy use of Rejuvenation still.
Post by
524425
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
skribs
Sententia, consider that in easier content, you will be using a lot more Nourish than in harder content. They'll force you to get more use of your expensive spells as the raids get harder.
Also, to Ober and Sententia, like I said - you're looking at HPM/HPS values without factoring in gear. How gear will affect each is to be seen, as they could plug different coefficients into each spell. However, rejuv is likely to scale well with gear compared to direct heals, as haste will add extra ticks.
Post by
oberondreaming
Also, to Ober and Sententia, like I said - you're looking at HPM/HPS values without factoring in gear. How gear will affect each is to be seen, as they could plug different coefficients into each spell. .
Yeah, so there's not really any way to examine those things yet. We can generally say though...
Haste will increase the HpM efficiency of HoTs along with it's traditional HpCT/S increase for all spells.
Crit will heavily increase the efficiency of Regrowth (via Efflorescence) as well as the efficiency of SM, Regrowth, Nourish and HT via Living Seed. This is in addition to the traditional throughput increase crit gives, which now applies to all spells HoT and non-HoT alike.
Intellect/Spellpower coefficients may drastically alter the dynamics of certain spells, but from what they've said about their design philosophy they're specifically trying to keep that from happening. (They don't want to get back into a "The Spellpower coefficient matters more than the base spell itself" situation.)
We have numbers on mastery as of today. Heals are 10 + (Mastery * 1.25) percent more effective on targets that already have a HoT. Casting spells at targets that aren't HoTed is going to suffer fairly dramatically.
Post by
skribs
We have numbers on mastery as of today. Heals are 10 + (Mastery * 1.25) percent more effective on targets that already have a HoT. Casting spells at targets that aren't HoTed is going to suffer fairly dramatically.
Unless you don't have mastery on your gear (by choice) in which case you would benefit a lot from taking a more paladin-style approach. That approach would be a lot better for spot-healing. Mastery may also be less useful if there are any blanket-type fights, as you would put a hot up and move on. Of course, for general raid or tank healing, mastery will be useful.
What stats people lean towards more I think will depend a lot on playstyle.
Post by
524425
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
skribs
My opinion of the mana game: I don't want it. If they get it working so that healers really have to keep an eye on mana at all levels of play, I won't be healing in Cataclysm.
That's their goal, so have fun rerolling.
I don't really understand this, can you expand on it? Rejuvenation is currently the highest HPCT spell, so I don't see why we'd have to use nourish more, particularly in easier content. Or did you mean in lower gear?
Nourish is the efficient spell, as is Rejuvenation. In lower levels of gear, you won't have as much spirit, and Blizzard knows this. The encounters will be designed around low incoming damage, which means a lot of efficient spell use. When you get to harder encounters, there's more likely to be big hits that require HT, AoEs that require WG, and people low enough that you need to RG or they'll die.
At least, that's what I'm led to believe.
Post by
340332
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
skribs
Looking at it again, too, Rejuv is highest HPM because it heals for so much. It is also significantly faster cast than Nourish and more expensive (Nourish - 2.5 sec cast, 10% base mana, Rejuv - likely 1.0 sec GCD with talents, 25% base mana). This means you burn through your mana 6.25x faster using Rejuv over WG.
Post by
524425
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
389643
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
skribs
Only if you spam it. If, as you said, there will be less incoming damage, I don't see a reason to spam it.
True. But, especially if you're doing 25s, and a lot of people seem to be taking light damage, it might be tempting to spam it over Nourish, which will OOM you fast.
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