Healer gear

[Kincaide]

The graph itself shows that haste makes no difference until after 30 seconds of continued, uninterrupted, flawless, no-lag healing, and I've already done the math to show that you'll go OOM right around 30 seconds of this kind of healing. So the graph basically proves that haste is worthless. On top of that, I assume that graph is showing for MAX haste stacking, whereas this thread is only talking about the haste you get from gear. Look I know that this is a popular opinion I'm debating against, but popular != right, and no one has shown any math that refutes my math yet.

On an individual cast, latency accounts for more time variation than haste provides (60ms) and in a continuous cast, impossible in real battle conditions, you will run out of mana before haste would make a difference. That's what the math shows, and unless someone has math to counter it, I'm afraid you're all basing your popular opinion on anecdotes.

 

[Goesid]

The graph itself shows that haste makes no difference until after 30 seconds of continued, uninterrupted, flawless, no-lag healing, and I've already done the math to show that you'll go OOM right around 30 seconds of this kind of healing. So the graph basically proves that haste is worthless. On top of that, I assume that graph is showing for MAX haste stacking, whereas this thread is only talking about the haste you get from gear. Look I know that this is a popular opinion I'm debating against, but popular != right, and no one has shown any math that refutes my math yet.

On an individual cast, latency accounts for more time variation than haste provides (60ms) and in a continuous cast, impossible in real battle conditions, you will run out of mana before haste would make a difference. That's what the math shows, and unless someone has math to counter it, I'm afraid you're all basing your popular opinion on anecdotes.

Hang on.
His graph is useless because your druid has 0 spirit?

 

[Srs]

The graph itself shows that haste makes no difference until after 30 seconds of continued, uninterrupted, flawless, no-lag healing, and I've already done the math to show that you'll go OOM right around 30 seconds of this kind of healing. So the graph basically proves that haste is worthless. On top of that, I assume that graph is showing for MAX haste stacking, whereas this thread is only talking about the haste you get from gear. Look I know that this is a popular opinion I'm debating against, but popular != right, and no one has shown any math that refutes my math yet.

On an individual cast, latency accounts for more time variation than haste provides (60ms) and in a continuous cast, impossible in real battle conditions, you will run out of mana before haste would make a difference. That's what the math shows, and unless someone has math to counter it, I'm afraid you're all basing your popular opinion on anecdotes.

Thing is, I don't think the math means nearly much as you might think, as we aren't raiding. Each gear-set has its own advantage and drawbacks.

Haste helps in the instances you want to cast faster.

Stam helps survive burst, such as when you're all alone, and can't cast.

Crit scales so very poorly.

Spirit is nice to have for mana, but only if you can handle the swag.

Int makes your bubbles bigger and helps you do more damage, but does this weird thing where it hardly helps your heals at all. To test this, take off all your gear, and get rez penalty. Look at how much you still heal — it's crazy. Put your gear back on; goes up a little bit, but not much. Wait for rez penalty to expire, goes up a little bit more, but not nearly as much as one would think.

 

[Hashbrowns]

The graph itself shows that haste makes no difference until after 30 seconds

Right, that's when you could get an extra cast of Flash Heal that you normally wouldn't. But you aren't stacking haste for the extra cast, at least not completely. You are trying to cast faster, that's what it's all about. Int does almost nothing for your heals and crit is luck of RNG...

On an individual cast, latency accounts for more time variation than haste provides (60ms)

Everyone sees everything at 60 ms (roughly), so this is doesn't really have to do with anything.

So let's say that rogue ambushes for a billion, like they do. That damage is calculated and set out to the clients.

Rouge:
He sees he's got a chance to finish his opponent and goes for the quick Eviscerate. So he hits his button. The time it takes for it to reach WoW's servers is .06 seconds.

Healer:
You see the damage and respond by a quick Shield. You hit your button. The time it takes for it to reach WoW's servers is .06 seconds.

There's nothing that latency would affect here that isn't affecting everyone.

I'm afraid you're all basing your popular opinion on anecdotes.

I've come to this conclusion on my own and tbh I figured it would not be supported by the majority. I can just say from first hand experience the two things I miss out on are a heal not making it in time and running OOM on big fights. My argument was the very minor heal increase from Int isn't going to make a difference. Getting the heal there faster and making sure you have the mana for a few more is what's important. Resilience is huge, stamina is huge, all that's important, and I wouldn't gimp yourself less then 2k hp. But after that, I'd rather bank on a faster/more heals then a lucky RNG crit.

Edit: I think an argument could be made to take Grand Staff of Jordan over the Res Mace and 3 Haste Offhand and I think that's valid. I was basing my mace selection on the resilience, not the tiny amount of spirit it nets. And maces on priest are damn sexy.

I assume that graph is showing for MAX haste stacking, whereas this thread is only talking about the haste you get from gear.

Double haste trinkets and gear. No Herb or Troll Racial.

 

[Zehj]

The graph itself shows that haste makes no difference until after 30 seconds of continued, uninterrupted, flawless, no-lag healing, and I've already done the math to show that you'll go OOM right around 30 seconds of this kind of healing. So the graph basically proves that haste is worthless. On top of that, I assume that graph is showing for MAX haste stacking, whereas this thread is only talking about the haste you get from gear. Look I know that this is a popular opinion I'm debating against, but popular != right, and no one has shown any math that refutes my math yet.

On an individual cast, latency accounts for more time variation than haste provides (60ms) and in a continuous cast, impossible in real battle conditions, you will run out of mana before haste would make a difference. That's what the math shows, and unless someone has math to counter it, I'm afraid you're all basing your popular opinion on anecdotes.

if you work out healing per second, haste > intel or crit

looking at 30 secs of spamming heal is redundant for both arguments

 

[Kincaide]

In conclusion, although I realize I'm speaking anecdotally here, the number of circumstances you'll encounter in a week of battlegrounds where having ~100 extra hit points makes a difference in the game, versus the number of circumstances where landing any given heal 1/20th of one second sooner, the former would far outweigh the latter. The number of times that landing a heal less than 60ms too late, that couldn't have been improved by faster reaction time (~35ms even among you teenagers) or by better latency to the server (~100ms for most players, although I'm very lucky to have ~65 myself), is nearly nil. But EVERY healer dies in battle, and sometimes having had 100 health more would have kept a rogue from 1-shotting you, or even made him second-guess whether he should try to global you in the first place. And most importantly of all, if against all infinitesimal odds you could have saved one person by a .06sec reduction in cast time, conversely if you had survived by having more stamina, the ENTIRE TEAM can be saved and might be lost if you, as the healer, die.

Thus, I would argue, all other things being equal, increasing your own survivability as the team's healer is far more important than increasing your cast time on a single heal by an amount of time less than it takes the message to get to the server.

And the math supports that conclusion.

 

[Revlo]

This is one of those things that seems impossible to nail down a calculation for. As we all know PVP is situational. Some stats are easy to conclude what is most valuable, others it becomes less clear. In my opinion what is more valuable here really depends on what type of players you are up against. Some games you might be up against a team that likes to focus you as the healer. Stamina would probably be a better choice here, but not necessarily. Is it a rogue, or 2 rogues who just ambushed you? Is it a couple hunters ripping you down? Sometimes Stamina is better, sometimes haste, though likely stamina would be better for these situations. Then there are games where the opposing team might focus one of your dps and not you. Here your stamina is irrelevant and you want to keep that player alive. You're not really looking to squeeze in an extra heal/heals here. You are simply wanting your heals to land before their health hits 0. That small fraction of a second would help sometimes. Haste would likely be better here.

I think it's difficult to say that either stat, stamina or haste, is more valuable with 100% certainty via math. It depends too much on what situations you get yourself into. That being said, my personal opinion here is that practical experience is what to base your choice on. Play games, many games. See what you think is more of an issue to you. Do you seem to get focused more? Do you find yourself losing the healing vs. incoming damage race more? I personally flip flop on these questions depending on the day. Overall though, based on my own experience, I vote the haste if you have the other gear to give you the stamina. Gearing both ways has its strengths, it's just hard to say with absolute certainty which is better. Just my thoughts. Great input on all sides!

 

[Goesid]

In conclusion, although I realize I'm speaking anecdotally here, the number of circumstances you'll encounter in a week of battlegrounds where having ~100 extra hit points makes a difference in the game, versus the number of circumstances where landing any given heal 1/20th of one second sooner, the former would far outweigh the latter. The number of times that landing a heal less than 60ms too late, that couldn't have been improved by faster reaction time (~35ms even among you teenagers) or by better latency to the server (~100ms for most players, although I'm very lucky to have ~65 myself), is nearly nil. But EVERY healer dies in battle, and sometimes having had 100 health more would have kept a rogue from 1-shotting you, or even made him second-guess whether he should try to global you in the first place. And most importantly of all, if against all infinitesimal odds you could have saved one person by a .06sec reduction in cast time, conversely if you had survived by having more stamina, the ENTIRE TEAM can be saved and might be lost if you, as the healer, die.

Thus, I would argue, all other things being equal, increasing your own survivability as the team's healer is far more important than increasing your cast time on a single heal by an amount of time less than it takes the message to get to the server.

And the math supports that conclusion.

You are so far off it's insane, 100 hp will never save you from getting one shot. The only class that can one shot in this bracket atm is rogue and if you surive the initial hit with -100 hp then you are going to die from the auto attack that follows instantly making that stamina utterly useless.

 

[Hashbrowns]

stuff

Who knows, it's all situational. Are you getting focused... because you are probably f'd no matter what you stack. Do you have someone to peel off you? The biggest determination to BiS is your playing ability tbh. Did you juke that kick? Cause if not, 100 health won't save you from the silence.

6.5% haste, brings your Flash Heal down to 1.4. Mathematically it yields more healing done and its a faster cast. We have no choice but take a raiding approach to this, there's no other way to look at it. PvP is going to depend on your playstyle and your opponents. Since those are huge variables that we can never account for all we can do is say is haste yields the most healing done. And that's the only mathematical conclusion we can make.

 

[Kincaide]

You are so far off it's insane, 100 hp will never save you from getting one shot. The only class that can one shot in this bracket atm is rogue and if you surive the initial hit with -100 hp then you are going to die from the auto attack that follows instantly making that stamina utterly useless.

You're being needlessly argumentative and a little bit dense. You understand that globalling someone isn't what they do with one attack, but what they do in the span of one GCD. That would include the autoattack that you pointed out, which should have been obvious to anyone that was actually trying to listen and engage the conversation instead of attempting to nitpick from the sidelines.

The logic that "100hp could never save you because it's so small", if we were to apply that logic, that logic would go multifold more for the argument that 60 milliseconds isn't going to save your teammate because it is so small. I never said that 100hp was going to save you in a lot of situations. I said the number of situations in which more stamina could save yourself, thus keeping you alive to save your entire team, is FAR GREATER than the number of situations where shaving 60 milliseconds off of a heal is going to save one single teammate.

 

[Kincaide]

6.5% haste brings your Flash Heal down to 1.4

Please do me a favor and list what gear you would have to equip to get 6.5% haste, so that I can then look at how much stamina you're actually giving up to get that much haste. That will make it a lot easier, to be able to compare how much survivability one gives up in order to make their casts land 1/10th of one second sooner.

 

[Hashbrowns]

Cloak, belt, 1 haste trinket, tome

 

[Kincaide]

Thanks, Here is the raw dump from my text file:

Haste Build

CLOAK - 4 STA, 4 INT, 4 Haste

BELT - 6 STA, 6 INT, 6 Haste

TRINKET - 7 Haste

MACE - 3 STA, 5 INT, 1 Crit, 49 SP

TOME - 5 STA, 3 INT, 3 Haste

Total: 18 STA, 18 INT, 20 Haste, 1 Crit, 49 SP



Stamina Build

CLOAK - 9 STA

BELT - 8 STA 8 INT

TRINKET - 13 STA

WEAPON - 11 STA, 9 INT, 7 Crit, 48 SP

Total: 41 STA, 17 INT, 7 Crit, 48 SP


Difference:

Stamina Build: 23 STA, 6 Crit

Hate Build: 20 Haste, 1 INT, 1 SP

I'm not even going to factor in 6 crit vs 1 int 1 spellpower for the moment.

This indicates that in order to gain 1/10th of one second on your cast time, you sacrifice 230 hit points. This much is not a point of contention or argument, it's just raw numbers. This is directly from the scaling index, so these numbers are facts. You choose to take 20 haste, or you choose to take 230 hp.

Now, my argument, which anyone is free to debate, is that the number of individual situations where the healer having 230 more hit points would benefit the team is vastly greater than the number of situations where the difference between someone living or dying is determined in the span of less than 1/10th of one second. If anyone wants to argue that conclusion, be very specific in your reply. Simply saying "Faster heals are faster" doesn't cut it; it doesn't take into account statistical significance. As an example, saying one car gets 45.2 MPG and another car gets 45.0 MPG, technically the first one gets better gas mileage... but if the first one also requires premium gas, and the ultimate goal is to save money, then the statistical significance of "but this one gets better gas mileage!" is irrelevant.

Edit: If you're human, like my priest is, then the difference with two trinkets is even more severe. 27 haste vs fully 360 hit points.

 

[Hashbrowns]

I'm not saying stamina is bad, I'm just saying mathematically all we can say is haste yields the most healing. Let me try and explain it this way:

So if I'm gearing my mage Ivycloth Bracelets - Item - World of Warcraft is 6 int while Mindthrust Bracers - Item - World of Warcraft is 5. There's no question Ivycloth will yield the most DPS. Which is what I'm saying with haste. It's up to you from there to decide how much stamina is enough. But that's based on YOUR individual character and playstyle. So back to mage, am I blinking the warriors charge before he can open? How are my polys and freezes? All this effects ones PERCEPTION on how much stamina they need. Someone that was new to mage would be like, yo I'm getting just blown up. I need double AGMs and the res staff. But that's their playstyle affecting that decision. And that's just skill level, what if the person's name is Kincaide so everyone wants to focus them Or the other team is smart and really wants to focus healers. Or the healer hides in the bushes and stays back to avoid tab targeting and getting blown up. These are all things that are unaccountable, there's no way to define how to gear this. All we can do it go yep, haste yields the most healing or int is the most dps. Then you scale it back to a health/spirit level you are comfortable with and what makes sense for this bracket.

 

[Kincaide]

Somehow though I still don't think I'm making my point clear. Haste -technically- yields more healing, in the same sense that driving 60.1mph will -technically- get you somewhere faster than going 60mph. My point is that the practical difference--that is to say, the actual situations where that infinitesimally faster cast will actually matter--is so impossibly small that for all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist. It's theorycrafting on a microscopic scale and doesn't practically compare to the number of situations where having an additional 230, or even 360, hit points would make a much bigger difference.

A third example: if I have $5000.00 and you have $5000.01, you are technically richer than me, but practically speaking there is practically nothing you can buy for that penny.

 

[Zehj]

Thanks, Here is the raw dump from my text file:



I'm not even going to factor in 6 crit vs 1 int 1 spellpower for the moment.

This indicates that in order to gain 1/10th of one second on your cast time, you sacrifice 230 hit points. This much is not a point of contention or argument, it's just raw numbers. This is directly from the scaling index, so these numbers are facts. You choose to take 20 haste, or you choose to take 230 hp.

Now, my argument, which anyone is free to debate, is that the number of individual situations where the healer having 230 more hit points would benefit the team is vastly greater than the number of situations where the difference between someone living or dying is determined in the span of less than 1/10th of one second. If anyone wants to argue that conclusion, be very specific in your reply. Simply saying "Faster heals are faster" doesn't cut it; it doesn't take into account statistical significance. As an example, saying one car gets 45.2 MPG and another car gets 45.0 MPG, technically the first one gets better gas mileage... but if the first one also requires premium gas, and the ultimate goal is to save money, then the statistical significance of "but this one gets better gas mileage!" is irrelevant.

Edit: If you're human, like my priest is, then the difference with two trinkets is even more severe. 27 haste vs fully 360 hit points.

there will be more situations where someone else is dying instead of the healer, in which case stamina does nothing

haste/intel/crit can you keep you alive as well

 

[Kincaide]

there will be more situations where someone else is dying instead of the healer, in which case stamina does nothing

haste/intel/crit can you keep you alive as well

That's an oversimplification, it doesn't take into account how exceedingly rare it would be that someone is dying, and you landing a heal less than one-tenth of one second faster would have saved them. Whether is you or someone else. In fact, as the healer you are getting targeted, and you're trying to heal multiple friendlies including yourself, and the time it takes just to mouseover a different raid frame is greater than the speed advantage of haste. Again, this is a matter of not understanding the disparity between the technical increase and the practical advantage.

 

[Bop]

Wow, this thread escalated quickly haha.

Some leaving thoughts (from my perspective, the arguments have both been presented in their entirety and opinions either will or will not be changed at this point):

1. Haste has properties in PvP that super-cede numerical superiority. The linear question of "How much can I heal?" is addressed by Critical Strike and Intellect, while "How quickly can I heal?" is addressed by Haste. The extra-dimension adds depth to gearing for PvP.

Consider for a moment that relatively "small" reductions in cast time can actually be relatively significant. For instance, Flash Heal is a 1.5 second cast time. If it was a consistent 1.0 second cast time due to Haste from gear, would that be balanced? No. Would you easily be able to destroy enemies in 2v2 or even 3v3 scenarios (given equal variables in skill and gearing otherwise)? Yes. Do we expect Haste to have this sort of effect before it is viable? I would say, subconsciously, Yes. However reducing the cast time by a mere 1/10th of a second may seem small, but it is nothing if not extraordinarily effective in not just HPS tests but also PvP scenarios.

2. I am full stamina on my Druid. I believe that, with the current state of the bracket, maximizing the survivability of the healer (especially in solo-healing premades, in which I mostly find myself) is crucial to being an effective healer. Managing cooldowns effectively, being intelligent with mana consumption, and being positionally aware causes most of the problems healers have in the bracket to at least be greatly diminished.

That being said, play your own game. Number crunching begins to lose effectiveness in PvP due to the multiplicity of encounters that test not the gear, but the skill of an individual. Assistance and support can come in the form of gearing, but ultimately those decisions must be made by an individual and not by a panel of judges.

We are mentors, not lawyers. We are a perspective on fact, we are not the facts. There is no one right answer.

 

[Kincaide]

[MENTION=18826]Bop[/MENTION] after a conclusion like that, I'm happy to let the matter rest. I see more practical applications of one perspective, others think they see more practical applications of a different perspective, and that tends to always be true between human beings. When the majority of people ignore this and propose that "Way X is right!" I feel obligated to make the case for Way Y. Now that all the cases are made, I'm going to go make dinner.

 

[Hashbrowns]

A third example: if I have $5000.00 and you have $5000.01, you are technically richer than me, but practically speaking there is practically nothing you can buy for that penny.

But isn't that the whole point of twinking? To squeeze every ounce out of our characters? Have I been farming SFK for years for nothing! QQ