Battle? I don't see how this is a battle. Its a discussion. You think the difference between us and other healing classes is acceptable. I disagree. Even the difference you do describe to me is far too much.
I think its good for everyone to hear both sides and decide for themselves. I have pointed out certain things about disc, which I think are correct and I have suggested very reasonable fixes that will both add synergy to our heals, improve our game play and give us more options and customisation on the way we heal. The penance nerf was an absolute disaster for disc in my opinion and I am glad that people got to hear my reasons why. I hope that it will prompt blizzard to make the fairly minor changes that will greatly improve disc, but I am not that optimistic.
If you think I am wrong about the other classes, I accept that I am not as knowledgeable as you might be about some of them. I know paladins pretty well since I have one, but I haven't played my shaman or druid long enough to be confident with them.
Thank you for posting your spreadsheet, I rerun the analysis the way I think it should be done:
I don't think your formula for PoH is correct. You are doing basevalue*(1+mastery)*(1+crit)*(1+0.3*crit). Which does not have the correct behaviour. The correct formula is
basevalue*(1+crit*(1+0.9*(1+mastery))+0.3*(1+mastery)), which brings PoH to 223904.1541
so PoH spam is 98936.44956
My value for PWS with your numbers is a tiny amount higher, but I used it instead of yours, so PWS-PWSx5 spam is 98656.78775. This is slightly lower HPS due to the very high crit rate, but of course HPM is higher by 4.6%.
Now lets compare a no cascade no spirit sequence, which is artificial of course, since it does not involve spirit shell or cascade. I will do those later.
You have incorrectly calculated penance return from evangelism. The first tick adds an evangelism stack and the other 2 ticks benefit from it.
Code:
AA 1.35786652 Holy fire
1.35786652 PWS
1 BT 1.574337994 Penance
BT 1.967922493 PoH
2.263110867 PoH
2.263110867 PoH
2.263110867 PoH
2 1.35786652 Holy fire
1.35786652 PWS
3 BT 1.574337994 Penance
BT 1.967922493 PoH
2.263110867 PoH
2.263110867 PoH
2.263110867 PoH
2.263110867 PoH
1.35786652 PWS
4 1.810488693 Penance
AA BT 1.967922493 PoH
AA 2.263110867 PoH
AA 2.263110867 PoH
AA 2.263110867 PoH
AA 2.263110867 PoH
AA 2.263110867 PoH
AA 2.263110867 PoH
AA 2.263110867 PoH
Code:
Healing
PoH PWS Penance Holy Fire
17 3 3.4 2.33
19
Total: 4964887.989
HPS: 100634.5552
Mana
PoH PWS Penance Holy Fire
17 3 2.413333333 1.9
Total: 270754
HPM: 18.33726552
A 10% improvement in HPM and a 1.7% improvement in HPS over pure PoH spam. Even with the unreasonable (in my opinion) assumptions you have made i.e. 5 targets per PoH, zero overheal and just 10k spirit in full hc end of 1st gear. PoH being party limited suffers from greater OH and miss rate than smart targeting heals (this includes penance). I honestly can't think of more than 2 encounters where such a situation occurs and even then its only in a small part of the fight.
When those assumptions are not made we are looking at a 5% improvement in HPS and a 12% improvement in HPM like I expect.
The 10% improvement in HPM alone makes AA mandatory.
If we add cascade to the sequence assuming all 15 targets hit and 60% return (due to the fact that the raid is stacked over a circle with the radius of healing rain). This is what we get:
Code:
1.35786652 Holy fire 1.35786652
1.35786652 PWS 2.71573304
1 BT 1.574337994 Penance 1.574337994 4.290071035
BT 1.180753496 cascade 2.75509149 5.47082453
BT 1.967922493 PoH 4.723013983 7.438747023
2.263110867 PoH 6.98612485 9.70185789
2.263110867 PoH 9.249235717 11.96496876
2.263110867 PoH 11.51234658 14.22807962
2 1.35786652 Holy fire 15.58594614
1.35786652 PWS 16.94381266
3 BT 1.574337994 Penance 1.574337994 18.51815066
BT 1.967922493 PoH 3.542260487 20.48607315
2.263110867 PoH 5.805371354 22.74918402
2.263110867 PoH 8.068482221 25.01229489
2.263110867 PoH 10.33159309 27.27540575
1.35786652 PWS 11.68945961 28.63327227
4 1.810488693 Penance 30.44376097
AA BT 1.180753496 cascade 1.180753496 31.62451446
AA BT 1.967922493 PoH 3.148675989 33.59243695
AA 2.263110867 PoH 5.411786856 35.85554782
AA 2.263110867 PoH 7.674897722 38.11865869
AA 2.263110867 PoH 9.938008589 40.38176955
AA 2.263110867 PoH 12.20111946 42.64488042
AA 2.263110867 PoH 14.46423032 44.90799129
AA 2.263110867 PoH 16.72734119 47.17110216
2.263110867 PoH 18.99045206 49.43421302
2.263110867 PoH 21.25356292 51.69732389
Code:
Healing
PoH PWS Penance Holy Fire cascade
17 3 3.4 2 2.25
18.75
PoH 123,521 223904.1541 Total: 5841207.451
HF 30,495 40825.22231
882 HPS: 112988.5845
PWS 101,676
penance 70,202 91340.7767
cascade 323061.0975 420341.2552
PWS/cascade/PoH produce 110k HPS, so archangel produces a 2.3% improvement in HPS
This seems a bit complex to pull off but its not really. As long as you keep the sequence in your mind its easy to pull off. This is of course not really our max HPS rotation, because that involves spirit shell, which does change things. When spirit shell is added that is when the complexity becomes unmanageable.
I can't be bothered to repeat the modelling for this. Spirit shell adds another 5k HPS or so to the rotation and takes the archangel bonus back down to ~2%. Notice that adding cascade has a bigger effect. The reason is that adding spirit shell throws everything out of synch, which is an excellent example of what I am talking about.
Looking at what you have done for the other healers, I don't think you are right, you have not modelled their major cooldowns, so I think your calculations are not really appropriate. Especially with holy priests and holy palas, I think you really are way off the mark.
All in all far looking at your spreadsheet has convinced me that you have not fully analysed the potential of each class and that your model is too simple and incomplete to accurately compare the different healing classes. I really don't have the time right now to recalculate everything in detail for each class and as I said I don't know shamans and druids well enough, but it seems that my original assessment was accurate. I think disc needs a 5% ish buff to throughput, either with what I suggested or in any other way that will remove the clutter and add synergy. I think that will bring us back to the sweet spot, that we had before penance got nerfed.
Archangel is still mandatory, even more so in cases where you have periods of low healing and high healing alternating, which is pretty much the case in any encounter.