Resto Druid - Legion Talents

[stormgust]

New build, a total of zero changes.... Well, seems like were yet again headed for the compulsatory post exp release reju hotfix (buff), to compensate for about anything else beg made weak during tuning phase...

[qqemokitty]

Maybe they are just saving the best for last. >.< Heh. I am trying so hard to be optimistic guys. I love my druid so much. I am clinging to the CM strength since I adore 5 mans, I cannot wait for the new CMs to come out. I feel like there will be so much to do in Legion outside of raiding that I am trying not to worry about raid balancing as much. #ostrich

[stormgust]

Maybe they are just saving the best for last. >.< Heh. I am trying so hard to be optimistic guys. I love my druid so much.

Most of us love their druids, some of us just got rather pessimistic/cynic by them repeating the same mistakes under the same pretext every single expansion.

I am clinging to the CM strength since I adore 5 mans, I cannot wait for the new CMs to come out. I feel like there will be so much to do in Legion outside of raiding that I am trying not to worry about raid balancing as much. #ostrich

The problem isn't so much about raid balance, but precisely how they balance raid healing alongside CM's given that mastery.

But anyway, I just realized that the legendaries yield even worse performance differences on mastery:
http://legion.wowhead.com/item=137042/teardrop-of-elune (Rejuvenation cast on a full health target will reset to its full duration each time it heals the target, until the target takes damage or 10 sec has elapsed.) can yield up to an 0.3 increase in average number of outgoing HoTs,

And http://legion.wowhead.com/item=13707...lso-cast-rejuv (Allies healed by your Wild Growth have a 20% chance to also gain Rejuvenation.) is either rather meaningless (if it's on cast), or similar up to 0.3 increase in outgoing HoTs if it's per tick. Also, it's way to similar in effect to the PotAD trait, while also following the usual "stack mechanics onto WG/SM" pattern.

[theburned]

Most of us love their druids, some of us just got rather pessimistic/cynic by them repeating the same mistakes under the same pretext every single expansion.

And http://legion.wowhead.com/item=13707...lso-cast-rejuv (Allies healed by your Wild Growth have a 20% chance to also gain Rejuvenation.) is either rather meaningless (if it's on cast), or similar up to 0.3 increase in outgoing HoTs if it's per tick. Also, it's way to similar in effect to the PotAD trait, while also following the usual "stack mechanics onto WG/SM" pattern.

so true about the same mistakes being made all the time and they are so predictable most of the time aswell (e.g. buffing classes in wod prepatch, which were already balanced around lvl 100, then forgetting to nerf them again when WoD hit.)

Never really occured to me that the legendary would be anything but applied on cast, the wording does not exclude it though.

http://legion.wowhead.com/item=13707...-titans-advice
will be a nice boost to the lifebloom artifact trait, but doubt we will see either of them used until 2 big artifact trait gets picked up.

http://legion.wowhead.com/item=13709...a#see-also:0+2 Will also be a small boost to uptime on hots, but really not likeable, first we have the restriction of when to use swiftmend, with this we would be tied down on who we use it on aswell.

[Tiberria]

With the most recent build.

- The mastery has been buffed, with both the base mastery gain, and the scaling buffed by about 20%. These are the new stat weightings.

Mastery - 1% = 400
Crit - 1% = 300
Haste - 1% = 275
Vers - 1% = 350

Mastery now moves ahead of Crit in value at 1.33 HoT stacks on a target (was 1.67 previously) (excluding the valuation for it not providing any extra healing to 0 HoT stacks on Tranq, etc.). Mastery moves ahead of Vers at 1.14 HoT stacks on a target (without putting any valuation on the damage reduction).

Lifebloom nerfed by 25%, and mana cost increased by 20%. With this change, it is now only marginally stronger than Rejuv in terms of HPS and HPM (and actually weaker HPM unless you count in the bloom portion). This nerf is probably somewhat offset by the extra mastery healing. You will get 25% less healing from Lifebloom, but if you were to have Rejuv, Germination, Lifebloom, and Spring Blossoms/Cultivation up on that target and had 10% mastery before, you will effectively get 8% more healing on all 4 of those HoTs with the mastery buff. It's probably reasonably close to no net throughput change.

Ironbark no longer adds a mastery stack to the target

[stormgust]

With the most recent build.

- The mastery has been buffed, with both the base mastery gain, and the scaling buffed by about 20%. These are the new stat weightings.

My guess it, that they adjusted the average, according to what raid testing showed as a reasonable number of HoTs in any "standard" talent build (i.e. assuming Flourish AND either Germination/Spring Blossoms) - in typical raid testing stats (so relatively low haste, also chance for no mana trinket).

Wonder when they'll figure out what happens when druids either attain a significant amount of haste/mana (the later strictly dependant on how trinkets progress), resp. when they start stacking HoTs. At just 4 HoT stacks - which is the realistic average for challenge mode - we now effectively have three times the stat budget of any other class (3.75x if you use regrowth, 4.5x if on top of that lifebloom).

Lifebloom nerfed by 25%, and mana cost increased by 20%. With this change, it is now only marginally stronger than Rejuv in terms of HPS and HPM (and actually weaker HPM unless you count in the bloom portion). This nerf is probably somewhat offset by the extra mastery healing.

Was probably done to limit the gains of the mastery change in single target stacking. Not that it matters much, because our "raid healing toolkit", still stacks absurdly well in smaller groups (going from 1.33 to 4). Thus wondering what they're gonna nerf next: reju, T90 or Germination ("but your rejuvenation heals for x% less"). Shouldn't be too long for this to happen, now that challenge mode testing started and they get data on what occurs when HoT's divert from the average by a large margin.

Ironbark no longer adds a mastery stack to the target

Further sealing the nail on the coffin for Stonebark. But at least DK's get their second talent pass, whereas we're still stuck with some entirely atrocious talents [Prosperity, Inner Peace, Abundance and Stonebark]

[Torty]

I've made a spreadsheet and fixed some stuff for recent changes in this build. I've currently implemented all artifact traits except Power of the Archdruid, Dreamwalker and counting Nature's Essence as still bugging in ToL (not adding 15% healing).

These are the stats from Spellblade Aluriel Heroic testing (ilvl 899) I've used: http://i.imgur.com/3HPk4E9.png It's all basic gear provided from the start, that's why so much crit. I've calculated with all artifact traits enabled and at max value (1 or 3) except the currently not implemented one in the start of the tree. Out of the talents: no Cultivation, Spring Blossoms, Prosperity, Soul of the Forest and Flourish yet. "x0" means zero stacks of Mastery, "x1" one stack and "x2" obviously two stacks. The numbers matched the numbers I've got from testing on PvP realm, so it should be mostly correct (maybe a couple of small errors here and there).

Scaling of each spell for these stats (Crit -> Haste -> Mastery -> Vers): http://i.imgur.com/caAtGUY.png

Same stats, but allocated Crit -> Mastery -> Haste: http://i.imgur.com/BxrxLCH.png

Same stats, but allocated Haste -> Mastery -> Crit: http://i.imgur.com/2CYLFZx.png

Same stats, but allocated Mastery -> Haste -> Crit: http://i.imgur.com/VXFr1eR.png

With this build we are getting pushed into stacking hots on certain targets. We are getting more oomph from just healing people with hots on them and stacking Mastery. Germination got much better due to this, so did other the talents that give us additional hots, namely Spring Blossoms and Cultivation. If you plan to do that, the gearing would be Mastery -> Haste -> Crit -> Versatility, you completely stop using Healing Touch at any point in time, Regrowth only on clearcasting procs and Swiftmend preferably on cd. Spell priority: Efflo (ToL) -> Efflo -> WG (ToL) ~= Rejuv (ToL) -> WG -> SM -> Rejuv ~= LB. Germination and Spring Blossoms look to be the goto choices for this playstyle.

The alternative would be going Haste -> Mastery -> Crit and continuing to play like we do now. It's less theoretical max healing throughput, but more spread healing, better healing on Efflo (which is our strongest spell by far) and probably less on everything else. Might wanna use Cenarion Ward instead of Germination.

[Keiyra]

I'm confused Torty - what do the scaling by stat columns mean? Having trouble interpreting them.

http://i.imgur.com/caAtGUY.png

Looking at the first line rejuv x1... are you saying it takes 1 int to increase healing by 7, yet 1 versatility increase healing by 9?
Or are you saying it takes 7 int to increase healing by 1 and 9 versatility to do the same?

/shrug not sure how to read that whole side of the spreadsheet under "scaling for 1 stat" - any insight?

[Torty]

1 int increases healing by 7, yes. This is because 10% spellpower buff and 5% int buff got removed and there are absurdly high amount of secondaries for this ilvl. That said, I forgot to add 5% from leather specialization *facepalm*. It shouldn't matter much though, the numbers would be fairly close to what is shown. The formulas are not really complicated, you can run them yourself for a single spell in like 2 mins.

[Keiyra]

k just making sure i was getting it right, thanks

[stormgust]

Scaling of each spell for these stats (Crit -> Haste -> Mastery -> Vers): http://i.imgur.com/caAtGUY.png

Same stats, but allocated Crit -> Mastery -> Haste: http://i.imgur.com/BxrxLCH.png

What do you mean by "allocated: Crit -> Mastery -> haste". Keep the ratios the same, or keep the % on the highest the same, and adjust the remaining accordingly by overall secondary budget left?

With this build we are getting pushed into stacking hots on certain targets. We are getting more oomph from just healing people with hots on them and stacking Mastery. Germination got much better due to this, so did other the talents that give us additional hots, namely Spring Blossoms and Cultivation.

Meh, don't like this build. On one side, it's way to restrictive overall, i.e. talent choice not neccesarily optimal for raid healing, significantly lower GCD's avaiable due to excessive cost of % mastery, forced target selection (chase WG/Spring Blossom), while usually not providing much stacking gameplay and benefits to begin with, as anything past two stacks would usually just yield overheal (i.e. Germination may not even be the optimal choice here). On the other, you get absurd benefits, when stacking actually yields full benefit - though your sheet does not yet cover that: it should be four HoTs in a focus-healing centered builds, not just two (2x reju, regrowth via MoC, adequately placed SB or WG doing the rest).

The alternative would be going Haste -> Mastery -> Crit and continuing to play like we do now. It's less theoretical max healing throughput, but more spread healing, better healing on Efflo (which is our strongest spell by far) and probably less on everything else. Might wanna use Cenarion Ward instead of Germination.

I'd recommend this. Significantly less restrictive, mastery actually slightly double dips from haste (more outgoing HoTs due to significantly lower GCD - mastery build simply leaves not enough budget for other secondary stats, at least if you aim for high mastery)

For this, you may want to consider mastery~=haste builds, resp. more generally mastery*x ~= haste builds (where x= number of hots or "raid average given the haste level")

[Nythiz]

The buff to mastery is pretty decent.

Enough to the point (judging by Torty's spreadsheet and some quick napkin math), that the loss of ignoring mastery altogether to "empower" the 0-1 HoT situations; compared to the situations where you get 2+ HoTs doesn't seem hugely worth it.
In other words, the gain you get from dropping mastery as the worst stat for 0-1 HoT situations, doesn't gain you enough healing in those situations to offset what mastery DOES provide in a 2+ HoT situation. It's not always common, but when it happens, the boost seems more noticeable than the gain you'd get by largely ignoring mastery.

That said, it doesn't matter much if mastery is the strongest stat, the weakest stat or a balanced stat in a certain situation. This mastery mechanic still doesn't lend itself to balancing over the whole spectrum. This buff to mastery might have made it more attractive to stack HoTs a bit more in raids (either through playstyle, talents or a combination); however it's pushing druids further ahead now for small content PvE.

[Torty]

What do you mean by "allocated: Crit -> Mastery -> haste". Keep the ratios the same, or keep the % on the highest the same, and adjust the remaining accordingly by overall secondary budget left?

11862, 5009 and 1931 ratings switched around in the order stated for each screenshot. So Crit 11862 -> Mastery 5009 -> Haste 1931 for this case, Haste 11862 -> Mastery 5009 -> Crit 1931 for the Haste -> Mastery -> Crit build, etc. It was just done to get some sort of an idea what happens when you allocate stats differently since I haven't done rotations yet.

though your sheet does not yet cover that: it should be four HoTs in a focus-healing centered builds, not just two

You can just extrapolate that to three or four hots, didn't want to make the screenshots too big.

[stormgust]

In other words, the gain you get from dropping mastery as the worst stat for 0-1 HoT situations, doesn't gain you enough healing in those situations to offset what mastery DOES provide in a 2+ HoT situation. It's not always common, but when it happens, the boost seems more noticeable than the gain you'd get by largely ignoring mastery.

Isn't that bound to happen if you get the tuned around average closer to one? And given that mastery likely isn't the best stat, but rather haste, you can actually even reduce the chance of the worst case occuring in the process.

That said, it doesn't matter much if mastery is the strongest stat, the weakest stat or a balanced stat in a certain situation. This mastery mechanic still doesn't lend itself to balancing over the whole spectrum. This buff to mastery might have made it more attractive to stack HoTs a bit more in raids (either through playstyle, talents or a combination); however it's pushing druids further ahead now for small content PvE.

I still don't get how they cannot see this. The buff to a 1.33 HoT "average" clearly ought to be a result of us not getting anywhere close to prior 1.66 in raid testings, this though doesn't mean, that situation where stacking is trivial will not occur (all small groups). At five stacks and just 10% mastery, you're already getting a nice boost of about 35% over other classes, merely by altering talent build/different damage patterns, with the spread getting significantly larger on mastery heavy builds (about 70% should be reasonable, maybe 80%).

[Koor]

11862, 5009 and 1931 ratings switched around in the order stated for each screenshot. So Crit 11862 -> Mastery 5009 -> Haste 1931 for this case, Haste 11862 -> Mastery 5009 -> Crit 1931 for the Haste -> Mastery -> Crit build, etc. It was just done to get some sort of an idea what happens when you allocate stats differently since I haven't done rotations yet.

You can just extrapolate that to three or four hots, didn't want to make the screenshots too big.

BTW I'm not sure if it was fixed already, but there was a problem in some of the 680 starter greens that had a single secondary stat, having less "stat budget" compared to drops from quest rewards and dungeons that had two secondary stats on them, leading to significant less overall stat budget when scaled up.

[Tiberria]

I think figuring out a proper stat weighting with mastery is going to be a very annoying thing to work out, and something that could easily change on a per fight basis based on damage patterns. Hopefully, someone will figure out a way to write an addon that tells us what % of our healing is done on targets with 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc Harmony stacks after each pull so we can weight it out based on our raid comp/fight/personal healing style. Resto Shaman have a similar addon (or at least did back in MoP) that gave the mastery healing gain and stat weighting after each pull based on player health percentage. Of course, independent of the raw throughput implications, what might skew the stat weighting too is what output is more important to you/more valuable in downing the fight. Is it targets with large amounts of HoTs stacked on them, because tank healing is the most critical thing? Or, are targets with that many HoTs on them likely rolling with a higher overheal percentage, making a lot of the theoretical mastery gain wasted, and putting more valuable on the 0-1 stack healing on targets that actually need it to keep them alive? It's going to be tricky and not necessarily an exact science.

[Nevcairiel]

For those that did raid test, how does healing feel in such cases with upscaled gear? Does it still retain the triage style, or do you manage to keep everyone topped off at all times?

[Nerxyrall]

For those that did raid test, how does healing feel in such cases with upscaled gear? Does it still retain the triage style, or do you manage to keep everyone topped off at all times?

And if you are doing dungeons can you tell us how it feels? How difficult it is etc. If you happen to play two healers to compare would be even more awesome.

[Hypasonic]

For me the healing feels decent at this point, I don't have artifact weapon though. I'm just looking forward to being able to choose other items with differerant stats (crit on 75% of gear is yeaaaah) masterys feels decent, for tank healing and single target healing atleast. The 2 bosses we tested tonight though, probably didn't last long enough to get a decent estimation from.

[stormgust]

masterys feels decent, for tank healing and single target healing atleast. The 2 bosses we tested tonight though, probably didn't last long enough to get a decent estimation from.

Of course it feels decents, because for most practical purposes, it doesn't change anything for live. For raid healing, one cannot reliably stack hots to begin with (Cultivation is trivial, WG/Spring Blossoms to short duration to reliably chase on more than one/two targets) and stacking for tank/focused healing is trivial in the sense, that it is what we did on live anyway. The only case which we're worse off - and can't really change anything about - is random single target burst (Why is overgrowth a PvP talent, and not a Pve talent?). That's actually why I don't get how anyone considers this mastery as "rewarding good players", when it doesn't change anything from what we've been doing anyway, just brings about a horrendous tuning problem. The recent buff indicates , that mastery tuned for an 1.66 HoT average shoul've been consistently underperforming in raidtests (otherwise how to explain the buff?) [Fun fact: that's a consequence of the crit heavy gear you mentioned, as soon as you get higher on haste, you will beat this 1.33 average consistently ... at least with spring blossoms/cultivation]. But well, I still place my hope that once they get more reliable data on mythic dungeons, they'll just scrap this mastery for got, even if any option at such a late state would be just returning to current live harmony (though this still would require gear with adequate mastery values).