[Resto] Versatility and Mastery question.

[Whydrood]

Rough math:
Increases our healing by 1% for every ~129.9 points of versatility, and also reduces damage we take by 1% for every 260.71 points of versatility.
Increases our healing by 1% for every ~87.9 mastery.

Now I just hit 100 and I am still getting gear, but if I use the following stat priority:
Int > SP > Spirit (1000) > Mastery > Versatility > Haste > Multistrike > Crit

My rating values will increase my mastery to 777 (18.83%) and versatility to 365 (2.81%) unbuffed.

Using the following stat priority
Int > SP > Spirit (1000) > Versatility > Mastery > Haste > Multistrike > Crit

My rating values will increase my versatility to 690 (or 5.31%) and mastery to 452 (15.14%)

Going Mastery >= Versatility will increase my healing by 21.64%
Going Versatility >= Mastery will increase my healing by 20.45%

It would seem that by these numbers mastery would be better than versatility, until you remember that by losing 1.19% of healing - you gain 2.65% damage reduction as well as a comparable increase to my healing AND damage.

My question would be, is this damage reduction and increased damage going to be worth the loss in heal %?

[Hildrande]

I'd say it all depends on what you are doing. Most of the time probably not.

[Deleted]

The problem with Versatility as a healer stat is that the damage reduction part of the stat only affects yourself. This means that it has greatly reduced value from a healing perspective, as the amount of overall raid damage it ends up reducing is miniscule.

Personally, my current stat priority looks like this: Intellect -> Haste -> Mastery -> Multistrike -> Crit -> Versatility.
Versatility is simply far too expensive on the stat budget for what it gives you. Like you wrote yourself, Versatility requires almost 48 % more stat points for 1 % increased healing compared to Mastery.

[Whydrood]

The problem with Versatility as a healer stat is that the damage reduction part of the stat only affects yourself. This means that it has greatly reduced value from a healing perspective, as the amount of overall raid damage it ends up reducing is miniscule.

Personally, my current stat priority looks like this: Intellect -> Haste -> Mastery -> Multistrike -> Crit -> Versatility.
Versatility is simply far too expensive on the stat budget for what it gives you. Like you wrote yourself, Versatility requires almost 48 % more stat points for 1 % increased healing compared to Mastery.

Right but you have to remember versatility also increases our damage not just reduces the damage we take. That said, it is a stat that would be more beneficial than mastery during progression, especially on DPS check fights that don't require a ton of healing.

[Deleted]

Right but you have to remember versatility also increases our damage not just reduces the damage we take. That said, it is a stat that would be more beneficial than mastery during progression, especially on DPS check fights that don't require a ton of healing.

I'm sorry, but I don't see how the damage part of versatility is at all relevant. A healer dealing 10 % more damage will not be very helpful for progression - if the fight is not healing intensive, you'd be better off bringing an additional dps by simply sacking a healer.

[Deleted]

It's a really badly designed stat. I don't see the point of it. It's going to lead to one of three scenarions, none of which are good:

a) versatility is a poor stat for performance (DPS, healing) -- currently the case, it being last priority for pretty much every spec

b) versatility is a good stat for performance and therefore the best stat due to its damage reduction

c) the content's difficulty is tuned to expect players having versatility, making it mandatory whether or not it's otherwise good

Tanks are obviously the exception as they have a universally valid reason to be interested in damage reduction, but even then it's too primitive and square a stat compared to something like mastery or bonus armor.

The way versatility is designed, it isn't really possible to balance it. It has to be either not good for performance, in which case you can't easily justify it on DPS and healers as their performance is very numerical and maximization-oriented; or it's good and therefore dwarfs all the other stats due to its dual purpose.

For an expansion where they vowed to get rid of boring and badly designed stats, they sure haven't done a very good job, introducing both really boring stats in multistrike and bonus armor, and a really badly designed one in versatility.

[Deleted]

It's a really badly designed stat. I don't see the point of it. It's going to lead to one of three scenarions, none of which are good: [...]

This is exactly my opinion as well. At the moment, Versatility is a very expensive stat, but it has a lot of potential to completely trump other stats if it is buffed even slightly too much, as it basically improves everything.

Also, I do agree that both Versatility and Multistrike are boring stats (I won't get into Bonus Armour as I don't tank). Versatility is simply a flat percentual improvement to your performance, and Multistrike is essentially a different iteration of Crit.

With that being said, it's important to acknowledge the differences between MS and Vers, and why MS is far more interesting than Vers.

• Versatility is a flat increase to your performance and by design doesn't allow abilities to scale dynamically with it since the stat has no interactive effect in any way.
• Multistrike is the exact opposite because it allows abilities to scale with the procs and because of this, it becomes a very interactive stat.

So, while I do agree that Versatility is incredibly boring, and think that Multistrike is simply a different version of Crit, the reason why MS was introduced was probably so Blizzard had another stat with which to tune specs. Using Monks as an example, they scaled well with Crit throughout MoP because of Mana Tea (and because the other stats were just bad for them), and so increasing their interaction with Crit is not game design - this is why their attunement (Jade Mists) scales with MS instead of Crit.