[MoP] Glyph of Riptide

[Endus]

...at the cost of losing the only healing ability we had that could actually heal multiple people who were spread out, you mean?

Losing almost negligible AoE healing for non-negligible single target healing, especially when we're gaining OTHER tools for spread-out healing like glyphed Chain Heal and the glyphed Riptide that the thread is about, does not in any way mean we're losing out in meaningful spread AoE healing in MoP.

[Anonymitylol]

I wouldn't call the old HST negligible considering it made up from anywhere of 7-10% of your healing. Now the new one is very nice as well but people seem to underestimate the old HST and how much it truly did. That's almost like saying earthliving is negligible because it tickles.

As for the glyph of riptide it will be getting improvements, it's only going to reduce the initial heal by 90% so it can now effect resurgence, elw, aa, eote.

[Kenai]

This is interesting, considering how large of a portion Riptide is healing for in Blood Legion's WoL on beta's raids (the main one I am paying attention to atm). This should make it even higher. Riptide is doing something like 40-50% on the average parse and GHW is like 5-10%, it's kind of nuts.

http://worldoflogs.com/reports/yiejx...yze/hd/source/
http://worldoflogs.com/reports/mr13v...m/healingDone/

[Endus]

I wouldn't call the old HST negligible considering it made up from anywhere of 7-10% of your healing. Now the new one is very nice as well but people seem to underestimate the old HST and how much it truly did. That's almost like saying earthliving is negligible because it tickles.

It aggregates to a lot over the course of the fight, but a LOT of HST's value is in topping off people at 97% health and such, where you wouldn't bother throwing a heal.

Healing isn't about HPS, it's about preventing deaths. More HPS pushed out on everyone at all times is an incredibly inefficient way to heal.

If Resto Shaman had only a Healing Stream Totem that ticked for 15 times as much as it currently does, they'd be doing more HPS than anyone else, but would also be godawful healers, because they'd lack any of the reactive tools healers actually need.

The new HST is looking to be comparable in pure HPS, but also intelligently heals the target that needs it most, making it significantly more effective.

[Alhoon]

Healing isn't about HPS, it's about preventing deaths. More HPS pushed out on everyone at all times is an incredibly inefficient way to heal.

Oh boy, here we go again. Time after time when I come back to these forums, you carry on this crusade against HPS and quantifiable evaluation of healing.

/rant

Deep breath.

I'd like to quote a part from excellent blog Vixsin from LifeInGroup5 published a while ago which tackles about this subject: http://lifeingroup5.com/?p=2783

Let me expand a little why I really do think it’s important to know all of these techniques about “beating” meters:

The question that I get more often than any other question out there … by a mile … is about why the player isn’t doing well on meters.

And, most times, isn’t a question motivated by selfishness or ego, but rather one asked by players who aren’t confident in their performance or who simply want to improve. These are players who are advised, on forum after forum, blog after blog, that “if the boss dies, then you did your job”. But the problem with this sentiment, and what they’re realizing as they send me an email or post in the healing forums or reach out to friends, is that … THIS ADVICE IS ABSOLUTE SHIT. It’s shit because it does nothing to empower the person who receives it; it does nothing to quantify the conditions of success, nothing to distinguish the myriad of greys between the pass/fail ends of the spectrum. What happens if the boss lives? Well you know that you didn’t do your job, but nothing beyond that. Or, even worse what happens if the boss dies and you still feel unsuccessful? According to the simple definition of success, you’ve nothing to improve upon.

Healing isn’t RNG, it isn’t mystical, and it isn’t uncontrollable. And it’s no where near as subjective as players like to believe. Although the end result of your efforts is binary, the process which produces that result is incredibly intricate and interconnected. Every modicum of success that your healing team has in an encounter can be credited to the choices of its members. A warm fuzzy feeling isn’t going to keep your team alive (no matter the cheerleader approach that some healers tout), it isn’t going to press your buttons or use your cooldowns, and it’s not going to manage your mana—all of that is up to you and the decisions that you, as a healer, make. This is why trite summations of “successful” healing piss me the hell off.

[Keiyra]

Nothing in that quote disputes what Endus said. At the most I'd say Endus could amend his comment to be: "Healing isn't only about HPS"

The raw HPS of HST should not be the sole determining factor in the "effectiveness" that it's healing actually provides.
I could spam rejuv across an entire raid mindlessly and rack up lots of HPS, that would not help in keeping up targets who have been spiked to low health, and I would be doing my raid a disservice, stressing the other healers out for nothing more than meter whoring.

In fact, if anything the post supports his comment. Its not the raw HPS you do that matters, its the "decisions that you, as a healer, make" that matters most.

And to be clear, there is nothing wrong in pushing for higher HPS by playing better (healing the right target, at the right time, with the right spell). Not by making decisions that are counter to the overall good of the raid but can crank the meter. That's like the dps who doesn't switch to adds when we need to burn them down. Great, you got top dps, and we wiped cause the adds didn't die. Helps no one.

Hence when evaluating live HST compared to MoP HST you want to look not only how much healing it does (HPS), but also HOW it does that healing.

[Endus]

Nothing in that quote disputes what Endus said. At the most I'd say Endus could amend his comment to be: "Healing isn't only about HPS"

That would be fair, what I was trying to say was more "healing effectiveness is not equal to HPS".

The raw HPS of HST should not be the sole determining factor in the "effectiveness" that it's healing actually provides.
I could spam rejuv across an entire raid mindlessly and rack up lots of HPS, that would not help in keeping up targets who have been spiked to low health, and I would be doing my raid a disservice, stressing the other healers out for nothing more than meter whoring.

In fact, if anything the post supports his comment. Its not the raw HPS you do that matters, its the "decisions that you, as a healer, make" that matters most.

Exactly.

Some people get lost in HPS comparisons, and that overlooks a lot of important factors. For Resto Shaman in particular, with a lot of "smart" healing, it's okay for us to be a little behind in pure HPS, because our HPS adapts and reacts inherently to the circumstances in ways other healers simply don't. That leads to our HPS being more effective per point than other healers.

There's no easy way to measure this with a simple metric, which is why you don't see people posting those numbers. It's also not a huge immense deal that completely outweighs pure HPS entirely, as you said. But if you're focusing solely on HPS and ignoring effective healing, it's about as misleading as looking at a damage dealer's DPS after he pops every CD and dies from standing in fire 30 seconds later. Sure, his DPS is high. His actual damage done and contribution to the boss kill, however, is crap.

All this basically boils down to the concept that there are "lies, damn lies, and statistics". You can prove practically anything by using the "right" metric to support your point. The trick is knowing enough statistical theory to see through the shenanigans and figure out which metrics are actually meaningful, and to what degree.

For healing, there is no magic metric, and anyone telling you otherwise is someone you shouldn't buy a bridge from. Yes, pushing for more HPS is a good thing. No, you being 500 HPS behind the other healer does NOT necessarily mean they did more effective healing than you. Therein lies the rub.

[Merk]

I love the idea of next builds Riptide Glyph, IMO it is mandatory. I approve of the entire totem revamp including HST. Blizzard has stated before that they are OK with healers having niches, ours is stack AoE healing and i except that. If we(resto shammies) need to heal the entire raid for huge numbers and fast to save the raid, we have ascendance and gosh is it strong

[Wataurenyew]

Yes HST was a very strong ability for 25-man raids, but only if every one was taking damage espepcially low constant damage. Its new form is very good when a few people are randomly taking damage, and it still works when they are spread out; it still has a 40 yard range afterall.

I'd say HST was probably stronger for 10-man raids as it only healed your group.
So 50% of the raid versus 20% of the raid.

In the end it did the same amount of healing regardless of it being 10 man or 25 man as it was only healing 5 people and the 5 people in your group, not the 5 lowest people.

The new HST if I remember correctly heals the lowest person in the whole raid not just your group, so I'd say that's a decent improvement.

[Grubjuice]

I love the idea of next builds Riptide Glyph, IMO it is mandatory. I approve of the entire totem revamp including HST. Blizzard has stated before that they are OK with healers having niches, ours is stack AoE healing and i except that. If we(resto shammies) need to heal the entire raid for huge numbers and fast to save the raid, we have ascendance and gosh is it strong

I am not sure it is mandatory, but it is really worth serious consideration. for Spiky unpredictable fights you may miss that missing 90% of the direct Healing portion, and in 5-man contant you may find that having no cooldown on RT is superfluous, but on spread fights and mobile fights it will be indispensible.

---------- Post added 2012-07-11 at 05:09 PM ----------

The new HST if I remember correctly heals the lowest person in the whole raid not just your group, so I'd say that's a decent improvement.

It's a chaining smart heal over time. It's bit like Prayer of Mending, but whereas prayer of mending could jump to just anyone, and who knows if that next target will get hit or not, HST will heal on schedule and under budget.

[asharia]

I wouldn't have taken it before the resurgence fix. But now that they changed it a little bit, it looks like it would definitely be useful in some situations.

[Chimaera]

I wouldn't have taken it before the resurgence fix. But now that they changed it a little bit, it looks like it would definitely be useful in some situations.

With resurgence and earthliving weapon back in the picture, glyphed riptide is going to be far more efficient than a nonglyphed riptide -> ghw -> ghw rotation.

[Satori]

Won't blanketing the raid cause lots of overhealing though? Chain heal on the other hand is a smart heal.

[Chimaera]

Won't blanketing the raid cause lots of overhealing though? Chain heal on the other hand is a smart heal.

Overhealing is not a direct symptom of using a hot. If the healing team knows when to back off and allow hots to finish the job, and you are not casting them blindly this will not be a problem.

[Endus]

Won't blanketing the raid cause lots of overhealing though? Chain heal on the other hand is a smart heal.

It depends on the type of damage being dealt. A fight like Ultraxxion, in that everyone is taking constant damage? Spammable HoTs are great. A fight like Baelroc in Firelands, where only a couple people are taking damage but that damage is huge? Not so much. This basically boils down to the kind of situational choice glyphs are supposed to be, in the end.

[SpaceJam]

I really do think this will end up being a mandatory PvE glyph for about 90% of encounters. In 5 mans it will be amazing, 100% uptime on TW is amazing, losing a free HW from the 90% less instant heal is more than acceptable for the raw healing this glyph will put out. Riptide is due for a nerf because they want the glyph to work with Shaman mechanics like Resurgence.

[takolin]

I really do think this will end up being a mandatory PvE glyph for about 90% of encounters. In 5 mans it will be amazing, 100% uptime on TW is amazing, losing a free HW from the 90% less instant heal is more than acceptable for the raw healing this glyph will put out. Riptide is due for a nerf because they want the glyph to work with Shaman mechanics like Resurgence.

That entirely depends on the outgoing damage.

In order to make the glyph mandatory 2 things need to happen.

1: A lot of people need to take damage at the same time. If it's just a few people, you don't need the glyph. You can just RT and then single target heals.
2: The damage should preferably be constant.

[Sarevokcz]

That entirely depends on the outgoing damage.

In order to make the glyph mandatory 2 things need to happen.

1: A lot of people need to take damage at the same time. If it's just a few people, you don't need the glyph. You can just RT and then single target heals.
2: The damage should preferably be constant.

well, if glyphed RT is our most efficient heal, then why not blanket whole raid with it? Im gonna have to do some raid testing myself, but from logs it definitely seems like we are quite mana starved and have to heal very efficiently and barely use expensive heals and RT seems to beat HW pretty easily in terms of HPM

[takolin]

well, if glyphed RT is our most efficient heal, then why not blanket whole raid with it? Im gonna have to do some raid testing myself, but from logs it definitely seems like we are quite mana starved and have to heal very efficiently and barely use expensive heals and RT seems to beat HW pretty easily in terms of HPM

-Efficiency isn't always the answer.
-A non glyphed RT is more efficient than a glyphed one.

[Sarevokcz]

-Efficiency isn't always the answer.
-A non glyphed RT is more efficient than a glyphed one.

efficiency is the only answer if you are mana starved.
And maybe people are taking precisely because the rest of our heals are inefficient, maybe the 4-5 glyphed RT are simply more efficient and powerful than nonglyphed RT - 3HW, which is what I see from logs alot. HR isnt a throwaway spell between LBs, GHW isnt our go-to single target heal, we are back to t11 style of healing and if glyphed RT supports that better than nonglyphed one... well them the problem might not be the glyph, but the rest of our toolkit.