Originally Posted by
Schroom
my arguements against it are:
EF does not Prevent damage. EF will always push up your TMI!
you need HoPo for EF. which costs SoTR uptime
you use your BoG stacks. which makes you lose an a Oh-$hit! button.
you aren't as free to use a WoG on your ratemembers to save someones live. or help heal the raid for a moment when your healers are busy.
as I said. I see SoI going into 70-80% overheal. I can't see how another HoT like EF will do more good than harm here.
even if the raw healing is bigger (which it sure is). But that is just NOT an argument. It's like if a healers says: guys I want to play World rank 1 on WoL please. Everybody stand in the fire now! so i don't produce overhealing....
there is an old saying between healers. If you play world rank 1 as a healer. it is not that you are the best in the world. But your raid is probably one of the worst.
I had initial reservations against EF too, but I've been testing around with it quite a lot lately, and with 4PT16, it's quite potent.
TMI, is just what it is ultimately, a model. Albeit a very powerful one, nothing can ever replicate an actual raiding environment. While I always fancy Theck's work, to me it is to be used as a great guide, not as the Holy Paladin Bible of there being only 1 correct answer (unless there's massive disparity), I'm hoping he agrees with me on that.
I'll try to give my viewpoint on your counterarguments of EF for the others too, see if that stirs a bit of discussion.
You need 0 HoPo for EF with 4PT16 as I said, which makes the set all the more attractive (among other, possibly broken, reasons). Did I mentioned the free EF/WoG cast also has a chance to produce DP? The argument for EF is indeed made weaker without the 4PT16, but is not null.
The BoG stacks was initially something I was concerned about too with the fishing argument for 3 BoG 4PT16. But the actual use for EF isn't nearly as invasive for BoG stacks as would a fishing game be. With Haste levels where they will be (and frankly already are), and DP on top of it (since the 4PT16 strengthens DP over HA further), you get BoG in no time it seems now within that 30s window between EF reapplications. Every fight I tested it on I was never in a concern of "Ah crap, I really needed a BoG heal, don't have it, and will now die because of it". Also not to mention that it is quite likely that an EF just ticked or is about to tick to make that further less likely, don't forget you still have the EF cast at your disposal, and regardless of BoG or not, heals for quite a bit at appropriate vengeance levels.
You are as free to use EF as you would WoG on someone in the raid to help them heal.
The facts are in the information, and there is not necessarily a clear winner for SS or EF (imo). Everyone's job is to take the given information and use it skillfully to assess what would be best for their play style etc. But EF is certainly a contending choice now, and that tier can't just be ignored anymore by crowning SS the clear winner.
I understand there's a level of comfort and skepticism, after we've been using SS for the entire expansion, and I love my SS too, but I don't think that's a just reason to blind ourselves to potential advantages in other areas.
Now let's also be fair and mention some perks for EF over SS, since we spent everything defending why EF isn't better for now.
-EF scales with Mastery and Haste, and we need a new stat after reachable Haste cap (Stam is another option), SS does not scale with anything but mastery for secondary stats.
-EF benefits from crit as each individual HoT has its own chance to crit, and makes it so that we can in fact benefit from all 3 stats on the amp trinket.
-EF costs nothing with 4PT16 and can proc DP if you use DP.
-Each EF ticks for ~1.5 to 2.5 time of a bigger heal than SS, and ticks twice as often. The amount of EF healing per SS absorb is in the range of 3.1-4 times. Just as an example (and keeping the proc numbers rounded for simplicity). At 250k vengeance (typical 25 man vengeance, give or take a bit with the new Vengeance nerfs but harder hitting bosses), we get a 102k SS absorb every 4 seconds, or we can get a 164k EF tick every 2 seconds, which can also crit. Now I always say, and very much agree with, absorbs are always better than reactive heals after the damage has been taken. But this idea needs to be analyzed deeper, primarily with health pools, of which we will have big ones since we have a fairly high Stam multiplier (25%), and 2 of our 5 viable trinkets this tier are stam based, with one being a general BiS contender (keyword being general). If you have a small health pool, and are often spiking for 90% of your health, then an absorb in this situation is far more beneficial than a tick heal, because you are very much at risk of dying, and the visual spike causes all kinds of problems with healing/smoothing. However as your health pool grows, so do according spikes in health. What was a 90% spike before turns into a 30% (exaggerated numbers) spike instead, and to me tick healing here starts to become stronger than absorbs in raw numbers, as there is also no visual emergency of you dying. I'm aware it's also how often we overheal with it etc, and that will vary fight to fight. But for what it's worth, any good player needs to analyze the current tier on a boss by boss basis, rather than make an sweeping generalizations about SS vs EF. It make very well be, that EF is better for some, and SS for others. It depends on a lot of factors.
The aforementioned EF numbers are for Mastery levels around 13-14%, something that will increase with the coming tier.
EF indeed doesn't prevent damage, but let's consider a very simple example here barring outside support. A boss melees for 350k every 2 seconds. Based on the above numbers.
With SS: Swing 1 gets reduced to 248k, and Swing 2 hits for the full 350k
With EF: Swing 1 hits for 350k and you heal for 164k (so net 186k damage), Swing 2 is the exact same, since EF will tick every 2s.
even if the raw healing is bigger (which it sure is). But that is just NOT an argument.
I disagree, in fact, it is a very good argument considering other mandatory factors. Not just size, but frequency too. If SS prevented me from ever going below 90% health like was earlier suggested, then sure SS all the way. But that's not the World (of Warcraft) we live in anymore. 102k absorb every 4s is frankly pretty puny considering some of the things waiting in SoOl, and frankly I want the highest self output possible because there's a lot of fights/situations in SoO with a constant and frequent damage intake, not to mention magic damage. We can also just peek at each boss.
Immerseus - heroic has dots/your bound to eat void zones sometimes too, but relatively tame overall.
Protectors - Constant damage if you tank Rook/caster chick, same with He due to poisons and fast swings. Transitions are packed with extra damage from multiple sources (aside He's).
Norushen - Pulsing AoE the whole fight, bolts to intercept, adds pulsing, pools to soak
Sha - A bit more tame but will ramp up in aoe as the fight drags and pride increases
Galakras - Multiple mobs constantly hitting you, often.
Juggernaut - Heavy fire DoT, 2nd phase AoE pulses, lines if you get it.
Shaman - a mess of magic and physical swings, often
Nazgrim - a bit more tame, generally just melees are dangerous with sunder
Malkorok - Constant healing for shield needed, no realistic cap on it when you are tanking him
Spoils - adds constantly hitting you frequently
Thok - breaths/aoe/dots ahoy on the tanks
Blackfuse - fire/lasers/aoe and hard hitting melee
Paragons - everything happens here, magic, double melee mobs hitting you often. too many sources of damage to list
Garrosh - adds/dot/aoe pulses
Again if you have the appropriate health pool (which we will even default by gear ilvl increase) to take all of this abuse, and there will be a lot of it frequently, I personally opt for the reasonably higher personal HPS throughput. I don't think you'll be seeing nearly as much overhealing as you think. From my testing I was having 40% range and never higher than 60%, or lower than 20%. And keep in mind, a lot of it often was from the initial heal just reapplying EF every 30s, not the HoT component.
-EF has more effective off healing for the raid than WoG, as you can also use it to blanket members, which helps with high vengeance.
-EF frees up a GCD every ~30s.
It is also worth mentioning as a side note. There is currently a build for 4PT16 involving Harsh Words which frankly is overpowered and is likely to get nerfed. If however it goes live, then the argument for EF becomes moot, as Harsh Words does not function with EF.
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