[MW] Gemming options

[Shammyspice]

I'm sort of new to mw monk healing(switched mains mid-ToT) from a resto shaman. I had been raiding end-game content as a resto shaman since about the Black Temple/Sunwell days, but mw monks are so damn fun I had to make the switch!

I feel I've got a pretty good grasp on how mw monks function, but I did some searching around this morning and it seems as though my gemming options are out of date...I should be gemming for flat crit over flat intellect?

I've been looking at some mw monks that have high WoL rankings and while a lot of them gem for flat crit, others gem for all sorts of other things(int, haste, spirit, etc...) I'm wondering what would be best for me(aside from regemming and figuring it out myself) :P

Any suggestions? My ilvl is about 550 and here is my armory link:
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...itsua/advanced

[Geodew]

2 crit = 1 int for throughput for most spells.
int>crit for Life Cocoon, Revival, and Healing Sphere only.
Only SCK scales strongly with Haste, and ReM by hitting breakpoints. However, crit is more valuable than haste in general because it affects all heals, not 30-50% of them.
1 crit gives about 0.2 Spirit worth of regen from the chance for extra mana tea stacks. (This means even if you favor crit, it's worth it to match a red socket for a 60 Spirit bonus, because the 160 crit gives you 32 Spirit worth of regen).

Long story short, crit for regen, int for cooldowns. Most people choose crit since the cooldowns are already pretty strong. Only gem Haste if you're way over a haste breakpoint so you want to jump to the next one and need to gem haste to hit the next one comfortably.

The only socket situation where you should never match the color is a blue socket for a +60 Spirit bonus; other situations can be useful to match or not match depending on your gearing strategy. If you value Spirit at 25-30% of the value of Crit or more, then it's worth matching blue sockets for intellect bonuses. Plug in some Ask Mr. Robot weights and pay attention to what he does. These are the ones I use:

10-man
Int 0.99 (change to 1.01 for intellect strategy)
Spellpower 0.85
Haste (to breakpoint) 0.51
Crit 0.5
Spirit 0.15
Mastery 0.13

25-man
Int 0.99 (change to 1.01 for intellect strategy)
Spellpower 0.85
Haste (to breakpoint) 0.51
Crit 0.5
Mastery 0.15
Spirit 0.13

In conclusion I would say even if you're going for an intellect strategy that values Spirit as 30-35% of Crit, your neck and boots are gemmed wrong (should be Potent gems, not brilliant). Crit is better than you seem to think.

- - - Updated - - -

BTW in case you are unsure which Haste breakpoint to gear for as well:

In general, crit is more valuable than haste, so players should hit the lowest breakpoint feasible. Players should jump to the next breakpoint only when they are unavoidably about 1800 rating below the next breakpoint. In other words, you only want to drop a maximum of about 1800 crit rating for it to be worth jumping to a new haste breakpoint. On the chart above, the important breakpoints are the ones for ReM and EM breakpoints close to them. However, 25-man MWers will likely not find themselves using EM often enough to warrant gearing for its breakpoints. 10-man raiders may jump to an EM breakpoint if they find themselves using it often, though it is preference. Thus the important breakpoints are:

With 5% Haste Raid Buff:
1) 3145
2) 6141
3) 9158
3.5) 9916 (viable 10m only EM breakpoint)
4) 12154 (NOT 12138*)

Without 5% Haste Raid Buff:
1) 4719
2) 7864
3) 11033
3.5) 11828 (viable 10m only EM breakpoint)
4) 14178 (NOT 14162*)

*This is due to a weird interaction with a Soothing Mist pseudo-breakpoint being near a ReM breakpoint. The theorycrafting discussion behind this can be found here.
-It could also be noted that Haste is a very weak Mana Regen stat in 5.4, affecting pretty much only Horridon’s Last Gasp and some other RPPM trinkets (the rest of which I believe are throughput), to clear up any misinformation regarding the RPPM change.

[Astraios]

Actually crit is ~20% better than int for throughput on most of my non-CD spells, but other than that, good summary Geodew.

[Geodew]

Actually crit is ~20% better than int for throughput on most of my non-CD spells, but other than that, good summary Geodew.

Haha thanks. Hm, but I checked Reglitch's spreadsheet for my gear for 5.3 awhile back; +2000 crit vs. +1000 int was like a difference of 210k vs 209.5k, I forget which was which. I mean it's not a simulation and has its flaws etc but still

[Shammyspice]

I did some regemming(flat int for int/crit) and replaced most of my int/spirit gems with spirit/crit and swapped a couple INT gems for flat CRIT and my spell power actually went UP by about 2k or so...

I have been sticking to the 9158 haste point as closely as possible. I rarely use EM in our 25 man raids unless there's not much raid damage going out and the tank could use some extra hots/I don't have much to heal...but other than that, I mostly stick to using RnM on CD and TFT uplifting with soothing mist spammage. Some fights I do enjoy fistweaving, but not sure how optimal that is with the crit set up...

[Geodew]

I have been sticking to the 9158 haste point as closely as possible. I rarely use EM in our 25 man raids unless there's not much raid damage going out and the tank could use some extra hots/I don't have much to heal...but other than that, I mostly stick to using RnM on CD and TFT uplifting with soothing mist spammage. Some fights I do enjoy fistweaving, but not sure how optimal that is with the crit set up...

Yeah, don't jump up to 9916 for 25m; it's really just a 10m thing because 10m MWers end up helping heal the tank more often and do more single-target healing since people aren't immediately sniped by smart heals. You lose 1.15% crit for a 20% boost or whatever to something you rarely use just as a low-damage chi dump and probably overheal with anyway. That doesn't sound attractive to me. :P

I'm not totally sure about FWing stat weights, but you should probably not gear for it for progression fights. I do know that int/crit are both decent for it. If you are interested I would check the FWing thread (linked in the stickied guide). Reglitch is the main guy who works on that so if he doesn't respond to this thread you may be able to find an answer for yourself there. Checking his blog for some recent FWing work, it seems crit gems are best for single-target FWing: http://bestmonk.eu/

[Astraios]

Haha thanks. Hm, but I checked Reglitch's spreadsheet for my gear for 5.3 awhile back; +2000 crit vs. +1000 int was like a difference of 210k vs 209.5k, I forget which was which. I mean it's not a simulation and has its flaws etc but still

That's including revival/LC/etc.
I use individual spell weights from http://www.temerityofwindrunner.com/...aver/calc.html

[ojg]

2 crit = 1 int for throughput for most spells.
int>crit for Life Cocoon, Revival, and Healing Sphere only.
Only SCK scales strongly with Haste, and ReM by hitting breakpoints. However, crit is more valuable than haste in general because it affects all heals, not 30-50% of them.
1 crit gives about 0.2 Spirit worth of regen from the chance for extra mana tea stacks. (This means even if you favor crit, it's worth it to match a red socket for a 60 Spirit bonus, because the 160 crit gives you 32 Spirit worth of regen).

Long story short, crit for regen, int for cooldowns. Most people choose crit since the cooldowns are already pretty strong. Only gem Haste if you're way over a haste breakpoint so you want to jump to the next one and need to gem haste to hit the next one comfortably.

The only socket situation where you should never match the color is a blue socket for a +60 Spirit bonus; other situations can be useful to match or not match depending on your gearing strategy. If you value Spirit at 25-30% of the value of Crit or more, then it's worth matching blue sockets for intellect bonuses. Plug in some Ask Mr. Robot weights and pay attention to what he does. These are the ones I use:

10-man
Int 0.99 (change to 1.01 for intellect strategy)
Spellpower 0.85
Haste (to breakpoint) 0.51
Crit 0.5
Spirit 0.15
Mastery 0.13

25-man
Int 0.99 (change to 1.01 for intellect strategy)
Spellpower 0.85
Haste (to breakpoint) 0.51
Crit 0.5
Mastery 0.15
Spirit 0.13

In conclusion I would say even if you're going for an intellect strategy that values Spirit as 30-35% of Crit, your neck and boots are gemmed wrong (should be Potent gems, not brilliant). Crit is better than you seem to think.

- - - Updated - - -

BTW in case you are unsure which Haste breakpoint to gear for as well:

Thank you so much for this.

[Geodew]

Thank you so much for this.

Haha, no problem.

That's including revival/LC/etc.
I use individual spell weights from http://www.temerityofwindrunner.com/...aver/calc.html

Right, that's what I use, too. I was thinking about the fact that it includes Revival (I don't think it uses LC) but figured Rev was probably a small enough portion of the healing that it didn't matter too much. For my gear Chi Burst is ahead for intellect and Chi Torpedo is neck-and-neck whereas ReM (large overheal) and Uplift are ahead for crit, so it's possible it mostly evens out... But still, if anything this strengthens the argument to gear for crit. I find it strange that the Temerity Calc doesn't include LC and Revival on that chart.