Haste Vs. Crit for resto.

[Toke]

So...in nax I geared haste as I was told...But when I hit ulduar I found the ammount healed or the ability to cast more heals was kind of not enough. I was wondering what other resto druid have geared for and why? Lately I have gone to gearing for crit ( I have 5/5 Gift, boomkind, and ele shaman in the raid always for 25). Here is my armory:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...ghoof&n=Marryj

Anyways I was just wondering what people where gearing for and why. As I said Ive been gearing crit...Tho it doesnt help most of my heals I use nourish alot and it seems to help me there quite a bit. Usually in our 25 man raids Im top heals by quite a bit. The only people that come close to me are holy priests. The other resto druid we bring has been stacking haste and so far he has yet to come within a bit of me alot of fights. We use about the same skills but I am slightly more geared. Im just wondering if the crit has made that much of a difference or what lol. I usually dont hot tanks as I have mt healers I can trust to do thier job so I do pure raid heals. Would it be worth it to hit the haste cap for 1 second GCD. I would lsoe a few % crit but I dono lol... I read all the elitist jerks stuff on resto and so far crit has done me better than haste by 500+ hps. Anyone else have an opinion on this that can put up a decent debate on the situation?

Sorry I ramble on alot...I love to theorycraft exspecially about resto druids. So any insite is greatly appreciated.

P.s. Also I have chosen not to go for the 4 piece bonus of t8. I believe the hardmode pieces offered are much better and thats what Im going for.

[Degrador]

(I have 5/5 Gift, boomkind, and ele shaman in the raid always for 25)

Even with all these you still need 359 haste to be GCD capped for your HoTs. Unless you're over this, you should still focus on Haste over Crit where possible.

Tho it doesnt help most of my heals I use nourish alot and it seems to help me there quite a bit.

I always felt the same, but after a few 25 man Uld runs I had a look at the logs and found that Nourish was still attributing for very little of my healing done (typically about 5-10%), with the sum of direct casts (Regrowth DH, Nourish, Swiftmend, NS+HT) rarely going above 30% total healing. As such, I've started to move my thinking away from keeping Nourish buffed and instead just focus on raid healing (as much as I hate Rejuv spam it is still very effective).

The other resto druid we bring has been stacking haste and so far he has yet to come within 1k hps of me. We use about the same skills but I am slightly more geared.

I'd be very careful of making such comparisons as player skill attributes for a LOT more of a difference than gear / gear choices.

I read all the elitist jerks stuff on resto and so far crit has done me better than haste by 500+ hps.

Have you actually done direct comparisons with equivalent gear? A lot of the problem with an 'I use x stat and he uses y' argument is that people aren't comparing with all other stats being equal. Currently I find caster leather gear in Ulduar has too much crit for my liking, and I'm sitting at 283 haste, leaving me well under cap. I'd like to rectify that, but it's not worth dropping SP, int, spr and crit just for the sake of hitting the haste cap (although I've been thinking that in some fights involving nothing but Rejuv spam, it might actually be worth it, but those fights are rare).

P.s. Also I have chosen not to go for the 4 piece bonus of t8. I believe the hardmode pieces offered are much better and thats what Im going for.

Fair enough, although again, IMO, for the fights with consistent AoE damage (Hodir, Mimiron, XT, Kologarn) you should always have 4T8 in your bag to use if possible.

[toson]

yeah it's an old method when some resto druids fell into rejuvenation for 50%crit.
u should focus on how many palyers can be heal ,leveling up their Hp when emergency....
totally cure them is not the point,there is only difference between dead or alive but not on 50%hp and 80%hp.

[Cerelli]

Until the next tier of gear, raid healers stacking crit (before reaching the haste cap) is probably not the best idea. Main reason behind this is that your bread and butter spells are rejuv/WG with some nourish or regrowths sprinkled throughout to catch back up with the incoming damage.

In almost all cases your nourish/regrowth critting will not be the difference between saving somebody's life and them getting gibbed. Also, often times your direct heals will have a significant amount of overhealing associated with them compared to the rest of your abilities because of the damage getting sniped by other healers or the whole heal not being needed. Stacking crit will do nothing more than increase your overhealing and mana cost when all that is usually needed is a constant stream of hots ticking on somebody.

You said that you have the 4 piece T8 set, so getting more rejuvs out to more people is definitely going to be your best alternative. Haste, not crit is going to get this for you.

If you were strictly tank healing, all of that crit would be amazing. the constant stream of nourish crits + living seeds will eat up tons of damage on a tank. Instead, I would suggest getting closer to the haste cap and then stacking crit after that. You should notice a big difference in the number of instant cast hots you will be able to send out through the raid.

As far as your numbers vs the other resto you raid with... are you always on the same role? how many healers do you normally run with? If you two are on separate assignments, then you can't really compare healing output; but if you are then i would chalk up the difference to you being a better player. If you are running with too many healers then the other person's heals are probably getting sniped.

The moral of the story is: drop the crit. get more haste. Roll more rejuvs. Watch your recount numbers get even greater.

[iLive]

I have more haste than needed, but when I choose an item for my Restoration Druid, I don't look at the critical strike rating or the haste rating, but the amount of spell power or basic stats (intellect, spirit etc.). It's easy to get soft haste cap (359 haste rating), and you shouldn't really concern about it. Just take the gear that comes and offers you most of the basic stats and spell power, then the rest will be there.

[procne]

dont forget that you are druid. not paladin. if you wanna concentrate on healing with nourish then maybe it would be better to place pala or priest on your place? direct heals are important in many situations, but never forget what makes you different from other healers.

[mickloven]

I have more haste than needed, but when I choose an item for my Restoration Druid, I don't look at the critical strike rating or the haste rating, but the amount of spell power or basic stats (intellect, spirit etc.). It's easy to get soft haste cap (359 haste rating), and you shouldn't really concern about it. Just take the gear that comes and offers you most of the basic stats and spell power, then the rest will be there.

Agree... this strategy has also worked to increase my haste and decrease my crit, but the more rejeuv's I can pump out the better. Combine 1.0 sec global cooldown rejeuv with the rejeuv idol, the spark of hope and the 4 piece t8 bonus and you are a raid healing machine, which really should be a druid's primary responsibility imho.

[Toke]

Thanks for all the constructive replies.

The druid I have been comparing numbers to is usually on the same assignments that I am. I am the healing leader so I usually put the best classes for the job on the job. I have a good pally and disc healers under my command so I never have to tank heal. I do however throw a couple hots on the tank for the extra oh shit button if I have to.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...hoof&n=Bizaajr

Thank you for reminding me I am not the Mt healer + raid healer like I was a few weeks ago. Our 25 man raids have been a little shakey due to attendance problems. So as you could immagine I had a bunch of healers that didn't know the fights nor were very good untill recently. Finnally I have been able to trust the other healers in the raid and have figured out the crit is not quite what it was worth when I was healing EVERYONE.

We usually roll 6 healers for 25. 2 mt heals and the rest raid healers. Usually consists of: Disc + Holy pally Mt healers, 2 resto druids, resto shaman, Holy priest. And as I said as of late they have all been doing well. It takes alot for me to trust someone to keep someone alive with out my help in ulduar -_-. Im not exactly in a top world guild lol. I think I could probly be in a better guild but meh the people in mine are awesome ;P.

I think I have found a way to itemize about 300 haste into my build with out significant gear changes. Just my simply replacing my remaining nax gear with ulduar 25 gear. Also I am 15 shards in on the legendary mace so that + my haste off hand and I should beable to hit 300ish. In doing so I will gain the 4 piece bonus also so win / win I guess.

Again I thank you all for the pointers. I have not been healing for all that long. Only since wrath came out and the guild asked me to switch. But so far I think I have been doing pretty good and I plan on sticking to it.

[DeTard]

I know a lot of you are going to say I'm nuts for doing this, but I as well have stacked crit, and when it comes to healing a tank up I'm pretty sure no one would argue that's incredibly better than haste. But I also do a lot of raid healing, and as of yet I've not seen an ill effect of not stacking haste. I am far from the cap, and when I'm raid healing I'm dishing out Rejuv before people take damage, WG after, and then nourish after that to get the people that are falling close to death back up again. I'm the top healer in 90% of all fights, including trash, but excluding fights where I'm tank healing (at least until my tank healing spot is over such as on IC).

I used to have a LOT of haste pre-Ulduar, more than needed, as crit felt unnecessary entirely. After 3.1 came out, I felt like a bad healer again until I totally regeared towards crit (spending upwards of 1.5-2k on regearing and gemming) and instantly I went from being around 1300 HPS and being #6 on healing to being #2 or #3. And as I got more used to it, I jumped up to #1 and haven't left it. If I look back at meters from this raid week so far, I'm sitting at 1% above #2 on Tuesday, and 3% above #2 last night. And we did fairly well and I didn't feel stressed as a healer carrying people.

I really feel this whole crit vs haste argument has almost no merit anymore, it's all in your heal style. If you make use of your crit, great - now gear for it. If you don't, then stack your haste.

I would say, without any uncertainty that for raid healing, haste > crit. For tank healing, crit > haste.

[Degrador]

Im not exactly in a top world guild lol. I think I could probly be in a better guild but meh the people in mine are awesome ;P.

I'm in a similar situation. I've had offers from a lot of the 'more hardcore' guilds on the server (such as those working on Yogg 25 man hard modes) but I just don't have the time to dedicate to their raid schedule.

when it comes to healing a tank up I'm pretty sure no one would argue that's incredibly better than haste.

I would. I would much rather have a lot more faster heals going out than ones that randomly heal for a lot more. It's a similar thing to tanks deciding between effective health and avoidance. Having a lot more effective health smooths out the hits taken, where avoidance makes them a lot more spikey. IMO tanks should almost always be going for more effective health - tanks rarely die because there just wasn't enough throughput for heals, but often can die from an unlucky streak of unavoided hits that the healers weren't prepared for.

But I also do a lot of raid healing, and as of yet I've not seen an ill effect of not stacking haste.

It's not so much a case of 'stacking' haste, as just taking it in preference to crit, ie, if you've got two items of the same ilvl, one with haste and one with crit, take the haste one as priority.

I am far from the cap, and when I'm raid healing I'm dishing out Rejuv before people take damage, WG after, and then nourish after that to get the people that are falling close to death back up again. I'm the top healer in 90% of all fights, including trash, but excluding fights where I'm tank healing (at least until my tank healing spot is over such as on IC).

Again, anecdotal evidence such as being the top healer doesn't have any relevance to whether or not you could do better.

I really feel this whole crit vs haste argument has almost no merit anymore, it's all in your heal style. If you make use of your crit, great - now gear for it. If you don't, then stack your haste.

I would say, without any uncertainty that for raid healing, haste > crit. For tank healing, crit > haste.

I agree that it does have a lot to do with your heal style, and that for raid healing reaching the haste soft cap is much more important than crit, however with tank healing I still think reaching the soft cap is more important than crit, and even after that haste is similar in value to crit.

[Spl4sh3r]

I think people value haste abit to much, I mean you reach the cap then its pretty much it. Since you are supposed to be the HoT'er what good would more haste rating do for you? Though with that argument what would more critical strike rating do for you also? You focus to much of your energy on the little matters. With tier 9 I would say critical strike rating would be the thing to choose after being haste capped because of the rejuvenation critical heals, but then again there aren't that many leather spellpower pieces that you really can choose between haste and/or critical strike and don't see why we should start picking cloth just for either of those two.

[maximillianm]

i agree with splasher. as a long time resto druid, i've never tried to stack haste watsoever. gotem took care of that. and 25man raids i will always have the 1sec gcd. i do go for crit over haste. and with t9 coming out, i bet a lot of resto druids are going to think the same. but then again, i've never understood why some druids stacked so much haste (gemming, enchanting, etc.).

sry for the poor grammer - too much game time.

[Cerelli]

i agree with splasher. as a long time resto druid, i've never tried to stack haste watsoever. gotem took care of that. and 25man raids i will always have the 1sec gcd. i do go for crit over haste. and with t9 coming out, i bet a lot of resto druids are going to think the same. but then again, i've never understood why some druids stacked so much haste (gemming, enchanting, etc.).

sry for the poor grammer - too much game time.

the rule of thumb is to get enough haste to reach your 1 second GCD cap and them move on to crit. No resto in their right mind should gem for it.

[Grakos]

Im currently going more towards crit, so when t9 comes out and i get 4 piece i can get much higher heals with rejuv crit-ticks.

[megalicious]

At the beginning of WotLK i had the same question... Crit or haste?

1st i tried haste as many of us... Choosing haste talent instead of crit and aimimng more for haste.

After some time i changed spec toward crit and geared with some crit just to compare my healing.
So i had a comparison from the same player with almost the same gear.

Crit is A LOT more effective than haste.
Yes some times i see my casting bar and i want faster (Casting regrowth-nourish) but if i look at meters and at the survivability of the raid... Crit has an advantage.

Now you are going to ask... You are a druid and you speak for survivability with hots speaking for crit?

Imo druid is the raid joker. He is the person for everything...
Druid raid hot (or pre-hot if you like) but when some take more damage than others and will probably die yes you use Regrowth or Nourish.
Having high crit chance maybe makes the difference between save less or more peoples.

Conclusion from my point of view...
Always go for Spell Power but between 2 similar items choose the one with crit and also choose talents toward crit and it's effects.
Never gem for crit-haste.

[Degrador]

At the beginning of WotLK i had the same question... Crit or haste?

First things first - at the beginning of WOTLK the haste soft cap was a lot lower. Still, back then the best way to heal was to spam everyone with Regrowth - all the benefits it had combined with the glyph easily made it our best DH heal plus it gave a very long lasting HoT. For Regrowth spamming haste was still better - while Nature's Grace was up most of the time reducing it to 1.5s, it still wasn't GCD capped so more haste improved the number of Regrowths you could cast.

Having high crit chance maybe makes the difference between save less or more peoples.

The same thing can be said in reverse - having more haste atm to bring you to GCD cap allows you to HoT up more of the raid which may lead to less people dying.

[iLive]

Let's not forgot Rejuvenation will critt next patch with 4x tier 9 <'3

[kaylon]

to make it very clear: Hastecap (aka 359) is mandatory! Above that do what you want. I still prefer haste even if overcapped but that might change with 4 T9.

Even if you direct heal a lot haste is superior in my opinion. That is true until you reach 1sec Nourish with NG up.
And don't forget despell heavy fights like yogg. Haste is definetly stronger than crit here.

[procne]

well, reaching haste cap for hots isnt a problem. you can just take 1 point from gote and put it into smt else then

[Deleted]

With reguards to the fact that there is different ways and styles of healing at the end of the day untill you are soft haste cap'd haste is worth more to a druid then crit , people are forgetting that crit achieves only a minimal benefit in reguards to haste when you are not cap'd sure you will see bigger numbers etc... but I don't think there's clear thinking here.

I'll prolly get a lot of rage for this but it's common knowledge that if you're not haste cap'd and there's a druid that is, providing that there isn't a HUGE difference in the spell power the haste cap'd druid will always put out more HPS. Not to mention the fact that 4 t8 is gear'd for rejuv and to be quite honest 4 piece resto is absolutly insane for any druid raidhealing, if you're not raid healing as a druid you're being misused a bit :P MT healing should be left to a pally tbh and if you don't have a holy pally get one haha they are insane for MT healing. (Sure druids rock at it too and there's certain fights esp. 10 man hardmodes where I'll be asked to heal a tank due to only having one pally but in that case I'll be constant spammin the tank and the raid and just about anything that's friendly :P)

You can stack crit all you want but at the end of the day it starts to become pointless I find myself using Nourish less and less recently this might be due to the fact that I'm in a guild now where every other healer is just as competent as me. rejuv and wg are my main heals I'll still put a regrowth and rejuv on the MT for a quick nourish here and there but it's not always needed/nessesary. Crit only benefits living seed which tbh is pretty poo.

Long story short, you're best bet if you want to see a great healing output is to stick mainly to rejuvs and wg's and for that stacking haste is your best option , if you're stacking crit and healing in another way (as of the current patch and current BiS' that are available) then you're trying to fill a role that currently isn't the best for a druid. Altho it is dependable on fights and what your guilds are, blizzard are trying to make it so that you do not have to pick healers but any class will do but anyone who's done any hardmodes will realise this isn't through (ie.. bring 2 pala's for healing only and you will 90% of the time fail, same for bringing 2 druids) Note I said 90% of the time :P

*edit*
*agree totally with what Kaylon said*
on a side note, anyone who gems / enchants (except cloak) for haste / crit is silly(unless they need for meta or something)as they do not offer anywhere near the same benefit as SP or Regen the main focus for me as a druid is SP > Regen > Haste > Crit (My SP is 2.8K raid buffed So I'd nearly put regen first) .