Optimize Holy Ask Mr Robot vs Automaticjak

[Thzz]

Note: below is for Mythic+ healing only, not raids.


I realize AMR is not leet players 1st choice for simz etc over raidbots. I dont need every last % of performance, I prefer a quick and easy tool that gets me 90% there regarding optimizing combos of gear, traits, essences etc.

I've found automaticjak pretty good resource to learn/improve.

1st question, I have is that AMR is suggesting I stack Mastery on enchants, while AJ has Mastery as the worst of the secondary stats. How can these two resources be so far off from each other? This late in the expansion I would think all sources would have same info for such basic stuff.

Also is AMR even worth using or is the feedback so bad its not worth the effort ?

edit.. also AMR vs AJ are pretty far off on azerite traits as well.

[Flura]

mastery is for raids

crit/haste is for m+

azerit just use 3xflashheal trait and 1-3xserenity trait

essence Major well of existence or vitality conduct - minor vitality/well - Spirit of Preservation - The Ever-Rising Tide

vitality conduct major is especially good for necrotic

[Venara]

mastery is for raids

crit/haste is for m+

azerit just use 3xflashheal trait and 1-3xserenity trait

essence Major well of existence or vitality conduct - minor vitality/well - Spirit of Preservation - The Ever-Rising Tide

vitality conduct major is especially good for necrotic

Very much this and, from my personal experience, if you set AMR to Mythic+ Strategy and the correct major essence, it will prioritize these stats. In fact, I just ran the strategy over my Mastery-heavy read healing build and it shifted me me to Crit/Haste and reduced my mastery as much as it could.

I've had only positive experiences with AMR and have successfully used it for both Holy and Shadow for years with top notch performance results. The results from AMR also always match up with Raidbots, which is to be expected. As you said "all sources would have same info for such basic stuff", and that seems to be so for these two, arguably largest sites of this kind.

[Thzz]

thanks. all good info.

yes mastery for raids which I rarely do, i had AMR set to mythic+. I must have had some other setting wrong. I'll go back thru and check it all out.

azerit just use 3xflashheal trait and 1-3xserenity trait

I didn't realize traits were that easy to optimize. good to know

[Kilee25]

I'm out of the loop for a while so take this with a grain of salt, but essentially the following "logic" applies...

The high mastery build would be favored when considering healing volume in large group situations where the tool is attempting to give you the highest output achievable in a sort-of "black box" scenario.

However, in high intensity situations where you are doing a lot of raid mechanics or responding to "twitch" variations in health bars and lots of super spikey damage, the crit and haste will fair better even if it doesn't look good on paper, because speed and the occasional "big heal" in a clutch situation will save lives and keep the players going longer.

The above logic in state analysis doesn't just apply to healing. There were many times where Shadow stats had the same sort of dichotomy as well.

As others said in the thread, the tools have gotten quite good compared to how they used to be, and you can more or less tweak the settings of the simulation until you get the stats you want.

A lot of single-person theorycrafters, such as myself and perhaps Jack, will often pick one environment or set of stats that work best in either most situations, or the situation that they care about the most, or the situation that they deem to be the most important, and just suggest that. Suggesting a bunch of different builds is both impractical and also can tend to muddy the waters when you're speaking towards an audience whose attention may be very limited. Deeper discussions are great and a welcome addition, but if you're writing a guide for the community, you generally take a bit of a "shotgun" approach to it, hoping to hit the largest number of people at the same time. But because of this there will always be a few outliers who fall outside of the range...

As a theorycrafter, it was quite bothersome to have people tell me such and such stats weren't good because of some niche situation, but the game has been shifting towards that level of complexity for quite a while now. You can even build custom sets of gear to fight individual bosses now, based on the type of damage and your specific raid comp and role.

[Thzz]

but if you're writing a guide for the community, you generally take a bit of a "shotgun" approach to it, hoping to hit the largest number of people at the same time.

thx. good post. all made sense. especially this

[Thzz]

question?

I realize one of the reasons Holy is challenged right now in 10+ keys is lackluster DPS.

How much / what % DPS should a Holy be expected to contribute?

I've been skewing my build toward healing vs dps and gonna start to ratchet back towrard DPS. I realize the answer is make your build so you can deliver the most DPS while still keeping everyone up, but is there a generally accepted threshold which if you go below as a healer you will make it really tough for 10+ keys to hit timer?



edit. I do between 10-17k depending on makeup of group and how much time it takes to keep everyone up.

[Venara]

An easy way to look at that is to check Warcraftlogs for Holy Priests:
https://www.warcraftlogs.com/zone/ra...iest&spec=Holy

I've looked through a bunch of the TOP 20 RANKED Holy Priest for all keystone levels and they generally seem to manage to contribute between 5-10k DPS. It's not a lot. Primarily it seems to be Divine Star (which is likely only a side effect, probably cast primarily for the heal), Holy Fire whenever possible, HW: Chastise (likely with stun) and some occasional Smite casts. Some run DPS Azerite Traits or Corruptions too. However, 10k appears to be around the top end of what is manageable in keys at that level (which is 20+).

The clear takeaway is that, if you go to lower key levels, more DPS is clearly possible. This is of course just the topdown view. You can adjust the "Keystone Level" dropdown on the above link to get logs for lower keystones if you want to look at a particular bracket.

Unless you're playing particularly high keys, I wanna say 16+, your DPS should matter little to not at all. I've personally played many 14/15/16s and done virtually no DPS beyond the occasional stun with HW: Chastise and we still timed the dungeons just fine. Obviously this is largely because I had good DPS in my group but realistically, unless you play at high keystone levels, DPS from your Healer shouldn't really be a factor for finishing a dungeon in time.

In dungeons up to +16 (and after, of course), it matters a lot more that you check all these boxes:

- COMMUNICATION (voice, preferably)
- Plan a route with exact trash count in MDT.
- Make sure your group is fully buffed up and you have Heroism (or drums) available. Use Scrolls if missing Mage/Warrior.
- Plan where to use your Heroism. In some dungeons you can easily use it 3 times but a lot of groups fail to use it at the proper time.
- Pull at a consistent speed with little to no breaks, if affixes allow.
- Make your mana breaks as short as possible (Sugar-Crusted Fish Feast). Your tank should be able to pull the next group as you sit down. Pro Tip: Use Shadowmeld to drink during a pull if need be (not possible during bosses).
- Rotate interrupts with communication, make sure you are ready to HW: Chastise important targets when need be and be ready to use Psychic Scream to fear. Don't be afraid of the latter. The fear will break almost immediately from damage. It's used only to interrupt casts.
- Learn what all mobs and bosses do. I know this sounds like a lot, but seriously, learn what all the abilities do. You need to know what is happening at all times and be able to recognise what abilities are about to go off.
- Be aware of class mechanics and maximize the DPS of your group accordingly. Shadow Priests, for example, do the most damage if new mobs are pulled immediately to avoid losing Chorus or Voidform stacks. Unholy DKs will do more DPS if you pull larger groups. Fire Mages can annihilate entire groups at insane speed if Combustion is up.

I could go on but my point is simple: Up to a certain keystone level, your DPS should not matter. If you can add DPS, that's fantastic and it may well help your group. It should not be a deciding factor for timing a key at lower keystone levels (up to 15 for sure). At levels 16+ your DPS contribution will start to become a factor. Just try your best to squeeze in as much as you can. The numbers tend to go from 5k at the lowest up to 15k for the ranked guys on Warcraft Logs. As long as you can manage a number in between, you should be doing fine.

Now I probably don't need to say this, but you will never be a Druid or Disc Priest and add that kind of DPS. Holy is inherently not built to do that, whereas Druids, for example, have a fairly "easy" time adding a considerable amount of damage. As a Holy Priest, you will more heavily rely on the rest of your group to carry you in that regard.

I'm probably ranting at this point but I wanted to give a more comprehensive answer, primarily because I think it's important to understand that there is no magic number to hit. I wouldn't even say that Holy priests are generally "expected" to add any DPS unless you're playing very high keys. I've certainly never seen that expectation in any keys I've played with randoms.

Judging by your "10-17k", you're likely not doing keys at 20+. 17k is more commonly seen in keys around 10-15 on Warcraft Logs and you did ask about "10+ keys", so let me just reiterate there: As I said above, If your group has trouble timing a key at that level, the problem is not the DPS your Holy Priest adds. It's much more likely that either your DPS are bad, you are potentially wiping, you didn't plan a good route, etc (see above list).

TLDR: Don't worry about your DPS unless you're playing keys from +16 upwards.

[Thzz]

great post. thx.

im having a blast right now in 10-15 keys (first time ever running mythics), good to know my DPS should be fine and I can focus more on healing/mechanics. I learn/play a few dungeons at a time and am still on my first set (workshop, junk, FH, ML) so have plenty of content left.

Is DBM the right tool for interrupts? 13+ is my highest so far and I have yet to be in a pug where interrupts are discussed at all. I do my best to watch when others dont/cant interrupt and fill in. Lots of guessing on my part and prob quite a few wasted cooldowns.

[Venara]

I would recommend a dedicated interrupt tracker to see how much cooldown your group has left on their abilities. There are a number of options out there. Personally, I use a WeakAura for this. https://wago.io/SkjHi61Bz

Note: This WA is no longer updated and the comments recommend using https://wago.io/r14U746B7 instead but it works just fine currently. Still, you may want to look at the newer option.

You'll want to see the cooldown of interrupts specifically not only to know whether you should interrupt, but also because you need to know when something cannot be interrupted. Take the second boss in Shrine of the Storm for example. Especially in Tyrannical weeks this boss tends to give a lot of groups trouble if they cannot reliably interrupt the caster boss. Now, you cannot help with interrupting on bosses but, as the healer, you need to know when one or more of these casts are going to go through because it can lead to a very quick wipe.

As a final note on this, you may want to encourage a discussion about interrupts if your group isn't doing this themselves. Especially on bosses like the above mentioned second boss in Shrine, interrupting reliably cannot and should not be left to chance. If people don't discuss, worst case you get 3 people using their interrupt at the same time and then you have no more interrupts for a long time. Perhaps just say something in chat before the key starts, along the lines of " are we doing an interrupt rotation for X?".

And lastly, it's good you're having a lot of fun If you want to do 15+ keys too, try finding a regular group or perhaps try to start one yourself. You'll have a much better time as a Holy Priest on higher key levels if you have a regular group.

[Thzz]

If you want to do 15+ keys too, try finding a regular group or perhaps try to start one yourself.

that is becoming clear.

thanks for WA links. playing with those now.