Regular Maw of the Dragonlord or Heroic Scalpel of Unrelenting Agony?

[Morideth]

I know that for some fights Maw of the Dragonlord constitutes for a large amount of my healing, but fights like Heroic Morchok or make less use of it.

Are there any numbers being thrown around out there that suggest when a secondary-stated weapon is better than Maw?

Most notably, I'm wondering if for Heroic Ultraxion 10m if I should use a Heroic Scalpel over Reg Maw if I'm smiting for a large portion of it (Holy Pally does most of the healing).

Anybody have any experience with the two or thoughts?

[Lackluster]

There's nothing stopping you from swapping from Scalpel to Maw once the healing picks up.
I'd definitely suggest Maw once the AOE damage increases, though.

[Morideth]

Would there be a timer until the maw can proc?

I'm not sure why I didn't think of that, thank you very much!

[Deleted]

Dont know about the specific numbers (on my own resto spec I have heroic scalpel vs LFR Maw) and as Lackluster stated - you can swap weapons in combat. Yes youll incur the 15 second internal but with such a low ICD it shouldnt matter.

So, use the 410 weapon on any fight where people are spread and use the Maw on any stack fight (yor'sahj, ultraxion and spine / madness). That's my own personal opinion

Edit: Im pretty sure you pop the ICD when you swap items, which for the maw is 15 seconds unless im mistaken

[lizon]

I debated this on my priest as well. I would stick with the Maw. On any given fight the Maw accounts for between 5-10% of my overall healing. The stat point difference between the Maw and the Heroic Scalpel will not make up for 5-10% of my overall healing thus the Maw wins out.

On heroic Ultra you want the maw, it's basically a free heal that hits the entire raid. Our pally heals most of the fight as well (except for after blue comes out) but every little bit helps.

[Deleted]

Depends on encounter.
Maw is better for Yor+Zon+Ultra+Spine+Madness and other weps are better for morchok/hagara/warmaster.

(10m)

[Vicarious]

on heroic ultra if you need more healing keep on maw and take green buff so you get more from atonement, if not then use scalpal heroic and swap at the end when you need to heal (I'm assuming you like everyone else have a holy pally take red and blue)

for heroic hagara I use the mace off heroic morchok instead of maw since we are never going to be grouped up in any way where it would hit more than 1-3 people but on every other fight even morchok where its only like 6% of my healing as opposed to some where its 10-12% its still better, I've tried both.

maw requires positioning of course but that's not a big deal when you get used to it, keep in mind this is for 25 man but the only one this would change on would be morchok 10 man which you would have to judge for yourself idk how many people are in range of you for it but if its over 5 I would say maw

[zakaluka]

Maw is baseline HPS, and a lot of it. The stats on scalpel give you controlled burst, and a significant amount of it (nothing to sneeze at!) If normal maw gives you 2.5k HPS of free baseline HPS (only this high for ultraxion and madness), the stats (ap int hst mst) on scalpel give you about 1 - 1.5k of controllable burst hps.

- Some of scalpel's burst is mana positive (mst sp), some is mana neutral (hst).
- All of maw's throughput is mana positive (proc) but sometimes it's more important to have control.

My thinking is that maw is usually better, but in any situation where you need more control scalpel is better. Not to mention, if your raid can't stack. That might be any combination of morchok, warlord, hagara, warmaster, spine. Depending of course on your heal comp and strategies.

[Fenixdown]

As suggested, keep both. In situations where AoE healing will be a near requirement (which is most heroic modes), use Maw. Where single target healing would be more useful (most notably fights like Spine or to lesser extents Zon'ozz), use Scalpel. Also, if you ever do any 10-mans, use Scalpel. Maw just isn't worth the loss of haste/crit/mastery/spirit in 10-man DS as most encounters have a. very little stacking and/or b. very few people in stacked areas.

[Daedius]

You can switch weapons while in combat... so macro yourself to use Maw for moments where people stack... and switch to something else where people are spread out.

[Deleted]

You can switch weapons while in combat... so macro yourself to use Maw for moments where people stack... and switch to something else where people are spread out.

Equipping a item with a cooldown will trigger the cooldown so you will need to equip the maw 15 sec (the icd of the proc) before you want it to proc.

[zakaluka]

Also, if you ever do any 10-mans, use Scalpel. Maw just isn't worth the loss of haste/crit/mastery/spirit in 10-man DS as most encounters have a. very little stacking and/or b. very few people in stacked areas.

Hm, maw's proc caps and diminishes at somewhere between 6 and 8 targets. My druid doesn't have this to test yet, but I'd really want to give it a real solid look. Make sure you know how much you're getting from maw, and how much hps you'd shift by putting on scalpel. These are pretty basic observances, so put in the time to do them. I suspect maw might be better in 10 man than people think.

Jury's out on that, though.

[Tihr]

I use Scalpel on Morchok, Hagara and Blackhorn, and Maw on everything else.

[clavarnway]

Hm, maw's proc caps and diminishes at somewhere between 6 and 8 targets.

Everything I have read says it has no DR. I don't have one myself on my Priest so no clue personally but I'd like some more info on this.

[zakaluka]

test it in the auction house, it definitely diminishes.

proc hits 25 people, the total heal is worth ~100k. proc hits 8 people, the total heal is still ~100k.

If you use Mik's scrolling text, you can see how much the total proc is. It adds up all the 'cleansing flame' events and displays them all together as a single heal.

[clavarnway]

test it in the auction house, it definitely diminishes.

proc hits 25 people, the total heal is worth ~100k. proc hits 8 people, the total heal is still ~100k.

If you use Mik's scrolling text, you can see how much the total proc is. It adds up all the 'cleansing flame' events and displays them all together as a single heal.

I can't test it as like I said I don't have one. I will take your word on it but you must understand my skepticism because like every other info I've seen on it has said it has no DR.

[zakaluka]

In the interest of making sure I'm not spreading bad info, I'm going to plot it and find out for sure.
"HPP" = total healing per proc
"HPT" = healing per target
It'll be normalized to 0% crit to eliminate that factor.

If the proc diminishes, the plot will look like this:


If the proc doesn't diminish, the plot will look like this:


Will share results soon.

[DeniedNZ]

Maw is ftw, although it can be a personal preference.

[zakaluka]

Conclusion: Maw caps at 12 targets. Spreadsheet says 13 in screenshot but after eliminating the outliers circled in red that becomes 12. If you're in a 10-man on an ideal fight with favorable stacking I'll assume you can average 8 targets per proc when it matters. Then you'd be losing a third of maw's baseline HPS from 25-man (or from the other point of view: maw is 50% better in 25 than 10). I used to see cleansing flames coming in at 2500 HPS after overheal when I was doing 25, so in 10 man it should give you around 1600 HPS on favorable fights. Stats on heroic scalpel are worth on the order of 1k-1.5k HPS burst for heavy AoE (some fraction of that sustained).

Again it winds up to be a decision between controllable throughput and higher baseline HPS. Certainly in 10 there are fewer situations where you'll actually be able to get that cone with an average of 8 people standing in it, so having a macro to switch between the two would be ideal.

[Dainamic]

I use my maw for the majority of the fights in 10 man. It just depends on your style of healing. (Position, activity)
It is, however, definitely a plus for 10m fights where you can keep track of your positioning with relative ease. I'd say Maw for definite for Yorsajh, Zon'ozz, Ultrax, Spine, and Madness.