Originally Posted by
gnorrior
Valen's calc in my gear (near BiS, mostly what your gear list says) has mastery at 1/4 the value of crit, and 1 int ~ 2.2 crit.
53 * 2.2 * 4 + 360 vs 239 * 4, the circuit gives more throughput (with mastery being given a weight of 1) than the seal, not to mention 68 more spirit, which can generally be valued as more crit.
As well, your reasoning for the stonebound being an exception because it "allows you to pick up quite a bit more crit from other items." Sure. But...so does the circuit. It's literally the same thing in both cases. Haste can be reforged to crit, thus haste is approximately equal to crit. The only difference is that the "haste might not allow you to reforge perfectly or ideally" doesn't even apply here because the ring gives crit (the stat we want to stack as much of as possible after spirit/haste cap.)
Qin'xi's polarizing seal is proc-throughput. Proc-throughput (even with a 30% stat increase over the passive) is far from ideal. Healer's don't get to maximize throughput based on procs, they have to maximize throughput in narrow windows of time which are presented by fight mechanics. Qin'xi relies on RNG. Some fights it might be amazing for you when it lines up perfectly with TFT (the strongest argument for it). Some fights it will NEVER line up with your TFT. And you would have to go through some hoops and bounds to try and force it to line up with TFT. I say this, because TFT usage is based on fight mechanics, not on whenever you feel like it. You gain a lot more by TFT'ing before crush than you do using it at any other time, because after a crush is when the raid will be lowest. The same goes for most fights. You need throughput at specific times, and it takes timing TFT properly to do that. I want my throughput at those times. As such, passive throughput is more reliable and thus more valuable to me.
On the other hand, spirit procs (assuming I'm not at full mana), will always be useful, no matter when they proc. That's why I use chi'ji. I said it's personal preferences because Qin'xi is RNG and sometimes it'll be amazing and sometimes it'll suck, and as a raid healer I much prefer being reliable. If you want to roll the dice for your healing, then yes qin'xi has the potential to be amazing, but the same potential to suck.