Normal BiS Best in Slot Disc PVE 25M

[TirielWoW]

Ye, those few situations will totally outweigh the fact that your emergency buttons (penance, pw:s, pom and even flash heal) will be significantly stronger in every other case.

I didn't include PoM because it only fires on the person taking damage. If someone is low enough that you are worried they're going to die if you don't get a heal on them, PoM is not the spell you should be choosing.

Yep, being able to do that without an increased mana cost (crit) sounds quite awesome to me.

Explain to me again how mana matters at this point.

Here's the catch, you don't chose between haste and nothing, you chose between haste and stronger heals.

And playstyle. And enjoyment. Why would I want to cast long, slow heals when I can speed them up and come out in about the same place?

"Spreadsheet warriors" and I'm being insulting. Yes, for people who are unable to or just can't be arsed (if you feel that you and everyone else who don't theorycraft are stupid/idiotic, so be it) it's great that some people go through the trouble of doing said math. From personal experience it's also significantly more common that people who raid at a high level and see the encounters theorycraft.

You are the one who made the statement (and you'll remember I -asked- for clarification to make sure that -wasn't- what you you intended to say, and you -confirmed- that was it) that people who actually see the encounters know nothing about gearing, and cannot judge for themselves what their stat weights should be, nor can they judge for themselves what stat weights work for them. THAT is insulting if I ever heard it.

Math is nice, but it is not the be-all and end-all. It's a great starting point. But what works on paper does not necessarily work in the real world.

Are there mastery breakpoints as well since you were gemming for that before? Not that there are many haste breakpoints that are particularly valuable for disc (and how do you even know those? Are you just "feeling" them?). What are you using the "spare" stats that you get from the leeway on that's so incredibly cruical?

I'm pretty sure I mentioned...at least once or twice before...that I have a Holy offspec that sees a lot of use (I actually do more as Holy than as Disc at the moment). I already had 1 extra cast of SS, but in my mind, because I use Holy so often, it was worth it (to me) to forge to get the Lightwell breakpoint (which makes up a surprising amount of healing on bosses when I am Holy). The side benefit of having faster casts (which is a playstyle I enjoy) on my hard-cast spells was also a consideration. The moment that I started using the 4717 breakpoint (encompassing the Lightwell breakpoint, as well as ensuring one extra cast of SS without PI/BL), I saw a jump in my performance in raid. As I've gotten more gear, I've been seriously considering pushing for the higher haste breakpoints, which is why I was messing with my gems today.

Now, if you want to know where I get my haste breakpoints, I'm sure if you have google you can google the word "haste breakpoints" and "spirit Shell haste breakpoints" and you'll find a plethora of information about where they are for each class. There are also breakpoints that ensure you get a certain amount of casts when PI is up, or when Heroism/BL is up.

As far as "Mastery" goes, no, there are no "breakpoints." I simply had enough excess stats to get to the Haste breakpoint that I was previously reaching for while maintaining a comfortable (for me) level of Mastery. Now I have more stats, and Mastery coming out of my ears, so I'm re-evaluating. You know, testing. The only thing I didn't want to do was drop below 20% Mastery in Holy spec, as Echo of Light makes up a surprisingly large amount of my healing.

Since you increase every stat from getting new gear I was hoping that this'd be obvious even for you, apparently I was wrong. Excluding that there's only gemming.

Thank you. After 6 years of playing WoW, I truly had no idea that if I increased my gear level, I would get more stats. Your wisdom is truly breathtaking. Even for you.

So where's this magic balance for you? What do you base it on? "Feeling"? "Feeling" is telling you that 22385 int and 5807 haste is superior to 22305 int and 5967 haste?

I'm assuming you were armory creeping? I'm not done with my changes. So the answer is "neither."

Do you actually think that every fight plays out exactly the same every week? That every person has exactly the same position, uses exactly the same spells, crits, dodges and parries exactly the same spells/attacks? That every single player plays just as well every time? Every single fight has huge variations hence it's useless to compare the performance like you do.

It's close enough to make judgements in the general sense. Especially when the change in performance was dramatic enough. I know when I'm playing like shit. I don't look at a fight where I know that I have made huge mistakes and try to say, "Welp, this proves that Crit doesn't work for me." I look at fights where I felt I was playing my best, and compare them that way.

In short, a spell without a cd.

So...basically...the majority of the spells we cast. I...struggle to understand how those are "filler" spells.

Yes, in this case smite is almost twice as quick while healing just as much. In the context of haste vs crit/mastery/int, when is it so much better to cast X haste rating quicker than for your heals to hit X crit/mastery/int harder?

In a 25 man, extra casts of Spirit Shell, for one, are extremely valuable. It's not the same as in a 10 man situation, where you're likely to cap out very quickly. One cast of Spirit Shell on a party doesn't really absorb very much, but when you can layer it more than once...

Ah yes, that magic feeling.

I guess because I didn't spreadsheet the encounters, actual numbers are meaningless and full of worthless emotion. :-\

This is what you said about your grp and what I responded to:

not
These are your words and the ones I responded to. By my standard people who can't do fights as they are supposed to be done are shit, if you'd use a different word that's up to you but we're refering to the same thing.

I never - not once - said that about my group. It was a general statement about issues that ANY healer may encounter in their raid. Did I - even once - say, "In my guild Demise, we have this, this, and this problem"? No. You are, once again, assuming. As you seem to do repeatedly when responding to me.

What is valid? Gearing one way (for one specific fight!) will always be superior to another, two ways are never exactly the same (or there wouldn't even be a point of different stats).

"Valid," to me, is when the difference between stat priorities is so small that it has no real bearing on the fight. Put another way, people are not robots and will make mistakes regardless of their stat priorities. I have yet to see Crit pull out so far ahead of Haste and Mastery that it could not be attributed to player skill.

Yes it makes a difference. The difference is slight but it exists. If one way is superior, even by a small margin, why wouldn't you use it? There are several ways to gear for a boss, but only one that's optimal. Why wouldn't you use it? Why would some person magically perform better with a stat combination that gives less healing? Are there a ton of shadowpriests who'd perform better by reforging all out of haste as well? Why is that different?

Because what you see in your spreadsheet is not what I see when I'm actually playing the game. The difference between gearing for Crit and Mastery vs. Haste and Crit vs. Mastery and Haste are so small in actual practice that it makes a lot more sense to advise healers of what each does, what advantages each has, which fights cater to which stat priorities, etc, than to say, "This is the one and only stat priority that you can use. If you use anything else, you're just bad and wrong and you will heal for less." Because, the thing is, I don't heal for less when I gear for Haste and Mastery vs. Crit. And yes, I have tested it myself in game and looked at logs of myself using different stat priorities. I have also talked to other Priests who have done the same thing.

What player/role/size/strat/members favor haste over crit gearing? Please tell me, cause I have no clue. How does gearing for crit instead of haste change your playstyle/make you enjoy the game less by a significant amount?

Slow. Sloooooooow. Slow. Sloooooooow. Among other things. I've already explained the rest. You just choose to reject the explanation. You're going to keep arguing because for you, your spreadsheet is god. For me, the raid encounter dictates what I gem, enchant, and reforge.

So when several people interpret the thing you type in a certain way your go-to response is that it's their fault?

If they can't read for comprehension and instead choose to assume things, that isn't my fault. Sorry.

Have you ever been in contact with a customer?:P I haven't called you names. I have stated that you don't understand things, which is true, so yes I'm being blunt (which I already admitted). It's hard to avoid that someone feels a bit put down when you have to explain that they don't understand what they are talking about.

I worked in customer service for quite some time. If I had treated a customer half as badly as you treated me in certain instances (specifically the point where you suggested that my playstyle was "retarded" because you assumed it was so), I would have been fired.

Yes, as stated you don't understand how stat weights work.

I do, but I disagree with your interpretation. Your spreadsheet isn't the Bible.

I called a playstyle that I brought up to illustrate something retarded and you think it's aimed at you?

When you state that you can't think of any way I could possibly be getting different numbers from what you say SHOULD be the numbers unless I am using a retarded playstyle, yes.

You have repeatedly written things that many would interpret (I'm sure you mean something else entirely, right?:P) as gearing for haste/mastery making the game significantly more fun for you. Since I find that statement incredibly amusing I exaggerated it slightly, I understand that this is insanely hurtful for you (<-not even sure if that's an exaggeration)

I found it insulting. I'm sorry if you play this game for something other than fun. *shrugs*

You were the one who described your guildies as inferior/bad in several regards and it's a huge leap for me to call them shit?:P

No, I did not. I'm going to C&P my previous response to this:

I never - not once - said that about my group. It was a general statement about issues that ANY healer may encounter in their raid. Did I - even once - say, "In my guild Demise, we have this, this, and this problem"? No. You are, once again, assuming. As you seem to do repeatedly when responding to me.

Yes, if you can factor in all relevant things math will tell you the correct answer to everything (that it's pretty much impossible is another matter). It's practically impossible to factor in *X player fucking up* but in general anything that forces you to pay attention to other things will lower hastes comparative value to crit.

It's also rather impossible to factor in individual playstyles and reactions. But yes, as you stated yourself, it's pretty much impossible to factor in other players. So yes, while on paper, your words are absolutely correct, in an actual encounter, depending on the players involved, it may not bear out.

Do you claim that if a factor is so obscure that you can't math it's impact your "feeling" will do a better job at telling you which stat it affects?

I'm sorry, could you restate this? I'm not 100% sure what the question is. I think it's missing parts.

Obviously playing properly will have a far bigger impact than anything else for a healer. This is however something that math helps you do. Using math that's already been done for you to determine your gearing is a healing increase for almost no effort at all.

And it's a great place to start. But it isn't the be-all and end-all of healing. Nor is it always 100% correct in every single situation.

[Deleted]

This entire discussion could’ve actually been avoided if the real “issue” was addressed: haste is good if you’re spending the bigger part of a fight casting Heal, Flash Heal, Greater Heal or PoH. However, those spells should only be used in a minority of cases if you’re disc since they’re quite inefficient (both mana and healing wise). In fact, I’d go as far as to claim that out of the aforementioned options, only Flash Heal is interesting as disc in order to either quickly stack Spirit Shell on a single target or do some emergency burst healing, neither of which should make up for the bigger part of the fight. If however, you’re casting those spells frequently, you should really consider going holy instead. To me, using those spells is a clear indication that your raid actually requires more burst healing, which holy does a lot better (and adds AoE burst to boot).

Incidentally, Heather already said from the get-go that she was speccing holy in the majority in the cases and her raid consists of, on average, 2 more discs. It should’ve been obvious already that in her situation, adding another disc to the mix is inferior, which is even further cemented by the fact that she lists the aforementioned frequently as part of her regular rotation. Since they already have 2 other absorb healers, mitigating damage (favoring crit and mastery) is already covered extensively by her fellow healers, which actually increases the need for more burst-like reactive healing. Surprise, surprise, she’s saying she does exactly what we can expect her to do in this situation to keep the raid alive: use a reactive playstyle, which favors haste. However, I’d say she shouldn’t be doing it as disc (which this topic is about), since it’s obviously the inferior option for reactive healing

Since the topic was regarding BiS for 25-man raiding for disc, I’d say that even mentioning that haste is a good option is simply spreading false information and confusion to new players. If you prefer reactive healing (and thus haste), you should not be going disc, but rather holy. If you’re playing disc as it’s meant to be played (spending a large portion of the fight on Penance, Solace, PW:S, Spirit Shell and PoM when needed), haste is obviously a very crappy choice compared to crit and mastery. Any spells that remain (I’d wager it’ll mostly be Smite) hardly affect the value of the haste.

So, can we all agree on the above and move on to the real discussion?

[TirielWoW]

So, can we all agree on the above and move on to the real discussion?

I'll get back to you after I've slept. :-P 3:30am here. Brain is having trouble processing part of what you're saying because...my top heal when I'm carrying Haste as Disc tends to be Spirit Shell, then Divine Aegis/Atonement, then PoH or a level 90. Granted, that is primarily farm (since it's all Holy for most of the end-tier progression we've been doing). :-\ Also, PW: Shield (but that is compleeeeetely different reforging, without as much Haste, so it's a digression).