Disc stat weights

[Evry]

(and PWS to a lesser extent) are coming dangerously close to capping

Power Word: Shield has a cap now? I hit 1m PW:S crits in 5.4, which is pretty close to 100% of tanks HP. With the way Stam/player health scales now I wouldn't be worried about it.

CoW caps at 50% of the target's HP, not yours, and for its most useful use cases I'm not worried about it capping.

[Jimjam38]

Power Word: Shield has a cap now? I hit 1m PW:S crits in 5.4, which is pretty close to 100% of tanks HP. With the way Stam/player health scales now I wouldn't be worried about it.

CoW caps at 50% of the target's HP, not yours, and for its most useful use cases I'm not worried about it capping.

Can anyone confirm this? I know that Divine Aegis always capped at 66% of my health in 5.4, and I'm pretty sure most absorbs worked like this. PWS may be an exception due to Weakened Soul or that we never had enough crit/mastery to reach the cap.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, I was just thinking, how MUCH of an ilevel upgrade does an item with versatility need to be before we want to take it?

[Myllior]

i'm not sure if Multi crits independently or if it's based on the crit of the original spell

For PW:S and CoW, if the base shield is critical, then any multistrikes are also critical; if not, the multistrikes will not be.

On a separate note, I've seen this thread linked to in a few cases, so it's worth remembering that the calculations in this thread are for 'regular' Divine Aegis-producing heals only (i.e. excludes PW:S, CoW, PoH and Atonement), and it assumes that the direct healing and DA portions of such heals are equally effective; i.e. they experience the same proportion of overhealing. As such, due to the current prevalence of PW:S and CoW, the results herein do not strictly apply to normal healing breakdowns, and this is worth keeping in mind.

That being said, the results are still useful and it is also easy to produce new results incorporating all the different spell 'types'. The process is identical to what Havoc presented; the only change is that the initial equation describing the healing is altered to represent a weighted sum of the different spell types.

[Jimjam38]

So what would the results be for CoW / PWS / Spirit Shell? Since that IS going to be ~80% of our healing

[Feranda]

Can anyone confirm this? I know that Divine Aegis always capped at 66% of my health in 5.4, and I'm pretty sure most absorbs worked like this. PWS may be an exception due to Weakened Soul or that we never had enough crit/mastery to reach the cap.

I can confirm this. CoW Caps at 50% of target HP and on top of that you can have PWS on same target, not sure how CoW interacts with Divine Aegis. PWS is consumed before CoW also.

[Aparthia]

Can anyone confirm this? I know that Divine Aegis always capped at 66% of my health in 5.4, and I'm pretty sure most absorbs worked like this. PWS may be an exception due to Weakened Soul or that we never had enough crit/mastery to reach the cap.

DA and SS was always 60% of your health, CoW is 50% of the target's health. PWS doesn't have a cap since its throughput is limited by a debuff that only allows one application per 10 seconds.

[ALT-F-X]

I can confirm this. CoW Caps at 50% of target HP and on top of that you can have PWS on same target, not sure how CoW interacts with Divine Aegis. PWS is consumed before CoW also.

PWS is not always used before CoW. I'm not 100% on this but I believe it's whichever one is applied first. Maybe someone else can confirm.

[Evry]

The general rule for all absorbs is that the smallest one is consumed first.

[Myllior]

Here's my spreadsheet (and also a word document with the equations) for calculating these things (links below). The first page is a stat weight calculator and the second is the optimisation spreadsheet. Essentially, there are three 'alphas' that allow you to control the contributions of PW:S/CoW, PoH and the remaining heals to the overall healing breakdown, and so by varying these you can see how the distribution of stats changes as you vary spell usage. There are three additional alphas that allow you to control the effectiveness of your pure absorbs (PW:S/CoW), and the direct healing and Divine Aegis portions of your other spells, but those require log breakdowns to get anything accurate out of them.

If you go to the right of the optimisation graph, there are two other graphs (one is simply a zoomed version of the other) that show how much healing you lose by equally distributing your stat points between two, three or four of M, C, MS and V.

The optimisation isn't perfect; it doesn't implement that Atonement no longer benefits from the healing portion of Discipline's Mastery. Spirit Shell, which is supposed to be calculated using the equation at the beginning of this thread (as it simply averages out criticals and multistrikes), is not working anything like that on live (I have no idea why it's different but it is), so it's ignored.

For whatever reason, Google Drive does a terrible job of displaying these online, so downloading them is the best option (I think I've enabled that; let me know if it doesn't work). Just remove the spaces.

Spreadsheet: drive.google.com/ file/d/0B1CefMp4nAVxSjBUaWlTNVJQYm8/view?usp=sharing

Equations: drive.google.com/ file/d/0B1CefMp4nAVxV3FmMWpEZGJLN28/view?usp=sharing

EDIT: Links to updated versions of these may be found in Post #55 on the next page.

[ALT-F-X]

The general rule for all absorbs is that the smallest one is consumed first.

Ah, that would explain some things.

[Feranda]

PWS is not always used before CoW. I'm not 100% on this but I believe it's whichever one is applied first. Maybe someone else can confirm.

The general rule for all absorbs is that the smallest one is consumed first.

I stand corrected, this might indeed be the case with PWS + CoW. Trying to test this later.

[Aucy]

Is the general rule of thumb right now to take the highest ilvl piece regardless of stats? For instance, I have trouble deciding between a heroic warforged crit\mastery helm I have vs the 640 MC helm. I also have the epic offhand from CMODES with haste\multistrike, but i'd be sacraficing alot of crit\mastery from the heroic Spire staff(got a socket on it to)

[Deleted]

Hi Myllior, Thx for the work, that's really helpful.
Don't have a chance to get a good look at it for now since I'm at work but I couldn't help but notice a few things :
- did you take disc's crit atunement into account ?
- I notice that when I put all stats at 0, raid buffs act weird : you still have like 11% crit and 10% mastery raidbuffed. Maybe I'm not reading this right but it seems off...

Cheers

[Myllior]

Hi Darkmorcel,

Thank you and you're welcome! There are a few peculiarities to the spreadsheet, I'll try and explain some of them below.

1. The Critical strike attunement is taken into account. Stats may be expressed as X = (x/w) + b, where 'x' is the rating, 'w' is the required rating to increase 'X' by 1 (or 100%) and 'b' represents base stats and buffs; so to account for the attunement I divide the value of w for C by 1.05 (i.e. w_C = 11000/1.05). This means that the value for Critical strike rating 'c' calculated by the spreadsheet is before the extra 5% from the attunement; i.e. if the spreadsheet says you want 1000 Critical strike rating, then in-game you actually want 1050.

2. The spreadsheets require a little bit of manual manipulation to account for e.g. racials. For instance, the 11% raid-buffed Critical strike is for a Worgen Priest; i.e. 5% baseline + 5% raid buff + 1% Worgen.

3. I use the convention of 'M' being the healing portion of Discipline's Mastery, rather than the absorb portion, so it's value as a percentage/decimal is half of the character pane value, so 10.4% is what would be expected (12.8% absorb baseline + 8% absorb raid buff = 20.8%; half gives 10.4%). This is only a choice of convention, so the results are not affected because of it.

4. With regards to the stat calculator, the values that should be put into cells B3-B9 are your in-game character pane ratings without any raid buffs. If you want to average out trinket procs or the like, then that requires manual editing of the appropriate cells of D3-D9. I know requiring manual calculation and input of procs isn't the best, but it would be a lot of work for a very minor improvement.

Hope this helps!

[Deleted]

Suddenly my "Partial Differential Equations in Engineering" course seems relevant xD Thank you for settling this debate, it's been getting on my nerves, as the stat priority section of my satiric disc guide may have indicated :|

That being said, and I hate to throw a spanner in the works here, but in doing dungeons the last few days I have been noticing that CoW (and PWS to a lesser extent) are coming dangerously close to capping, and I only have ~620 ilevel at the moment, so this can only be expected to increase as we get more stats.

Absorbs are still restricted to a % of the caster's maximum health, so wouldn't mastery, multi and crit have a diminishing value as we get enough of them that we hit the cap in a single cast? In MoP, this problem still existed except it wasn't really possible to reach the levels of crit/mastery necessary to make it happen, but when you throw multi strike in the mix, and the insane SP co-efficients on CoW and PWS, it's seems to be a real possibility now.

Basically it would happen when MaxHp*0.66 < sp*k*(1+M/2)*(1+C*(1+M))*(1+0.6*Mt)*(1+V)*1.3
where MaxHp is the disc priest's max health and it's capped at (I think) 66% of our hp.

I'm not very confident with the maths here, but essentially it's likely to happen whenever you crit AND multistrike at the same time, or when you multistrike twice, or when your multistrikes crit or any combination of these, so (I think) the chance of it happening is essentially your crit*multi + multi*multi + multi*crit*multi*crit and so on (i'm really not sure about the math there when it comes to the interactions between crit and multi, because i'm not sure if Multi crits independently or if it's based on the crit of the original spell, but what I am confident about is that it can happen in a number of ways, which means there are a number of events which can result in capping, meaning that the probability of any event happening is additive ("or" events), meaning that frequency of it occuring is much higher, ie, it's not going to be that rare for us to cap compared to MoP when we didn't have multistrike. Mastery obviously contributes by increasing the potency of the crits/multistrikes.

PWS alone is less problematic because of Weakened Soul, but CoW, with it's larger Coefficient and ability to refresh/stack I've been finding I'm capping out, occasionally in a single cast, but quiet often in 2 casts if the tank has some of their own, smaller absorbs up. Furthermore, PWS is going to start experiencing this problem just as much once we hit t18, maybe even mythic t17. I'm also wondering how Divine Ageis would be affected by this problem.

Now, good gameplay can minimize this problem, by making sure you're not close to the cap when you recast it, but it's just an extra thing to have to manage, and it's still very RNG and hitting the cap is purely wasteful overhealing. Also, during Archangel it's even more likely to happen, and if you have any other healing buffs present then it's quiet probable.

What I'm wondering is whether we're going to get to a point where we should consider stacking haste or even stamina over mast/mult/crit to avoid frequently capping our absorbs.

Haste is strange, it only partially addresses the problem; by allowing more, weaker casts we're less likely to hit the cap in a single cast, but we still need to be careful not to stack up to the cap with successive casts; essentially it reduces the likelihood while blanketing (since we usually won't cast on the same target twice in a row), but does little while focusing a single target such as tank healing in raids or 5man healing (since faster casts means we may be refreshing/stacking CoW before it is consumed, potentially reaching the cap).

Stamina, is also strange, by increasing our max hp, we make it harder to reach the cap, however it doesn't contribute to our throughput in any other way. We'll always be getting increased stamina with each upgrade, so it's not like our MaxHp isn't going to scale up passively, but what's important is the ratio between the rate at which throughput stats and MaxHp scale. Even though they increased player Healthpools relative to everything else, I wonder if they've also adjusted the scaling rates relative to the scaling of healing. This is a problem unique to disc, as no other healer has absorbs with the potential to reach cap before being consumed, and true heals don't have a cap, so it's fairly likely they haven't considered this (also, its disc, they don't consider anything anyway). Anyway, as it currently stands at ~heroic dungeon level, I'm already coming close to capping on a noticeably often basis, and I can't imagine that Health is going to passively scale ahead of healing by any really significant amount with higher ilevels, so it's pretty safe to assume that this problem is going to persist, and increase, with higher ilevel. So, we consider whether it's worth stacking stamina at all. Obviously the scaling of the stamina passively available on 'regular' healing gear isn't enough to prevent this from occurring in the first place, however, what I want to know is whether the stamina available on trinkets and from gems contributes a significant enough amount of extra health that it's worth seeking them out. You'd also need to be very frequently capping and unable to reduce it any more through gameplay and/or shifting stats into haste/spirit before it was even worth considering using stamina. However, I suspect we may get there by the later tiers.

TLDR - Strong potential for capping absorbs with higher crit/multistrike levels, manage through gameplay and shifting stats towards haste, potential need for stam stacking in the late tiers of WoD.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh and also, Havoc, would you be able to make a script macro that uses this math to work out the balance point based on the player's current gear?

Are you sure PWS has a cap? It never used to have one in MoP. Also remember that blizzard has designed the new environment so that health will rise roughly twice as fast as healing power. That makes capping less and less likely as your gear advances.

I can make an excel script to calculate the best stat to pick based on your current value, but it is kinda pointless, because the optimal gearing needs to take your spell selection and overhealing into account. Also the differences are really tiny, unless you are very far away from the balance point. There are just 5 basic rules:

1) Generally pick the highest ilvl unless its something retarded. For same ilvl upgrades refer to 1-4.

2) Know the mastery/crit balance points (put formula above in excel and just input your mastery to see if your current crit and above or below the balance point.

3) If your mastery is higher than the balance point by more than 2-3% and you want to keep stacking primarily mastery (because you cast PWS/CoW a lot) Avoid both multi and versatility, since their value is quickly suppressed by mastery.

4) If your crit is higher than the balance point by more than 2-3% and you want to keep stacking primarily crit (because you cast heals a lot for some inexplicable reason, or because you want to off-DPS a lot) take multistrike and mastery in equal measures.

5) If you are near the balance point and you want to stay around there then take mastery over everything else.

Basically there are three basic gearing strategies.

a) Stack mastery for PWS/CoW and then for same ilvl upgrades pick crit over everything else.

b) Stack crit for heals/off-DPS and then for same ilvl upgrades pick multistrike and mastery on equal measures.

c) Stack balanced crit/mastery for a mixed playstyle and ignore all other stats.

Regardless of your gearing strategy, you lose very little by taking some amount of a "wrong" stat.

[Deleted]

Hi Darkmorcel,

/snip

Hope this helps!

Helps a lot ! Thx again, now that I understand it better, I hope I can use it properly !

Makes a great tool if you take the time to properly evaluate your character/gameplay.
Thx to Havoc12 also, your gearing strategies are making a lot of sense.

[Noradin]

Are you sure PWS has a cap? It never used to have one in MoP. Also remember that blizzard has designed the new environment so that health will rise roughly twice as fast as healing power. That makes capping less and less likely as your gear advances.

I'm quite sure it does not, since caps only ever applied to absorbs that could be extended (and only when extended) and PW:S gets overwritten.

[Jimjam38]

My entire reply that I thought I posted yesterday appears to have disappeared :|

I'm quite sure it does not, since caps only ever applied to absorbs that could be extended (and only when extended) and PW:S gets overwritten.

Yeah, it doesn't, was just my misunderstanding.
CoW is capped at 50% of the target's hp, DA and SS are capped at 60% of the disc priest's hp and PWS is uncapped because of Weakened Soul. Knowing this, my entire post about possible need for stam stacking is irrelevant.

On another note, Havoc, Myllior said that PWS, CoW and Spirit Shell have different formula to the one you used in the OP, which is only relevant to DA producing heals.
Myllior said:

For PW:S and CoW, if the base shield is critical, then any multistrikes are also critical; if not, the multistrikes will not be.

If that's the case, can you calculate the balance points for PWS, CoW and SS, because I expect these will be a much larger portion of our raid healing than DA producing heals. From what i've seen in dungeons, i have a strong suspicion that Multistrike is going to be valued a lot more for COW/PWS than it is for the DA producing heals, so I'd really appreciate it if you could work out their balance points.

[Evry]

If that's the case, can you calculate the balance points for PWS, CoW and SS

That information is in the spreadsheet Myllior linked earlier.
Using the values s/he provided of 60% healing from PW:S/CoH, 20% from PoH (non EAA) and 20% other.
According to the spreadsheet notes these values are the value you should have from your gear, calculated assuming fully buffed raid.

total	m	c	ms	v
0	0	0	0	0
0	0	0	0	0
100	100	0	0	0
200	200	0	0	0
300	300	0	0	0
400	400	0	0	0
500	500	0	0	0
600	600	0	0	0
700	700	0	0	0
800	800	0	0	0
900	900	0	0	0
1000	1000	0	0	0
1100	1100	0	0	0
1200	1200	0	0	0
1317	1300	17	0	0
1509	1400	109	0	0
1702	1500	202	0	0
1893	1600	293	0	0
2085	1700	385	0	0
2276	1800	476	0	0
2467	1900	567	0	0
2657	2000	657	0	0
2847	2100	747	0	0
3037	2200	837	0	0
3227	2300	927	0	0
3416	2400	1016	0	0
3605	2500	1105	0	0
3793	2600	1193	0	0
3981	2700	1281	0	0
4223	2800	1369	53	0
4466	2900	1457	109	0
4710	3000	1544	165	0
4952	3100	1631	221	0
5195	3200	1718	277	0
5437	3300	1804	333	0
5679	3400	1890	389	0
5921	3500	1976	445	0
6163	3600	2062	501	0
6404	3700	2147	557	0
6645	3800	2232	613	0
6886	3900	2317	669	0
7127	4000	2401	725	0

I cba to check the equations right now, but it looks accurate enough.

[Myllior]

On another note, Havoc, Myllior said that PWS, CoW and Spirit Shell have different formula to the one you used in the OP, which is only relevant to DA producing heals.

PW:S and CoW use a different formula yes, but Spirit Shell is supposed to use the equation Havoc originally posted. However, it's currently not following that formula (nor that for PW:S/CoW, which it shouldn't be anyway) for some reason; it broke some time just before or after 6.0 hit and a subsequent 'fix' didn't restore it entirely. It's bizarre, but is a bit off-topic.

If that's the case, can you calculate the balance points for PWS, CoW and SS, because I expect these will be a much larger portion of our raid healing than DA producing heals.

I'm afraid I'm no good with producing tables and such on forums, which is why I linked my spreadsheet earlier. If you go top the 'Disc Opt' sheet and set a_M = 1, a_NA = 0, a_PoH = 0, and a_S = a_C = a_D = 1 (for this particular case, it actually doesn't matter what a_S, a_C and a_D are, as long as a_S isn't zero), then that should give you the balance points for pure PW:S/CoW healing. Remember that the Critical strike rating 'c' given is the rating prior to the 5% attunement, so you'll actually have 5% more 'c' in game than the balance point says. (To be honest, I'm still not 100% sure if my method for dealing with the attunement is sound, but it seems okay for now).

From what i've seen in dungeons, i have a strong suspicion that Multistrike is going to be valued a lot more for COW/PWS than it is for the DA producing heals, so I'd really appreciate it if you could work out their balance points.

You are correct; because PW:S and CoW do not share the special coupling between Critical strike and Mastery that Divine Aegis-producing heals do, their synergy is not present. As such, Critical strike and multistrike are virtually identical for scaling of these spells. The two reasons they're not exactly identical are (i) the 5% Critical strike attunement makes it scale slightly faster on a point-by-point basis, however (ii) you have heaps more baseline Critical strike than you do Multistrike, so you want a bit more Multistrike than Critical strike.

EDIT:

That information is in the spreadsheet Myllior linked earlier.

Thank you very much for extracting the information I'm hopeless at that stuff lol. Just in case anyone wonders why there are a bunch of zeros instead of negatives in the table; if the balance point comes back with a negative rating for a stat, I simply set it to zero as you can't actually reduce a rating below zero in game.