Sim Resto druid with askmrrobot. What to think about?

[Christoffer1989]

So far I have used simulation on askmrrobots website kinda casual. Just use standard settings.
Raid Healing / Spread Healing and just compared some gear kinda roughly.

But now I want too take it to the next step, first of I change some settings in "raid healing" from 20man -> 12man (we are normaly 12man in our heroic run)
And ofc got abit diffrent result from it.

So now to my question, can I get even more/better output from easy changes? Or do I need to work alot harder to make it jsut abit better?
Im not a hardcore raider or something like that, so just want an easy way to tell if gear is better And talents etc.

Like now, Incanartion: Tree of Life would be a hugh boost for me, but all I read is that Cultivation is soo much better. I do understand that CD's are hard in a simulation, as you not always use them when avalablie as a healer.

[Glormon]

Someone more intelligent can correct me on this but I'd always been given the impression that you don't/can't sim healers in general for a number of reasons, first of many being that someone isn't always taking damage 100% of the time or in the very least isn't damaged for very long, not like a dpser who (at least in a sim) has nothing preventing him from dpsing.

Not to mention the performance of other healers will downplay your own and vice versa.

take this part you asked

Like now, Incanartion: Tree of Life would be a hugh boost for me, but all I read is that Cultivation is soo much better. I do understand that CD's are hard in a simulation, as you not always use them when avalablie as a healer.

Sure on paper the healing from ToL seems great but remember that you have other people healing with you, not everyone you heal is taking damage the entire time so parts of your rejuvs/Wild Growths are just overhealing so does the healing bonus really benefit you for the windows that its available? Depending on the fight of course. Is it big enough in that same scenario where Cultivation was kicking in giving the additonal healing -and- throwing up an additonal HoT to effect your mastery on that individual with no added effort on your part?

I have no idea how the sim would function but I imagine it just always pretends your straight healing all the time and the target is always hurt, which is even more unrealistic then the patchwerk the dpsers sim for.

[Emerald Archer]

You can't sim healing. Don't try to, it is never accurate. If you want your stat weights, go to the resto druid discord, get the weak aura, then after a fight it will give you some stats weights.

[Christoffer1989]

You can't sim healing. Don't try to, it is never accurate. If you want your stat weights, go to the resto druid discord, get the weak aura, then after a fight it will give you some stats weights.

So hows the best to come up with what legenderys, trinkets and/or talents too go for? Just listen too others more "hardcore" players?
I understand that simulate healing is hard. Tough I could get a rougly estimated atleast, but guess not then^^

[Doogler]

So hows the best to come up with what legenderys, trinkets and/or talents too go for? Just listen too others more "hardcore" players?
I understand that simulate healing is hard. Tough I could get a rougly estimated atleast, but guess not then^^

It is a combination of feel and using tools such as https://druid-legendary-analyser.herokuapp.com/# which will parse an actual log and give you a good idea of what each legendary did for you on a specific fight. Though the one that heals the most is not always the best. For example the wrists on most fights parse higher than the ring for me, this is largely because I have a brew master tank and the wrists play very nicely with stagger. However, even without the wrists there is not a noticeable difference healing the tank, so I am mostly just sniping other heals that are already going out. So while the numbers might look nice, its actual usefulness is lower.

Also the shoulders parse incredibly high for me, 3x more than the next closest legendary. Now they are definitely very good, but a lot of that increased healing was just stolen from the other druid I raid with who has parsed much lower since I got them. Then again we will likely have a healer go dps next week, which will allow the shoulders be much more useful.

So much depends on what you are healing and who you are healing with.

[Emerald Archer]

So hows the best to come up with what legenderys, trinkets and/or talents too go for? Just listen too others more "hardcore" players?
I understand that simulate healing is hard. Tough I could get a rougly estimated atleast, but guess not then^^

No, you wouldn't be able to get an estimated guess.

https://discord.gg/3nQSkjy

This is the resto druid discord, yes just listen to what the hardcore players say. When you learn the spec properly, the in and outs, then you will know what talents, when and where. Until then, really don't try to go off simulations, you may as well close your eyes and pick random talents.

Sims for healers aren't "nearly right" they're just in a totally different world, It's like.. What you want, is to find the best talents for raid, but your way of trying to do that, is by drowning yourself in a bowl of cereal. It makes no sense and is only going to hurt you in the long run.

[Deleted]

What you wanna do is basically get to know every stat, what it does for you, and then get to know each fight and what kind of healing you will need.

Let's for example take mastery: Mastery gives you more healing on individuals with more HoTs, meaning it benefits great with a talent like Germination. Therefore, if you are using Germination on a fight like Spellblade, where individuals (Mark of Frost) are taking damage, a stat stick trinket with mastery is good on this fight.

But take another fight like Krosus, where you will probably be running Spring blossom. Haste will benefit good here, because it's mostly raid wide damage, and you will need to spread rejuvs on many targets fast, and since you're only casting 1 rejuv each target, value of mastery obviously goes down.

It's all about small bits and bobs like these, that makes you a good healer. You can never, and I repeat: never sim healing - it just doesn't work like that.

[Cheze]

you can sim healing all you want, you just need to understand the data you're getting back. Unlike damage dealers, there are a lot of metrics we care about more than raw throughput per time (especially rdruid.) We are in general much more dependent on fight/composition circumstances than are DPS.

tbh the best quick approach to which talents/legendaries/etc to use is just to look at WCL ranks and see what the high parses are doing.

[Zoopercat]

Hey I'm from Ask Mr. Robot. A lot of people think you can't sim healers, and one of the reasons is because simc never supported it, so you couldn't sim healers since there wasn't a tool to do it. It can be done, it just isn't easy

One of the things we wanted to do with the AMR simulator was actually model healers. We launched V1 with legion, and it's good (but not as in depth as we want). It goes for max throughput assuming you are healing all of the time and aren't bringing too many healers. But a lot of people don't play that way.

We have V2 coming out soon (sometime in May, hopefully in just a week or two). We're modeling the entire fight: individual raiders who take damage (based on real fights), other healers (who can snipe heals, etc), and logic to let you save big cooldowns for big damage events, etc. It will be similar to our tanking simulations which take real damage, have a 'real' heal team, and an off-tank buddy for tank swaps. You'll be able to customize any parameter you want, so it should give you pretty actionable advice.

[roi]

What's the point though? Unlike dps (you can never have enough), there're only two types of healing, either it's sufficient or not. And it's all reactive anyway. Especially on druids it seems pointless, like what advice could you possible get, the answer is always rejuv the right person.

[RestoSpirit]

Hey,

been thinking about and experimenting with that topic a lot. Some of the points that have been given in this post are right some of them are wrong (atleast in my opinion and with the results I got).

First of all siming for healer isn't useless at all. You need to know what you do though.
Sim-HPS will and should aim for maximum throughput so you can compare it to real fights, real logs of the raidbosses you are progressing. Take Mythic Elisande for example: The first 45-60secs can be solohealed by a druid with legendary-shoulders and trinket. Why is that important?
a) you can prehot the entire raid and take a drink to start the fight with full mana and 22 rejus in the raid
b) you can blow all of your CDs including innervate and Tranq relatively early in the fight so you will have it up again
c)Druid is the perfect class for consistent ticking damage (same goes for Cenarius btw.) and the other healer/s can save a lot of mana and help DPS for a smooth phase-shift after the third arcanetic rings.
So we are starting phase2 with 2-3healers at 80-90% mana which is insane considering you need around 4.5-5m hps in phase1. This is a great example where you should sim yourself and see what your maximum throughput is. It lets you decide wether or not you can handle it.

Lets look at an example where sim-hps will not help you or rather keeps you from playing the correct style. We look at mythic Tichondrius. Your guild is struggling because your soakers die all the time. You are playing maximum throughput legendaries and talents and doing 1m hps , is it time for change? Absolutly, and no sim will ever tell you what to do here. You need to know how each of your legendaries work and how it can help you to carry the fight to make the correct decision here. You should talk to the other healers, ST-healing is not your primary job. But if they can't handle it or the fights overwhelms them you should do what you can to support them and keep the raid alive. You may end up with 500-600k hps but the boss dies which is of course the most important thing.

TLDR: SimHPS can be useful but as with all things healers have to use their brain and analyze the fight to make the correct decisions to KILL THE BOSS.

What's the point though? Unlike dps (you can never have enough), there're only two types of healing, either it's sufficient or not. And it's all reactive anyway. Especially on druids it seems pointless, like what advice could you possible get, the answer is always rejuv the right person.

Well I have to disagree. Rdruids more than most healers are PROactive healers, we need to prehot and anticipate the damage BEFORE it hits so we can make the correct plays.

Cheers
RestoSpirit

[silkworm]

"a) you can prehot the entire raid and take a drink to start the fight with full mana and 22 rejus in the raid "

This pretty much sums up the resto druid opener in difficult combats.

"So now to my question, can I get even more/better output from easy changes? Or do I need to work alot harder to make it jsut abit better?
Im not a hardcore raider or something like that, so just want an easy way to tell if gear is better And talents etc."

TLR:Yes you can get more output from easy changes. See below. If you work harder you will be amply rewarded.
For your content (no mythic raid, heroic and normal pug-semi guild raids, M+ content) a comfortable haste (anything between %20 to %30) and max intellect from the rest of the gear is the way to go. Other gear changes are just marginal.

As for your question, as a player more or less in your situation here is some advice. Before I continue, I'm a fan of mr Robot and a paid member almost since launch.

1- Askmrrobot is good however, my play style does not dovetail with their advice. For example, for max throughput it uses max ilvl gear and reduces my haste to a point where its an eternity waiting for the GCD after each reju. True if you want max output, (as explained on Mr.Robot's blog) this is good advice. However for this to succeed, you must have a coordinated healer group as in a mythic raid. As you are not hardcore like me, you will join a pug or semi guild run, and all your heal will be sniped by the other 1 or 2 healers. The type of content we play will be either overgeared, so in most cases 1 or 2 healers can do the job but due to habit and feelings of safety, raid leaders tend to get 3 or more healers, OR there will be mechanic and low dps problems due to movement etc that 3 healers will not be enough that they will blame you for doing low heal.

2- Change into a comfortable haste gear. This can be anything from %20 haste to %30 depending on your play style( keyboard bashing = need high haste, queuing in your mind what to cast next, a more planned calm style = need less haste) This does not mean haste is king. But for the content and type of groups we tend to play = pug and farmed heroic content tends to favor haste centered build.
3- get a mastery heavy gear set to do M+ 5 mans.
4- above pre hot advice for any difficult combat is as solid as it gets and for all M+ 10 content
5- Try to change talents according to raid size. For example Germination is very useful in small groups up to 10-12 raiders, whereas in larger groups either you assign groups to each healer so that you have a narrow focus to germinate or it becomes useless if you will be hotting all the raid. You will not be able to reju+germination all members so all the talent will go wasted. Other two talents in that tier are not stellar but can do better healing depending on combat. For example Elisande favors Inner Peace (you can use as many as 3 or 4 tranq in total depending on combat length) and Skorpyron and Tichondirus favors Spring Blossoms. (for large raids over 10-12 people)

Out of time for now will continue if I can find the time
tbc...

[silkworm]

Continuing above if you are still reading...

A few more bits here:

-If you are troll, use your racial as a cd. Hots you cast during berserk racial will be more powerful if you combine it with another proc such as Etraeus Celestial Map proc.
-Follow your important buffs such as Etraeus by Weak Auras or TellMeWhen. Get visual and audio warnings when they are up and know what to do when they are up.
-Avoid using mana trinkets. Try to manage your mana better. Start combats (at around 10-15 sec mark when you have used say %10 of your mana) with innervate, reju reju reju until last moment and before it ends do a wild growth and if possible squeeze an Effloresence in between instead of one reju during innervate. Basically you will be at full mana at the first 30 secs or so. Since you will use innervate at start, you are guaranteed to use it again at least once for short and twice for longer combats. Manage your innervate time carefully so you get max mana out of it. If you are at low or no mana when combat ends, you are doing OK.
-Pre pot with a prolonged power potion for difficult combats. If you are filthy rich pre-pot before each combat Use another one if you will use tranq or tree of life form for max value. If not or if you have mana issues (which you will) save your pot cd for ancient mana or leytorrent (make sure you do not get interrupted when drinking this)
-Health potions and Healthstones are on different CD than your other potions. Use them. Insist on your raid to use them as much as possible.
-If there is a paladin beg/bribe/threaten for Bessing of Wisdom. If you can do good heal, they will usually target you for this anyway.

Its very easy to solo heal all normal and quite possible for the experienced player to solo heal heroic up to Elisande , if raid dps is good enough. Elisande and Gul'dan is also very possible for better players or better geared players with high dps raids.

[tonydanza]

First of all siming for healer isn't useless at all. You need to know what you do though.
Sim-HPS will and should aim for maximum throughput so you can compare it to real fights, real logs of the raidbosses you are progressing.
RestoSpirit

What is maximum throughput? Because last I checked, maximum theorhetical throughput is entirely dependant on many factors that are out of your control and/or unknown;
Heal comp, How many healers, raid ability to avoid/mitigate avoidable damage, the particular encounter. Raid ilevel. High DPS. Low Dps. Type of tanks. Type of cohealers.

Every single one of these, on their own, cause such wild variations in output for all healers that simming is universally accepted as a fools practice.

By very definition. A simulation is merely an imitation/process of pretending. You cannot imitate an unknown variable.

Logs are the way to analyze ones own performance, not just your logs.

[Deleted]

If you want tips that are worth literally anything, go to warcraftlogs. Look up top logs from resto druids, see what they do, see what they stack, see their legendary choice on the certain fights, and see if you can analyze why.

The druid discord is honestly full of misinformation from people who say the first thing they think is right over and over again. I left the discord after the whole ordeal with "crit" being the best stat, while crit is very far from the best stat(look up any top logs from resto druids).

On topic, you can use the sim as a general indicator of your maximum hps, if you had 0% overhealing. But should not be used as an indicator of your performance, as others have said, you are not healing alone, and sometimes people take more damage than usual.

For me personally i like to be on about 30% haste, and funnel rest into mastery/versatility.

[RestoSpirit]

What is maximum throughput? Because last I checked, maximum theorhetical throughput is entirely dependant on many factors that are out of your control and/or unknown;
Heal comp, How many healers, raid ability to avoid/mitigate avoidable damage, the particular encounter. Raid ilevel. High DPS. Low Dps. Type of tanks. Type of cohealers.

Every single one of these, on their own, cause such wild variations in output for all healers that simming is universally accepted as a fools practice.

By very definition. A simulation is merely an imitation/process of pretending. You cannot imitate an unknown variable.

Logs are the way to analyze ones own performance, not just your logs.

Hey

I have to disagree, while it sometimes can be tough to sort out all the factors, I have very little to non unknown factors in my raid. Yeah sure it helps to be the Raid-/Guildleader and making the assignments, but everyone could do the work and find out (as you mentioned) what happend via logs. In a mythic-progress raid you always know your other healers, you know what they can do and where their performance might lack. You set the number of healers BEFORE you even pull the first time. After years playing with the same people you know who tends to fail mechanics and takes extra damage. You know your tanks and you talk to them before you progress a new fight. The only factor that is rather complicated is DPS, because of the RNG of proccs and people changing gear or getting better gear, dps will change from time to time, but not in way that you can't adept to it.

Besides my post wasn't designed to say siming HPS is the ONLY way to go, it's just an extra tool that shouldn't be ignored. When preparing for a fight I usually go over logs from other resto druids, even searching for kills from different dates so we can see how the extra gear/traits=DPS will change the encounter.

Simcraft is not about analysing my own performance, its about seeing the potential. It's not a tool to find mistakes, it a tool to find possibilities.

Cheers RestoSpirit