Trinkets, spirit and me?

[Tankforhire 3]

Hello everyone

 

This is my first post ever on Icy Veins - Last night I was reading extensively about int vs. spirit and more specifically Derevka's thoughts of how that would work with disc, although it won't quite be int vs. spirit in that case.

 

With that in mind, I would like to first off start by saying how much of an eye-opener this has been to me. It's changed a lot of what I've long thought about healing:"If I don't have full mana by the end of this fight, I suck and need more spirit".

In more cases than not, it was more about what I felt comfortable with and this has of course been discussed among other fellow Wow'ers - How much spirit do I need so I don't run OOM, but can still last an entire fight?

Well, as many people have said and from what I've now tried out based on the idea of throughput over regen(especially what I've originally thought to be an excessive way of going for throughput), I've come to the conclusion that I find throughput over regen to be a lot more effective, but this requires you to become a different player than when going for the regen over throughput method.

Alas, this is not so much what I'd like information about in this topic, but it was more to give a nod to all of you theorycrafters out there that make my everyday WoW life so much easier - Thank you for taking the time and sharing your findings with the rest of us!

 

Now here's what I'm really curious about - As has already been discussed in other topics(I didn't want to hi-jack another thread) are that of trinkets and what exactly am I inclined to think of the different ones out there?

 

I love PPoP, so that one is a no-brainer for me. I'm more interested in finding out about which trinket I should use in my other slot.

 

Now, I realize that if I'm having mana issues I should go for a trinket that helps with getting mana back such as the one off of Blackfuse. 

But what if we're talking sheer throughput?

I found that BBoY yields incredibly high PW:S and DS(if used appropriately so. Even far better with ToF in an ideal scenario), but is it better than going for PBoI even if you won't get the intellect proc from it?

Is the uptime of BBoY's proc high enough to keep up with/overtake PBoI? I realize that BBoY has haste and a great deal of that can be reforged into crit, but is BBoY overall better or can PBoI's amplification keep up with BBoY's overall throughput purely through the already said amplification it does?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these are the only options available from SoO in regards to throughput for disc priests and as such I'd like to know which is the better option for the fights where I don't need that extra tad of mana regen through DSoD.

 

Personally, I'm not a fan of the Cleave/Multistrike trinkets - Especially as a disc priest, I just don't feel they offer me much of anything so I don't think they're much in the race of throughput for disc but you're welcome to tell me I'm wrong and prove me otherwise.

 

This post got a little longer than I had originally anticipated, I'm sorry for that.

Can anyone help me with this?

 

Also if anyone has the time and is willing to, could you have a look at my priest and tell me if there's anything I can do different and what that would be?

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/azjolnerub/Tankforhire/simple

Edited July 28, 2014 by Tankforhire

[Espiee 161]

I don't remember Derevka participating much in the spirit vs. int debate. The only instance I think where he responded to it was back when MoP was new in a response to Hamlet choosing the int trinket over the spirit one. Suffice to say that is no longer a relevant debate since we're in a position where we reforge and gem away from spirit when at a preferred cap.

 

I don't see the distinction between spirit and throughput here though. For all intents and purposes, spirit is a throughput stat. It's effect on your healing is however not as direct as what you would find from mastery, crit or haste.

 

There are two reasons to get spirit. Either you're unable to finish boss fights without ooming and you've exhausted any other possible sources of mana(eg proper spell and cooldown use) _or_ you want to cast more mana-inefficient spells for their higher throughput(case in point for discipline priests is using PoH or Smite as your filler).

 

In both circumstances spirit will increase your throughput.

 

In the former situations you will suddenly have mana to continue healing, whereas before you did not. Spirit in this instance is much more important than your other secondary stats as you need to cast spells for the other secondary stats to hit. In the latter, spirit can be compared to the other stats by comparing how much healing you'd do with the loss of mastery/haste/crit to the gain of the inefficient spell you want to use with increased spirit.

 

Spirit does however have a ceiling on its utility. You can can stack it to such a degree that you're perpetually at 90% or more mana and end a fight in that manner. That much spirit is a detriment to your healing capacity as every point of mana left once the fight is over is essentially wasted. Because of varying fight lengths and intensity it's hard to specify one magical number, but a rule of thumb is that you shouldn't end fights with more than 10-20% left on short fights and be virtually dry towards the end on a long fight.

 

If you're above that point, replace some spirit with crit or mastery, if you're below it, start stacking some.

 

As for trinkets, I don't have much to add that hasn't been said in the thread recently regarding trinkets. BiS for disc in cases where you need the mana is PPoP and DSoD, otherwise choose the throughput trinket of your choice to replace DSoD. Personally I'd use PBoI for the static increase, but you can have a great experience with either BBoY or YB. It's more down to personal preference than one being absolutely better than the others.

 

As for your armory, there isn't much to fault. You have a decent number of haste items I'd look to replace. 7.5k haste is a lot as discipline. If you want any substantial analysis for improving yourself, start to log your raids and look at the hints given by Nearwen here and here.

Edited July 29, 2014 by steve

[Tankforhire 3]

Thank you for the reply!

 

I remember I was reading Derevka's thoughts on it, I think it was on Howtopriest.com(where he links to a post of his on talesofapriest) - The only point to this note was that this was where I first got lead to the point of int vs. spirit.

*EDIT* Here's the link I could remember: http://talesofapriest.com/2012/10/09/regen-vs-throughput/

It's not particularly in-depth, but it got me thinking and that's why I ended up here.

 

And while I agree you can look at spirit as an overall throughput stat, this is not how I generally think of it. When I think throughput, I think how can X amount of int/crit/mastery(for example) increase my spells effect. Say a heal could do 5k to start with and now it's at 7k, that's something I can wrap my head around.

 

Regardless, I've tried out spirit heavy builds and while it's great to never be lower than 90-95% mana on fights, I just feel that there are fights where it's simply not worthwhile to stack spirit if a fight requires my heals to have more "oomph" to them. Not to mention, I get the whole thought of:"what if my heals were simply stronger? what kind of wiggle room does that give in comparison to spirits kind of wiggle room?".

 

Anyway this was off-point to what I came here for; I appreciate what you say about trinket choice here - It's kind of the same thought I had, but honestly when learning a different way to play I want to be as sure as I can get. Think I'll stick with BBoY for fights where I can, DSoD for fights I need more mana regen and maybe PBoI for kind of a in-between thing.

 

Now about my gear, I realize I have a lot of haste. I haven't been much of a regular raider this expansion. In and out quicker than the revolving door can smack me on the ass - But the tendency has been to call on me if one of the regulars aren't there one night, so with that in mind I like to do what I can with what I got, even if stat-wise I could have a far better setup.

I just don't always get the best of items. But hey, I shouldn't complain with the itemlevel I have considering the circumstances of how I've obtained it. 

 

Would you recommend going for gear without spirit altogether? Not to say "go for as close to 0 spirit as possible"(yeah, I know that was a bit of an extreme) but is the trade-off worth it if I can adjust to even lower spirit?

When I started going away from spirit yesterday, I took a drop from 22.5k spirit to just about 11k and honestly I have been fine on mana, granted I've only done Ordos and a few raidfinders since then and this might not be the best of gauge. 

Edited July 29, 2014 by Tankforhire

[Brewmonksta 157]

Would you recommend going for gear without spirit altogether? Not to say "go for as close to 0 spirit as possible"(yeah, I know that was a bit of an extreme) but is the trade-off worth it if I can adjust to even lower spirit?

When I started going away from spirit yesterday, I took a drop from 22.5k spirit to just about 11k and honestly I have been fine on mana, granted I've only done Ordos and a few raidfinders since then and this might not be the best of gauge.

Its going to depend on the raid composition IMO.

 

I raid with 7808 spirit and DSoD but i have 3 priest hymns and mana tide and have yet to find a fight where i go "oom".

 

I would even go less if i could but i am gear limited. Around 8k seems to give enough regen that you can safely atone and flash heal if needed without going oom.

 

Just my thoughts.

 

Happy Killing :)

[Espiee 161]

Derevka's blog post was written under entirely different circumstances at the time where T14 was still ravingly new. In the first tier of an expansion, spirit is always a scarce resource. You simply do not have the the gear or mechanics available to you for reliable mana regeneration(eg crit to fuel mana tea or Resurgence, the metagem or in older expansions intellect to increase your regen and/or mana). In those instances spirit is incredibly important because it's needed for you to actually heal throughout the entire encounter. At the end of an expansion those concerns are largely limited.

 

You should be looking at spirit as a throughput stat, what other purpose would it have or what other perspective would you bring to it? You gear your character to optimally perform a role, if a stat doesn't add to that role, it's detrimental considering the available alternatives. Spirit is no different here. If you're ending a fight with 90% mana and you're doing the rotation you want to and it's optimal, you're at a point where additional spirit is detrimental to your healing given the alternative of replacing that spirit with crit, mastery or even haste.

 

A certain buffer of mana might be nice for emergencies, but nothing to the magnitude of ending a fight with a 270k mana surplus. 22.5k spirit is worlds beyond what's reasonable even for priests that spam PoH and shields instead of smite. The usual range you'll find disc priest in is 5000-12000 spirit dependent on play style and raid composition/progress with smite-spammers in guilds with SoO on farm on one side of the spectrum with PoH-spammers in progress guilds usually at the other.

 

I would definitely recommend going for mastery/crit items wherever possible. It's a substantial increase to your healing getting two throughput stats instead a spirit/other stat item where you can only get 40% of the spirit as mastery or crit. Even if you want to retain a somewhat high level of spirit, you're better off reforging the lesser secondary stat into it(given it's then 60% mastery and 40% spirit rather than the reverse).

Edited July 29, 2014 by steve

[Tankforhire 3]

Thank you for this - I'll be trying out lower amounts of spirit when that becomes possible through different gear. I'm happy I can easily push above 200k HpS whilst still not going lower than 50% mana at any given point, so I may as well try lower; Maybe I should consider trying flex/normal first before tinkering too much still and see how it feels.

 

Yes, I do realize Derevka's blog was written under different circumstances but the same rule of thinking still applied to me. I have literally always had a spirit fetish(no matter at which point of an expansion I was in), but I just never stopped to think if there was any other viable options than spirit - And to that effect, Derevka's blog opened my eyes regardless of when it was written and what it was even more-so concretely about.

Correct context might have been better, but that is why I came here to further satisfy this new-found curiousity and I, again, thank you(both so far) for bothering to take the time to explain a bit about it to me, without going too numbers-heavy.

Edited July 29, 2014 by Tankforhire

[Espiee 161]

In the grand scheme of things, the itemisation on items matter, but only so much. Thanks to reforging, gems and enchants you have a great say in what stats you ultimately end up with and being stuck with some of the 'worse' secondary stats is not what's going to make or break your game. It's purely in terms of optimisation.

 

In terms of new items, look for any items with mastery or crit to replace that haste. Crit is your best stat insofar it's not ahead of mastery(close to impossible in this tier), but mastery is a close second. A spirit/mastery item is a definite upgrade unless it's several item levels lower than the spirit/haste item you're replacing.

[LostDignity 12]

 

 

 Tankforhire, on 28 Jul 2014 - 03:31 AM, said:

How much spirit do I need so I don't run OOM, but can still last an entire fight?

 

I raid in a 10 man environment, and atm 6k spirit (with BBoY) is more than enough, if played correctly. No manna batteries but myself. The amount of spirit you take should also reflect your ilvl. Higher ilvl means higher output, and as a result you can lower your spirit.

 

 

And while I agree you can look at spirit as an overall throughput stat, this is not how I generally think of it. When I think throughput, I think how can X amount of int/crit/mastery(for example) increase my spells effect. Say a heal could do 5k to start with and now it's at 7k, that's something I can wrap my head around. 

 

 

Let me help Steve a bit, by explaining to you why you should view it as a throughput stat.

 

Spirit = more (numerous) heals

Crit/mastery/int (c/m/i) = stronger heals

Haste = faster heals

 

To me throughput means max/total amount of heals. Taking this into account we can do simple math.

 

Spirit: Lets say you can cast 4 heals before you run out of mana, and with more spirit you can cast one more spell. This will grant you an increase of (4+1)/4 = 125% throughput. 25% extra heals is alot. If you're running oom, spirit is the best throughput stat. It is, however, useless if you don't use that extra cast.

 

C/m/i: This one is the obvious one. If your spells are healing for 4, and with c/m/i you can increase it to 5. Thats going to be another 25% increase in throughput.

 

Haste: Haste is kinda tricky to explain. Its the opposite of spirit. If you're running oom, that means haste will give absolutely zero throughput. If you're not then its a pretty decent throughput stat, probably even stronger than crit in raw healing(given you have unlimited mana).

 

 

 I'm happy I can easily push above 200k HpS...

 

 

If meters were a religion, I'd be an atheist. Meters tell you almost nothing about how well/bad you did nor does it tell you how to improve (dps is something else). Logs are everything when it comes to improving.

 

 

If you want any substantial analysis for improving yourself, start to log your raids and look at the hints given by Nearwen here and here.

 

To criticize the guide a bit:

 

The only real disagreement I found with the guide was "Optimal Holy Fire Casts= 331/10 = 30.1" optimal holy fire cast isn't the potential/maximum holy fire cast amount. There is just no way you can prevent holy fire from overlapping with your other spells. E.g. if holy fire and penance come off cd at the same time(or nearly), you would be casting penance and wasting 2 seconds of holyfire. This happens inevitably and cannot be prevented. More often than not, they overlap with spirit shell. I will not go out of my way and delay spirit shell for another half a cast of penance or holy fire.

 

Also, you should already be actively telling yourself 'Use Penance/Holy Fire on cooldown ." (and pom/ds depending on the fight) so i think these parts are pretty straightforward/negligible. The one you should be concentrating on is SS.

 

Tip: make sure you use your pot (mana/jade serpent) a second time, ik alot of people that don't, which is quite sad. An extra 4k int? yes please.

 

 

-LostDignity

[Espiee 161]

The only real disagreement I found with the guide was "Optimal Holy Fire Casts= 331/10 = 30.1" optimal holy fire cast isn't the potential/maximum holy fire cast amount. There is just no way you can prevent holy fire from overlapping with your other spells. E.g. if holy fire and penance come off cd at the same time(or nearly), you would be casting penance and wasting 2 seconds of holyfire. This happens inevitably and cannot be prevented. More often than not, they overlap with spirit shell. I will not go out of my way and delay spirit shell for another half a cast of penance or holy fire.

 

There is obviously an internal hierarchy as to what's most important and no one is expecting someone to be doing this 100% correct, it's simply impossible because of spell conflicts.

 

Using ideal circumstances is still a useful measurement if you allow for a margin of error. Ideal uptime on AA is 60% for example, but you use it as a yardstick to tell people that hover around 40% that it can be markedly improved. Similarly with HF/Penance casts. 18 ticks per minute or 6 casts per minute is the ideal, deviating a little from the norm isn't going to be called out, but if you're stuck at 1-3 casts per minute, it's apparent that something's wrong.