Priest healing power and efficiency chart

[Bolty]

http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~raceca...ot1.0.html

This is so cool. This interactive chart shows the effects of Priest healing talents and +heal equipment on healing power and efficiency. This allows you to see graphically how, after obtaining enough +heal equipment, the heal curves really flatten out. Uber Priests decked with Transcendence gear (the Tier 2 set that prioritizes +heal much more than Prophecy) can basically pick and choose their heal spells for any given situation, since the efficiency ratio ratches them up so much. The smaller the amount of +heal you have, the better you are with just picking the top rank of any heal spell.

In case you're wondering, this is why Priests need gear and why it can make a big difference in raiding - they are opened up to using lower level heal spells, allowing them to heal longer and longer and longer with spells that use less mana. Once you get to that first major breakpoint, where the 2nd highest rank flash heal heals for as much as the highest rank flash heal did without all that gear, it starts getting better and better.

-Bolty

[Lissa]

http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~raceca...ot1.0.html

This is so cool.  This interactive chart shows the effects of Priest healing talents and +heal equipment on healing power and efficiency.  This allows you to see graphically how, after obtaining enough +heal equipment, the heal curves really flatten out.  Uber Priests decked with Transcendence gear (the Tier 2 set that prioritizes +heal much more than Prophecy) can basically pick and choose their heal spells for any given situation, since the efficiency ratio ratches them up so much.  The smaller the amount of +heal you have, the better you are with just picking the top rank of any heal spell.

In case you're wondering, this is why Priests need gear and why it can make a big difference in raiding - they are opened up to using lower level heal spells, allowing them to heal longer and longer and longer with spells that use less mana.  Once you get to that first major breakpoint, where the 2nd highest rank flash heal heals for as much as the highest rank flash heal did without all that gear, it starts getting better and better.

-Bolty
[right][snapback]97186[/snapback][/right]

Interesting thing about this calculator is it shows just how little Talents really effect your efficiency compared to +healing. From the looks of it, a Shadow Priest with enough Healing gear (say around +400 or so, not too hard with the right enchants and epics from the raid instances) can be almost as efficient as a Holy Priest. The only thing that the Shadow Priest may not have is longevity in casting but could still keep up for the most part in overall healing.

[Quark]

A priest with just Spiritual Healing and 3 pieces of Prophecy can easily have Flash Heal pass Greater Heal as a spell of choice in any situation. It takes the talents that improve Greater Heal to make it reasonably more efficient and better heals per second.

[oldmandennis]

Awesome.

Now somebody needs to do one for the rest of the healers.

[Bolty]

Interesting thing about this calculator is it shows just how little Talents really effect your efficiency compared to +healing.[right][snapback]97189[/snapback][/right]

What this chart doesn't show you is what you might be giving up for all that +heal, however. Generally, getting a lot of +heal means giving up a lot of int, spirit, and mana/5sec. The key is balance. If your Flash Heal heals for 1300 hps (instead of the standard ~1000), but you only have 5000 mana as a result, you lose. Myself, I don't go TOO crazy over +heal, because the Priest's primary healing spell (Flash) only gets about 40% of the bonus. Yes, +heal is nice, but if I'm taking too huge a hit in other departments, I won't do it.

I don't know if anyone's ever determined the Golden Formula for finding the best combo of int, spirit, +mana/5sec, and +heal...because there is none. It depends on talents, and situations.

-Bolty

[vor_lord]

A priest with just Spiritual Healing and 3 pieces of Prophecy can easily have Flash Heal pass Greater Heal as a spell of choice in any situation.  It takes the talents that improve Greater Heal to make it reasonably more efficient and better heals per second.
[right][snapback]97192[/snapback][/right]

Equivalent or better HPS and HPM aren't everything. An efficiency gain from using the big heals in long fights is that you can recover more mana via spirit when using the big ones.

While using flash heal in these situations you can mitigate the effect somewhat by bursting them, but even doing this you will not be regenning during the cast times of any of the flash heals except for the first in a burst.

Your point is well taken given all the many advantages of flash heal already, but saying every situation might be going a bit too far ;)

[Tuftears]

I'd keep in mind that +heal also makes each point of mana more efficient. Since you regain a relatively constant amount of mana from a given amount of spirit or from mana regen gear, this also increases your longevity.

I've gotten to quite like +heal gear, now that I have about +250 on Tufty.

[Lissa]

What this chart doesn't show you is what you might be giving up for all that +heal, however.  Generally, getting a lot of +heal means giving up a lot of int, spirit, and mana/5sec.  The key is balance.  If your Flash Heal heals for 1300 hps (instead of the standard ~1000), but you only have 5000 mana as a result, you lose.  Myself, I don't go TOO crazy over +heal, because the Priest's primary healing spell (Flash) only gets about 40% of the bonus.  Yes, +heal is nice, but if I'm taking too huge a hit in other departments, I won't do it.

I don't know if anyone's ever determined the Golden Formula for finding the best combo of int, spirit, +mana/5sec, and +heal...because there is none.  It depends on talents, and situations.

-Bolty
[right][snapback]97196[/snapback][/right]

Well, part of the reason I choose +400 is because of two enchants and 1 item that will net you about +170 or more healing. Benediction, the +55 Healing to weapon, and +24 healing to Bracers is around +170 or so (can't remember exact number on Benediction). So, getting another +230 or so from rings, necklaces, armor slots, and wands shouldn't be too hard without sacrificing much.

The main point I was trying to show though is, the top level Holy talents aren't really that useful to overall Healing Efficiency. Case in point, in raiding, how often do you, or any priest, use Greater Heal during a fight? From what I've experienced back in beta doing raid healing and what I've heard others comment since then, the only really useful healing spells during raid for healing from a Priest is Renew, Flash Heal, and Prayer of Healing and that Heal and Greater Heal are used between fights where time is not of the essence.

[Bolty]

The main point I was trying to show though is, the top level Holy talents aren't really that useful to overall Healing Efficiency.  Case in point, in raiding, how often do you, or any priest, use Greater Heal during a fight?[right][snapback]97200[/snapback][/right]

No argument here. I use the prototypical 26 disc/25 holy build (aka the raid build), because the holy tree is poorly designed. No points go to the Greater Heal improvement talents.

When do I use Greater Heal in raids? The only times I do are when I'm healing a single tank myself or in a Druid duo. This occurs in two spots so far in our 40-player raids in Avarice: Golemagg dog offtanks and Majordomo Executus.

I use Greater Heal a bunch in 5-mans, much to the chagrin of the tanks who haven't learned that being at 5% health is still okay if they've got me as their healer. I know I'm not the norm in that, simply because it does make my tanks very nervous - they're used to flash heals keeping them above 50% health, not a maniac who only STARTS healing when they're at 50% health (hey, I can't overheal, that's inefficient!). If I do it in PUGs, the tanks go berserk... "HAEL ME! N00B I amlost deid!" "Uh, no."

Greater Heal is just not cast often enough to be worth spending talent points on, especially when that means taking them away from the valuable Discipline tree that's oh-so-helpful all the time. I know that Blizzard knows this, so it'll be very interesting to see what they'll do.

I do spend the points in the Prayer of Healing efficiency talent, however. 2 talent points for a boost that will make PoH an insanely efficient spell with +heal gear (and OMG that Transcendence set bonus) is too juicy to pass up.

Don't even get me started with Nature's Swiftness. Instant-cast 2500 hp heals are just wrong. Damn Druids. :)

-Bolty

[Quark]

Chani, level 59, some greens, some blues, three end-game blues (including Class trinket): +144 healing. Yeah, you can get a good amount :)

[Tuftears]

Don't even get me started with Nature's Swiftness.  Instant-cast 2500 hp heals are just wrong.  Damn Druids.  :)

*innocent look*

*purrrr*

And don't forget about our restoration talent that reduces a 3.5 second healing touch to 3.0 seconds!

Here's a small table I worked up to compare the effects of +heal on the lower ranks of Healing Touch:

Code:

Rank 6 healing touch
 +0 healing: 2.11 HPM, avg heal 633
+50 healing: 2.28 HPM, avg heal 683
+100 healing: 2.44 HPM, avg heal 733
+200 healing: 2.78 HPM, avg heal 833
+300 healing: 3.11 HPM, avg heal 933

Rank 10 healing touch
 +0 healing: 2.61 HPM, avg heal 2060
+50 healing: 2.67 HPM, avg heal 2110
+100 healing: 2.73 HPM, avg heal 2160
+200 healing: 2.86 HPM, avg heal 2260
+300 healing: 2.99 HPM, avg heal 2360

As you can see, this mirrors the conclusions above, if you can manage 300 or more +healing, rank 6 healing touch actually becomes more efficient than rank 10 healing touch. There is a tradeoff of course, if you have to cast rank 6 healing touch more often, then you aren't getting back as much mana regeneration.

[iyguy]

Neat tool! Thanks for the link.