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[Theorycrafting] Sage Heal Stats


Nibbon

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UPDATE 6/6: I got more detailed - I believe I am now complete - I updated my disclaimers and the new optimization. 6/10, a mistake was made that changed the mix a tiny bit, updated.

 

Intro

 

Hey all,

 

There has been a lot of questions directed at me, on my DPS thread, elsewhere about gearing up your sage healer. My standard answer was, for the most part, I cannot tell you with any certainty because I have not done any theorycrafting on healing, but this is what other people seem to be doing ...

 

Long story short, I did finally get around to analyzing, to a smaller degree (than the DPS) what might work best for sage healers. However, I'd be remiss without beginning this section with all the disclaimers I can think of:

 

Disclaimers

 

1. I still truly believe that heals can sort of come down to preference more than anything. The numbers I am about to share with everyone is merely a hypothetical situation THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Unlike DPS, where the rotation or priority is fairly static/consistent, healing is dynamic and situational, which brings me to ...

 

2. The theorycrafting I've done displays the highest HPS, which doesn't really mean much of anything. Why? because I am only using a few of the heals. In a "highest HPS" situation, you would really just put a rejuvenate/resurgence on as many people as you can, use healing trance/innervate, and then get 8 people inside your instant cast salvation/revivification. That is not really how people heal.

 

3. In fact, the way I theorized the numbers, may not match with your playstyle at all. These numbers are a bit dependent on you utilizing the, what I would call, 4 "main" heals. I will discuss the other heals briefly, but as you can see, hardly included them in my analysis, I will tell you why in a bit.

 

UPDATE 6/6: NO LONGER A WORK IN PROGRESS, I CONSIDER THIS FINAL UNLESS A MISTAKE IS FOUND.

4. This is a work in progress. I think this can be improved for accuracy. I was doing this along with another person who was giving me their numbers. If I had done it all myself I would have gone a little more in depth in digging up the changes. So some of the base heals are currently my best guess and need to be updated. Again, this is still a work in progress, but I think it might be at a point where it is worth sharing.

 

UPDATE 6/6 : I RECEIVED MORE FEEDBACK FROM HEALERS SO I FIND THE DATA TO BE MORE VALID.

5. I am not really a healer. I heal for my raid sometimes, but I usually avoid it like the plague, now. I know how to heal, I'm even pretty decent at it, but I do no longer consider myself a healer. However, I did get some feedback from a very good sage/sorc who only heals.

 

Spreadsheet/Analysis

See here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c#gid=3

 

There are two sheets to this spreadsheet (none hidden like in my DPS one). The actual heal per second analysis, for stats, is only on one sheet. I am going to talk about what the other (titled "alacrity and cooldown worksheet") actually is.

 

The "Alacrity and cooldown worksheet" was sort of a hypothesis - one that I felt important to be proven in order to be a framework to explain why alacrity isn't that great, still. The hyothesis (Sorry if I am misuing that term) is "Cooldowns prevent alacrity from being as effective because no matter how much faster you are casting, you are only casting lesser heals faster, your bigger heals, although casted faster, are still subject to a cooldown. The result is alacrity is not within a 1:1 ratio of improving heals per second, but rather, alacrity increases at a faster rate (percentage) than total heals per second."

 

In short, this spreadsheet goes about proving that hypothesis. I am not going to go too far in depth, but I am comparing two heals over time with and without alacrity. One heal, the bigger of the two, has a cooldown. The result is that with ~8.7% alacrity, over roughly 60 seconds, the heals per second is less than that alacrity increase. The difference can be fudged by playing with the numbers, so I won't say by how much, the important is that there IS a difference and that is LOWER.

 

MAX HPS worksheet

This is probably what people actually opened up this thread for. I used a similar analysis style with how I calculated DPS. A fight over a certain amount of time will utilize a rotation of heals - the total heals over that time needs to be maximized. It is a ridiculous task, really, as I've mentioned in the disclaimers. As I mentioned, maximizing HPS I would really just toss out a lot of rejuvenates/resurgences. So, this one has a more liberal recast timer - not based on when the abilities come off cooldown, but more based off when you are likely to actually cast them in a way that sort of makes sense. For example, you won't cast rejuvenate/resurgence every time it is off cooldown, but you might cast it every time before you cast healing trance/innervate and before salvation/revivification.

 

That serving as the intro of the methodology - let me explain a couple things about the heals not used in this analysis and what effect they might have.

 

UPDATE 6/6: DISREGARD, THEY ARE BOTH NOW USED IN THE ROTATION

1. Force armor/static shield: I do not use it in the analysis because it is very difficult for me to peg down an actual number of damage prevention. Sages are great raid healers, so it is weird to really theorize single target healing for a sage, and yet this is what is being done. I can tell you this though - force armoring/shielding people will not produce the highest HPS, nor will refreshing it when it is off cooldown (technically 20 seconds for force imbalanced). Force armor is really an emergency spell, but it is often used as a regular heal (damage prevention, really). I should also mention, I do not believe this spell can crit - and therefore is not effected by surge.

 

2. Benevolence (fast small heal): Another emergency heal. I'm not really sure one would use this unless they had to get one more quick heal in before the target dies/force armor isn't up. Since it isn't really used (in PvE) it doesn't need to be included. Note to PvPers: I'm sure most of you prefer the small heal over the big heal in PvP since it is interrupted less. In a way, this analysis helps you because there probably isn't much of a statting difference between PvP and PvE - just sub in benevolence for deliverance/dark infusion and you may get a similar analysis. The one big difference is that benevolence will benefit from rejuvenate/resurgence.

 

3. Force wave (knockback heal): Single target wise this heal makes no sense. It is a great AoE heal in certain situations, especially after laying down a salvation/revivification. However, for these purposes, it isn't really needed to look into/include.

 

And just some last notes before we get to the results...

 

1. Salvation numbers are the expected heal on one person, obvious the numbers and importance go up when more people are in this heal circle. So when we look at HPS at the end results, it will in effect be much higher when there is a raid situation.

 

UPDATE 6/6: NO LONGER RELEVANT:

2. I mentioned force armor/static shield is not effected by crit/surge, well benevolence has a much higher crit percent with resurgence/rejuvenate - so they may offset each other a bit even though they aren't included here.

 

UPDATE 6/6: WITH THE ADDITION OF FORCE CONSUMPTION IN THE ROTATION THIS IS NO LONGER RELEVANT

3. Force management is not taken into consideration. While the end result is going to show a much lower HPS than what is possible (due to AoE heal), consumption/noble sacrifice would technically lower your HPS due to global cooldowns.

 

4. Pretty much as justification for the way I did things - what we are trying to figure out here is how the relationship of crit (and the abilities form skill tree effecting crit and alacrity) effect your stat priority for gearing your sage healers. The analysis I've done is ultimately OK for returning an answer. Maybe not the best way, but it should give some guidance. The reason is that you are trying to look for that magic mix between producing the highest average heal - and getting those heals out faster. This analysis should, at least, provide a path to achieving that.

 

Stats/Results

I'll keep this short.

 

The end result I got was this (AT UNDERWORLD GEARING LEVEL/168):

No crit - Every point above 0 is a loss (lots of GCD that don't use crit is why, noble sac/consumpion, force armor)

6 Alacrity Enhancements

4 Surge Enhancements

 

If you had all 168 ilvl gear, that would be:

0 crit

316 surge

474 alacrity

1353 power

 

At this level, having a crit of 200 lowers HPS by 11. This is only slightly over 0.32% of theoretical HPS. In fact 400 crit is 33 HPS, so that is only ~0.96% of your max HPS.

 

At Kell Dragon - the mix stays the same

Crit at 0 is still optimal, with each pointing lowering HPS.

 

400 crit here lowers HPS by about 26, or 0.72%.

 

For the record, you want all willpower augments.

 

Closing Notes

I do not have much to add but to say - if you do not know how stats work, look to my other thread about DPS here where I go in depth:

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=627405

 

For more information on your spells, specs, and everything except gearing (I disagree with his choice of gearing, per my current theorycrafting), I do agree with everything else on this thread: http://mmo-mechanics.com/swtor/forums/thread-1199.html

 

I'm sure I will get asked about relics at some point, so I'll say this. I DO NOT KNOW. With some arm twisting I might tell you my best guess is power proc and power click.

Edited by Nibbon
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PVP Notes:

5 surge and 5 alacrity return the highest HPS with 0 crit. Crit is especially bad in PvP because the healing bonus is so low it isn't anywhere near the threshold of where crit becomes valuable...

 

However, not getting interrupted is a big key to PvP. So While 5 Surge and 5 alacrity gets you the highest uninterrupted HPS, you may be better off getting more alacrity --- faster heals = less chance of interrupt.

 

 

Explanation of the Alacrity curve

Alacrity is effected by a number of things - it's own stat formula - then the cast time formula - then a lesser known issue that I have been exploring, the effect of cooldowns on alacrity.

 

Diving straight into the numbers, let's look at the individual increase of HPS for one alacrity enhancement at the new kell dragon level.

86 alacrity=1.25% alacrity percent - I'll use the GCD in the next part here, but any placeholder number works, like 1, or any other cast time.

1.5/(1+.0125)=~1.4815

1-(1.4543/1.5)=1.23% increase in cast speed (or cast time reduction)

1.23% is not the increase in HPS

cooldowns aren't effected by alacrity, except in that the spell being casted when the cooldown is off casts faster. Let's just call this the alacrity cooldown coefficient. The coefficient is a dynamic number that goes up (reducing the severity) as you add more alacrity. With 86 alacrity, the coefficient is roughly .6504.

 

To find the effect on actual HPS from reduced cast time, you multiply the reduced cast time by the coefficient

1.23%*.6504=~.8%

 

Surge also has a coefficent (this is well known). This coefficient is static, not dynamic (unless you alter crit in different ways). The Surge coefficient= (# spells effected by crit that are casted)/(Total # of spells casted) * critical percentage

 

I'll go into the results again, but I wanted to show, graphically, what the alacrity cooldown coefficient does. The following image is a very specific case, 2 spells being casted, one with a cooldown, both being effected by alacrity. The graph shows the relationship between the points of alacrity, the reduced cast time, and the effect that the reduced cas time mixed with the effect of the cooldowns has on actually increasing your HPS. Again, this is a very specific case which I made purely in order to demonstrate how cooldowns CAN effect HPS (and alacrity specifically):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c&oid=3&zx=qobq6k5bo1dc

 

This specific case can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c#gid=2

 

I do not recommend looking through it - I didn't exactly design it to be friendly to read or alter.

 

So, going back to the real spreadsheet I worked out (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c#gid=3), you can look at the two stats individually. If you had 0 enhancements of each and increased one or the other by 1 at a time, you would slowly be increasing your HPS (that is a given). So this is the effect if you were slowly adding just surge or alacrity points and how much each would increase your HPS:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c&oid=4&zx=xmuodrz0c6zf

 

Realistically, you will always have 10 "enhancements" or in the kell dragon level, 860 of the total secondary stat. This is how the two interact with each other - the height of the line is the 4/6 surge/alacrity number that BiS is based on.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c&oid=6&zx=39b6ibzgg3bd

 

Now, given, if you change my model and frequency of cast of some of the spells - the numbers will change. If you threw in crit (Which you shouldn't) the numbers will change too (crit = higher surge coefficient). That being said, you can pretty much drastically alter it and will still get roughly the same number.

 

The big difference between alacrity and surge is the smoothness of the curves. Looking at the image of the curves by themselves over one another - the incremental benefit of surge drops off extremely rapidly, while alacrity is a much straighter, more horizontal line. If you could only take 4 enhancements, they would be 4 surge, but after that, it would take 8 alacrity before surge overtook it and became the next enhancement. Since there are only 10 total, we are capped at the 4-6 mix.

Edited by Nibbon
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Hey Nibbon! Thanks for posting this. I've been patiently waiting for someone who is more mathy than me to set something like this up. It is greatly appreciated!

 

EDIT: I totally understand your "apprehensiveness" about the validity of the data you produced. Healing is very situational and rooted in play-style. However, I do really appreciate the guidance and justification for keeping crit low. It has given me peace of mind that I have been moving down the right path... so thanks again!

 

Cheers!

Edited by thebeano
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Good stuff as usual. Happy to see that 5/5 Surge/Alacrity grants the highest (theoretical) HPS; makes gearing easier since DPS builds use 5 Accuracy items.

 

I'm sure I will get asked about relics at some point, so I'll say this. I DO NOT KNOW. With some arm twisting I might tell you my best guess is power proc and power click.

Healing builds don't really have much choice here. The only other relics that benefit healing at all are Ephemeral Mending and a Matrix Cube. Ephemeral Mending is widely considered to be nothing but a Shadow tank relic (with good reason). Matrix Cube is BiS for PvP since clickies are disabled there, but of course it cannot measure up to Boundless Ages in PvE.

 

tl;dr - Power proc + power click for PvE, power proc + matrix cube for PvP.

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Good stuff as usual. Happy to see that 5/5 Surge/Alacrity grants the highest (theoretical) HPS; makes gearing easier since DPS builds use 5 Accuracy items.

 

 

Healing builds don't really have much choice here. The only other relics that benefit healing at all are Ephemeral Mending and a Matrix Cube. Ephemeral Mending is widely considered to be nothing but a Shadow tank relic (with good reason). Matrix Cube is BiS for PvP since clickies are disabled there, but of course it cannot measure up to Boundless Ages in PvE.

 

tl;dr - Power proc + power click for PvE, power proc + matrix cube for PvP.

 

The other option is EWH with static 120 power - which is better than matrix cube at least.

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UPDATE 6/6:

I decided to go a few steps further to make the analysis more complete. I edited the guide above with the changes.

The big thing for everyone to know is the addition of a surge over an alacrity - though the difference between 5-5 and 6-4 IS VERY SMALL.

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What are your thoughts on gearing, since you said you disagree with the thread on mmo mechanics? Just curious for your opinion

 

That is pretty much what the entire OP is about ;p

 

PvE: underworld: 6 surge 4 alacrity 0 crit kell dragon: 5 surge 5 alacrity 0 crit

PvP: 7 surge 3 alacrity 0 crit

 

The thread on MMO Mechanics suggests the opposite - 7 alacrity and 3 surge.

Edited by Nibbon
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Relics are actually exceedingly simple for healers.

 

Option 1: Serendipitous Assault and Boundless Ages.

 

For many people this may be the only option, because they did not get Vanilla PvP relics. It also provides the most Power when BA is used on cd.

 

Option 2: Serendipitous Assault and (Elite) War Hero Boundless Ages

 

There is only 18.25 power difference between using UBA on cd (this will go up with KD gear to 31) and no need to click.

 

Which option is better? Well seeing as this is a theorycrafting thread Option 1 is better. Practically, however, Option 2 may be better as you may not need that power Boost every 2 minutes (and you probably will not). Either option i completely valid and this time it really is personal preference.

 

Ephemeral Mending is as bad as it always was, only ever useful when purely ST healing (which never happens in Ops) and Matrix cube is very bad stat wise.

 

For PvP Serendipitous and Matrix actually work well because the cube gets bolstered a lot.

 

I still like Noim's HPCT analysis better though, so it's 6 Ala/4 Surge (UW) and 7 Ala/3 Surge (KD) for me. Sorry. Nice work though it is nice to have varying opinions.

 

Also looking at either only Rejuvenate+Healing Trance or the 'standard rotation' of Rejuvenate-Healing Trance-Deliverance-Noble Sacrifice may be better for a min maxing analysis. Salvation is just not a rotational ability, there is always a 'best' time to use in any given fight. It does not benefit from Alacrity beyond GCD. Force Armor is more predictable but again sometimes you may want to use it at specific times so it will not always be used every 17s. It gets no benefits from Surge and only a GCD benefit from Alacrity.

 

Kinda why I hate HPS analyses, Rejuvenate on cd, Salvation on cd, Force Wave on cd and Force Armour on everyone completely destroys it.

Edited by Darth_Dreselus
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Relics are actually exceedingly simple for healers.

 

Option 1: Serendipitous Assault and Boundless Ages.

 

For many people this may be the only option, because they did not get Vanilla PvP relics. It also provides the most Power when BA is used on cd.

 

Option 2: Serendipitous Assault and (Elite) War Hero Boundless Ages

 

There is only 18.25 power difference between using UBA on cd (this will go up with KD gear to 31) and no need to click.

 

Which option is better? Well seeing as this is a theorycrafting thread Option 1 is better. Practically, however, Option 2 may be better as you may not need that power Boost every 2 minutes (and you probably will not). Either option i completely valid and this time it really is personal preference.

 

Ephemeral Mending is as bad as it always was, only ever useful when purely ST healing (which never happens in Ops) and Matrix cube is very bad stat wise.

 

For PvP Serendipitous and Matrix actually work well because the cube gets bolstered a lot.

 

I still like Noim's HPCT analysis better though, so it's 6 Ala/4 Surge (UW) and 7 Ala/3 Surge (KD) for me. Sorry. Nice work though it is nice to have varying opinions.

 

Also looking at either only Rejuvenate+Healing Trance or the 'standard rotation' of Rejuvenate-Healing Trance-Deliverance-Noble Sacrifice may be better for a min maxing analysis. Salvation is just not a rotational ability, there is always a 'best' time to use in any given fight. It does not benefit from Alacrity beyond GCD. Force Armor is more predictable but again sometimes you may want to use it at specific times so it will not always be used every 17s. It gets no benefits from Surge and only a GCD benefit from Alacrity.

 

Kinda why I hate HPS analyses, Rejuvenate on cd, Salvation on cd, Force Wave on cd and Force Armour on everyone completely destroys it.

 

I only posted I don't know because I'm tired answering questions about relics ;p Yeah it seems pretty evident that power click and power proc are the best if you dont have an EWH - than it is arguable for EWH... I agree with your assessment 100%.

 

I was more or less asked to put this spreadsheet together - I think it is informative and if I healed I'd probably follow the results. While I think I state as clearly as I can in my disclaimers the drawbacks of my analysis - no analysis can be perfect since every fight varies. I don't particularly like the way he went about it (I only looked at his after I finished mine), though I do admit it is incredibly unique and interesting.

 

I do think HPS is an effective metric. What is HPS? It is the measure of how hard your heals hit and how fast - finding the best ratio to maximize heals. No rotation would really be kept, it isn't all that practical for healers (much more so for DPSers). But even in short bursts, the HPS metric should prove fairly faithful.

 

I disagree about salvation, it usually should be and is cast that much in 16 man raids where there are a lot of people to capture under it. Even so, if you just threw it under a tank, it is a very efficient heal/hot - so it is actually a nice single target heal too. I'm not sure what you are arguing about in GCD - I have a GCD analysis based off used cast times, so I am capturing that correctly. Force armor was likewise captured accurately - but I disagree there too. You should cast it nearly every 17 seconds on a single target heal since it is your best single target heal (and it certainly isn't on everyone).

 

Anyway, I'm not a healer. So I am not offended nor do I care all that much if people disagree. I do like doing theorycrafting and making spreadsheets, so I thought I'd share it with the world. I have presented my data - I'll gladly explain everything I can and then you can make your own decision and do what works best for you :)

 

Anyway, I have one more thing I am going to update into the OP about alacrity and how it kinda sucks, I'll post that in a moment!

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Yeah, it kinda shows =D

Ouch. I still think I'm right :rak_03:

 

edit: I should mention that I do heal - I just mainly play DPS and I think I have a fine understanding of how to heal.

Edited by Nibbon
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Ouch. I still think I'm right :rak_03:

 

edit: I should mention that I do heal - I just mainly play DPS and I think I have a fine understanding of how to heal.

 

It doesn't help that healing in this game is lot more complex on paper than in the actual game. Running the Ops with my Scoundrel who has still got some 58s scattered in his gear is just sad. I wish you actually had to know the stuff in these spreadsheets to be able to clear content and have that kinda gear. Like fights tuned so tightly where 5/5 or 7/3 setups would actually matter beyond theorycrafted values be it HPS, EHPS, HPF or HPTC.

 

Let's discuss (argue about, whatever =D) Force Armour and Salvation.

 

Force Armour.

 

After some pondering I will probably go with your line of thought, i.e. every 17s. The times where you want to save it for specific attack are far and few between; DG's Storm, Kel's Force Leech, Kephess's Laser, Kephess's Jump, Scream, Huge Grenade, Lots of Missiles, after Thrasher's knockback (unless using the cheese strat), Terminate, Thundering Blast (I'm not even sure if Styrak casts it so that one may not even be valid), and I'm pretty sure there is more that I don't remember exactly, for instance The End, but having never left Sunder last I cannot comment on it.

 

Even during those fights I don't imagine FA being a 'cd' of more than 20-25s and apart from those using it every 17s is the best way to do it.

 

And as pointed out the only effect gear has on it is the GCD which with your 4/6 setup (I'm going to be using that throughout this post) ends up being 1.41s. Not really worth obsessing about beyond an instant 6k heal every 17s and only an afterthought in min maxing (makes sense that you didn't it include it originally as it would be a clear 10/0).

 

Salvation

 

Where do I even start with this one. Some fights can be healed with refreshing it every 15s and spending the rest on Youtube (P1 of DG, P2 of O9, Olok). Some fights can be healed without ever touching it (Terror). Most fights can be healed by doing either. It also has completely different utilisation in 8s and 16s (more likely to hit all 8 in a 16 but Kolto Bomb and Force Wave have no such limits). Another issue to consider is whether you are just a group healer or filling a more universal role and how many non AoE heals you are throwing out.

 

Putting Salvation in any meaningful numbers is an absolute nightmare, but let's try anyway.

 

First, let's look at efficiency. It's ST HPF (with Rej) is (using your avg values) 8377/61=137

 

Compare that to

ST HPF of HT (with Rej) 10427/37=281

ST HPF Del (without Rej as it is usually casted) 6877/61=113

ST HPF Del (with Rej) 6877/51=135

ST HPF Salv (without Rej) 8377/91=92 - more about this later

 

This is actually looking pretty good for Salvation as it is the more efficient heal than Deliverance when used with a Rejuvenate and as soon as there are at last 3 people standing in it which can all benefit from it is the most efficient heal overall and comes pretty close to HT even with 2 people standing inside it (137*2=274).

Salvation is actually very efficient when used with a Rejuvenate, a no brainer if healing 3 people and very close for healing 2 people.

 

Second, lets look at its healing potential (assuming all healing is effective here and working on cd-to-cd basis to simulate a longer rotation)

ST = 558 (8377/15)

ST of HT = 1390 (10427/7.5)

Again Salvation will take over at 3 targets but the difference is larger when it comes to 2 targets (2*558=1116). Another way of looking at this is that you can only get 2 HT's per one Salvation so you can never get more heals on 3 targets.

Deliverance used in the same time span in a Force Neutral rotation (used every 7.5s) will obviously generate less healing as it heals lower than a HT. It can be spammed though which just screws with the numbers but fortunately it is very unlikely that Anybody would use 3 Deliverances over a single Salvation.

 

So far it seems that Salvation is best option for effective healing of 3+ targets over all else. But let's go back to HPF, the reason why I calculated HPF of Salvation without Rej is simply because it is actually pretty hard to get any meaningful rotation done with Rej being used on Salvation. The benefit Rej provides to HT is so good that it is preferable to anything else. I have tried long and hard to come up with a rotation which gives Rej to every Salvation and at least every second HT but I just can't come up with a good one. Most healers will usually just use it and offset the cost later (more about this later). With that in mind it is actually less HPF efficient than HT even on 3 targets (3*92=276) but it is close enough.

 

What I am trying to say that Salvation only really works when it effectively heals at least 3 people. And the likelihood of that happening every 15s is very small. I will also elaborate on the 'best' time to use it. Let's use Styrak for example. You want to make sure that Salvation is available for every time Kell spins, every time Kell jumps, After Kell dies, every time Styrak uses his AoE lightning. The only time you actually want to be using it as much as possible on cd is on Ghost Kell and burn Styrak. If you used it on cd before to heal 3 people it may be on cd during those phases set out above, during those will be effectively ticking on everyone.

 

For these reasons I do not think it should be used on cd. This is obviously different for a 16 raid but in all honesty you may make a completely new spreadsheet just for that. I believe the spreadsheet was for more of a universal Sage healer, correct me if that is not the case.

 

Force Management

I do not actually see that addressed anywhere in the spreadsheet so please elaborate. The only thing I will point out that as far as stacks of Resplendence go, very efficient way is using one stack on NS and 2 on Salvation. This actually does not change much as 1-3 stacked Salvation will cast under the GCD anyway. It is also possible to cast an instant one and the use 2-3 stacks of Resplendence from the next HT while Salva is on cd.

 

To sum up.

Force Armour - yes use on cd but due to it's static value and only benefiting from Alacrity it should not influence gearing.

Salvation - use when appropriate, benefits more from surge than alacrity and thus should be a secondary consideration when gearing.

Thus Rej, HT and Deli (plus the GCD needed for a NS) are left to min max around.

 

**** me that's a wall of text. There will be typos.

Edited by Darth_Dreselus
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I don't really feel like arguing over something that I said was a personal choice, so I will just go through and confirm or provide more information on some of the things you said.

 

I will tell you my personal concerns over crafting gear towards each fight or a specific fight - is that you will only gear up once, you will probably not change gear for each fight, and there will be new fights (or difficulty modes) where the amount of heals or timing may change. So I do think the "Generic Healer" is the best type of healer to model for.

 

It doesn't help that healing in this game is lot more complex on paper than in the actual game. Running the Ops with my Scoundrel who has still got some 58s scattered in his gear is just sad. I wish you actually had to know the stuff in these spreadsheets to be able to clear content and have that kinda gear. Like fights tuned so tightly where 5/5 or 7/3 setups would actually matter beyond theorycrafted values be it HPS, EHPS, HPF or HPTC.

 

Totally one hundred percent agree, which is why arguing beyond points of clarification is realllly pointless. 5 HPS, or whatever metric you are going to use, isn't going to win or lose a fight in this game.

 

Let's discuss (argue about, whatever =D) Force Armour and Salvation.

 

Force Armour.

 

After some pondering I will probably go with your line of thought, i.e. every 17s. The times where you want to save it for specific attack are far and few between; DG's Storm, Kel's Force Leech, Kephess's Laser, Kephess's Jump, Scream, Huge Grenade, Lots of Missiles, after Thrasher's knockback (unless using the cheese strat), Terminate, Thundering Blast (I'm not even sure if Styrak casts it so that one may not even be valid), and I'm pretty sure there is more that I don't remember exactly, for instance The End, but having never left Sunder last I cannot comment on it.

 

Even during those fights I don't imagine FA being a 'cd' of more than 20-25s and apart from those using it every 17s is the best way to do it.

 

And as pointed out the only effect gear has on it is the GCD which with your 4/6 setup (I'm going to be using that throughout this post) ends up being 1.41s. Not really worth obsessing about beyond an instant 6k heal every 17s and only an afterthought in min maxing (makes sense that you didn't it include it originally as it would be a clear 10/0).

 

Not much to respond to, looks like you more or less agree - and I more or less agree with your assessment. There are definitely better times on some fights to cast force armor, as to treat it as an extra health pool rather than an actual "heal." Another great example is on the kiting tank for firebrand and stormcaller - I had to heal this fight a bit and always found that force armoring right when I needed to get back up on top of the tank was a good saving move. That being said, after I did that one move, I would go straight back into my heal "rotation." So, again, you can't really account for all the variation so I like the generic model.

 

Salvation

 

Where do I even start with this one. Some fights can be healed with refreshing it every 15s and spending the rest on Youtube (P1 of DG, P2 of O9, Olok). Some fights can be healed without ever touching it (Terror). Most fights can be healed by doing either. It also has completely different utilisation in 8s and 16s (more likely to hit all 8 in a 16 but Kolto Bomb and Force Wave have no such limits). Another issue to consider is whether you are just a group healer or filling a more universal role and how many non AoE heals you are throwing out.

 

Putting Salvation in any meaningful numbers is an absolute nightmare, but let's try anyway.

 

First, let's look at efficiency. It's ST HPF (with Rej) is (using your avg values) 8377/61=137

 

Compare that to

ST HPF of HT (with Rej) 10427/37=281

ST HPF Del (without Rej as it is usually casted) 6877/61=113

ST HPF Del (with Rej) 6877/51=135

ST HPF Salv (without Rej) 8377/91=92 - more about this later

 

[snip]

 

What I am trying to say that Salvation only really works when it effectively heals at least 3 people. And the likelihood of that happening every 15s is very small. I will also elaborate on the 'best' time to use it. Let's use Styrak for example. You want to make sure that Salvation is available for every time Kell spins, every time Kell jumps, After Kell dies, every time Styrak uses his AoE lightning. The only time you actually want to be using it as much as possible on cd is on Ghost Kell and burn Styrak. If you used it on cd before to heal 3 people it may be on cd during those phases set out above, during those will be effectively ticking on everyone.

 

For these reasons I do not think it should be used on cd. This is obviously different for a 16 raid but in all honesty you may make a completely new spreadsheet just for that. I believe the spreadsheet was for more of a universal Sage healer, correct me if that is not the case.

 

Force Management

I do not actually see that addressed anywhere in the spreadsheet so please elaborate. The only thing I will point out that as far as stacks of Resplendence go, very efficient way is using one stack on NS and 2 on Salvation. This actually does not change much as 1-3 stacked Salvation will cast under the GCD anyway. It is also possible to cast an instant one and the use 2-3 stacks of Resplendence from the next HT while Salva is on cd.

 

There's a lot here - I cut out some to focus on the main point - which I think is force management. I did take force management into consideration, but I did not actually calculate the viability (easy to do, I will do it later today). My analysis does assume that everything in it is force viable - so measuring the force efficiency of the different heals is really pointless (and I honestly don't really care as long as it is realistic). I have 20 noble sac/consumptions over 5 minutes - that was the force consideration. I based this number off a couple metrics - but mainly battle logs from the healer I worked with to construct some of my methodology. I'd like to add - that he does normally cast Salvation off cooldown. I'd also like to add that he definitely casts a rejuve/resurg before each salv/reviv and the vast majority of his healing trances/innervates.

 

To sum up.

Force Armour - yes use on cd but due to it's static value and only benefiting from Alacrity it should not influence gearing.

Salvation - use when appropriate, benefits more from surge than alacrity and thus should be a secondary consideration when gearing.

Thus Rej, HT and Deli (plus the GCD needed for a NS) are left to min max around.

 

So we agree on the use of force armor - I'm not sure why you don't think it should effect gearing. It benefits from alacrity due to the reduced GCD - so (especially for someone who is arguing for more alacrity) you should want it to be considered for gearing ;p Anyway, I am including it.

 

Salvation you say is secondary consideration, but a consideration nonetheless. If anything, I VASTLY understate the importance of surge on salvation because I have only included single target healing. I experimented with including 3 people being hit by the salvation and the need for surge and crit went up. If I remember correctly, surge wanted 7 enhancements and crit actually wanted a mod's worth (50ish as opposed to 0). At the next tier it was 6-4 but crit wanted 150. So again, I am vastly understating surge for salvation and disagree about its timing - at least generically it should be cast close to cooldown.

 

Last point against your quote before I go into general notes - I did do this analysis purely around rej, HT, and deli originally - it yielded 5-5 (so slightly more towards alacrity) but I consider this analysis incomplete, so I am not going to recreate it.

 

___________________________________

 

OK some separate points, I am going to talk about why alacrity is bad. OK, I'm actually just going to copy paste what I put on MMO Mechanics:

 

"I also wanted to present this image

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c&oid=1&zx=o8kiila7cci6

 

So two things:

1. Cooldowns make alacrity less effective as already presented/explained in my thread (for reference, here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c#gid=2)

2. Alacrity has an extra curve because of the formula 1/(1+alacrity percent) - this is what the image represents, the actual benefit of reduced cast time by alacrity percentage

 

so alacrity is getting triple hit with a curve - once with the cooldowns not being reduced - twice with its normal curve from the stat formula - a third time with the alacrity formula itself. In other words - alacrity gets diminished the more you have of it more severely than it actually appears."

Edited by Nibbon
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I'd like to add - that he does normally cast Salvation off cooldown. I'd also like to add that he definitely casts a rejuve/resurg before each salv/reviv and the vast majority of his healing trances/innervates.

 

Would you happen to have a log? Seeing how he works it in would be interesting.

 

Also you say that Force Management has been addressed with the NS. What about benefit from Alacrity to natural regen? Or are you just saying because of the changes to Resplendence it is not an important consideration, which would not actual be a wholly unreasonable assumption to make.

 

Also I really don't understand the first sheet but I guess it is just the numerical basis for the graph on MMO mechanics.

Edited by Darth_Dreselus
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Would you happen to have a log? Seeing how he works it in would be interesting.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/270560/19/0/Heals+Given

 

I only used this log for two things:

1. Use of noble sacrifice (he did about over the course of this 5 minute fight)

2. His frequency of Revivification (since he is a sorc)

 

Also I really don't understand the first sheet but I guess it is just the numerical basis for the graph on MMO mechanics.

 

The first sheet, as I explained in my OP, was to prove that alacrity is effected negatively by cooldowns. Since alacrity does not effect cooldowns - and cooldown spells are "better" heals than your non-cooldown spells - your HPS is not a direct correlation with the faster casting speed.

 

Also you say that Force Management has been addressed with the NS. What about benefit from Alacrity to natural regen? Or are you just saying because of the changes to Resplendence it is not an important consideration, which would not actual be a wholly unreasonable assumption to make.

 

Technically - alacrity is force neutral (It isn't actually in practice). But what I said specifically was, as long as my HPS can be a real life scenario, then the analysis is valid. Restated, as long as my hypothetical heal rotation doesn't run out of force completely in a 5 minute span, then the results can be used. I have edited my numbers a bit to reflect that (mainly more noble sacrifices).

 

But I would like to go into something a bit here - no one is ever going to be chain casting heals for 5 minutes straight like this. I'd submit that this analysis tells us what will give us the highest heal/second regardless of force or time in any case ...

 

Anyway, the end result keeps coming up the same - 6 surge and 4 alacrity

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http://www.torparse.com/a/270560/19/0/Heals+Given

 

I only used this log for two things:

1. Use of noble sacrifice (he did about over the course of this 5 minute fight)

2. His frequency of Revivification (since he is a sorc)

 

A 16 man DG with 67% overheal. Well it is a 16 man and Sages will always have fairly high overheal from Salvation, but what that log shows is that spam-Salvation is possible, even viable but hardly ideal.

 

Only 16.36% of heals were directed at tanks, including one Force-bent Dark Heal with 100% overheal each. My guess here is either fat finger, double right click, mistake or the tank took a big hit but the heal was sniped by another healer before the Dark Heal landed. The use of the other 6 Dark Heals seems correct and likely in that fight. Again this tells me he was predominantly a group healer, which explains the off cd Revi. 14 Innervates were cast at one of the tanks though so he may have been filling a double role. (AoE DPS every 15s, Focus on a tank) It is hard to tell from the log.

 

Most Revis are not Force-bent, in fact only one is. In line with general Sorc healing practice and at least it dipells my fears of there being some hidden rotation I can't figure out. Due to hitting 3+ people cost is more than justified (provided it was Effective can't really tell).

 

It's just a strange log to use as a base of Salvation frequency.

 

I sadly do not have a 2.0 log of DG. In fact the only one I have is from my first clear of TFB so the timing of heals is different from the one I use now when I predict big hits and AoE damage due to experience.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/226118

 

The usage of Salvation and EHPS ratio speaks for itself. OC is useless because of the nature of the fight (and a CCed droid) and Olok is a weird one I do think I just spammed Salvation. I do know I DPSed P3. Trasher, Warlords and Styrak are pretty good fights as far as 'general healing' goes (AoE DPS, focus tank).

 

So I played with your spreadsheet using different set ups (Salv every 30s, NS every 7.5s, no Salv, no Salv+no FA) and I always get 5/5 as best HPS. Very interesting, will have to play with the other spreadsheet to see where the discrepancy is.

Edited by Darth_Dreselus
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http://www.torparse.com/a/226118

 

The usage of Salvation and EHPS ratio speaks for itself. OC is useless because of the nature of the fight (and a CCed droid) and Olok is a weird one I do think I just spammed Salvation. I do know I DPSed P3. Trasher, Warlords and Styrak are pretty good fights as far as 'general healing' goes (AoE DPS, focus tank).

It's quite interesting comparing our approaches: http://www.torparse.com/a/220401

 

Clearly we would disagree on the frequency of using Salvation. It does highlight the difficulty of mapping ability usage for healers, insofar as you can't quantify an ideal rotation in quite the same way as you can for DPS.

 

Ultimately, however... I'm no longer motivated to really delve into theorycrafting anymore. This game is so phenomenally easy it just strikes me as utterly irrelevant. It doesn't matter how you gear, and it barely matters how you play :(

Edited by Aurojiin
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A 16 man DG with 67% overheal. Well it is a 16 man and Sages will always have fairly high overheal from Salvation, but what that log shows is that spam-Salvation is possible, even viable but hardly ideal.

 

Only 16.36% of heals were directed at tanks, including one Force-bent Dark Heal with 100% overheal each. My guess here is either fat finger, double right click, mistake or the tank took a big hit but the heal was sniped by another healer before the Dark Heal landed. The use of the other 6 Dark Heals seems correct and likely in that fight. Again this tells me he was predominantly a group healer, which explains the off cd Revi. 14 Innervates were cast at one of the tanks though so he may have been filling a double role. (AoE DPS every 15s, Focus on a tank) It is hard to tell from the log.

 

Most Revis are not Force-bent, in fact only one is. In line with general Sorc healing practice and at least it dipells my fears of there being some hidden rotation I can't figure out. Due to hitting 3+ people cost is more than justified (provided it was Effective can't really tell).

 

It's just a strange log to use as a base of Salvation frequency.

 

I sadly do not have a 2.0 log of DG. In fact the only one I have is from my first clear of TFB so the timing of heals is different from the one I use now when I predict big hits and AoE damage due to experience.

 

http://www.torparse.com/a/226118

 

The usage of Salvation and EHPS ratio speaks for itself. OC is useless because of the nature of the fight (and a CCed droid) and Olok is a weird one I do think I just spammed Salvation. I do know I DPSed P3. Trasher, Warlords and Styrak are pretty good fights as far as 'general healing' goes (AoE DPS, focus tank).

 

So I played with your spreadsheet using different set ups (Salv every 30s, NS every 7.5s, no Salv, no Salv+no FA) and I always get 5/5 as best HPS. Very interesting, will have to play with the other spreadsheet to see where the discrepancy is.

 

Again, I don't feel like arguing, so excuse my lack of a response here.

 

It wasn't a basis for salvation frequency as much as it was proof that it could be cast that much. He was definitely a raid healer in this fight - and it is one of the few fights I know of that requires constant healing (well when it came out, its very easy now). I agree most aren't force bent, but can be, I just think he didn't need to for a HM. I agree Thrasher might be a better fight to use, but its a very very short fight. DC, in this log, was the exact 5 minute length I was hoping for.

 

All I know for sure is Ace is an excellent guild, so if they like what I'm doing I will be happy with myself.

 

I'm glad you got to play around with it - I think 5/5 is a good mix, not so different from my 6/4 surge/alac, anyway. 5/5 is what I originally came up with.

 

I can explain the discrepancy, but I haven't taken a good look at the other spreadsheet. The obvious answer is that alacrity is being way overvalued. I have some graphics I have been preparing in order to try to explain it, they are pretty much ready now ... see below.

 

______________________________

 

Alacrity is effected by a number of things - it's own stat formula - then the cast time formula - then a lesser known issue that I have been exploring, the effect of cooldowns on alacrity.

 

Diving straight into the numbers, let's look at the individual increase of HPS for one alacrity enhancement at the underworld level.

79 alacrity=1.15% alacrity percent - will use the GCD, but any placeholder number works, like 1, or any other cast time.

1.5/(1+.0115)=~1.4543

1-(1.4543/1.5)=1.13% increase in cast speed (or cast time reduction)

1.13% is not the increase in HPS

cooldowns aren't effected by alacrity, except in that the spell being casted when the cooldown is off casts faster. Let's just call this the alacrity cooldown coefficient. The coefficient is a dynamic number that goes up (reducing the severity) as you add more alacrity. With 79 alacrity, the coefficient is roughly .6185.

 

To find the effect on actual HPS from reduced cast time, you multiply the reduced cast time by the coefficient

1.13%*.6185=~.7%

 

Surge also has a coefficent (this is well known). This coefficient is static, not dynamic (unless you alter crit in different ways). The Surge coefficient= (# spells effected by crit that are casted)/(Total # of spells casted) * critical percentage

 

I'll go into the results again, but I wanted to show, graphically, what the alacrity cooldown coefficient does. The following image is a very specific case, 2 spells being casted, one with a cooldown, both being effected by alacrity. The graph shows the relationship between the points of alacrity, the reduced cast time, and the effect that the reduced cas time mixed with the effect of the cooldowns has on actually increasing your HPS. Again, this is a very specific case which I made purely in order to demonstrate how cooldowns CAN effect HPS (and alacrity specifically):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c&oid=3&zx=qobq6k5bo1dc

 

This specific case can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c#gid=2

 

I do not recommend looking through it - I didn't exactly design it to be friendly to read or alter.

 

So, going back to the real spreadsheet I worked out (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c#gid=3), you can look at the two stats individually. If you had 0 enhancements of each and increased one or the other by 1 at a time, you would slowly be increasing your HPS (that is a given). So this is the effect if you were slowly adding just surge or alacrity points and how much each would increase your HPS:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c&oid=4&zx=rnnlqwmpnsvv

 

Realistically, you will always have 10 "enancements" or in the underworld level, 790 of the total secondary stat. This is how the two interact with each other - the height of the line is the 6/4 surge/alacrity number I have been basing BiS off of.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/oimg?key=0AgCWcFAbOaZwdDZ2YVBnY3BocnA2dTg2d0xxWWNBZ2c&oid=6&zx=2g8byv8x8ekq

 

Now, given, if you change my model and frequency of cast of some of the spells - the numbers will change. If you threw in crit (Which you shouldn't) the numbers will change too (crit = higher surge coefficient). That being said, you can pretty much drastically alter it and will still get roughly the same number (5/5, being the one exception). It is important to understand why alacrity isn't as good as it looks before comparing to surge (which is a lot more straightforward).

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Quick question the orange line is the instant heal?

 

And yes this is purely 'academic'. I'm pretty sure even a 10/0 setup is enough for clears. That does not mean that I still don't want to have min/max gear, if nothing to feel good about it.

Edited by Darth_Dreselus
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Quick question the orange line is the instant heal?

 

And yes this is purely 'academic'. I'm pretty sure even a 10/0 setup is enough for clears. That does not mean that I still don't want to have min/max gear, if nothing to feel good about it.

 

The orange line in the first link? That is the alacrity cooldown coefficient that most of that bottom half of my previous post is about. The orange line is the actual benefit to your HPS from the percentage of alacrity along the same x-axis.

 

And while that second paragraph was for someone else, I agree with / understand the sentiment :)

Edited by Nibbon
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The orange line in the first link? That is the alacrity cooldown coefficient that most of that bottom half of my previous post is about. The orange line is the actual benefit to your HPS from the percentage of alacrity along the same x-axis.

 

And while that second paragraph was for someone else, I agree with / understand the sentiment :)

 

Oh I see the two casts in the sample are combined.

 

Well, it may have took a page of back and forth and while I would not say that I am convinced I would definitely want to see the hypothesis examined by either Noim or Orderken. Figuring out whether it is mathematically sound, let alone correct is beyond me. For instance I have no idea where you got the cooldown coefficient from (even after scanning formulas and delving into the first page of the spreadsheet).

 

If it proves to be correct, bravo to you Nibbon. Will it also affect the DPS gearing or is the fact that half the slots are taken up by accuracy too restrictive?

Edited by Darth_Dreselus
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not implying that chasing BiS gear is worthless, or disparaging anyone for it (after all, I do). It's just that, sadly, I lack the motivation to contribute any more.

 

That being said, I have to question your hypothesis, NIbbon. In my experience, typically one already has to choose between idling and delaying a higher priority ability past CD because of a filler delaying it. You seem to be saying that higher alacrity results in a statistically significant increase in the number of times when you would delay something like HT or Salvation. I haven't found this to be the case in practice.

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