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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBobTurkey updates Priest theorycraft
by Eliah Hecht 
May 5th 2009 at 1:00PM
| Disc | Holy | |
|---|---|---|
| MP5 | 1.0000 | 1.0000 |
| Spirit | 0.3317 | 0.6397 |
| Intellect | 0.7853 | 0.7480 |
| SP | 0.6000 | 0.6000 |
| Crit rating | 0.3564 | 0.3763 |
| Stamina | 0.2000 | 0.2000 |
| Haste rating | 0.2925 | 0.3059 |
However, MK hasn't been seen around lately, and hasn't updated the information for patch 3.1, with its big changes to spirit and to Priest talents. Fortunately, a blogger named BobTurkey has stepped in and thoroughly reworked all the numbers, at great and interesting length. It's times like these that I really love the WoW community.
The overall discussion is in six parts, if you want to go through the gory details, but the end product is two sets of stat weightings, one for Holy priests and one for Discipline priests (the links are to LootRank lists for the corresponding weight scales). If, like me, you love Pawn, here are the Pawn tags:
( Pawn: v1: "Discipline31": Stamina=0.2, Intellect=0.7853, Spirit=0.3317, RedSocket=11.6824, CritRating=0.3564, MetaSocket=16.4913, HasteRating=0.2925, BlueSocket=9.2824, YellowSocket=12.5648, SpellPower=0.6, Mp5=1)( Pawn: v1: "Holy31": Stamina=0.2, Intellect=0.7480, Spirit=0.6397, RedSocket=11.384, CritRating=0.3763, MetaSocket=15.708, HasteRating=0.3059, BlueSocket=11.1016, YellowSocket=11.968, SpellPower=0.6, Mp5=1)
As you can see, the numbers are based on MP5 - one point of MP5 is worth 1, while (for instance) one point of Int is calculated to be worth 0.748 points of MP5 for a Holy priest. Nice work, BobTurkey. But what's with that name?
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Cedrich May 5th 2009 2:33PM
Glyph of PW:S can crit, PW:S its self cannot.
jfofla May 5th 2009 2:05PM
Nothing screams nerd like doing the math behind a game..WOW
BulletzBill May 5th 2009 2:07PM
..not evening commenting on a blog about an MMORPG?
;-)
thebvp May 5th 2009 2:27PM
Nothing screams ass like complaining about being a nerd in an MMO like posting about it on a blog about an MMO.
Some of us like to play our characters intelligently. And yes, there is a lot of fun to be had in playing with numbers. If you don't like it, that's fine, but don't knock those who do.
Theorycrafting is as old as WoW itself and if you think it's a new thing, then you obviously haven't been playing this game very long.
Similarly, it can yield some very interesting results. For example, pre-bc, some theorycrafter determined that the best dps gloves in the game for a fury warrior were... a pair of BoE mail epics you can get in your late 40s. Edgemasters handguards were invaluable for fury dps warriors (I was one) who, at the time, were top dps, well and above any other class. Of course, they were eventually nerfed because of it.
If you don't see a value or don't see the fun in theorycrafting, you're missing one of the best aspects of the game imo.
telltalehart May 5th 2009 2:15PM
Everywhere I look for priest stuff, it always seems like us Shadow Priests get the shaft. WHY?!?!?!?
We do have feelings, ya know.
Bubsa May 5th 2009 2:33PM
Thought this would be an appropriate place to put this.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16903630259&pageNo=1&sid=1#11
Penance nerf is being removed from 3.1.2.
Disc priests, rejoice!
Raziellionheart May 5th 2009 2:52PM
I hate to say it but I think these numbers are SUPER jacked for Disc. I have not played holy, i've always played disc. If you go to the "guts" of his analysis, you will see his assumptions. The one that sticks out in my mind is that these numbers are based on spamming Flash Heal. I play DISC and I RARELY spam flash heal. I normally use greater heal, shield, penance, and PoM. I will cast flash Heal if i see somebody very close to death only AFTER I cast PW:S and the player is normally caught by the other flash heal spammers like pallies or holy priests.
All in all, I think the guy did a decent job but I think he should have just dropped the Disc numbers because they are pretty meaningless. If you play disc like you would holy....spec holy.
PS: To all the shadow priests who want some love. You would rather not get any attention rather than attention which is SUPER incorrect.
Fu Leng May 5th 2009 4:25PM
His disc numbers have been taking a lot of heat, but I'll second his analysis. The key to understanding where he's coming from is that all healers have to balance essentially two sets of rankings, one for throughput, one for regen. Putting them together in one set of numbers is tricky, because there is no apples-to-apples comparison of throughput vs regen.
The magic constant that binds this together is his spellpower rating; in his analysis, he mentions that the rating of spellpower vs mp5 is empirical, and there is no math behind it. It's a personal decision.
I've been running a similar set of lootrank numbers for some time, but with 0.9 sp = 1 mp5. In Uld25, with the Soul Warding nerf, I've backed it down a little to 0.75 sp = 1 mp5. His rating 0f 0.6 sp = 1 mp5 isn't wrong, per se, it just values regen higher than I would, and for some encounters/specs/gear/playstyle combinations, that might be reasonable. Personally, I advocate gearing for hard throughput, and then backing in some regen if mana is an issue. I think his numbers are a good place to start, but there is no magic set of numbers that you can blindly follow and not think about.
Jabadabadana May 5th 2009 4:24PM
The part of his numbers that seems the strangest to me, is his assumed spellpower to crit quantities. He seems to assume that we've dropped 500+ spell power for 5%+ crit.
Orifice May 5th 2009 4:50PM
from EJ:
http://elitistjerks.com/f77/t54629-discipline_healing_compendium_v3_1_a/
A. Stat Weighting
The stat ratings presented are generated from the Disc Spreadsheet that will be attached in a later section.
Thoughput stats...
* Intelligence - 0.16
* Spell Power - 1.0
* Crit Rating - 0.48
* Haste Rating - 0.59
Discipline through use of BT and with Enlightenment has a lower need for gearing to haste. It is valuable for total output at the above stat weighting up to the point you reach the "soft cap" of a total haste of 50%. At that point the GCD is 1 second and more haste impacts less of the Disc arsenal of tools. This point varies based on the buffs available and should be individually calculated.
Longevity stats...
* 1 Intelligence = 0.74 mp5
* 1 Spirit - 0.33 mp5
For those that utilize a combined stat weighting you can use the following. Though I usually work with them seperately in order to better balance my gear selection. The longevity stats are important to balance mana burn and mana gain for your playstyle, mana beyond that point is unnecessary.
Combined stats... Using a 60/40 split for throughput vs. longevity.
* Intelligence - 0.65
* Spirit - 0.22
* Haste Rating - 0.59
* Crit Ratng - 0.48
* Spell Power - 1.0
* Mp5 - 0.67
bunny May 7th 2009 12:09PM
those numbers look way better to me for disc. i almost choked when i saw that MP5 was valued the highest by bob. i have actually replaced any gems and enchants that I had previously for MP5 because the only time i run OOM is in PvP battle.
Tweaky May 5th 2009 5:21PM
The CORRECT shadowpriest.com gear thread for 3.1:
http://www.shadowpriest.com/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=20419
turke May 5th 2009 6:27PM
Thanks Eliah. I'm flattered.
@sturob - I agree more or less. I'll be posting on that soon enough.
@masterraistlin - Im still finding mana an issue even when well geared for the instance. As are others:
http://www.wowinsider.com/2009/05/05/spiritual-guidance-3-1-2-thoughts-and-the-ulduar-experience/
The name Eliah? I see a lot names like Gandalf, Legolas, SirPunisher and the like, so I went with something irreverent. A long time handle of mine.
Gobble gobble.
Zusterke May 7th 2009 9:29AM
I commend the amount of work put into this, but I frown upon the some methods used.
The ratio between throughput and regen depends so much on playstyle and talents that you risk devaluating your theorycraft by fixing their ratio. That would be sad, considering the amount of effort put into it.
The assumptions surprise me:
- 80% FSR? Last time I had 80% FSR I was playing poker during the bossfight. We just lost our clearcasting abilities (apart from inner focus). 80% is a lot for holies! Even more so for Disc priests.
- 70% Holy concentration uptime? Can you give me 2-3 parses of an entire raidnight where this is your average? You need to cast 4 spells every 8 seconds, capable of proccing HC with 25% crit to get that number. When will you be casting a powerfull spell then?
Raid buffs seem to have been ignored. BoK alone increases the your int/spirit regen by more than 15%. How can that not matter? Still, I see a notion of it at the end. Has all this work been redone with buffs then?
Haste is... phew... debatable!
It has a %-based contribution to your hps, regardless of the spell. But it works in tandem with all other throughput stats and talents! Ignoring borrowed time, serendipity, crit and SP was a bad call.
Also, Haste comes at price of increased mps. SP/Crit may score lower in throughput, but they don't cost additional mana. The throughput of haste does.
A Freudian slip:
"I generally play with latency around 300ms. This turns a 1 .5s Flash Heal into a 1.8s Flash Heal." Luckily it wasn't taken into account! Proper chaincasting queues your spells server side, free of latency. It matters only if you pauze in between casts (which isn't rare for healers).
I'm glad to see he promotes different stat weights depending on gear though. That point alone is worth a lot!
And then there's an interesting observation: I compared the holy lootrank he made with my own handmade list. They are much alike. How can it be that our methods and results differ greatly.. and yet we obtain a somewhat comparable gearing style?
The answer is quite simple: we have little to chose from. All 'viable' gear stacks stam, int and sp. Higher iLvl gives more of these stats and generally scores higher. The choice is more about preference:
- "mp5 vs spi"
- "crit vs haste"
Making a choice between these 2 is 90% of your lootrank.
If there's a difference to be found between one list and another, you will find it in blue gear... where real variations between items still exist and aren't mostly iLvl based.
All in all, I hope BobTurkey will continue his work... but I also hope he doesn't stop exploring other ways to work out some stuff :)
Yami-Chan May 11th 2009 2:58AM
I wonder what happend to MK
turke May 12th 2009 7:52PM
@Raziellionheart - FH spam is chosen because it is a commonly used spell. You're more than welcome to create your own numbers based on complex rotations.
PS I'm mostly a Disc priest and I don't spam FH either.
@Orifice - The Doctors numbers from ElitestJerks you quote are another good attempt at determining relative value of stats. If you normalise them to MP5 they come out like this:
* Intelligence - 0.97
* Spirit - 0.32
* Haste Rating - 0.88
* Crit Ratng - 0.71
* Spell Power - 1.49
* Mp5 - 1
Int and Spi are about the same as mine. Throughput numbers are all bigger).
@bunny - This is a stat weighting, just because MP5 has the highest value that doesn't mean you should be focusing on getting as much MP5 as possible.
@Zusterke - the ratio between throughput and regen is personal preference, but as you were alluding to with your comment about my gear list being similar to yours, largely irellevant as long as its not too radical.
"80% FSR?" - No 80% inside the FSR. This number is variable depending on the fight.
"70% Holy concentration uptime?" - my post has a link to my source.
re:latency - you are correct. I'm not sure how this qualifies as a Freudian slip, but your are correct that it should not be factored in.
Your interesting observation is actually the most useful thing that came out of this exercise as I posted around the time. The difference between gear lists is pretty limited if they are generated with using any sensible method.
Gobble gobble.
Zusterke May 20th 2009 6:51AM
I meant 80% IFSR (inside the five second rule), just like you :)
Without clearcasting abilities, 80% really is a lot of time. In a 5 min fight, that's 1 min OFSR. If you idle once for 25s (20s OFSR) and then stopcast the rest the fight, sneaking 3s outside the FSR (on average) each time... then you did not heal for about 130s total which is about 43% of the time. That's really a lot.
As for the HC Uptime. I read your source prior my first comment but my point remains. If you check EJ's formula for the uptime:
http://elitistjerks.com/f77/t47907-3_1_ptr/p7/
Then you get: Uptime = 1-(1-C)^n
Where n is the amount of spells you cast in 8s (buff time). For a 70% Uptime and 25% crit chance, you need n = 4.18. That is quite a high number... It requires you to constantly spam FHeal and Renews, perhaps even need haste to increase your spell usage to counter for SoL procs. Forgive me my scepticism... but I don't see how that mixes with 80%, or even 90% IFSR... or holy priest healing in general.
Checking my WWS parses, I score about n=1.8 (on spells able to trigger HC) and I spam quite a lot of heals. That is why I asked to give a WWS parse showing such a high uptime. I genually wonder what a holy priest with 70% HC Uptime is doing.
Re: Freudian Slip. I might be mistaken on the usage of this expression. It was an attempt to enrich my English vocabulary (3rd language) with another expression. My appologies :-)
Re: observation. I agree with you there. If we would be free to select all stats freely we would see bigger differences I suppose.
General remark: I disagree on a few points, but I hope I made clear it's only against some of your numbers. The work and personality behind them are quite commendable :)
Nice to see you follow this up
turke May 21st 2009 12:35AM
re:IS5SR - fair enough. 90% I5SR knocks about 0.03 off the value spirit and 0.01 off Int for both specs. 95% 0.04 spirit and 0.015 Int.
re:HC - must admit I didn't go into too much investigation about 70% uptime and I hadn't seen the EJ thread at that point. I'll have a look at that thread and reconsider the numbers. For interest 50% uptime reduces spirit by about 0.054 and Int by 0.02.
Thanks, always happy to have useful feedback.
Zusterke May 22nd 2009 10:56AM
Yeah, it's sad to see spirit drop even further. With intellect becoming so strong, it outscores spirit under most circumstances. Though spirit still beats mp5 by a margin, it seems both spirit and mp5 are completely secundary to intellect. With haste, crit and intellect being more attractive stats to us priesties, it seems the blue gem slot has devaluated notably while yellow gem slots are now very welcomed! Quite a turn from the TBC times!
*shakes fist at Blizzard* Make spirit a bit stronger again will you! :)