Raid Rx: Reforging tools and concepts for healers
by Matt Low 
Sep 2nd 2011 at 4:00PM
Today we will dive into the wild realm of reforging. One of the DPS players in my guild moans about the players he sees in different pickup raids ("That guy has 900 hit rating -- wait, that's 900 hit rating over the cap!").
That's why this week I wanted to shine the spotlight on one of the reforging calculators that you may not have heard about. The place is called WoW Reforge! It does have a set of defaults for the different classes (including healing specs). As always with all calculators, you have the capability to adjust the weights and stuff on your own.
Thankfully, the reforging we need to do as healers ends up being a little simpler. Typically, healers will rearrange their reforging for haste, mastery or spirit. It seems that despite the additional buffs to critical rating and the effect it had, it isn't enough to boost critical strike rating to the top of the most wanted list. As healers, there usually aren't any major benchmarks that are required for us. DPS classes need to get their hit rating levels up to a certain percentage; otherwise, parts of their attacks will miss. Normally, healers don't need to do that. There's no such concept as a healing rating. If the fictitious healing rating weren't high enough, our heals would miss and hit a player next to them. As amusing as such an idea would be, we're not bound to those.
Hitting the benchmarks
However, that's not to say that there aren't certain benchmarks where it becomes really beneficial for us healers to reach a certain rating level. For example, shaman have hard numbers for their caps. 916 haste is a must-have, and 2,200 spirit is a requirement for them. It is a great way to figure out if your character can reach the haste caps for current content.
Typically, you'll have a standard reforging setup that you'll use for most encounters. Depending on your class, you prefer a little more haste or a little more mastery. If your character is behind on gear, that character will need some additional spirit to compensate and get the additional regeneration. Your actual reforging setup will vary based on your gear, your raid size, raid composition and encounter. As a discipline priest, I prefer a little more mastery. Some other discipline priests swear by haste.
If you plan on making specific reforging changes, you might want to alert the other healers (or at least, other healers of the same class). There have been times when another priest and I would reforge into the setup that the other player was using. It was absolutely unintentional. I just find it humorous when I'm reforging out of mastery into haste and my friend reforges from haste into mastery, thereby not netting us a significant advantage in the encounter!
Uh, just ignore that shadow spec in the top left. I was just experimenting something. I'm not moonlighting as a DPS player or anything, don't worry. I was just bored!
Suggestion box
Anyway, this is what the main screen of WoW Reforge looks like once you plug in your character. The two columns on the right show possible reforges. The left reforging column is what your character is currently using. The right column indicates what changes WoW Reforge is suggesting. Notice how it also shows you the items that your character is wearing, the enchants that are currently applied to an item and the gems that are currently in place. Naturally, if you're missing a gem or an enchant, WoW Reforge will highlight it here. It shows that I have two gem sockets available, but that is not the case, as those are only obtained from being a blacksmith (which I'm not).
Right below that, you'll see the overall weights in the different fields. There's a nice edit link there, just in case you want to do things your own way. It'll show you the numbers that you'll gain from other augments, like gems and enchants. It'll also show default values before reforging and then the differences after reforging changes are made.
Suggestion box
Anyway, this is what the main screen of WoW Reforge looks like once you plug in your character. The two columns on the right show possible reforges. The left reforging column is what your character is currently using. The right column indicates what changes WoW Reforge is suggesting. Notice how it also shows you the items that your character is wearing, the enchants that are currently applied to an item and the gems that are currently in place. Naturally, if you're missing a gem or an enchant, WoW Reforge will highlight it here. It shows that I have two gem sockets available, but that is not the case, as those are only obtained from being a blacksmith (which I'm not).
Right below that, you'll see the overall weights in the different fields. There's a nice edit link there, just in case you want to do things your own way. It'll show you the numbers that you'll gain from other augments, like gems and enchants. It'll also show default values before reforging and then the differences after reforging changes are made.
Now what if you want to reach a minimum level? You can configure WoW Reforge with a value and a stat that needs to be reached. If the stat is reached, then it'll stop adding points in there and look at other stats that points can be invested into. For example, I like to ballpark spirit at 2,400 (I just pulled that number out of thin air, mind you). I would change the drop-down to spirit and then enter the value of 2,400 before hitting the optimize button. That'll refresh the page and list exactly what changes I need to make and what the projected modified stats will be.
Squeeze out maximum throughput
Even though there are an abundance of reforging calculators out there, take a look at WoW Reforge and see if it can help you in the tweaks you need to make to squeeze out that additional throughput or mana regen you need. I understand that for some of the newer raiders, this is new. Even though you've heard of reforging and may have messed with it a little bit, you don't need to try to eyeball your stats and reforge based on what you're feeling is correct. At the very least, you can use the preset values that are available to give yourself a foundation to work off of.
As healers, do you make any special adjustments on certain fights? If so, what changes do you make to your character that is different from the usual configuration?
Need advice on working with the healers in your guild? Raid Rx has you covered. Send your questions about raid healing to mattl@wowinsider.com. For less healer-centric raiding advice, visit Ready Check for advanced tactics and advice for the endgame raider.
Filed under: Raid Rx (Raid Healing)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Vlad4ever Sep 2nd 2011 4:15PM
I prefer Mr.Robot for reforging info.
Stormwalker Sep 2nd 2011 4:49PM
This. A thousand times this.
Amaxe Sep 2nd 2011 6:56PM
TBH. I had a good deal of trouble making sense of what this site was suggesting for my main.
So I tried Mr. Robot on the suggestions above. It seems much easier to read and I bookmarked it. Thanks guys for suggesting it as an alternative.
devonaelick Sep 3rd 2011 2:13AM
I've personally never found Mr. Robot helpful as a hunter. No matter what I do or tell it, it CONSTANTLY reforges me to below the hit cap. Just drives me crazy. Wow Reforge does no such thing, and I really like it.
Having said that, I much prefer Mr. Robot on my feral tank.
robitrock Sep 3rd 2011 4:32AM
Found mr. Robot pretty useless for a resto Druid as well.
Knob Sep 3rd 2011 5:26AM
In the same boat as devonaelick, Mr. Robot is terrible for hunters. It suggests wrong gems in sockets and reforges gear to below the hit cap. Wowreforge has not yet guided me into wrong reforges.
MJ Sep 2nd 2011 4:16PM
First!
Vis Sep 2nd 2011 4:20PM
Fail!
MJ Sep 2nd 2011 4:29PM
T_T
g2g591 Sep 2nd 2011 7:04PM
fail not only for not being first, but for "first" comments in general to be useless, and detracting from the comments that have actual content.
MoarHeroisms Sep 2nd 2011 4:31PM
What are the advantages of using this tool compared to the gear optimizer on Askmrrobot.com?
Ben Sep 2nd 2011 4:41PM
I'm not very familiar w/ askmrrobot.com... but so far I'm seeing two differences. One is that askmrrobot only lets me put caps on certain things, whereas wowreforge is much more customizable. Also, wowreforge doesn't require you to use the optimizer, it will let you play around with it and pick the reforges yourself and seeing what they come out to.
John Sep 2nd 2011 4:35PM
The first thing, as a priest & shaman healer, that I do with Mr. Robot is:
DELETE the stoopid "ENOUGH HASTE FOR 1 MORE TICK" settings asap.
For example, the default for a lot of holy priest reforge suggestion spreadsheets is to hit 12% haste raid-buffed (assume shadow priest or wrath of air haste buff etc.).
IMO, you don't have enough haste if you stop at just enough haste for one more tick of renew or riptide. That's just over-thinking something that doesn't need that level of calculation.
Being able to cast heal, healing wave, chain heal, prayer of healing, etc. etc. faster is always good. Haste allows movement in between casts. It allows leeway & time to think about next cast and position and getting there. It allows my priest to cast mana regen CD's (HoH or shadowfiend) with a lower hit to HPS.
Yes, going overboard with haste can lead to overhealing and mana problems. However, that's a judgement call and when you adjust the stat weights, you don't go haste>>all else.
Abadon Sep 3rd 2011 4:14AM
Well, but it's not that these setups put haste to a value of 0 after the additional-tick-gain. Getting it is just so important that the value of haste before that "cap" is very high. As a healer playing around with these values to make a fight you have difficulties with easier is the main point here. There is rarely such thing as "This stat is always best/ worst/ second".
The point of the caps is exactly to account for "you don't go haste>>all else".
Don't delete them. Adjust the numbers.
Ben Sep 2nd 2011 4:43PM
There's an addon that is very helpful to wowreforge AND mrrobot users, Reforgerade (not to be confused with reforgerator). This addon lets you copy the data from the website and paste it into a window while in Wow and it will parse it out and automatically do all of the reforges for you, very useful when you get a new piece and it tells you you need to shift around 6 different items.
Wismac Sep 2nd 2011 5:31PM
"Optimizer will not be available, because this browser doesn't support Silverlight, sorry!"
Boooo hisss boooo hisss.... Guess I'll head back to askmrrobot, and it's nice html5 compliant site. None of that bloated M$ crap for my computer, thank you very much!
Kuro Sep 2nd 2011 6:24PM
> Today we will dive into the wild realm of reforging. One of the DPS players in my guild moans about the players he sees in different pickup raids ("That guy has 900 hit rating -- wait, that's 900 hit rating over the cap!").
Hey!
Jar of Ancient Remedies is a DPS trinket.. I swear! I wanted to get into that BH and they didn't need a resto shaman. :( Leave my 25% hit alone.
Soulddoubt Sep 2nd 2011 8:15PM
I use the addon reforgelite. simple to use has spec presets for each class, you can change the weight of the stats manually as well (and save them) and has a 1 button reforge to reforge all the items that need it.
Dankie Sep 2nd 2011 11:19PM
Wow this fails. As a combat rogue it's telling me to reforge everything into mastery. wtf.
Stevo Sep 3rd 2011 12:51AM
I use GuildOx's Loot Rank for reforging:
http://www.guildox.com/wr.asp
Pick a class template on the right, load your character and it tells you what you need to reforge. Simple.