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Why Surge of Light?
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Post by
MegaVolt
The question came up in another topic (
here
) and I think it deserves it's own. I'll quote a few opinions on the talent (starting with my own ;)):
I generally question SoL. I trade in a 5k heal that can crit and that casts in 1.5 seconds for a 5k heal that can't crit and triggers a 1.5s GCD. Both are affected equally by haste.
So SoL will
always
be a loss in hps. You lose the chance to crit and you gain nothing in cast time. The advantage is in HPM (duh, it's free) and it does allow for a cast while moving which can be nice in certain fights (but then again it's a random proc so you can never really count on it).
I have often wondered if SoL was a talent worth even electing for PvE for this reason. Yes, SoL procs add a stack to Serendipity, but they do so in no less net time than would a Flash Heal cast. SoL adding stacks to Serendipity would be advantageous only in situations where a priest would risk getting locked out by having a cast bar during an interrupt effect. While these do happen (Northrend Beasts, etc.), I wonder if they happen often enough to justify 2 talent points.
Yet all the cookie cutter builds take 2 points in SoL and it even has it's own paragraph in the holy Priest guide here, describing how awesome it is and that it's a core talent to the build.
Why?
It gives you better HPM, yes. But it does so at the expense of HPS. So as soon as mana regen starts to become less of an issue (high gear levels) those 2 talent points seem kind of wasted.
And: Has anybody ever bothered to calculate how much mp5 you effectively get out of it (comparing the proc frequency and transferring the saved mana on FH into effective mp5)?
Post by
309579
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
OscarDivine
HPS, HPM, what is with this nonsense? Honestly? They're terms that have little to no relevance to me and I don't even consider them real or useful nomenclature for anything I do anyhow.
What makes SoL worth it is that it can be cast on the run, it's free, and you pretty much always get one after a CoH or PoH. If you can afford to sit there and be rooted for an additional 1.3 seconds (what most holy priests are at with their haste) while you cast, then great, but most fights require mobile healers to a large degree. The more mobile you are, the better your survivability can be.
Do you REALLY want to calculate how much MP5 you need to offset the use of SoL? It would depend on crit rating and haste rating which differs from player to player so calculating it is moot.
Post by
karlusdavius
agree with oscar, this hardly needed its own thread. It allows for critical healing. Thats what holy priests do. Ignore HPS, there no point in even looking at it. If there is nothing to heal, you have low HPS, if there is lots to heal, then i heal it as i usually don't have time to even check my HPS.
Bottle necking topics into the HPS is bad. Its not important as long as your using all your tools and doing your job. If that's checked and double checked, then why even look at HPS? it's not a fight for first place, its a fight to down a boss...
Post by
Braevia
agree with oscar, this hardly needed its own thread. It allows for critical healing. Thats what holy priests do. Ignore HPS, there no point in even looking at it. If there is nothing to heal, you have low HPS, if there is lots to heal, then i heal it as i usually don't have time to even check my HPS.
Bottle necking topics into the HPS is bad. Its not important as long as your using all your tools and doing your job. If that's checked and double checked, then why even look at HPS? it's not a fight for first place, its a fight to down a boss...
You could say the same about DPS...I've seen (and done) plenty of dumb things to top meters on my Rogue. Then I noticed that I was dying, and that DPS dying stupid deaths was causing wipes. I also noticed that my screen is clearer without a bunch of colored bars there. Now I only check Recount after boss fights to monitor my gear/rotation choices.
Post by
174266
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
MegaVolt
HPS, HPM, what is with this nonsense? Honestly? They're terms that have little to no relevance to me and I don't even consider them real or useful nomenclature for anything I do anyhow.
Looking only at hps and hpm is bad, no doubt about that.
But going to the other extreme and neglecting them completely is just as bad, I'd say even worse.
You want to maximize your healing. Sure, if there is no incoming damage then your hps is low but who cares about that? In those situations you just know that there isn't much healing needed anyway. You could run aroud naked or just idle the entire fight and be fine. Those fights just don't count, nobody should ever gear or skill for those kinds of fights. And they are hardly worth discussing, you might was well heal with GH only and still be totally fine in those kinds of fights.
Hard fights on the other hand, fights that require your full attention and that also require you to be at your maximum capability - those are the ones we should talk about. Right now that would be fights like Algalon and the ToC hard modes.
In those fights raid members can die within seconds and it is absolutely vital to maximize personal hps output simply because you need every bit of healing you can get. For example when dual healing heroic Anub p3 there just is no other healer to do you job when you are slacking. You have to play perfectly or you will be the one to blame that your guild has to wait a week for another shot at Tribute to Insanity.
What's why I think my question is a very valid one. The loss in HPS can easily be calculated, just compare an average FH crit to a non-crit and multiply the difference with your crit chance. The gain in effective HPM on the other hand is not that easy, I at least couldn't calculate it right now. I'd be very interested in that number.
About casting on the move: That's obviously a huge advantage, especiall on movement heavy fights. The main problem I see is that this instant cast is proc based. You can never be sure to get it if you need it. Healing is all about being ready for the worst case scenario and relying on a proc to be able to heal on the move is dangerous. Murphy's law says that your instant heal will not be available when you need it the most and that you will have lots of procs when you could just as well stand still ;) I'm not saying that it isn't an advantage ... but it isn't really realiable enough, right?
A free 5k heal divided by 1.5 secs = 3,333 HPS. 1.3 sec = 3,846 HPS. What's wrong with that? You also don't spend 700 mana. There is nothing wrong with looking at HPS in terms of learning/improving your healing.
Personally, I can't stand procs...I gear completely around them because typically, the proc isn't there when you need it. Surge of light typically is. You can somewhat control this proc. Ever raid heal and the MT healer goes down? I use this proc when I am behind on healing. COH is actually a spell I use which is a weak FH which will more than likely trigger surge of light and a free flash heal. It also helps the raid healers who can help me heal the tank.
4k hps isn't really that good. It's nice for non heroic fights but any healer pulling 4k in most heroic ToC fights isn't doing his job. I usually see at least 6k there and it goes as high as 12k (!) on Twin Valks.
And when helping on the MT ... why not simply cast a normal FH? The cast time is exactly the same, the only difference is that SoLFH is front loaded while the normal FH is back loaded and you can't move while casting it. So as long as the fight isn't extremely movement heavy and as long as the tank won't die in exactly that one second it takes to finish FH you gain absolutely nothing by the SoL proc. But you lose overall healing which obviously is bad.
That's another thing I don't like about SoL: It basically forces me to have my next FH as a weak cast. A macro to get rid of the proc before casting FH could obviously fix that issue but then again ... what good is a talent if it forces you to keep an extra healing macro on your bar that automatically cancels the proc you gain from that talent?
Post by
karlusdavius
And when helping on the MT ... why not simply cast a normal FH? The cast time is exactly the same, the only difference is that SoLFH is front loaded while the normal FH is back loaded and you can't move while casting it. So as long as the fight isn't extremely movement heavy and as long as the tank won't die in exactly that one second it takes to finish FH you gain absolutely nothing by the SoL proc. But you lose overall healing which obviously is bad.
I'm gonna pull this paragraph out.
Your helping on the MT not healing him. If they can't keep the MT up then maybe your combo is wrong, your priority is the raid.
If you are in that position and your tank takes a big hitting thump, Casting a FH > SoLFH will give you 2 serendipity stacks. that makes my untalented Greater Heal cast at 1.8 seconds. That's what you would turn to. That said, chance are the other healers have stepped in.
Most fight in TotGC involve movement of some sort. Twins is a prime example. Therefore an instant cast heal is immense.
How do you loose overall healing when comparing it to renew for HPS? and tbh, who cares? you loose overall healing but you gain an instant cast healing, which in turn could save a DPS, which in turn could help you down the boss by continuing that 8k dps he was dishing out?
A macro to get rid of the proc before casting FH could obviously fix that issue but then again ... what good is a talent if it forces you to keep an extra healing macro on your bar that automatically cancels the proc you gain from that talent?
your the only person i know who would do that. go back to your other characters.
There is no need to talk about HPS at all. As long as your pulling your weight and up there with the rest of your raid healers who, btw, are helping you to do the same thing, then why even bother looking at recount for that number?
Post by
422346
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
MegaVolt
Most fight in TotGC involve movement of some sort. Twins is a prime example. Therefore an instant cast heal is immense.
Perfect example. You have to switch colors and you have to move a bit. You happen to have the SoL proc. Raid damage is usually
not critical
, people are taking slow creeping damage. What do you cast:
a) Instant FH, using the proc and healing for ~5k with your GCD.
b) Instant Renew, wasting the proc but easily producing more then twice of the FH healing with your GCD
No healer in his right mind would want to chose FH in such a situation.
There is no need to talk about HPS at all. As long as your pulling your weight and up there with the rest of your raid healers who, btw, are helping you to do the same thing, then why even bother looking at recount for that number?
"Pulling your weight" is exactly my point. You have incoming raid damage. This number is fixed, there is a total of X damage that your raid is taking and it absolutely has to be healed, there is no way around it.
Pulling your weight automatically means that you try to heal as much of those X damage as possible. Which directly results in trying to produce high hps.
Yes, there are fights in which hps are not really that imporant. For fights with periodic critical damage hps don't really say anything and your ability to burst heal to save people from death is what counts.
But in your example, in a fight with non critical persistant damage (aura type fights like Twin Valks) hps is very important. There is almost no spot healing, there is nobody to save from death with a quick burst heal. There is just slow creeping damage eating away at your raid and high hps is the only way to counter it.
I'm seriously considering this a troll thread just because of how ridiculous your argument is.
I'm seriously considering this a troll comment. Which it obviously is.
Post by
OscarDivine
HPS / HPM / DPS / WTF / GTFO / ...
Being a meter maid means you're not focusing on your job. Look at your numbers afterward and see what it is that you did wrong.
What you did wrong wasn't "omg, my HPS number wasn't high enough!" it was, "Frick, I didn't heal the DPS hard enough during that last burst damage phase because I popped my Hymn of Hope at an inopportune time."
After a wipe, THESE are the types of things you analyze, not whether or not your mana efficiency was great or your heals made the numbers look pretty.
It's like losing a NASCAR race then saying that it was your paint job that could have been better. If you're not getting it by now Mega and Gothri, I don't know what to tell you.
Post by
OscarDivine
Most fight in TotGC involve movement of some sort. Twins is a prime example. Therefore an instant cast heal is immense.
Perfect example. You have to switch colors and you have to move a bit. You happen to have the SoL proc. Raid damage is usually
not critical
, people are taking slow creeping damage. What do you cast:
a) Instant FH, using the proc and healing for ~5k with your GCD.
b) Instant Renew, wasting the proc but easily producing more then twice of the FH healing with your GCD
No healer in his right mind would want to chose FH in such a situation.Lies you pop your SoL proc then your CoH to clean up the other 5 people you could tag. THEN YOU GET ANOTHER SoL PROC.
There is no need to talk about HPS at all. As long as your pulling your weight and up there with the rest of your raid healers who, btw, are helping you to do the same thing, then why even bother looking at recount for that number?
"Pulling your weight" is exactly my point. You have incoming raid damage. This number is fixed, there is a total of X damage that your raid is taking and it absolutely has to be healed, there is no way around it.
Pulling your weight automatically means that you try to heal as much of those X damage as possible. Which directly results in trying to produce high hps.
Yes, there are fights in which hps are not really that imporant. For fights with periodic critical damage hps don't really say anything and your ability to burst heal to save people from death is what counts.
But in your example, in a fight with non critical persistant damage (aura type fights like Twin Valks) hps is very important. There is almost no spot healing, there is nobody to save from death with a quick burst heal. There is just slow creeping damage eating away at your raid and high hps is the only way to counter it. Wrong... You can counter it as a team healing to get through the damage... But it doesn't require you to use a retarded term like HPS. You're obsessed with your own performance man. "HPS" isn't the thing that will get the job done. It's team work and being smart with your tools. Again, HPS doesn't mean higher healing performed. Just like DPS doesn't always mean higher damage done.
Do your job and if you did it, whatever "HPS" you did was fine. Don't search for "HPS" to get your job done.
Post by
MegaVolt
Double posts are bad. Use the edit function if you want to add something to your post ;)
Being a meter maid means you're not focusing on your job. Look at your numbers afterward and see what it is that you did wrong.
Who said anything about looking at meters? You obviously didn't read what I wrote. You seem to only see the term "HPS" and turn off your brain to unleash a nerdrage.
I never talked about producing high numbers in Recount. It may be a nice side effect but it's far from being the primary goal here.
This is about comparing theoretical possible healing with different spells. You do want to heal, right? So you should be interested in the best possible strategy to maximize your healing output in any given situation. Maximizing your healing output automatically means using the spells capable of producing the biggest heal per time spent casting.
What you did wrong wasn't "omg, my HPS number wasn't high enough!" it was, "Frick, I didn't heal the DPS hard enough during that last burst damage phase because I popped my Hymn of Hope at an inopportune time."
We were talking about Twin Valks here as an example. There is no burst damage. If raid members die it's either because they fail at the fight mechanics (their own fault and there isn't really anything the healers can do about it) or because there is a lack of HPS. It's as simple as that.
You really seem to have a problem with "hps". What have those poor 3 letters ever done to you to deserve that much hate?
I agree that hps isn't the only thing one should ever look at but neglecting it completely is just as bad. You are disregarding a valuable tool to evaluate your healing performance just because you are emotionally biased.
Ok, let's look at this from a different angle. Let's forget the Twin Valks example and let's assume a pure tank'n'spank fight.
There is no movement at all. Everyone can just stand there and go about his business, be it healing or tanking or dps.
It is blatantly obvious that SoL will actually harm you in such a fight. Since there is no movement at all the SoLFH will cast in exactly the same time as a normal FH and it will heal less (since it can't crit). Less healing is generally bad, I hope we agree on that.
So you have a talent that eats up 2 of your valuable talent points and that without a doubt hurts you when not moving.
So the question that has to be asked is:
Is the talent that awesome that it not only justifies to spend 2 talent points but also makes up for the obvious disadvantage it will give you whenever you cast a FH not moving?
I tried to approach that question by looking at the effective mp5. Neglecting the HPS loss we can look at the mp5 gain and then evaluate if the two talent points are worth spending simply because of the mana gain. This is only important for lesser geared Priests since mana problems should be solved automatically by better gear.
I do not think that the movement factor is of great importance. Priests already have an awesome instant cast, Renew. If you need to cast on the move and don't have SoL ready Renew will be a more then capable substitude in most situations. Additionally SoL is a proc so you can't rely on it for movement heavy fights anyway. And in case either your CoH or your PoM is off cooldown you don't even have to resort to Renew since you want to be casting those.
I think I presented a clean argument with very sound reasoning and I'd hope to get some precise logical and less emotional answers. Just hating on the term "hps" without ever looking at the deeper issue isn't really helping.
Post by
Erethzium
I'm seriously considering this a troll thread just because of how ridiculous your argument is.
^
That
Yes, HPS is the most useless part of Recount, imo. There's no steady stream of healing to do(on most fights), so there's no accurate way to record it. What makes me laugh more is guilds that require healers have a certain HPS to join. On fights like Twin Val'Kyr Heroic 25-man, my HPS is around 6-7k. But on fights like Faction Champions, my HPS is only around 1000-2000.
Also, no Surge of Light on a Holy Priest is like no Vampiric Touch on a Shadow Priest: Stupid. Have fun going OOM in a minute with no Flash Heal.
Besides, where else are those two points going to go? Body and Soul?
Post by
nickseng
Since there is no movement at all the SoLFH will cast in exactly the same time as a normal FH and it will heal less (since it can't crit).
Not adding anything, but will say that a SOL Flash Heal will actually cast faster than a normal one. The only same thing is that the GCD will still prevent you from casting another spell for the same duration.
But it WILL cast faster. :)
Post by
ande9249
which honestly might be a better way for this thread to go, lets step away from the 10sec timeframe of how much green can we put up in 10 sec, and say, in the next 3-1sec what can i do to help my tank/dps not die. That is what SoL is really to help with. I agree with the arguement that a SoL proc will not help HPS, but it could save the dps that was about to take the next swing from something.
please acknowledge I enter this conversation gingerly....about 80% of my SoL procs turned into Smites because I was lvling
Post by
MegaVolt
Not adding anything, but will say that a SOL Flash Heal will actually cast faster than a normal one. The only same thing is that the GCD will still prevent you from casting another spell for the same duration.
But it WILL cast faster. :)
Can't argue with that ;) I didn't really word it correctly. Yes, the cast is faster but the GCD lockout is equal to the normal cast duration so in the end nothing is gained or lost.
which honestly might be a better way for this thread to go, lets step away from the 10sec timeframe of how much green can we put up in 10 sec, and say, in the next 3-1sec what can i do to help my tank/dps not die. That is what SoL is really to help with. I agree with the arguement that a SoL proc will not help HPS, but it could save the dps that was about to take the next swing from something.
That's a valid point but not completely thought through. The right question to ask would be:
When did (a random, not controllable!) SoLFH prevent a tank/dps from dying when a normal FH would have not been able to do so as well?
And how often does the FH crit actually save people from death or simply makes the life of other healers easier by pumping a large amount of health into them instead of only a small amount?
Does the first case really occur that often so that we want to spend 2 talent points that actually prevent the second case from happening?
Besides, where else are those two points going to go? Body and Soul?
Seriously, at this point Lightwell seems like a better option then SoL.
Post by
450879
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Post by
91278
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450879
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