[ARCHIVE] 1.1.5 Sith Sorcerer Healing Compendium

[Petrus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi2I2Qd5n1E

8605 Heal... and I forgot my WP/Power adrenal... (and our merc bailed so couldn't re-test) But yeah, can definitely break 7,500.

That actually came out way higher than I thought it would, which really just strengthens my point about it being more HPS - 3741 in this case.

It'll be interesting to see what you come up with using a power relic instead of a crit, but from what I've experienced in game, with my stats, I just don't think a power will come out ahead, because that extra few % from the surge is so nice.

[Arulan]

(03-09-2012 03:04 PM)Petrus Wrote:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi2I2Qd5n1E

8605 Heal... and I forgot my WP/Power adrenal... (and our merc bailed so couldn't re-test) But yeah, can definitely break 7,500.

That actually came out way higher than I thought it would, which really just strengthens my point about it being more HPS - 3741 in this case.

It'll be interesting to see what you come up with using a power relic instead of a crit, but from what I've experienced in game, with my stats, I just don't think a power will come out ahead, because that extra few % from the surge is so nice.

The first thing I will compare will be between the Rakata Power and Surge/Crit Relics. I will be comparing it twice, with my stats (they've changed slightly since I last updated my spreadsheet but that isn't important for this comparison) and yours. This is assuming raid buffs, stim, and a power adrenal (495). As for the calculation with Dark Infusion, I ignored the Marauder and Merc buff, as well as the 8% self-healing buff from talents, as these would cancel themselves with the comparison anyways. The 2% healing from talents however is included. These calculations are done via my spreadsheet, and as for the RNG Min/Max healing values, I used the average of the two coefficients for calculations. Again, this is going by your logic of just trying to see which path can reach the highest heal. (The stats below show base stats + stim, it does not include the Power adrenal, however I did include it in the calculations)

Arulan:

Willpower 1805
Force Power 1217
Power 699
Crit 185
Surge 184
Alacrity 347

Dark Infusion (Power Relic): 6875.3
Dark Infusion (Crit/Surge Relic): 6730

Petrus:

Willpower 1912
Force Power 1224
Power 494
Crit 260
Surge 357
Alacrity 153

Dark Infusion (Power Relic): 7003
Dark Infusion (Crit/Surge Relic): 6657

Honestly I shouldn't have to do these calculations, simply, with the amount of Crit and Surge you have on your gear already, the diminishing returns of both of those stats is already hitting fairly hard. Adding more Crit and Surge via the Relic is not going to give you more output compared to the Power Relic. As you can see, with my own stats, because I have lower Crit/Surge the difference between the two isn't as large.

Now that I've cleared that up, I think there are a few errors in your reasoning. Let me start by saying, what type of target is this meant to be used on? I would assume this answer is the tank. Everyone else in the raid does not usually have to be brought up to full health, and even if they do, it's not a race to top him off as quick as possible. It's certainly not worth blowing ALL of your CDs to do so. With this said, I think it's fairly safe to remove the 8% self-healing out of the equation.

Before I go further, let me ask another question. Is said target (hopefully the tank) dropping to very low HP by predictable damage, or unpredictable damage? If it is predictable damage, these calculations hold very little meaning because it doesn't matter how much you can hit a large heal for. Typically in predictable damage situations, multiple healers will be chain-healing the tank. This is due to the fact that you won't have sufficient time to respond if you wait to see the damage. This then causes that a lot of your heals while being chain-casted might overheal a lot. One of the ways I organize my guild's heals for situations like this (ie Foreman Crusher) is that I have a certain number of them chain-casting, and another number of them are reactive. This eliminates excessive overlapping, separates the various cast times, etc. Back to the point, being able to cast a heal for the highest possible amount does not mean much in these situations, reducing your cast time via Alacrity for example does.

Now I'll begin with unpredictable damage. (ie your tank suddenly gets crit or brought down low, but this is not part of a mechanic or a timed event which we could foresee at the beginning of the fight) In this case everyone is put into a reactive situation and our objective is to heal said target back to relatively full health. This is the type of situation where what you're arguing matters. I'll start with the Marauder 15% healing buff. How can you guarantee this buff will be active when said target takes unpredictable damage? I suppose you could argue that you're always in the same group as a Marauder, and when said unpredictable damage occurs you could call it out and he would activate. A few things to mention: Are you really in a group with a Marauder always? I believe most guilds keep their Marauders in groups with other DPS, and although I haven't thought too much about this or done calculations I believe it is best used for DPS rather than healers for the benefit of the raid. Secondly, given said Marauder can flawlessly activate it immediately, it is very likely you're only going to get one use in a fight. I'll briefly make the same point regarding the Merc buff, although in this case the likelihood of it being active is much higher. One thing to consider is that it could have just fallen off, and given the situation, it might not be worth it for the Merc to use Kolto Bomb if the goal is to take said target's health to full as fast as possible.

The other argument I wanted to make is in your use of ALL of your CDs at once. Why use all of them at once just to make one heal be as high as it can go? There will definitely be more than just one, or even two situations in a boss fight where the tank will be brought down low and you have to bring him back up. If you use all of your CDs at once they won't be up for the other occasions. Occasionally I could see combining your +Crit % on next direct heal CD and a Power CD together, but there is absolutely no need for all of them.

Finally a comparison between Static Barrier, Innervate, and Dark Infusion (Using averages, which is honestly what needs to be used. However I did include a comparison with Crit/Surge and Recklessness, which should make the average be closer to the crit value.)

Using Petrus' stats:

(Base stats + stim, including 2% healing from talents)

Static Barrier: 2554.9 HPCT
Dark Infusion: 1833.6 HPCT
Innervate: 1848.1 HPCT

(Base stats + stim, 2% from talents, and Power Trinket)

Static Barrier: 2742.5 HPCT
Dark Infusion: 1968.5 HPCT
Innervate: 1984.0 HPCT

(Base stats + stim, 2% from talents, Power Trinket, and Recklessness)

Static Barrier: 2742.5 HPCT
Dark Infusion: 2674.6 HPCT
Innervate: 2695.6 HPCT

(Base stats + stim, 2% from talents, Surge/Crit Trinket)

Static Barrier: 2554.9 HPCT
Dark Infusion: 1915.5 HPCT
Innervate: 1930.6 HPCT

(Base stats + stim, 2% from talents, Surge/Crit Trinket + Recklessness)

Static Barrier: 2554.9 HPCT
Dark Infusion: 2595.0 HPCT
Innervate: 2615.5 HPCT

(Base stats + stim, 2% from talents, Surge/Crit Trinket, Recklessness, and Power Adrenal)

Static Barrier: 2799.3 HPCT
Dark Infusion: 2843.7 HPCT
Innervate: 2865.9 HPCT

Again, this is not taking into account the Merc or Marauder buff which you may or may not have. I could perhaps see a reasoning with including the Merc buff into the calculations, but the Marauder buff, especially with unpredictable damage I believe should not be counted, especially with the other reasons I mentioned earlier. That all said, yes you can make both Innervate and Dark Infusion produce higher HPCT with several CDs being used. In all honestly these calculations don't hold much meaning in real situations, for example, given the same target (possibly tank) is at low health:

(Target isn't in immediate threat of taking more damage)

In this case, you probably won't use Static Barrier because there isn't anymore incoming damage. In this specific case the target probably is not a tank however. Depending on the situation of the rest of the raid, you might heal him efficiently with an Innervate with force-bending, or if time was in issue (meaning you have to heal other targets soon) you could simply use an Innervate without force-bending, etc.

(Target might take some moderate damage)

In this case, which could be a tank. After the target has taken the big hit, said target is still in danger of taking some moderate damage.

A. (You feel the target might die before you can heal him)

In this case, it's fairly clear, Static Barrier.

B. (You feel you have enough time to land a heal before the damage)

This situation has several possibilities of choices. If you have force-bending up using either Innervate or 2x Dark Infusion (until this gets fixed) is a good idea. The possibilities, situations, and different spell orders for this type of situation are quite numerous and depend on several more variables. For example, in a raid you're not going to be alone healing the tank, or even other targets. You have to take into account what your other healers are doing as well, what spells they are using, etc. If multiple healers are healing the tank and you realize he is about to be topped off, and damage is still incoming, a Static Barrier is a very good choice.

(Target is about to take considerable amount of damage shortly)

In this case, of course it depends on when shortly is. If it's too soon to have time to cast anything, Static Barrier. If you have some amount of time, you could cast a heal such as Dark Infusion or Innervate with a Static Barrier immediately following it. This increases the targets effective health by a considerable amount faster within a time span in which you don't have time to cast two consecutive heals. (if force-bending is up, 2x Dark Infusion would be an exemption)

I'll end by saying that with healing everything is relative. Everything depends on the situation. Static Barrier is a great spell, and just judging from what you said in an earlier post about being somewhat anti-spamming shield, etc. I believe shield has several amazing uses and I believe should be used a little more frequently than how you described you using it. However, you do have a great point about a lot of people viewing the spell as THE spell to use in any situation, that it is not.

I also just realized how long this post is, lol. I hope everyone finds this information useful.

[Petrus]

Something's not quite right with the calculations. I'm not saying it's your calculations, for all I know it's in game - but I tested 8 times last night (5 casts of DI each time, 2 guaranteed crits) to see how I could get the highest heal - 4 with a power relic, and 4 with a crit/surge relic, and the result is in the video above. I got between 8460 - 8605 with the crit/surge relic, and between 8350 - 8540 with the power relic.

I also missed one DI crit when using the power relic, and that alone makes using crit/surge worth it. I can't afford to miss a crit when I expect one.

(Out of curiosity, did you include the 6% healing power bonus from talents? That applies to your total power, so you'll get 6% from things like that adrenal as well, although it probably wouldn't change your results much.)


Using all CDs at once - I have my healers organized so that whenever we need to emergency heal we have an order. I pop all my CDs at once because it gives me the best heals. Sometimes I'll heal the tank for 15k to have him take a 14k hit right after. Without all the CDs he would have died. With 4 healers in 16m and our CDs only being locked out for 2 minutes, it's MORE than worth it, and honestly I think not popping all the CDs at once is going to cause more wipes than it will solve, assuming your healers can play well together.

Merc buff - We run with 2 merc healers, and I can't recall a time that the 5% buff hasn't been up on the tank. If you run with 1 merc healer, yeah, you may have some time when it's not.

Marauder buff - We have 3 marauders and keep one in the healer group for times like Frenzy when no one has any CDs, or when a boss does something unexpected. He's great about popping his CD when needed. I fully realize this is a rare occurrence and very few people will ever have a marauder in their group, or one that can pop a CD at the appropriate time.

Healer healing - Often times (bad swipe on bonethrasher, well + spike on karagga's, etc) - a healer will be down to 5% or less and have damage about to hit him. Honestly - I probably blow my CDs more to heal a healer than I do to heal the tank, which is why that 8% was included.

static barrier - Even without a marauder buff your numbers are off from what I see in game. For example, I have that 8605 heal. Take 20% off that because of the marauder/merc buff, and it's still 2991HPS. That's *without* a stim, and quite a bit higher than the 2843 you have up there. (Possibly the lack of 6% from talents?)

Anyways, HPS aside, even when static barrier is the most HPS it isn't always the best to cast. If someone is about to take more than 3.5k damage, and is sitting at around 4000 EHP, there are better things you can cast. A crit DI, while maybe less HPS, heals for more total, in only .7 seconds more. Sometimes having a 6k heal, which takes .7 seconds longer, is better than having your more efficient heal.



Lastly, I want to point out that this whole discussion is 99% academic - which we knew going in from the start. Everything we're talking about is very situational, and what I'm advocating doing in these *very specific* situations isn't necessarily what I'd do in any others.

My point being, for example, that when a tank is at 4% and 2 healers are dead - I AM blowing all my CDs - but during the course of a fight, just because someone dips pretty low doesn't mean I will. What I've been talking about in the last couple posts is *worst case* and how to recover from it. Yeah, we won't pop a marauder CD because half the raid is at 20%. We might if everyone is somehow at 5%. So everyone else reading this just keep in mind that what we're talking about are very specific situations, even I don't recommended not using a shield or popping all your CDs most of the time - just in certain situations.

^ That said - I still think what I'm doing is right, Arulan. I don't know if I messed up giving you my stats, or if you calculated something wrong, or if the game has some glitch - but what I'm seeing just isn't matching up to what you're reporting. I just can't get my power relic to give me bigger heals than my crit/surge, and over the past week I've tested it quite a bit.

[Arulan]

Yes, the 6% Healing Power bonus from talents is included. That was built into the spreadsheet already so I didn't have to add it.

[gawkling]

Bubbles are an extremely important tool in our healing tool chest. Like any other tool, it only works best when used correctly which the majority of time will be proactively. To name a few examples:

* annhilation. 2nd threat pre-rail shot.
* soa. all lightning ball targets.
* bonethrasher. I'm bubbling his target pre-swipe
* jarg/sorno. plan d .. apparently I can't purge that but I sure as hell can pre-bub the target
* crusher. tank just before frenzy. there im usually doing bubble + reviv under tank

I don't think anybody would argue that bubble spam is effective. Bubble spamming would be just as bad an never or under-bubbling.

[macnaughton9]

I apologize if this was posted before in the 40 some pages this thread has become. Does anyone have a soft or ballpark cap on crit and surge ratings? Any tips on where your alacrity should be sitting?

[Adam]

(03-11-2012 10:26 PM)macnaughton9 Wrote:  I apologize if this was posted before in the 40 some pages this thread has become. Does anyone have a soft or ballpark cap on crit and surge ratings? Any tips on where your alacrity should be sitting?

Diminishing returns technically start at point 1, you get less and less crit for every crit you invest; Alacrity is sort of personal preference. I find that alacrity effects me very little; so i sit in between 100 and 150, to reduce my DI to 1.4 instead of 1.5. Plus 100-150 alacrity is somewhat unavoidable, SOMETHING will have it. Surge gets hit the hardest with diminishing returns around 300 or so; Crit and alacrity both have a smoother line, but still get hit around 350-400.

[Arulan]

One topic I thought would be interesting to hear everyone's responses is that of healer organization. Essentially, how do you, or how does your guild organize the healers?

Currently, and this could change depending on future raid content I organize my healers in a priority system with some minor assignments. I generally tend to stay away from direct healing assignments because I feel this limits their effectiveness and tends to put players in the viewpoint of: "X Player is responsible entirely on Y Target, there I, as Z Player will possibly ignore Y Target."

Instead, a priority system focuses on everyone by default playing by their class strengths. This is the first step, namely this "playing by their class strength" is intended to give the healer the freedom to play at his best performance without be forced into a very specific role. That said, the priority system, comes in where these healers are "prioritizing" certain targets. Essentially this comes down to, if I'm prioritizing Target A, and Target A and B are both in the "critical health" area, whereas they could both potentially die, my responsibility lies with A. That said, it is up to the healer assigned to Target A to be able to judge how much of his time should be dedicated to Target A. For example, if a healer were to be prioritizing Target A, which happens to be one of the tanks on Jarg/Sorno, he will most likely be focusing on the tank during most of his time. That said, every healer can heal anyone, if they're priorities are taken care of. For healers that are not given the highest priority on Tanks, they could be prioritized (depending on the fight) to specific groups of Targets, a specific non-tank player, or even to priority multiple tanks in order to assist the other tank healers who have their highest priority on one individual tank target. For example: Melee, Ranged, and even the Healer group could be specific groups I might use. On Heavy Fabricator, I may give one of the healers priority of looking out for the players solving the puzzle, while he remains on the bottom floor or on a platform ledge. Other more specific details could include: Staggering specific heals such as Salvation/Revivification on Annihilation Droid XRR-3 (not essential and you can avoid having to do so by using it during the Proximity Violation so it comes back up on CD). On Foreman Crusher, during Frenzy, I have certain healers acting proactively (chain-casting) and other healers reacting to the damage.

An example of this for Jarg/Sorno 16m Nightmare given 1x Combat Medic (Merc), 2x Seer (Sorc), 1x Sawbones (Operative):

Combat Medic priority Jarg Tank. Sawbones priority Sorno Tank (including the switch tank). One of the Seers priority both Tanks (including switch Tank) and Raid. Second Seer on priority Raid.

Once Jarg is down (Sorno will be ~45%), Combat Medic will priority the current Tank. Sawbones will also priority this tank, keeping in mind he will still be on the raid as much as he can. One of the Seers will have priority on dispelling the DoT and Raid. (by people calling it out) The other Seer will have priority on the 3-shot damage dealing ability Sorno does (I don't remember the name at the moment), essentially it does upwards of 18k+ damage, and Raid. Because of this, this specific Seer, having this special priority has to play somewhat conservatively, in the sense that he should always have something (not on CD, or having force-bending active) so he can respond with in less than 2s. The other Seer and potentially the Sawbones (if he can afford the time) will also respond to this target. I sometimes have the Seer who is prioritizing the 18k+ 3-shot damage not use Shield on those targets, instead having the other Seer doing that, if the debuff is not active.

Another thing to note, if a crisis occurs in which a healer knows he will not be capable of completing his task, for whatever reason. That players calls it out, and one of the healers with the least-critical priority will take over for a period of time, calling it out of course as well. Least-critical priority is usually someone who isn't prioritizing a Tank, a specific target like that of the 18k+ 3-Shot damage, etc.

I look forward to seeing how everyone organizes their healers. I should mention that I have cleared everything on 16m Nightmare using this setup. I do expect once more difficult Ops arrive, that improvements can be made. One of the reasons I brought this topic up is so that we can share this information with the goal to improve everyone's setup to be more effective.

[Insurgent]

(03-16-2012 06:12 AM)TheDarkness Wrote:  

(03-16-2012 01:56 AM)FlyingJesus Wrote:  Well after reading all 40 pages of this I've come to a conclusion: As long as you are healing your raid and keeping them alive, there are no wrong choices for gear, rotations, magic numbers for crit/power/alacrity (obviously within reason)

That's the nature of healing. It's a very binary objective. Did everyone live (or could those who died be saved by healing)? If the answer is yes, you don't need better or different gear/skill choices.

Tanks and DPS can always do more threat/dps to make the encounter go faster (and thereby smoother). Changing your healing throughput isn't going to actually change anything practical.

In my humble opinion, this is a rather archaic and simple view of Healing in MMOs. Healing is just as important to 'min-max' as any other role in Operations.

You should be aiming to optimise your throughput and your longevity as a healer in every aspect possible to allow your raid leader to bring LESS healers to an Operation. This frees up spots in the group to bring additional DPS, or even possibly an OT for some encounters.

To simply say 'No one died this raid, I don't need to improve at all in this content' is a lazy attitude, and not one I would expect to see in a forum such as this. The entire thread is about how to be better, how to improve throughput, how to improve performance ect... It's really odd to see the last few pages degrade to this sort of laid-back attitude of '4 healers in the raid, I can relax a little, not optimise my gear and use whatever spells I want in any situation' - when really any serious guild should be looking at '4 healers is too easy, we should try 3 next week and see how we go, or even identify fights that we could get away with 2 healers and then have a Sorc/Merc DPS as a hybrid off-healer or even just pure DPS and off-heal as required.'

Looking at EV, I don't see why any guild would bring 4 healers now.

XXR can be done with three healers (given 2 Snipers)
Gharj could probably be solo healed by a Sorc.
Pylons... lol
Champs... lol
Soa can be duo healed (2 Sorcs) or 2 + Off-healer if not 2 sorcs.

Looking at KP, I don't see why any guild would bring 4 healers now (Except for J&S)

Bonethrasher can be duo healed.
J&S is a 4 healer fight (3 if executed perfectly)
Foreman is a 3 healer fight (2 if executed perfectly)
Fabricator 2 healer fight + OH for panel users.
Karagga can be three healed, 4 is safest though given the RNG factor of his abilities.

All above references are to Nightmare-16 content.

With reference to 'Perfect Execution' tags, I refer to no mistakes like getting hit by avoidable damage, tanks missing CDs or people missing interrupts.

[Shahryar]

Evening All,

I apologise in advance if this has been covered elsewhere (I've searched). I am wondering what the consensus currently is on relics. I'm at fairly low gear level, but am thinking about long term gearing, and have both Rakata Relics and the Champion relic currently available.

I'm wondering whether the Matrix Cube is always a BiS choice, and whether low to BiS gear makes any difference on it? What is everyone rocking?