Thursday (30 Dec) - Wild Takes Stock

=2010-12-30 Wild Takes Stock =
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Thursday (30 Dec) - Wild Takes Stock

DER sent Wild some heavy duty math from a site called cynwise that created a formula to calculate the affect various levels of haste have on Wild's heal over time (HoT) spells. It works for DoTs (damage over time) spells as well, but since Wild is getting ready to start doing dungeon runs, I'm focusing on healing. In the Pre-Cata world adding haste reduced the global cooldown (GCD, which is the time you have to wait before you can cast the next spell). Obviously, the lower the GCD, the sooner you can cast the next spell. Cata added a new element by adding additional tics of the HoT based on haste. So, this isn't about how much healing is done per tic, but about how many tics the spell has. Of course, more tics mean more overall healing assuming all tics are used (which is another discussion all together). All HoT spells have a base number of tics. All of the below spells tic once per second, but HoT/DoT spells can have differing tic times. Wild has three primary HoTs:

Rejuvenation: 12 tics
Lifebloom: 10 tics
Regrowth: 6 tics

Using this information, the formula provided a chart with some very interesting information.

For example, it showed Wild that to increase the number of tics by one on all three of the above spells, Wild would need to have a minimum haste rating of 1152. Wild is happy to report that his current haste rating is well above that, at 1453. However, that might not be a good thing. If Wild only wanted one extra tic of his Hots, then he actually has too much haste and could then be looking for gear with other stats with a higher priority.

The chart also tells Wild that the next jump in tics comes at haste rating 1665, and that it would give Wild one more tic on his rejuv spell, but not change the other two. To get one more tic on all three spells, Wild would need 3202 haste rating! Wild can't choose which spell gets the tic increase - the more tics a spell has, the sooner it gets a tic increase as haste is added. So, rejuv will get a tic increase first, then lifebloom, and then regrowth.

Wild didn't include Wild Growth (another HoT) ini the formula but it will be easy to add that one in. WG has 7 base tics so would increase tics only slightly faster then regrowth. Since it takes 3202 haste rating to get one more tic of regrowth, WG would need only slightly less than that. A 3202 rating might be too big a stretch for Wild, but Wild could get tic increases for both rejuv and regrowth at 1921 rating, which would be an easier goal to work toward.

How many tics is the right number? I have no idea, but the information is very useful in determining what stats have priority.

All very interesting to ya'll out there, I'm sure. Fantastic information for me.

Here is where Wild really needs to take stock, though. I had a look at the other druids in MM. We have a lot of level 85 druids in our guild, more than I thought we had - 9 of them. On the Armory three of those druids logged out in resto/healing spec, including Wild. A fourth I know will heal as much as he DPS's, so I'll include him as a fourth healer.

I'm going to use ilevel for a general assessment of gear. Remember that an ilvl of i272 is required to get into normal dungeons, with i329 required to get into heroic mode dungeons. Wild is currently at i321.

Moonkin/feral druid ilvls: 336, 341, 342, 345, 347

Resto/Healing druid ilvls: 321, 325, 336, 338

See where Wild is on that list? Wild's gear basically sucks right now.

Excuse me, I need to go run some dungeons.