WHM Best in Slot Discussion PVE

Here's the gear

D=CH?>>>>>>>>>>>Pie=SS

Allagan Circlet of Healing - P 11, D 15

Allagan Tunic of Healing - P 26, D 17

Allagan Gloves of Healing - P 16, CH 15

Inferno Bangle of Healing - P 8, D 11

Hero's Belt of Healing - P 8, CH 16

With my stat weights either the Cleric's or Allagan works, assuming crit and det should be equally weighted at the ratio on the gear. 17 to 24 crit in this case.

Cleric's Boots - P 11, D 15

Vortex Ring of Healing - SS 11, D 11

Either Allagan or Hero Ring difference Hero - 16 CH Allagan - 11 D

Allagan Choker of Healing - P 8, D 11

Hero Earrings of Healing - P 8, CH 16

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I'm sorry, but I'd go:

~For prolonged fights~
MND > PIE > DET > CRIT > SS

~For shorter, high intensity fights~
MND > DET > PIE > SS > CRIT

And I would go:

Weapon > MND (higher iLevel) > SS > Det > Crit
*(PIE and VIT comes naturally on i90 gear)

There isn't a clear cut BiS because some people prefer Det, some prefer SS, a handful like crit. They are all viable options. You could build a list for each of these, but the main thing is to get i90.

I think there's a point where the party will have "enough" mitigation, damage and healing to clear all content (e.g. clearing content with the party's average iLevel being 80). I think beyond whatever "enough" is becomes preference.

I'm a fan of Mind and Piety. And I prefer Crit over Spell Speed and either over Determination if of same iLV.

Crit because it can lead to saving on MP IF the amount of healing was needed, which falls in line with my Piety preference (e.g. no Garuda i90 ring). In Cleric's Stance, the extra crit rate usually works out for me in overgeared dungeons.

I think of Spell Speed more as, how quickly can I finish a cast after dodging / repositioning / finish dropping the gamepad? The added side effect is that Medica II, Stoneskin and a non-Swiftcast "oh crap" Raise get to see some benefit.

I just stack DET, unless there's no DET on it...

I got to a point where I noticed my cast was quicker than my recast, so I figured I'd stack a little spell speed, only to notice natively that casting is about .50 faster than recast anyway so I found it pretty moot.

I used to scream for Mana back when I first started doing BC, but since I've hit 4.5k MP I've been pretty easy at it. The higher I go the less MP I wind up needing, combined with Mulled Tea in some cases my mana is always full.

DET is great, for higher heals - and as white mages, we don't mitigate. We restore... but there is a point where therein, the amount of heals you have are adequate and that spell speed can be a viable option to compensate for just healing faster, with already decent heals.
... But putting on two pieces of spell speed and only seeing like 1.93 go to 1.92 is very disheartening. I'll stick with DET.

I'd recommend piety as a secondary to everyone just because the more you have, the more spells you throw out, and more regen. Though by getting any piece of gear really, you get piety anyway. The only questionable one is do you want the Hero accessories for their extra 4 piety or so? Thing is they give crit rate, so I don't find it all too worth it.
Crit is great, though. But I'd prefer more static numbers just to avoid having that crit which pisses off Titan to come chasing me.

IMO Spell Speed is pretty garbage, going from a 2 sec cast time with no gear/SS to a 1.92 cast time in most I90 with several SS pieces on is pretty garbage to me. I pretty much agree with OP's BiS list, i like stacking Determination and then crit. (Seeing dat Divine seal crit gets me hot n bothered) Though in all seriousness getting crit Regen/Medica 2 ticks sounds pretty nifty to me. My MP is up to 4.7k so i'm not hurting for MP, but if i were i'd be going for piety over crit. It's good to have when you need to clean up other people's mistakes. :)

That Allagan Tunic is still hiding from me. :(

Once again I would like to counter the argument of "You need to stack tons of SS to see any return".

Honestly speaking, the increased healing from stacking DET is abysmal as well, but I really wonder why only SS gets the flak for "requires tons of it to see any difference" when stacking DET is exactly the same thing :(.

5 Det = 1 main stat
4 ss/crit = 1 main stat
From the BLM calculator https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...TDVkM1E#gid=58

SS pulls ahead in fights with frequent in combat stone-skinning. Also need to weigh in crit overhealing (can't control when it crits) and spell speed creating mp issues.

Here's my BiS list:

Head: Myth SS/Pie
Chest: Myth SS/Pie
Gloves: Myth SS/Pie
Belt: Allagan SS/Pie
Leg: Myth Det/Pie
Boots: Allagan SS/Pie
Neck: Allagan Det/Pie or Myth Crit/Pie
Ear: Titan SS/Pie
Bracelet: Allagan SS/Pie
Ring 1: Allagan Det/Pie
Ring 2: Garuda SS/Det

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DreamWeaver

Once again I would like to counter the argument of "You need to stack tons of SS to see any return".

Honestly speaking, the increased healing from stacking DET is abysmal as well, but I really wonder why only SS gets the flak for "requires tons of it to see any difference" when stacking DET is exactly the same thing :(.

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Because that whopping .01 seconds is extremely less likely to save you than the 20ish extra HP heal. I've had situations where the tank or someone else has dropped below 20 HP, so they would have otherwise ended up dead. That fraction of a second won't save anyone unless you have the reflexes of a god to put it to maximal use. That's just my take on it.

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Originally Posted by Psychosamm

Because that whopping .01 seconds is extremely less likely to save you than the 20ish extra HP heal. I've had situations where the tank or someone else has dropped below 20 HP, so they would have otherwise ended up dead. That fraction of a second won't save anyone unless you have the reflexes of a god to put it to maximal use. That's just my take on it.

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My take on it is that A) comparing .01 seconds (about 10 spell speed) to 20 hp/cure (over 100 det) is somewhat fallacious. It doesn't really matter, anyway. Secondary stats, all of them, are so bad for whm that you very well might not notice if all of yours were converted into parry overnight.

Apologies if this is a bit long, but SS gets a bad rap by people who don't understand the value of it and I feel the need to explain with the power of logic why some people choose it.

Issue 1 - SS is a minor increase (psst, but so is det!)
The first fallacy I see all the time is that spell speed is a minor increase, so let's go determination for HUGE HEALS! Hate to break it to you, but determination doesn't really add much either. Generally speaking...

(approx) 5 det ~ 1 mind ~ 1.5-2hp per 400 potency cure at 50. It seems to be closer to 1.5hp, but I'll round to 2 to be generous.

A pure determination BiS with SS secondary is 315det, 417ss (+58 det over SS BiS)
A pure SS BiS with det secondary is 257det, 493ss (+76 SS over det BiS), also has +5 piety

58 det / 5 = 12 mind rounded = +24hp / cure rounded with 2hp (this is realistically about 20hp/cure) compared to SS BiS
76 ss = -0.076s to your GCD compared to det BiS

This gives us a general idea of what we're actually debating. +25hp/cure vs -0.08s to your GCD and +5 piety. So with that out of the way...

The pure healing throughput, or HPS, between the two, is actually not all that different. The problem is, HPS is a stupid metric

Issue 2 - HPS is overvalued
Let me try to explain why.

When you are chipping away at a big number via DPS, say a 500k boss HP pool, you've got a lot to work down. If you assume we have a not unreasonable 250 dps for 4 dps classes, we're looking at 1000 DPS. Let's compare that to 900 dps, assuming our lovely dps lab rats do 225 dps each.

500,000 / 1000 = 500 seconds of damage time to kill
500,000 / 900 = 556 seconds of damage time to kill. Dropping 10% dps takes it a full minute longer. DPS increase is significant over a significantly large health pool that needs damaged.

Now let's look at heals. The big difference here is that you are healing a MUCH smaller health pool than a dps is damaging. Let's say a 6500hp PLD with a healer doing 1000hp cure and 375 regen ticks which is roughly 525 HPS (1000/2.5 + 375/3). Let's say the tank is at 1k health with 5500 to heal + 4000 done during this healing, and anything more is overheals because the tank is topped.

9500 / 525 = 18.10 seconds to heal

Now let's assume a BiS det healer doing 1025 cures and 385 regens, which is roughly 538 HPS.

9500 / 538 = 17.65 seconds to heal.

The det healer only gets there .45 of a second faster via better HPS, and this isn't even factoring in faster heals for healer 1. This is assuming an equal GCD of 2.5 seconds for both. Regardless, the point I'm trying to show is The smaller your capped limit is (9500hp to heal vs 500k health to damage), the less the "per second" metric matters. HPS is a bad metric, especially because it has to contend with overhealing (in which a DPS has no equivalent).

So why pick spell speed?
Let's go back to our last example and say we have 9500 HP to heal up, and lets assume for simplicity that we are using Cure only. We will use our previous example with a SS healer doing average 1000 cures against a det healer doing average 1025 cures.

9500 / 1000 = 10 cures with 500 hp overhealing
9500 / 1025 = 10 cures with 750 hp overhealing

Same amount of cures for both healers. Huh. The SS healer is also going to get there 0.8s faster.

Det can win in this situation if it rounds out that extra 250hp evenly, ie 10250 hp to cure. However, this will generally not happen more often than it does, due to the margin of 250hp cured vs 1000hp cures (25%). The larger the extra hp cured is, the more it weighs towards Det. However, det is currently not significant enough a difference to make that up.

The big reason I like SS
I don't see healing as HPS. Anything that isn't OH S&#! isn't hard to handle, and a good majority of that OH S&#! is from spike damage on a topped off tank followed up by an auto attack. Its those situations that you need that heal, and you generally need that heal before the next auto whacks your tank. A 25hp bigger cure isn't going to be a difference if it's a hair too slow. A cure that comes in even only marginally faster to beat that next auto can save a fight.

The bottom line
iLevel is still king. Weapon damage and mind is king. The difference between det and SS is minor (and slightly in SS favor if I may say after all the above), so stop calling SS trash. However, either option is still totally viable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Menae

My take on it is that A) comparing .01 seconds (about 10 spell speed) to 20 hp/cure (over 100 det) is somewhat fallacious. It doesn't really matter, anyway. Secondary stats, all of them, are so bad for whm that you very well might not notice if all of yours were converted into parry overnight.

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This thread is about BiS gear, and my personal opinion is that Determination> Spell Speed, just saying "Oh yeah well, they all suck." is a pretty worthless response that brings nothing to the discussion.
Also if 10 SS= .01 seconds, then why do i have 436 SS and my cure 2 is 1.92 seconds? By that logic shouldn't it be much shorter?

Also i would really like to see some sort of source that says 5 DET~ 1 Mind and the stat Nettle said "76 spellspeed = -0.076s" because my actions menu is telling me a very different story.

I dunno I'm not a huge fan of SS for the simple fact that most boss encounters are scripted. Basically after memorizing a boss fight I already pre-cast most of my cures b4 the big hits will be coming out and if I need a double heal (if one wasn't enuff) and can use swiftcast to close the gap.

With that being said SS is pretty useless for me.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Psychosamm

Also if 10 SS= .01 seconds, then why do i have 436 SS and my cure 2 is 1.92 seconds? By that logic shouldn't it be much shorter?

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Because your base is 341 at level 50. It's approx. every 10 points after that that count.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Psychosamm

Also if 10 SS= .01 seconds, then why do i have 436 SS and my cure 2 is 1.92 seconds? By that logic shouldn't it be much shorter?

Also i would really like to see some sort of source that says 5 DET~ 1 Mind and the stat Nettle said "76 spellspeed = -0.076s" because my actions menu is telling me a very different story.

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The det to mind ratio is a rough approximation at 5 to 1. I'm not claiming it's exact, but its pretty close at 50 when we're talking i90 gear. Close enough for this discussion at least.

When I have some extra time I'll try to dig up the source (it's older), or I can just run more tests this weekend if I still have my crafting jewelry laying around.

The spell speed is -0.01 second for every 10 points after 341 off the base 2.50 second GCD. It is a little less on faster spells and more for longer spells. Take your spell speed - 341, divide by 100, then subtract that from the 2.50s recast and you'll see it lines up perfectly. Keep in mind it doesn't round on the tooltips ( -0.126 would just be -0.12 on the tooltip).

Imagine the below situations :
1) Tank is left with 1k hp, you cast Cure 2!! You see your cast bar finishes, casting animation complete!! But....tank still died. If only I cast abit sooner/my casting speed is slightly faster..... (SS wins in this situation)

2) Tank is left with 1k hp, you cast Cure 2!! Cure 2 heals tank for 1500 hp!! But Boss crits tank for 2515 hp, tank died. If only I have more DET so I can heal slightly more!! (DET wins in this situation)

3) I am the bestest healer of all time and eternity, I can anticipate every hit from bosses and my tanks never die on me, their hp is always above 50% (It does not matter if you're going SS or DET, since you already bestest anyway)

Personally for me, I find Situation 1 happen to me the most (excluding Situation 3 of course :P), and that is why I choose SS over DET :).

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The problem is, HPS is a stupid metric

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^ This

Seriously... most people still thinking that healers can stand there and spam heal like no tomorrow so they love to talk about this stupid HPS and such, while healers should already know that in reality, healing is all about situation.

For me, I'm in favored with SS. For example ~490-500, you can cure I,II with speed of 1.85 sec and approximate gcd of 2.35 sec, which help tremendously as you have to move around.

The debate over SS / Det / Crit for secondary stats is pretty ridiculous.
If I really have to choose, I'd say SS till I reach the speed I need then all to the PIE for MP regen.

This seems pretty accurate to me except i'd go with Allagan earrings

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nettle

There isn't a clear cut BiS because some people prefer Det, some prefer SS, a handful like crit. They are all viable options. You could build a list for each of these, but the main thing is to get i90.

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Pretty much what Nettle said. But since you asked for a BiS this is mine;

http://tinyurl.com/m27u698
Pie +138, Det +139, Crit +31

Weapon - Myth

Head - Myth
Body - Allagan
Hands - Allagan
Waist - Myth
Legs - Myth
Feet - Myth

Neck - Allagan
Earrings - Allagan
Bracelets - Inferno
Ring - Allagan
Ring - Vortex

HQ Mulled Tea
Ss - 2% (max 10)
Vit - 4% (max 15)
Pie - 5% (max 14)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nettle

I don't see healing as HPS. Anything that isn't OH S&#! isn't hard to handle, and a good majority of that OH S&#! is from spike damage on a topped off tank followed up by an auto attack. Its those situations that you need that heal, and you generally need that heal before the next auto whacks your tank. A 25hp bigger cure isn't going to be a difference if it's a hair too slow. A cure that comes in even only marginally faster to beat that next auto can save a fight.

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That's why you watch boss cast bars and pre-cast. :p

I'm pretty solidly in the DET camp myself. The majority of healing that isn't just general, no-pressure maintenance can be predicted and thus pre-casted for, which means that itsy bitsy fraction of a second SS shaves off doesn't help at all, but the little bit of extra oomph in the heal sure could.

Bumping this thread since it's a good discussion. I've been running DET for a while, almost full BiS for DET gear (STUPID GLOVES Y U NO DROP), but have been considering going SS for Turn 5. I function as the off-tank/raid healer for the majority of the fight, so getting out quick heals for the dps and offtank seem like a better payoff than healing for more. Thoughts?

Its been stated to death, almost any build can clear content.

That being said I prefer det. Having cures that do 1100 without healing buffs seems more effective for me than a slightly reduced gcd. In terms of effectiveness unless you are dodging something, which is completely possible without ss (ie titan ex), the cast time reduction is irrelevant when using most of your heals like cure. You still have a gcd. So you are really working with the GCD reduction which is even smaller.

You need to be constantly casting to get the full benefit of ss while det is a constant boost to any heal and increases your mana efficiency, however slight. As healers are not dps, more than likely you will never be chain casting for very long.

The simple truth is, if you were late on a heal, ss won't save the tank. If you were late casting a heal before you need to dodge, ss won't save you. I would rather take the raw potency.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rona

Bumping this thread since it's a good discussion. I've been running DET for a while, almost full BiS for DET gear (STUPID GLOVES Y U NO DROP), but have been considering going SS for Turn 5. I function as the off-tank/raid healer for the majority of the fight, so getting out quick heals for the dps and offtank seem like a better payoff than healing for more. Thoughts?

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Quick heals... its more about timing and understanding the hidden timers on enemy cds in the fight. You will be able to predict death sentence, fireball etc. to make sure a dps has a ss, or time a heal to land as fireball lands. Death sentence you can watch for with your focus target and you will NEED to precast heals anyway.

That's what I figured, which is why I started stacking DET from the beginning. Appreciate the feedback.

Outside weapon damage and mind, I tend to go with:

PIE > DET = CRIT = SS.

Piety means more MP and more passive regen. The faster I recover, the more often I can throw down expensive heals when I need them. In my opinion, the flexibility to cast what we want, when we want, is the greatest utility a healer can have.

Determination is, I think, useful but overrated. Bigger heals across the boards is GOOD, but the benefit is small per point and tends not to resolve 'dangerous situations' so well, when a BIG FAST heal would be the perfect thing. Spell speed improves reaction time, which can save lives, and helps overall output when chaining several spells. But it does not help our hots and drains MP faster. Crit will consistently improve our hots (for the same reason summoners prefer crit), saves mana with cure crits, and can reverse a bad situation when the tank gets slammed. But crit is unpredictable, sometimes useless, and even dangerous.

All that said, I don't think there is such a thing as WHM best in slot list, outside getting to ilvl 90 items and tweaking secondary stats how you like them. A DPS can try different combinations and come out to a better performance, a healer isn't measured so much by output as a more binary pass/fail check.