I am slightly bored on a train atm so I figured I'd take the time to explain how I think about these issues. The aim is to be helpful, I'm sorry if I come across as arrogant.
Ayag wrote:Well, I guess so.
The thing is that int naturally comes with good pieces whereas the good blue healing gear is usually poor in stats (ie Robes of the Exalted, Cassandra's Grace, Padre's Trousers). So when getting pre-raid BiS, you can reach a healthy amount of HB but you'll usually lack stats, which is fine in my opinion. When getting T2 and the like, your HB won't get up as high as your other stats will.
I personally don't care much about how much I have of each stat. If the math suggested that I should put on no gear with bonus healing I'd do it. Because of down and upranking in vanilla, the impacy on playstyle is actually not very big as long as you change spells. I'd also point out that many of the preraid BiS lists seem to, as usual, vastly overrate +healing. For example I much prefer the Devout Crown over Cassandras Grace for most MC fights, consider Lady Maye's Pendant pre-raid BiS, Magister's Mantle is probably the best pre-raid shoulders but it is tight.
When Dire Maul was released more +healing gear became BiS obviously, since the DM healing gear in general just is well itemized with both stats and +healing. But when I started raiding on Nostalrius I had stats on most slots, to the point where I got teased for it. After about two weeks no one teased me anymore. Just as you considered yourself fine with little stats, I was fine with fairly small amounts of +healing. This is due to their interchangeability.
I actually don't play on this server so I am not sure what you have access to, I play on VG but I'm always looking for theorycraft threads & quality discussion hence why I came here
Goodie.
I have more than decent gear I would say and indeed mana is usually not a problem (I'm usually 26/25 specced) on non-progression fights, but that doesn't mean I know everything and I like discussing it
Mana is almost always a problem. The only times it really isnt is when you can literally cast max rank heals the entire fight without going oom and fights where it all boils down to burst healing over distinct and timeperiod(s).
To put it another way. If you are not using max rank of your heals (GH4, FH7) in a situation and conclude that mana isn't an issue. Then +healing isn't an issue either and the only stat you should look for is stamina so you don't randomly die. If you want more +healing to heal more you can just as well get more manastats and cast a higher rank on your heals.
My most used spells are Heal 1-4, FH 1/4/7 and PoH 1-4 depending on the fight. Also using Lesser Heal 3 quite a bit. I rarely use GH. I actually only use it with Focus when I think about it.
Lesser Heal Rank 3 is a vastly underutilized spell. Props for using it. I use it a lot too.
We do differ substantially on use of Greater Heal though. I do cast GH often, and if I had to pick the one thing that I'd like to improve the most in my game it would probably be to cast more Greater Heals (when it is the right thing to do, not just randomly ofc.) It is a fairly hard spell to use, but it is very powerful. It is easy to miss good opportunities to cast it. With 8-set transcendence (hopefully they will fix the buff slot sharing with normal renew on our server soon) it becomes almost stupidly good in some circumstances.
Greater Heal is at once the highest hps single target heal and a contender for highest hpm. The latter claim requires an explanation. If you can space your heals freely, GH4 beats all other heals since you heal more by emptying your mana pool with GH4 -》spirit regen mana -》start casting GH4 again than you do via chain casting low rank heals. It is also the case that if you put all other spells next to LH3 and look at the value 'extra healing/extra mana cost' GH of all ranks do very well. This is a very interesting state of affairs, and knowledge of it allows for smarter use of resources in many situations. A mix of LH3, Greater Heals and time outside of the 5sr is often both more mana effective and better for keeping the raid alive than just casting heal.
