((I am posting this while away from home. I will have to check the cast time of Wrath when I get back))
Update: Turns out I wasn’t far off on the cast time of Wrath. My Druid has 23.09% spell haste (raid buffed), which puts Wrath at a 1.63 second cast.
So we are quite a ways away from seeing 5.4 live on servers, but it’s good to discuss changes and to prepare ourselves for them. Lissana over at http://www.Restokin.com recently posted about the changes to mushrooms, Beru at http://FallingLeavesandWings.wordpress.com discussed her views on multiple changes, and http://r4healingtouch.wordpress.com discussed many of the changes in depth (as you’ll remember me referencing him for some of the math involved).
One change that I have not seen a lot of verbiage on yet is the Dream of Cenarius talent. Don’t get me wrong, I’m uber-excited about the Mushroom changes, specifically Glyph of Swiftmend; I just feel the need to discuss DoC. Before we delve in I first want to say that I am no WoW mathematician and I will type out the formulas that I use. Chances are that I have made some mistakes in my figures and you are more than welcome to point out these errors.
Restoration: Causes Wrath to deal 20% more damage and heals a nearby friendly target for 100% of the damage done. (PTR 5.4)
First off, let me say how interesting it is that Blizzard has taken a move in this direction for Restoration Druids. I can honestly say that of all the changes I had wished for, an Atonement style healing change was not on my mind. But, then again, with Pallies have Battle Insight and I think monks can heal with one of their physical attacks, I guess I’m not overly surprised. I just did a double take on the spell info for Wrath and had to smile to myself when I remembered that Wrath is a Nature spell. It would have been hard trying to explain the link between the Arcane and Nature schools if it were Starfire being used (aside from the terrible cast time we’d have to endure).
So, now time for some math:
Wrath currently deals 2331 to 2996 plus Spellpower times 121.6%. If you didn’t track that, we’re looking at 2331 + SP(121.6%) to 2996 + SP(121.6%).
I’m going to use my own gear as reference for Spellpower for two reasons: 1) I have no idea what our Spellpower will look like in 5.4, and 2) I figure most of us won’t be Heroic geared anytime soon, so I’ll use my numbers as a safe median. My Spellpower is currently sitting at 31,203 (raid buffed). Therefore, we will be looking at basic damage of:
2,331 + 31,203(121.6%) = 2,331 + 37,943 = 40,274
to
2,996 + 27,062(121.6%) = 2,996 + 37,943 = 40,939
Not too bad considering we’re a healing class. If you assume a 1.6 second cast time (due to spell haste) and no need to move/cast anything else, you could be looking at 25k DPS. Math:
1.6 second cast X 5 casts = 8 seconds
40,274 X 5 casts = 201,370 damage
201,370 damage / 8 seconds = 25,171.25 damage/second
40,939 X 5 casts = 204,695 damage
204,695 damage / 8 seconds = 25,586.86 damage/second
I am not including Soul of the Forest in these numbers because you would only get 1 buffed cast per 15 seconds (outside the scope of these numbers) and it truly would be a waste to spend the buff on a Wrath.
Now, by taking the Dream of Cenarius talent, our Wrath damage will be increased by 20% and a nearby ally will be healed for 100% of damage done. Let’s work that 20% in. I’m not sure where exactly in the math chain the 20% adds in but, as it is a talent increasing damage, I am going to assume it comes in to play after Spellpower has been figured in. Locate the numbers 40,274 and 40,939 above for reference.
40,274 + 20% = 35,238 X 1.2 = 48,328.8
40,939 + 20% = 35,903 X 1.2 = 49,126.8
(Yes, I ran both numbers twice. Funny how they both end in .8)
So, with that in mind, let’s plug those numbers back into our DPS formula.
48,328.8 X 5 casts = 241,644 damage
241,644 damage / 8 seconds = 30,205.5 damage/second
49,126.8 X 5 casts = 245,634 damage
245,634 damage / 8 seconds = 30,704.25 damage/second
S0 we’re looking at 30k DPS with the assumptions that we don’t have to move or cast other heals. This will convert directly over into 30k HPS. Depending on the phase of the fight, a lot of this will likely be overhealing. I will go ahead and say now that this is not a style of healing to use during damage heavy phases. Assuming moderate damage, this could be used to assist raid DPS while supplementing your healing (you should have a Rejuv or two out, Mushroom down with Efflorescence running, and buffed WG rolling; at least that’s what I’m planning).
For those of you who have hung on long enough to reach this point, I want to say congratulations and thank you. Now, I am probably about to really screw up some math here, but I want to look what the healing could be like if we factor in crit chance. Again, I will be listing the formulas I use for your review. I am running under the assumption that crits deal 200% damage (looked that one up on WoWhead just to be sure). Also, I will be using my own Crit% of 19.7% (14.19 + raid crit buff) for these calculations. To avoid the concerns of lucky Crit streaks and such, I will simply calculate the average expected with said Crit%. To average this, I’ll assume 100 Wrath casts where 19.7 will be critical hits and 80.3 will be noncritical hits. These calculations will vary as both your own and my own Crit% change. Also, I will not be taking into account any Intellect/Crit/Haste/etc procs. Please locate the 48,328.8 and 49,126.8 numbers from above for this next set.
48,328.8 damage X 80.3 casts = 3,880,803 damage
96,657.6 crit damage X 19.7 casts = 1,904,155 crit damage
3,880,803 + 1,904,155 = 5,784,958 damage
5,784,958 damage / 160 seconds = 36,156 damage / second
49,126.8 damage X 80.3 casts = 3,944,882 damage
98,253.6 crit damage X 19.7 casts = 1,935,596 crit damage
3,944,882 + 1935596 = 5,880,478 damage
5,880,478 damage / 160 seconds = 36,753 damage / second
So we could be looking at 36k HPS coming from this talent when averaged out over long periods of time. While this is certainly not massive amounts of damage and healing, it will allow us to more easily push some damage on a boss fight without completely shifting out of healing mode. Again, please feel free to check out my math and tell me if I understand WoW formulas incorrectly. Unfortunately at this time I do not know how/if our Mastery will interact with this.
In Part 2 I plan to visit the mana costs associated with this. Remember that the mana cost of Wrath is being increased by 50%.
As always, leave your thoughts in the comments below.