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Further thoughts on 4pc Tier10

Posted by Keeva | Changes, Druid general, Rants | Tuesday 13 October 2009 8:20 AM

You guys know that I don’t dip into the math side of things, so I won’t… but I wanted to discuss my actual thoughts on the 4pc Tier10 bonus, and why I think it’s pretty crappy.

Blanketing and T10 4pc value
Blanketing was big in Ulduar, to the point where it was labelled OP and perhaps triggered the upcoming “bug fix” of removing the last tick of R15 Rejuv, and most certainly the nerf to our Tier 8 set bonus. Too much Rejuv healing.

TOC has been almost entirely the opposite; the Twins fight makes our priest cry foul at me, but other than that, the healing is a lot more bursty and rarely requires Rejuv blanketing. This is particularly true of 10 man size raids, since we are forced to do more direct healing, and there are less people to take damage and require blanketing anyway. Perhaps there’s more Rejuving going on in 25s, but in 10s TOC, not much.

So at the moment, I’m not doing much blanketing.

The 4pc Tier10 bonus pretty much requires you to blanket the raid with Rejuvs to get the most benefit from procs. Obviously, being percentage based, the fewer Rejuvs you’re throwing around, the less benefit you’re going to get. So logically, it will be most useful on 25man blanketing fights. How odd that they would encourage us to go back to this, after nerfing us.

On fights without blanketing

On 10 man fights without a blanketing requirement, the 4pc is going to be near worthless. Why would I need a Rejuv thrown on someone – if they need a Rejuv, they probably already have one already. So the bonus will either give me:

- a Rejuv on someone who doesn’t need it, or
- a Rejuv refresh on someone who already has my Rejuv on them

On fights with blanketing

As a 10 man raider, I can keep Rejuv up on the entire raid with a few seconds to spare (say, to refresh Regrowth on a tank, or throw a spot heal). If I am blanketing, what use is another Rejuv going out? I suppose it’s a free refresh.. but the problem with that is that if I am already cycling through every person to Rejuv them, a refreshed Rejuv in the middle of the raid is going to throw my rotation out.

I will then either keep going with my cycle and overwrite the free Rejuv (to keep everyone nicely in my rotation), or I will skip that person (since they already have Rejuv) for a cycle and come back to them later. The possibility then is that their freebie Rejuv drops off while I’m coming back around to them – so they miss a tick or so until I reapply. See where I’m going with this?

So, I either overwrite the free Rejuv and waste it, or I skip that person and they possibly end up with no Rejuv for a few seconds because the free one is out of sync and dropped off.

TLDR: It will mess with my SYSTEM.

Summary

4pc bonuses are meant to be relatively impressive due to the fact that you need to collect and coordinate 4 pieces of gear.

This bonus is weak at best. Without even going into the math of what it *could* contribute to your HPS and whatnot – I see it messing with my rotation at the best of times, and hardly showing up at the worst. The value drops considerably, in my mind, for 10 man raiders, who will either be covering all 10 people with ease and have little use for an extra Rejuv, or won’t need extra Rejuvs because they have things covered anyway.

Why would we strive to collect a 4pc set if it’s going to be mediocre at best, and at worst (particularly for 10 man raiders) almost useless?

Perhaps Icecrown will be full of heavy aura damage fights, and we’ll go back to blanketing. Even so, this bonus will contribute little for me. It will either throw Rejuvs when they’re not needed, or refresh them when I would prefer that they didn’t. A resounding “meh” on this set bonus.

Post script: On the possibility of “jump” actually meaning “jump”

I’m still 99% certain that Blizzard couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to create a 4pc bonus that is not just seen as perhaps a little lacking, but something that the majority of people would actually avoid picking up at all costs.

Surely.

I have to admit though, while we (as players/bloggers) all know it is the most stupid idea ever conceived.. I have to concede that maybe, just maybe, Blizzard haven’t spotted the problem. Maybe.

It’s so blatantly obvious though – surely they realise how bad it would be for our Rejuvs to randomly drop from our intended target and pop up on someone else? Particularly if you are keeping a Rejuv on your tank, for example – it would be horrible if your Rejuv randomly moved to someone else, just as you were about to Swiftmend the tank. Or to be keeping Rejuvs on the melee, and for one of those melee to suddenly drop their Rejuv, in favour of it landing on someone’s pet cat.

That’d be really, really bad.

Yes, the wording says “jump”. If we take it literally, it would jump. Off.

But they MUST realise that would be awful. You’d have to be utterly BLIND not to realise how terrible it would be.

So surely they don’t intend it to work that way. It must be yet another ambiguous tooltip.

Surely.

I don’t think I’m being overly optimistic, just reasonable. LOGICAL. Which is why I posted to say, “Everyone calm down, it can’t POSSIBLY mean what you guys are reading it as!” To me, it was a simple case of misunderstanding the tooltip and overreacting.
But – and I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me here – it’s Blizzard, and they have been known to make some kind dumb changes… hmm.

Hat plated and at the ready, just in case..

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Comments (12)

12 Comments »

Comment by Lath — October 13, 2009 @ 9:25 AM
Now I’m sad I have to admit I really haven’t thought too much about the whole tier 10 set bonuses. From a quick look it sounded pretty good because I use both Wild Growth and Rejuvenation so much in 25s but I know how much i hate it now if I mess up my rejuv spamming rotation, having them pop up all over the place will make me a sad tree.

I’m glad I’m not the only one in 10 mans who doesn’t find rejuv the most useful of spells. Especially in the last 3 fights of heroic TOC I rely a lot on Nourish, Wild Growth and Swiftmend to keep everyone alive.
Lath´s last blog ..6 Tips to Suck Less at Alterac Valley

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Comment by Keeva — October 13, 2009 @ 9:34 AM

I’m a very methodical person. I hate it when something messes up my rotation (or I do something silly and mess it up myself). I think it would irritate me if rejuv was suddenly refreshed on someone that is in the middle of my rotation. I have a feeling I would be overwriting this “bonus” rejuv a lot of the time, either accidentally or to preserve my rhythm.

But I’m not even sure if I want them to change it.

As it stands, it’s weak and I don’t want it – and that gives me freedom to wear whatever I want – I’ll just get 2pc T10 and then wear whatever takes my fancy. I hate feeling obliged to pick up certain pieces of gear.

On the other hand, it seems like such a waste to have a poor 4pc bonus, we really should have something better… so perhaps I should be hoping they overhaul it and go with something stronger.

As usual, I’m impatient to see what happens.

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Comment by Thetree — October 13, 2009 @ 1:22 PM
So what happens if it jumps to a person who has it already just before the current rejuv is about to tick, now we just lost a tick of a perfectly good rejuv.

I Hate Blizzard, since the release of WOTLK they have been nerfing us in every way. This is just another Nerf disguised as a bonus.

They change our hots so that they are not as powerful, well that’s ok because I like to do a bit of direct healing, but with all the mana nerfs they have had so far its made direct healing more difficult.

Please blizzard, do go on a spoil a perfectly good game for me!!!!

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Comment by Keeva — October 13, 2009 @ 1:26 PM

Agreed – that’s why I think it will be worse for 10 man raiders than 25s – at least in 25s there will be 10 or so people that definitely don’t have your Rejuv, and MIGHT value a free one.

In my 10 mans, everyone will probably already have a Rejuv on them, so at best it’s a free refresh, but it will likely clip my own Rejuv (which means the “freebie” isn’t so great after all) and mess up my rotation, to boot.

As is, without further information, I won’t be racing to get 4pc.

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Comment by Lath — October 13, 2009 @ 2:06 PM
Maybe my guild is different, but with every round of nerfs done to resto druids, it just doesn’t matter within a week or 2 of a new patch myself and the other tree in our raid end up right back on top of the healing meters. The other healers are always joking about how OP we are. These healers are good, very good its just that in terms of effective healing numbers druid mechanics always come out looking good.

While I’m sure this isn’t the only reason, you can’t tell me that if resto druids in most raiding guilds are outshining all other healers on meters in every fight, that Blizzard isn’t paying close attention to that and trying to even out the playing field.

Maybe I’m completely off field on this, I would be interested if other people have a different view of things.
Lath´s last blog ..The Answer is 779

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Comment by Keeva — October 13, 2009 @ 2:19 PM

Not sure where you’re going with that Lath.. I don’t know what you mean. Or were you responding to Thetree?

Personally, nerfs never worry me too much. I have my odd rant sessions when they nerf things (like the LB nerf) but I soon accept things and adapt. I’ve never really felt hard done-by as a druid, other than in patch 3 when priests were spamming COH and I couldn’t get a heal in edgewise. Other than that, none of the nerfs have hurt me in any kind of obvious or noticeable way.

I just take it all in my stride, and often barely notice a difference. Unless of course we have to adjust our play style to rearrange our favoured spells.. but even that only takes a raid or two to get into a new rhythm.

I’m generally pretty laid-back when it comes to nerfs.

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Comment by Lath — October 13, 2009 @ 5:31 PM
oops sorry, yes that was in response to Thetree

Yeah I feel the same, its a bit depressing hearing we’re getting another “nerf” but I don’t generally feel the overall impact when it ends up being released or want to play an alternative healing class because of it.

The long winded point I was trying to make above was that until we look start looking sucky on meters we aren’t going to get anything but nerfs Lath´s last blog ..The Answer is 779

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Comment by Bellwether — October 13, 2009 @ 9:51 PM
Perhaps this is a move away from our focus on four set bonus. If you look at the two set bonuses, they all seem remarkable and excellent. If you look at the all the four piece, they’re kind of lack luster and “eh.” Perhaps Blizz is wanting us to move away from the four piece tier reliance and more on other pieces of gear.

If they do decide to continue somehow with this wonky trophy idea, it might make sense.

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Comment by Exzee — October 13, 2009 @ 11:21 PM
Keeva remember that one attempt on mimiron where i destroyed healing due to rejuv blanketing back in like week one of ulduar… well i think blizzard just got your ticket and they are nerfing it because of me = ‘ (
Way to go Team Player

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Comment by Keeva — October 14, 2009 @ 6:34 AM

Ha!

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Comment by nikaas — October 22, 2009 @ 11:17 AM
Do you know how rejuv will jump (on ppl in set range or the person with lowest HP) or you are just speculating? I never ever healed with rotation but as the situation requires so depending on the rules used for jumping for me it will be or bonus or simply nothing.

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Comment by Keeva — October 22, 2009 @ 11:28 AM

We’re all still waiting to find out things like range, whether it’s a “smart heal” (chooses someone low on HP), and of course whether it jumps OFF the original target, or just starts up a second Rejuv on the new target.

Blizzard hasn’t given any updates or clarified the set bonus wording yet.

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