Who do I talk to about the poor itemization for healing mages? Again?
Phase six arcane mages still use T2 gear. We got to replace (competing with tons of people) our wand, cloak, rings, and necklace (only because Choker of the Fire Lord never dropped; it’s better than anything in AQ). Tier was worse. Weapons were worse. Sandy gear with bronze rings were worse. Five items. As a healer, competing with half the raid to get them. Meanwhile the other healers are getting everything they need, and then some.
And now we see the itemization of phase 7. On our set is about 20+% spell haste, for non-channeled spells. Regen: channeled. Mass regen: channeled. Arcane missiles (with or without barrage): channeled. Arcane Barrage: instant. So the ONLY spells that benefit are Chronomatic Preservation, and Arcane Blast. As a raid healer, I only use Chromatic Preservation on Onyxia, during phase 2, when one person at a time is taking damage. And of late I’ve been using it on Twin Emps because the tanks have been taking spiky damage, but that’s maybe 3-4 times per fight, and as you can cast it AHEAD of time, haste doesn’t really matter.
So we have Arcane Blast. IF the set bonus gives us enough mana regeneration to basically full charge arcane blast all of the time, then this haste will be useful. But, the way I have been healing is Mass regen a group. 6 second CD. Then you have 4.5 seconds to dps. It’s a combination of arcane blast, arcane barrage to reset the charges of blast and not go oom, and missile barrage when it procs. Then mass regen group 2, and repeat. Can keep four groups well healed. So in a 24-28 second rotation of all of the groups (you usually don’t quite cast mass regen the moment it comes up) you cast arcane blast 4-5 times. With 20% haste, that saves you 2 seconds, out of 28. Effectively giving 7% haste. It isn’t USELESS, but it is very much wasted.
Now, what if we’re frost healing? Well, we still need the frost bonuses, AND we need the T2 set bonus, so we’re either losing 6 slots for T2, or 4 slots for ZG (trinket slot doesn’t compete with sanctified gear). Now, we still have to cast mass regen, which gets no haste benefit, but outside of that we’re ONLY casting spellfrost bolt, which DOES benefit from haste. But, we lose four slots, and so lose 8% of the haste, AND we’re losing 100% hp and damage from our Seal of the Dawn, as we’re not using sanctified gear anymore.
So in Naxx, frost healing is dead. Frost DPS probably is too.
And then there is itemization for non-tier pieces. When we deal crit damage, we don’t get extra chrono healing. We’re already hit capped. I’ve gone over spell haste. So crit, hit, and haste don’t really matter to us, only raw spell power, set bonuses, and stats. With the Frostfire set bonus, I expect mana to not be an issue, so int doesn’t really matter, and stam only so long as you’re not dying. So what options do we have?
Cloak: Two options, both have similar spell power, one has crit one has haste. BOTH are worse than Clock of the Devoured from C’thun (even though it has hit which is wasted). Except they’re sanctified, so we have to downgrade.
Ring: Same as cloak: two options, with speed, hit, and crit, all useless. One has no stats, on has stam. So I already have better, but these are sanctified and so I’ll have to downgrade.
Neck: Two options, basically the same as what I already have, but sanctified.
Trinket: Sapphiron Essence is sweet, no complaints there, and since we’re using the dawn trinket in the other we don’t need anything else.
Wand: A choice between 22 spellpower and 1 hit, and 16 spellpower 1 crit. The hit does zero, the crit at least increases our damage… but only we want spellpower.
For actual DPS casters, the hit is nice. The haste is nice. The crit is nice. And having those choices is great for them. But why isn’t there, for example, a wand with good spell power, and stam/int instead of hit? Or a ring with spellpower and stats, instead of crit and hit?
And on our sets, you know, the things ONLY arcane mages are going to use, why can’t we trade out that spell haste for anything else? Or, make it apply to channeled spells, or lower our GCD, or lower our spell cooldowns instead? You know, things that would actually make us feel like the set designed for us works for us?
And I just want to be clear, the spell haste isn’t a BAD thing. It’s not a downside, so long as it is on top of the other stats we’re supposed to have. But we’re getting the same spell haste as the fire mages, which they will use on every spell, and they aren’t paying extra for.
At least this time, because of the sanctified mechanic, there are more than five items we’re looking for.