I've read in several places that this is actually a good tanking glyph. My gut feeling has been that I wouldn't use it even if it didn't occupy a glyph slot but I haven't actually looked at what it does.
Unglyphed Vampiric Blood increases healing taken by 25% and gives a last stand ability for 15% of my maximum health. These effects last for 10 seconds and the ability has a 60 second cooldown. Typically I use it if I unexpectedly dip low. Frequently I also hit Rune Tap at the same time. Sometimes I just use it as a 'tanking cooldown' on high damage aspects of a fight when Icebound Fortitude is on cooldown.
Glyphed Vampiric Blood increases healing taken by 40% and has no other effect. It lasts the same amount of time and has the same cooldown.
So, what does that actually do? If I chain it with Rune Tap then unglyphed I immediately get .15 of my max health plus 1.25*1.15*.1 of my max health for an immediate heal of .29375 of my max health. If I chain it with Rune Tap glyphed then I get 1.4*.1 of my max health for an immediate heal of .14 of my max health. So right off the top I'm worse off, but eventually I'll be better off. After X raw healing with Y raw max health I'll be at either 1.25*X+.29375*Y or 1.4*X+.14*Y. The equilibrium point is when X = 1.025*Y. Or, after I've been more than healed to full. So after I've been healed to full any extra healing comes at a discount for the healers (or if it's steady huge damage the extra healing percentage could theoretically keep me standing).
Without rune tap the math is even simpler. 1.25*X + .15*Y compared to 1.4*X. This reaches equilibrium when I've been healed for my max health.
No matter why I'm hitting the button, if I end up at max health I'm going to be satisfied. Unglyphed is strictly superior until I get that much healing poured into me. Glyphed could only makes sense if I never get topped up to full but need healing for way more than my max health in 10 seconds and a 25% boost to healing isn't good enough. (Or this happens every minute and the healers barely run out of mana?) I just can't see it ever being useful.
I feel vindicated.
A huge part of your numbers is coming from the assumption that the vampiric blood health is multiplied by the 25% extra health. Is this in fact the case? If so, I would expect that Chimeron's no-heal ability would prevent you from gaining these hps, but I was under the impression that you still were getting the hps.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, isn't the unglyphed hps lost when the spell ends? This is built into your assumption, I assume, that you get healed to max hps. In this day and age, I'm not sure that this is always a valid assumption.
What we should look at is where the extra 15% temporary health is going to help. Obviously it'll help if you fall below 15% but otherwise, the 40% extra healing is flat out better.
There is a strong value for increasing throughput on yourself when times are tough. I'm not sure I would take the glyph, but I can see where there is real value to it, even if you are getting healed up to full.
I guess I wasn't clear. The part you're thinking of is the blood tap which restores 10% of my max health. This is multiplied by both aspects of vampiric blood (I tested this). The rune tap heal would be affected by Chimaeron. The health gain from last stand is not. (The health gain is the .15, the rune tap is the 1.25*1.15*.1 to make up the .29375 total immediate 'heal'.)
ReplyDeleteIt is a last stand effect, so you do lose that health, but if you're using the ability as an emergency button or as a tanking cooldown then losing the last stand health isn't hugely impactful.
Remember also that my self heals (rune tap, death strike base, and blood worm) all depend on maximum health so increasing maximum health increases throughput too. So the extra 15% health helps if I'd die without it (and it's a pretty substantial help then) and it also helps slightly increase the throughput on all those heals.
I did misunderstand where your numbers are. Even so, I think the situation is still not crystal clear.
ReplyDeleteIf you're using it as a tanking CD (to make it easier on the healers) the losing the health isn't a big deal, but neither is gaining it initially either. I think the more important use is the additional healing throughput which is better with the glyph. I don't think the extra healing is going to be worthless... especially considering that the 15% immediate health goes away.
Emergency use, I don't think there's much of a question that non-glyphed is better. the immediate healing you get is going to be better if you're using it purely to survive.
I think throughput, especially as it relates to this glyph, is overrated. I get healed to full a lot on raids. The whole "triage" concept likely works for raid damage that occurs but the tank still gets spammed a lot.
ReplyDeleteArgaloth - 26% overheal
Omnitron - 24% overheal
Maloriak - 15% overheal (but I tank adds)
Chimaeron - 32% overheal (but this fight the healing is so weird I don't think you can draw any conclusions)
Pounda, who tanked Magmaw and Maloriak, had:
Magmaw - 24% overheal
Maloriak - 22% overheal
Spamming people to full is still very much a part of the tanking/healing game. This does mean extra max health is good and a lot of throughput from a buff the healer can't control is likely to be overheal in the long run. Short term, if used as an emergency button, it's awesome since it still means you get to full faster.
I think that glyph seems to be limited to specific cases. Most of the time, a Last Stand button is very good to have. I also observed from our Chimaeron logs that while you lose the health when it wears out, that health loss will not kill you if you don't have the health to lose.
ReplyDeleteIf a boss had a Mimiron Plasma Blast style ability that did well over your maximum health in damage in a short amount of time and we needed to alternate different cooldowns to survive it I could see how the glyphed version would be better. It's also probable that in 25-player raids tanks lose and gain their maximum health much more often than in 10-player raids.
Barring a specific fight that makes the glyph useful, though, I'd stick with unglyphed - especially because there is a specific fight where the unglyphed version is so clearly better than the glyphed version.
I didn't mention that because I just assumed it was a known fact but I really shouldn't have made that assumption. Last stand effects never kill you when they wear out even if you're at less health than they gave you.
ReplyDeleteAlso by switching in that glyph I do actually lose another glyph in the process. In this case that is probably glyph of rune tap which probably saves more healer mana/prevents more deaths than this would.