Divine Star: Target scaling research

[Cerine]

Greetings. Cerine of <Regen> here.

Wasn't sure if this deserves to be in Theorycrafting or not. I have been attempting to pin down the exact formula for Divine Star's healing reduction per target based on total targets hit.

http://www.wowhead.com/spell=110745 is the Divine Star heal as seen in the combat log entry (hitting a single target, myself):

Code: Select all

10/22 15:14:19.616  SPELL_HEAL,0x020000000655B5CB,"Cerinez",0x511,0x0,0x020000000655B5CB,"Cerinez",0x511,0x0,110745,"Divine Star",0x42,10669,10669,0,nil

When Divine Star heals more than a certain number of targets, the amount per heal is scaled down to about 1/2 of its original value. I have been unable to pin down where exactly these transition points are and how quickly they scale down (eg linearly vs sudden cliff). Shockingly, I can't get 25 people to stand around in the middle of no where and getting into different group sizes for me. They clearly don't think of the science!

Based on looking at logs from some 25 man raids, I would notice divine star casts with an average heal (reducing crits to non-crits for purposes of averaging) that varies wildly from ~3775 to 6860. Some of this can be accounted for by raid buffs and the random factor of the spell's healing range (~700 pts) and trinket procs (I use Empty Fruit Barrel) but the rest is a mystery to me at this point.

Examples I pulled from my logs:
24 targets: 4441 avg heal
16 targets: 3775 avg heal
34 targets: 6863 avg heal (possibly during Elegon? I'm digging through raw logs with grep)
31 targets: 4438 avg heal
29 targets: 5929 avg heal (possibly elegon again, maybe the other had a trinket up?)

Does anyone else have any research they have done on this topic or insight they can provide to me? I was unable to find any serious numbers-based discussion of this spell so far. Past 10 targets the scaling per-heal seems to drop off rapidly with possibly another breakpoint at 25 targets. The scaling may also simply drop off lineraly with the number of targets healed.

[aica]

Are you sure it's not like every other AoE spell and it hits its maximum total value at 6 targets healed and 10 targets damaged?

[Nephelee]

Similarly, I was wondering why Spriest Divine Star heals for so much more. I was comparing our Disc/Holy Priest to myself and the other Spriest and found that on average, their Divine Star healed for ~2k and ours healed for ~9k.

Now they tend to use Inner Will, whereas we use Inner Fire. I'm also assuming Shadowform buffs the damage portion, which also increases the healing portion. But still.. the gap seems so large it is almost like the Shadow version doesn't suffer the same DR.

[derevka]

Are you sure it's not like every other AoE spell and it hits its maximum total value at 6 targets healed and 10 targets damaged?

It is.

I actually asked this question during beta and here was there response.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... e=175#3481

Posted by Derevka
It seems that Halo and Divine Star have a DR now... is it at "beyond 6", similar to Sanct/Healing Rain?

Posted by Rygarius (Community Manager)
Yes; we recently did a pass on making sure that new AoEs were appropriately following our standard AoE capping rules (10 targets for damage, 6 targets for heals). There were a number of Monk AoEs and a few other class level 90 talents affected, I believe.

[aica]

Similarly, I was wondering why Spriest Divine Star heals for so much more. I was comparing our Disc/Holy Priest to myself and the other Spriest and found that on average, their Divine Star healed for ~2k and ours healed for ~9k.

Now they tend to use Inner Will, whereas we use Inner Fire. I'm also assuming Shadowform buffs the damage portion, which also increases the healing portion. But still.. the gap seems so large it is almost like the Shadow version doesn't suffer the same DR.

Shadowform doesn't buff the heal portion. You can easily see that by hovering over the spell while going in and out of Shadowform.

What is total healing like for both spells in whatever source you're using to find healing numbers, and/or the number of targets hit? You might just be hitting fewer people while the healing priests are hitting more people.

[Nephelee]

These is the healing for our Spirit King wipes:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-j ... alingDone/

Raysen and myself are Shadow. Since we're grouped up for the majority of the time, our Divine Star should be hitting as many people as our healing Priests is (20-25).

Nephelee (Spriest) average DS heal: 8598.6
Raysen (Spriest) average DS heal: 8311.1

Merkal (Holy) average DS heal: 2590.4
Grouch (Disc) average DS heal: 1714.2

[aica]

Divine Star in Shadowform has some funky DR going on. It either doesn't DR at all, or at 10 along with its damage portion.

[Nephelee]

It seems like it usually heals for half of what the average hit is- so just a 50% DR? Definitely strange but it ends up being amazing for offhealing on grouped up fights ^_^

Admittedly, I'm only really using it on Heroic Spirit Kings though

[aica]

If you're hitting ~20 people with it, then diminishing returns starting at 10 people makes sense.

[Venaliter]

I'm SHOCKED and AMAZED there are no comments on Divine Star's recent MASSIVE hotfix. Buffed by 133% (Base healing OR coefficient, it wasn't clear)

I really, really wish there was more Healing discussion on this site! Maybe if I dress up like a chicken and flap my arms? :P

The spell is clearly now to go-to choice for stacked up healing fights; Also, it sort of points out how simply terrible it was before...