+81 Healing vs Spellsurge

A special big worldofmatticus.com shoutout to Netherlord who was kind enough to give me the recipe for Spellsurge at no cost at all. Thank you VERY much sir and welcome to Carnage!

Here is an important question that needs to be answered. You’ve hit 70 and you just got that ultimate 1H mace or that ultimate healing staff. What enchant do I put on it? Do I want an additional +81 Healing or Spellsurge? Neither of them are cheap to begin with but both will really benefit healers. But, let the analysis begin.

81 Healing

This enchant increases the amount of healing you can potentially do by 81. It’s sold by a vendor (Almaador, at the center of town) and requires you to be revered to learn how to perform the enchant.

Spellsurge

This enchant offers a unique mechanic in that it does not offer a constant benefit like 81 Healing does. It’s a random world drop so you might have a better chance of winning the lottery instead of getting it. The tooltip suggests that it has a 3% chance of proccing the effect which provides 100 mana over a period of 10 seconds to your entire party. But for the effect to occur, your party members need to be within 30 yards of each other.

Analysis

So which is the better one to get? 81 Healing will increase your healing by that amount. Assuming you heal for 1000 points without any modifiers, then 1000 casts of that same flash heal will net about 1,081,000 healed. But Spellsurge restores mana over time. Furthermore the effect stacks from multiple players who have that enchant on their weapon. So, if 5 players had it and all 5 procced, you’re looking at 500 mana over 10 seconds to everybody in the party. I’ve seen on the WoW Forums as well as WoWWiki that the actual proc percentage is approximately 15%. If you’re in the raid environment, it wouldn’t work if all 25 players had it. It applies strictly to your party within the raid. It’s important to keep in mind that Spellsurge has a hidden cooldown of approximately 50 seconds. That means that if you kept spamming any kind of spell, the Spellsurge effect can only happen once every 50 seconds assuming it does proc.

Ideally, I’d be able to test this in a lab setting with three groups: An experimental group with all 81 healing, an experimental group with all Spellsurge, and control group. But alas, I don’t have access to such resources.

The Argument for 81 Healing

If you don’t see yourself raiding very often or if you are placed in a group that does not have a whole lot of other casters in it, then you will want to augment your own heals and add that extra power. Who needs Spellsurge if you’re going to be the poor guy who has to sacrifice 81 healing so that everyone else in your party can get that extra mana back?

The Argument for Spellsurge

On the other hand, as you progress through the game you will begin to encounter bosses that will test your endurance. If you can work with four other spellcasters and agree to get this enchant, your longevity will increase by a lot. You will see a lot of mana returned. More mana means you last longer, right? Utilitarianism is the the concept of the day.

The Middle Ground

Get both. All you really need is two weapons. Don’t forget that you can switch weapons while in combat. So slap Spellsurge on a mace that as mp5 or Spirit or something that helps you regenerate mana. Keep your 81 Healing on the weapon that you use most of the time. If you start running out of gas, switch from your Healing mace to your Spellsurge mace and let the rest of the group know. Now if you really want to be fancy, pick up another mace or staff which has high intellect and put 30 Int on it. Equip it before the encounter so you have a high starting mana pool. Once you get a spell or two off, switch back to your healing mace. You will essentially be getting an extra flash heal or two. That’s my personal opinion. Be flexible, adapt your enchants to your needs.

Anyways, back to Fathomlord now. We were able to take down the Shaman and the Priest. Pretty good progress… 3 more hours left. I love my macbook. It lets me blog and raid at the same time. Doing it in windowed mode will lag. I’m tempted to install WoW on it and see how it performs, but I purchased my Macbook purely for academic reasons.

11 thoughts on “+81 Healing vs Spellsurge”

  1. Flash of light has a 1.5 sec cast time does it not? Assuming thats not talented, you will get about an extra 35 from +81 healing.
    If its 2 seconds it will add 46 xD. So +81 looks like the way to go, vs 100 mana over 10 seconds every 50 seconds.

    1/6 of the time (assuming it may take a bit to proc after CD) you are getting 50 mp5.

    50/6 = 8.(3) mp5 for the WHOLE group.
    vs +81 healing for yourself.

    If it helps

    Reply
  2. Last week, an enchanter (who happened to be a 70 Priest) was trying to get her skill up to 375, and was handing out +81 healing for free, if you supplied the mats. I don’t ever expect to see Spellsurge, so it was a no-brainer for me, and I tipped her 20g.

    Grats on the progress, AND the recipe!

    Reply
  3. By all means, scrutinize my math. I’ve always been terrible at it. But when it comes down to it, would I prefer spellsurge over healing? Yes if the rest of my group also had it. Mana is life in wow. But if I was on my own as an isolated healer in Kara or something, then I would stick with 81 Healing. Again, what you pick is entirely up to you. I’m only here to help 😀

    Reply
  4. I am waiting for another good weapon to drop and I will get both. See which one I like better. Personally, I hate random effects. They never seem to proc for me at the right time. But if it is 15%, then it might be worth it.

    Reply
  5. Something a guildie of mine posted on our forums related to this topic:

    “CasterWeaponSwap (CWS at http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info4749-CasterWeaponSwapper.html)

    This is a mod that automatically swaps mainhand/offhand weapons in combat based on mana levels, innervates (and other spirit buffs), and spellsurge. The different ways this can be used is more than I will discuss, but I will discuss how I use this.

    I have a staff with spellsurge and a mh/oh combo with +81 healing. The stats between the two are close enough that I won’t have any measurable impact with the switch and it won’t negate the purpose of swapping.

    I have CWS set to use Staff when entering combat. As soon as spellsurge procs (usually in first 5 casts), it starts a 50s cooldown. This is when CWS swaps in the high heal/mp5 mh/oh combo during the cooldown. When the cooldown is up, the staff is swapped back in until it procs (5 casts, about). Rinse and repeat. The great thing about spellsurge is not only the regen, but that it’s for the entire party. If you go this way, you want to be careful in deciding which weaps to swap, as it can make it worse for you. It will also swap in the staff (and it’s 55 spirit) when I get an innervate, making it that more beneficial.”

    So with this mod, you can get the best of both worlds! (Assuming you have two decent weapons and the enchants). Also the sidenote with the added spirit when you get hit with an innervate.

    Reply
  6. I’m still a noob in the whole raiding world, i run kara and heroics (yes i do consider heroics mini-raids) and my weps are far from the best, so far i only have the +81 healing but as my +healing total from my gear is, i think, enough for what i do right now (until i finally get to roll on some kara gear at least… new to guild :P), i am actually considering going for the +30 int on the soon-to-be-mine awesome gavel of light (i should be exalted with shat’ar this week)… So i wanted your thoughts on that… when you got +1500 healing but only 8700 mana base shouldnt you go for a bigger mana pool? (i dont even know what + mana i actually get with +30 int)

    Reply
  7. A wise priest once gave me that same advice and I currently equip both in raids. As a pally I do not have to worry about mana as much as another healer, but spellsurge works wonders for my spellcasters who need the mana boost… Thanks Matt.. Some of the best advice you have ever given me *wink*

    Reply
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