Healing Simulations, Version 2

Our update today includes a complete overhaul of healing simulation. We are excited to roll out the new healing simulations for testing and feedback!

The additions to healing simulation include:

  • Ally health is now tracked for everyone in the simulation.
  • Raid damage can now be scripted, much like tank damage in tank simulations.
  • Healing from other healers in the group can now be simulated via scripted AI healers.
  • Healing rotations now support many functions for checking ally health and specifying ally search order when executing actions. Check out this tutorial for more information.
  • Spell effects that depend on target health are now implemented! (Resto Shaman Mastery, Cultivation, etc.)
  • Absorbs are now true shield effects that prevent damage.
  • Damage reduction abilities are reported as effective HPS increases based on the damage they prevent. (Ironbark, Pain Suppression, etc.)
  • Shadowmend, Aegis of Wrath, and Shadow Covenant report the effective loss of HPS due to the DoT, decay, shell, respectively.

The current boss scripts and rotations are not final versions. They are meant as a starting point for rotation development and serve as an example of how to make a rotation for the new boss script structure. The results may or may not reflect how you play in-game as they are right now.

The test script I currently have available is based off of heroic Krosus. This fight has heavily scripted damage and no “random” damage, since the assumption is that you don’t mess up and let adds spawn. There is very heavy, constant tank damage. If you out-gear heroic, you may want to add more damage to the script and/or remove one of the AI healers. Right now the script has 20 people and 4 healers. The 5th and 6th healers are the tank’s self-healing. It is tuned right now such that the player will be able to do significantly more healing than the AI healers.

The damage allies take is all as a percentage of their max health. This allows the script to automatically scale to the player’s item level. The AI Healers scale with the player’s item level as well. The “base” level of the heal is controlled in the script, and tied to a base healer item level.

A tutorial for healing scripts is forthcoming!

I think we are going to find that, unlike DPS, healing simulation is going to depend heavily on the script as well as the rotation/APL. We will need to create rotation/script pairs that go together for theorycraft.

We are looking for feedback! This is a work in progress. Now that we can simulate very relevant in-game situations, there are many questions that healing theorycrafters will need to discuss:

What type of script should we be making gearing strategies against?
Should the AI Healers heal just as much as the player? Or, should the AI healers let the player be the star?
Who should be responsible for tank healing? The player or the AI? I’m finding that tanks die in the simulation without someone prioritizing them during the AoE damage phases. Should we make gearing strategies for tank healing as well as raid healing?

I’m excited about the potential of this tool to create some serious discussion of healing theorycraft. Hit me up with any questions, or just to talk about anything theory-related.