Thanks for stopping by and posting.
I can clear up a few things regarding the simulator that you asked about:
1.) Yes, the self-damage done by Light of the Martyr is taken into account in the simulations. I could add something in to make it show up on the report probably, to help visualize it.
2.) The implementation of everything is totally open source and can be viewed by everyone. Not Available - This is the page you would go to in order to view the implementation of all the Holy Paladin abilities. You can also view the boss scripts here. If anything is confusing to you, don’t hesitate to ask. Our simulator was designed from the ground up to be an open project for the community, making it easier for theorycrafters who are not programmers to be involved. The only part of our simulator that is not open source is the “engine” that runs the simulations and does all the back-end work like advancing time, doing rotation checks, etc. Class-specific information is all on the wiki.
3.) Those results I simulated for this person were just a couple examples with the gear he posted. The point was just that the two legendary combos are of similar theoretical value, so, the suggestions made by the website are not unreasonable - and could be used successfully in-game.
4.) I’m going to make an update to the default display of the simulation reports, because they make it seem like HPS is the only factor. In reality, the simulation tracks all the allies in the raid and also reports how many of them die. I want to move this information to be as prominent as the HPS. The rotations are set up to prioritize keeping as many allies alive as possible. The rotations that keep people alive also tend to do more HPS, but I’m sure it would be possible to get a higher HPS number if we weren’t worried about ally deaths. The simulations also include ally healers that are scripted with a set of AI rules - also completely editable in the boss script.
This can all be controlled by the rotation: Not Available
I wrote a little tutorial on the healing rotations that goes into some of the big additions we made that are necessary for healing simulation. Healing Rotations(APLs)
5.) The rotation does not directly heal tanks unless it is necessary to do so. The rotation also does not purposely overheal - it will save mana when there aren’t allies with sufficiently low health to heal. If you want to view mana usage, set the output level to “log” and then expand the log section on the report. Uncheck all event types except “energize” and you will be able to get an idea of mana usage. We may add a graph for this at some point when we have time, but the data is there.
I am a healing theorycraft junkie - I’ve played healers since vanilla and have created spreadsheet models in the past for all healing specs (except shamans). In legion when we made our simulator, I was determined to make simulation work for healers, since it is such a better tool to use. I really think that this latest version of the simulator finally does what we need for healing TC. I’d be happy to work with you and other TC’ers on setting up simulations.
Another user of the site, @twitchyftw, has been heavily involved in the healing simulations (mostly resto druid) and recently created a healing script for Sassz’ine. We’re looking to get that into the default script choices soon as another option for folks as well.