Crucible of Storms Healer Gear

Crucible of Storms items are a little different than we’re used to and every single item that drops in the raid comes with a special effect of some kind. This is encouraging from Blizzard since it makes every piece of loot unique and interesting. Most of the damage related items trade their users health away for extra damage and there are some interesting interactions (like an item that deals more damage when you’re on high HP) that are going to leave DPS clamoring to befriend their closest healer. We don’t get anything quite as interesting as healers and most of the items revolve around giving up secondary stats for different kinds of absorbs. Let’s take a look through them. All values are from the PTR and could change before live and I’ve left out any items that only offer extra damage. Every Crucible of Storms healing item can be compared in QE Live for Holy Priests, Monks, Druids and Paladins.

All items below are compared in their heroic form (405 item level for Restless Cabal drops and 410 for Uu’nat). The LFR, Normal and Mythic versions of the items are all roughly the same when compared with equal item level gear. Our demo character has 15% crit, 5% vers and is expecting to do around 35,000 HPS. If you’re raiding lower levels then almost all of these will be a little better than advertised.

Recent Changes

• Plate Gloves absorb nerfed by 20%.
• Stormglide Steps now stack to 10 (down from 15) but offer almost 50% more crit per stack. A reasonable net buff for a still-unusable healing item.

The Crucible of Storms TL;DR Table

Converting HPS to lost secondaries isn’t necessarily intuitive since it depends on your stat line and how much healing you’re doing. If you keep reading you’ll find in-depth comparisons.

Weapons and Trinkets

Pillar of the Drowned Cabal

Initial Rating: B+ (Raid) / A (Mythic+)
Drops from: The Restless Cabal

The Breakdown

Discussion & Numbers

What you’re giving up for the proc: ~265 secondaries (~2.8% throughput)

• This is an odd weapon since it offers significant healing on very few targets and it requires some conditions to get any value out of it at all.
• Let’s assume the fight is perfect for the weapon and you get 100% healing out of every charge. With our demo characters (call him “Duncan”) stat-line we get 55,944 * 1.05 * 1.2 = 70,489 healing every 30 seconds (or 2349 HPS, 6.7% throughput). This is massive, but getting maximum throughput isn’t particularly easy. The heroic version of the item requires the target take 52k in a single hit. Let’s look through BoD and at which mechanics would trigger this in the first place. We’re skipping anything that outright one shots the player:
  • Mekkatorque: Crash Down
  • Stormwall Blockade: Voltaic Flash, Ire of the Deep
  • Jaina: Siegebreaker Blast, Ice Shard (tanks)
  • Restless Cabal: Wrack, Shear Mind (tanks), Witness the End
• You need to preemptively cast it so using it on an avoidable ability goes out the window. This means we’re stuck using it on raid-wide AoEs that we can predict, or on tanks who take 50k+ hits frequently on many fights. Depending on ability timing you can actually get two “charges” out, guaranteeing the safety of a couple people. Unfortunately, this is also when you’ll use your big raid cooldowns so there’s a fair chance your staff isn’t making much of an impact there either.
• Incredible for tank healing. Useful weapon if all of your tanks just rerolled Warrior after watching MDI and they’re still picking up the spec.

The Verdict

The numbers are good but the usability is poor outside of the tanks. For progression I don’t think you give up 3% throughput unless you have a specific mechanic you want to counter with it, or tanks are dying frequently, or it’s a higher item level than your alternatives. This is particularly relevant if half of your healing team looks to equip the weapon. You might have used it in Uldir on Fetid Devourer where tank damage is the only relevant healing check, or on ultra high M+ keys to give you another cooldown for Spit Gold in Kings Rest. We’re going to call this niche for now, though it’ll look fantastic on healing meters.

Void Stone

Initial Rating: A- (Raid) / A (Mythic+)
Drops from: Uu’nat

The Breakdown

Discussion & Numbers

What you’re giving up for the proc: A trinket secondary effect (usually ~2-2.5% throughput)

• You’re never getting full efficiency from the Void Stone because anyone taking damage is always receiving some form of healing in a raid. Whether it’s HoTs, smart heals, Glimmers or ground effects like Efflo, something is hitting them. So we’ll see what the item can do at 80% efficiency which should be possible if they’re getting slaughtered and receiving few direct heals.
• 132,732 * 1.05 * 0.8 = 111,495 / 120 = 929 HPS (2.7% throughput). Impressive no doubt, though the list of targets getting hit this consistently hard is going to be limited to tanks and some particular debuffs. Remember that unlike a regular shield, this is getting less and less valuable the longer it sticks around on the target. In raid you’ll want them to be taking the damage within one to three seconds of the cast.
• Void Stone compares favorably to similar trinkets in the tier like Mirror and you’ll only need to use about 60% the trinkets shield to break even.

Drawbacks

• Raid-wide AoEs are often countered with major cooldowns which will remove the shield quickly. Revival is about a quarter of the shield, Tranquility is a little more. Every healer is also popping their smart heals and you might even see some Healthstones come out.
• Weak-ish as a life saving tool since anyone who unexpectedly drops low is going to be spam healed almost immediately. Mirror of Entwined Fate is more appropriate for that job.
• Large single target shields tend to be of niche use in raid. You’ll get supreme value on Mekkatorque bombs, or if there are a bunch of soak mechanics in the new raid (which there are, but it remains to be seen how they’ll be handled). On a generic fight with high raid damage like Jaina or Blockade you’re better off using a stat stick instead of this.
• Cabal of the Restless has a version of the Shrine of the Storm debuff that reduces most of the raids max HP by 90%. Absorbs in general could be amazing here and this is the biggest single target absorb in the game.

Mythic+

• This is much more straightforward in keys and it’ll quickly become a must-have for particular dungeons. You are the only healer here which means you have much more control over the incoming healing and this is a perfect counter to multiple mechanics. It’s all of the power of an on-use int trinket but with the consistency of 400 flat intellect. Your tank will want a weak aura to display when it’s on them so they don’t spam Death Strikes at the same time and you’ll also want to track it on your party frames.
• It’s a little weaker for Resto Druid since you’re almost definitely going to have some HoTs out that’ll eat into the shield but this isn’t significant enough to not use it.
• Suggested usages: Spit Gold (Kings Rest), Powder Shot (Freehold), Severing Axe (Kings Rest), Jagged Nettles (Waycrest Manor), Idiot about to walk into Gatling Gun (Motherlode)

The Verdict

Niche. I might use that word a lot today. It’s tuned well and you’ll want one in your back pocket for fights that suit it (like Mekkatorque, and possibly the two Crucible of Storms bosses) but you’re better off with a stat stick otherwise. Should be particularly strong in Mythic+ if you play around it.

Cloth Armor

Fathom Dredgers

Initial Rating: A (Raid) / B (Mythic+)
Drops from: The Restless Cabal

The Breakdown

Discussion & Numbers

What you’re giving up for the proc: 40 secondary stats (~0.42% throughput)

• These are pretty straightforward. You get a small self-shield whenever you spend 10k mana. The stacking mechanic isn’t likely to be very relevant since you’re likely to take 2.3k damage before you’re able to burn through another 10,000 mana even if you’re heavily pumping.
• On a difficult eight minute fight you’ll spend about 550,000 mana as a Holy Priest. You start with 100k mana, regenerate 422k (48k * 8 * 1.1) and then Potion of Replenishment gives you another 25k. Disc is about the same with Power Word: Solace replacing the Holy Priest Enlightenment talent.
• That gives you 55x 2480 health absorbs which is worth 284 HPS (~0.81% throughput). That’s solid. The gloves are good.
• The secondary stats on these aren’t great for Holy but they should still beat items of equivalent level.
• Blessing of Wisdom gives you another ~23 HPS. Include that in your argument to your raid leader that Wisdom should be yours.

The Verdict

Very solid. They aren’t particularly exciting and you certainly won’t play around them but for the small price of 40 secondary stats these are well worth the investment.

Malformed Herald’s Legwraps

Initial Rating: B-
Drops from: Uu’nat

The Breakdown

Discussion & Numbers

What you’re giving up for the proc: 108 secondary stats (~1.1% throughput)

• The on-use Haste is worth ~113 Haste (565 / 5) if you can stand in the circle for the full 12 seconds.
• On-use effects are often pretty good for healers since you can line them up with high damage periods of the fight and this is on-budget stat wise if you can stand still for the entire duration. If you have to move this gets bad quickly and on most fights it just isn’t going to be worth the risk. For Holy in particular.

The Verdict

Subpar. Good Disc Priests will squeeze out niche usages on some fights but for the most part you’ll pass on these unless they’re a significant item level upgrade.

Zaxasj’s Deepstriders

Initial Rating: C
Drops from: The Restless Cabal

The Breakdown

Discussion & Numbers

What you’re giving up for the proc: 19 secondaries (~0.2% throughput)

• Speed stacks multiplicatively with other sources but you should get somewhere around 8% movement speed per stack up to 24% total.
• You aren’t paying a significant secondary price but increased speed as you get low isn’t very useful so this one is a no from me. Particularly in Crucible where you often need to move carefully and the nitro boots popping on when you take damage can be more harmful than helpful.
• Crit / Mastery is a decent combo for Holy Priest, so if you’re lucky these might be your best boots without the movement speed increase and you can use it as a free bonus.

The Verdict

If they are your highest item level boots you will wear them. If you are in a foot race with your druid and there is a small cliff you can jump off then you will wear them. If not, you probably have a nicer set of shoes in your closet than these.

Leather Armor

Gloves of the Undying Pact

Initial Rating: A- (Raid) / C (Mythic+)
Drops from: The Restless Cabal

The Breakdown

Discussion & Numbers

What you’re giving up for the proc: ~80 secondary stats (~0.84% throughput)

• Gloves of the Undying Pact restore 25% of the healing received by tethered allies during the 6s duration. It actually takes a lot of healing to max out the self-heal and you won’t get there on most fights.
• At 100% efficiency: The heal is worth 79,400 / 90 = 882 HPS. That’s a huge 2.5% throughput on a 35k HPS fight. Exceptional, but unrealistic.
• At 40% efficiency: The heal is worth 882 * 0.4 = 353 HPS. Down to about 1% throughput and slightly ahead of the secondaries.

The Verdict

The bottom line here is that these are well balanced for the slot. Time them with a significant mechanic and be healed to full at the back end of it. Pop them twice during the last Jaina phase. You’ll want to wear these most of, but not all of the time.

Stormglide Steps

Initial Rating: D (Raid) / ??? (Mythic+)
Drops from: Uu’nat

The Breakdown

Discussion & Numbers

What you’re giving up for the proc: 101 secondaries (~1.1% throughput)

• Ok ok, hear me out Druids. These are clearly designed for Feral Druids, Rogues and Demon Hunters and there’s no chance you ever pull these on in raid. In Mythic+ however we can use Cat Form liberally and with the base 1.0 attack speed in the form we’re able to stack this in less than 8 seconds of Catweaving. That’s a whopping 220 crit in exchange for Catweaving at least every 10 seconds. It’s useless on any week with random damage so put them back in your shoe rack for Bursting, Quaking and probably Grievous but outside of those these could be a seriously strong option for adding DPS.
• This might end up a terrible idea due to damage cancelling the effect and starting you over at 0 and the stat allocation being poor for M+ but maybe, just maybe these could see use. I’m not committing yet and you should definitely trade them to your DPS if you’re able to.
• Monks can pass. You won’t attack quickly enough to justify using them.

The Verdict

Terrible for raid. Terrible for Mistweaver. Questionably good for Catweaving.

Mail Armor

Insurgent’s Scouring Chain

Initial Rating: A
Drops from: The Restless Cabal

The Breakdown

Discussion & Numbers

What you’re giving up for the proc: Nothing. You get the same number of secondaries as a regular piece.

• It’s impossible for this item to be bad since it’s on-budget even when a fight has no aberrations. Thankfully both Crucible fights have a few so we’ll get even more value.
• The following Crucible boss adds count for the bonus: Visage from Beyond, Eldritch Abomination, Undying Guardian. We won’t be able to give a decent uptime estimate until the raid is released but this should be a good item.
• There isn’t a single aberration in Battle of Dazar’alor so you’ll treat it as a regular item when you get back to Jaina progression (or re-progression).
• You’ll also find several aberrations in: Waycrest Manor, The Underrot, Shrine of the Storm and during the last Siege of Boralus boss.

The Verdict

Excellent in Crucible. These are still going to beat any other item for the slot, even if the uptime ends up on the low side. Remember that the entire party gets the crit buff.

Plate Armor

Abyssal Speaker’s Gauntlets

Initial Rating: A-
Drops from: The Restless Cabal

The Breakdown

Discussion & Numbers

What you’re giving up for the proc: 120 secondary stats (~1.2% throughput)

• The gauntlets proc twice per minute and shield for 27,716 * 1.05 = 29,102. This is equivalent to ~970 HPS (2.7% throughput).
• Alright, this one is probably a datamining error and will end up proccing once per minute since it’s beyond insane otherwise. At one proc per minute it’s good, but a high Haste pair of gloves will beat it for Glimmerdins unless you’re able to keep the shield (and thus Haste) active for a very long time.

The Verdict

Incredible. So good that you’ll actively give up item level on your gloves to wear them. Expect nerfs before the raid goes live.

Mindthiefs Eldritch Clasp

Initial Rating: B+ (Raid) / A- (Mythic+)

Drops from: The Restless Cabal

The Breakdown

Discussion & Numbers

What you’re giving up for the proc: 40 secondary stats (0.42% throughput)

• The effect is worth basically 0 throughput (the heal should scale with versatility but the DoT won’t so it will be above 0). You’re at a slight net loss in exchange for a reasonably decent life saving tool.
• The item also has reasonably decent stats for Glimmer of Light Holy Paladin.
• The heal can be “leap-frogged” if you drop from above 25% life to dead in one hit.

The Verdict

Paladin survivability is already pretty good and you certainly don’t need this effect. It does have decent Glimmerdin stats and the two BoD belts kind of suck so you might end up pulling it on for reasons outside of the instant heal.