All of these are fair points for sure. I don't know if there is a for sure "best" setup. But if there was I would probably lean it towards yours in that is much more "tried and true" so to speak. I assure you I wasn't suggesting this to be hipster in anyway, but I was feeling that something was missing the last time I played heal spec. Like that moment when I had hot everyone up, group hot was up, didn't really need to group cleanse anyone, KI didn't need to be used but my SE was sorta on the verge of 100-150 range and I was like hmm.... technically I could blood offering and it'd be fine, but if I had fell sac I would use that and save BO for when I really need to rally up some and I'm out of range of essence lash. The one thing I try to do when I'm on my melee dok is to always be doing something. I find that it keeps me mentally engaged in what is going on. For instance:Luuca wrote:
I was following your logic about going up the Path of Torture tree and specing into Fell Sacrifice. The tool tip says 584 damage over 24 seconds.. 24 damage per second and a recovery of 30 soul essence. Other benefits are that your Covenant of Celerity and Essence Lash will hit a little harder with points spent in the tree. I also can see Fell Sacrifice used in "pick up the part/flag" SCs as a mean to dot the opposition around the flag and prevent the take. So there's a lot of good that can be gained from Fell Sacrifice. Then I realized.. 30 feet.... the radius is 30 feet. As a Chalice-Sword healing DoK, if I end up within 30 feet of the flag/enemies, I'm toast. I become an easy swap for MDPS and RDPS to swift assist me down. Positioning is everything on a backlines heal DoK and moving into the front lines fray, even to pop and run Fell Sacrifice, is too risky in my opinion. A DPS DoK with guard and geared/specced for close combat should have Fell Sacrifice.
Your points about the soul essence cost of Devour Essence are correct, it is a resource hog, but I can cast it on an MDPS standing in the middle of 4 or 5 players from 150 feet away, gain some healing (it's not that bad against squishy MDPS and healers) and simply make up the soul essence by channeling Blood offering. The mistake most chalice-sword backlines healing DoKs make is not using essence lash on the inevitable tank(s) in the back line and the fact that in 1 second, I can gain the 30 soul essence that Fell Sac would provide, without the risk. You do not need to use a full 5 seconds to top off SE when you press Blood Offering. A smarter way to play is to use 2 seconds for 60 just to bump your soul essence when needed. Running dry is bad, and using basic soul essence mele and Essence Lash on enemie(s) over extended and harassing (but not really threatening) the healers/rdps is mandatory. Again, my perspective is based off of 6-man SC groups and not ORvR. I can see where at keeps, Fell Sac may be very good.
I will always, 100% without fail be spamming fell sac endlessly when I am not mounted or not in range to hit anyone. The reason I do it is to always have SE cap'd, because UI bugs and people not always being as far away as they appear, I've clipped WH's with it from time to time, and like I said it is a very good filler from target to target and so on. Does it really contribute all that much? Probably not but I will say it helps my mental clock with GCD's tremendously. Like if two targets are 15-20 ft apart, rather than use my essense lash for 15 se generation and probably zero damage, I Fell sac for 30 SE so I know my DE + Channel with be able to do their full amount of damage after I parry debuff them. (or AP drain pending other heal debuffs).
The point of all that BS was just to show that having a filler move can promote engagement and further awareness of that internal clock that is the GCD. So on healing spec it was just a really good filler. I definitely missed out on a few DE's that I could have cast, and keep in mind DE + M1 is not a bad heal at all (for the record our M1 is literally nuts and no one freaking uses it lol) - but I do know you are most likely using Group Cleanse most of the time (I think - been a while since I've healed) but I do on melee dok because I have no G Cleanse. So i'll concede my recommendation unless there are others playing the heal spec and ever find themselves in that situation you are out of range of essence lash, and your SE is just on the cuff of being high enough for an oh **** moment or maybe you just wanna put your fidget spinner down and do fell sac between hots and cleanses and so forth. I will say it can sometimes surprise you if a target gets a big debuff on them and it is already on them as it isn't a static number (not sure if it is supposed to be) but anyway
