Souldrinker vs. Hand of Morchok

I'm curious what other tanks are thinking regarding Souldrinker (ilvl 403) vs. the Heroic Hand of Morchok (ilvl 410).

http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=77193
http://ptr.wowhead.com/item=78371

I acquired Souldrinker last night on the PTR and have had a chance to play with it. I read elsewhere that it had a 15% chance to proc with no ICD. I could verify in limited testing that it definitely had no ICD, as I would sometimes get doubled heals. 15% felt about right. It seemed like it could proc off Crusader Strike, Shield of the Righteous and normal melee swings, but not Judgement or Avenger's Shield.

To give you an idea of its healing, overall it was not even matching Seal of Insight, and of course the heals were just completely unpredictable. From a healing perspective I found it pretty underwhelming, since I'm fairly convinced the heals would just be lost in the noise in a raid environment.

Then there's Hand of Morchok. We can reforge the crit to avoidance. The weapon DPS is ~50 higher than Souldrinker, and it has a socket whose bonus we don't really care about, so you could throw +60 Stamina into that socket. Aside from doing more DPS and having ~100 more Stamina, the weapon isn't much better than a Heroic Mandible.

I guess I'm trying to answer two questions:

(1) Which of these two weapons will do more DPS?
(2) Which of these two weapons is better for survivability?

One thing I'm not sure about is if the proc can occur even if you miss or are dodged/parried. I *think* it was just tied to swings and not to actual hits, but I could be wrong about that. I'll have to test more extensively to make sure.

Has anyone else had a chance to test this weapon out?

you are comparing non heroic vs heroic, obviously we'd take heroic over non heroic imo. I personally think I would use regular hand of morchok over souldrinker though. You can, as you said, reforge your crit to dodge and then if the mastery is taking you over block cap reforge another piece to more dodge in place of mastery.

I wouldnt use a 60stam gem in it id use a 40mastery or debate acually taking the socket bonus (20parry 20 mastery), 10 strength IS more avoidance.

Crimsonheart wrote:I wouldnt use a 60stam gem in it id use a 40mastery or debate acually taking the socket bonus (20parry 20 mastery), 10 strength IS more avoidance.

You won't be using a 40 mastery gem in it at this gear level. We're going to have more mastery than we know what to do with.

I had a chance to do a full clear of Dragon Soul while using Souldrinker. For DPS it's amazing. It clearly will beat even Heroic Hand of Morchok for DPS. It did quite well with healing as well, e.g., on Spine of Deathwing it was my #2 source of healing received with only 27% overheal.

I think I'm going to use it even over a 410.

Souldrinker may be attractive when its proc is valuable, but in my experience these things never proc when you need them most.

Assuming you can perfectly convert the excess mastery, Hand of Morchok 410 results in +302 stam over Souldrinker 410, and +260 stam over Souldrinker 416.

Souldrinker procc is very disapointing, seems like hand of morchok is the one to go with ;(

Treck wrote:Souldrinker procc is very disapointing, seems like hand of morchok is the one to go with ;(

I disagree.

There are two metrics for comparing 403 Souldrinker to 410 Hand of Morchok. The first is DPS and the second is survivability.

(1) For DPS, 403 Souldrinker clobbers 410 Hand of Morchok. The proc makes up about 6% of your damage, which ends up being over 1k DPS. This more than makes up for the small DPS gain you get from 7 ilvls.

(2) For survivability, I disagree with PsiVen that you can just assume all those lost stats convert to Stamina. I know I already fully gem for Stamina and am still block capped, so I don't have any way of acquiring more short of starting to ignore socket bonuses.

Anyway, even if we do assume that Hand of Morchok ultimately gives you +300 Stamina (I think this is a very flawed assumption but let's run with it), Souldrinker only has to proc *one time* during a death scenario to beat 300 Stamina. One time!

How useful it will be, therefore, will depend on typical death events and how wide the window is. The longer we take to die, the more chance you'll see a Souldrinker proc in your death event.

I do have logs from the PTR if you want to see how it looks. For example here is Ultraxion:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-q ... 585&e=6907

Souldrinker did 5% of my damage, so it's way ahead of Hand of Morchok for damage, and the proc happened 81 times during a 5:22 fight, which averages out to once every 4 seconds. Keep in mind I was even being conservative with Fading Light too, so this kill has gaps where I'm not hitting the boss.

I plan to use 403 Souldrinker over 410 Hand of Morchok. I don't even think it's much of a contest. More damage and better survivability than the 410 Hand.

soul drinker is also affected by damage increasing buffs so on madness of deathwing it should get affected by the aspects buffs i know wings does and so does the buff illidan gives you at the start of well of eternity and best of all the 1000% damage buff on alys is affected healing yourself for 60k+ every few seconds is amazing and it procs alot and can proc of all 3 hits of AS for an instant 18k or so
the best thing about it though is the damage it puts out getting all that free extra dps as one guy said its about 1k dps which over a 300 second fight is about 300k damage and 600k healing

The lack of an actual tanking weapon this tier makes me sad.

And no, I do not consider a random proc on a weapon that heals me as a tank weapon. Besides, all that I've been reading is that the proc on Souldrinker is very lackluster and the dps (luls@tankdps) that it might do should not be a selling point.

Fenrìr wrote:The lack of an actual tanking weapon this tier makes me sad.

And no, I do not consider a random proc on a weapon that heals me as a tank weapon. Besides, all that I've been reading is that the proc on Souldrinker is very lackluster and the dps (luls@tankdps) that it might do should not be a selling point.

In what way is the proc lackluster? I'm having trouble wrapping my head around why people seem to think the proc is bad. The amount it heals for will just continue to scale as you acquire better and better gear, so its potency increases as you acquire more Stamina. Even in my entry level gear from Firelands, it was healing me for 10k per proc (when shaman had me fully stacked with their +10% health buff).

As I mentioned in my previous post, if Souldrinker procs even one time during a death scenario, it was equivalent to a tremendous amount of Stamina (or bonus Armor if you want to think of it in those terms instead). In many death scenarios, it will proc more than once. I know most of my death events these days are drawn-out affairs and not instagibs, and so I have no doubt that the Souldrinker proc will be very effective.

And yeah, as Jaitee mentioned, just look at how it scales on Madness!

[23:15:57.744] Kihradin Drain Life Kihradin +20990
[23:16:00.192] Kihradin Drain Life Arm Tentacle 9863
[23:16:00.192] Kihradin Drain Life Arm Tentacle 9863
[23:16:00.553] Kihradin Drain Life Kihradin +20909
[23:16:00.553] Kihradin Drain Life Kihradin +8252 (O: 12657)

I just topped myself off there in 3 seconds to the tune of 50k with the proc.

Im not doubting your observation, i just havnt seen those numbers, granted, ive been observing the effects on a warrior tank (as i dont have one myself)
The dmg seems to be a bit more around 3% from what ive seen.
Maybe paladins have a higher procrate or smth?
Altho even with 3% procrate, that basicly means that you heal yourself for 6% of the dmg you do, but procbased isnt very reliable.
In any case, i dont have either, and i dont see myself getting hand of morchock over the dpsers, and going for DW heroic pretty fast anyway, so betting it will be the next weapon anyway, unless the procc is OP for dps?!

Treck wrote:Im not doubting your observation, i just havnt seen those numbers, granted, ive been observing the effects on a warrior tank (as i dont have one myself)
The dmg seems to be a bit more around 3% from what ive seen.
Maybe paladins have a higher procrate or smth?

My numbers are from PTR testing, so it's possible they nerfed it. We'll have to see when it goes live.

I haven't done thorough log testing, but I'm pretty sure it procs off a lot of our abilities, and so I would not be surprised if we do gain more benefit from it when compared to warriors.

Anyway here are some other fights from the PTR where I got to test it:

Warmaster Blackhorn: 5.3% of my damage done - http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-qec8d ... 436&e=7727

Spine of Deathwing: 4.8% of my damage done - http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-qec8d ... 41&e=11355

Madness of Deathwing: 6.2% of my damage done - http://worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-qec8d ... 29&e=13282

Note that even if it was only 3% of your damage, it would still be a DPS upgrade over a 410 Hand.

I actually like the fact that they are no long putting a specific "tank" weapon with avoidance stats. This is a good precedent for the future and I can see a potential 1H Legendary that both tanks and DPS can use.

Treck wrote:Im not doubting your observation, i just havnt seen those numbers, granted, ive been observing the effects on a warrior tank (as i dont have one myself)
The dmg seems to be a bit more around 3% from what ive seen.
Maybe paladins have a higher procrate or smth?
Altho even with 3% procrate, that basicly means that you heal yourself for 6% of the dmg you do, but procbased isnt very reliable.
In any case, i dont have either, and i dont see myself getting hand of morchock over the dpsers, and going for DW heroic pretty fast anyway, so betting it will be the next weapon anyway, unless the procc is OP for dps?!

Considering that deals DPS based on your maximum health means that for DPS specs this will be probably be quite a lower portion of the damage.

The weapon was clearly designed thinking about tanks, I mean, does damage based on max health and self heal...

Also, we're ctc capped and the only thing that we can stack are stamina or threat, this weapon give heals. Ok, you can't control it, still, it heals... who you want to give it to?


Also, the weapon has a +50 stamina over the 416 and 100 over the 403, the other numbers have been spawned by PsiVen basing it on the amount of stamina that you could net by using the mastery from the weapon and converting it into stamina, at a 2/3 rate and 137 mastery that's an extra potential 200 stamina. I'll still take the heal.

A well geared tank has like, 220k hp?
And a good geared dps has, 160k? so yes, their dps from the procc will be like 30% lower, but even if the procc stands for 4% of your dmg (taken the 6% dmg value) its pretty decent dps from just a weapon procc, not to mention its the highest ilvl weapon out there.
Also, there doesnt seem to be an actual STR based onehander from Deathwing.
Meaning for those, its the same option, Hand of morchok, or thisone?
Sure theres only frost DKs and furywarriors? who could need these, and i think the 2hander from madness is better for both anyway.
But DWing them they might turn out to quite some dmg, since im not sure the 2hander procc is worth 10% dps, but if it is its awesome

Treck wrote:Im not doubting your observation, i just havnt seen those numbers, granted, ive been observing the effects on a warrior tank (as i dont have one myself)
The dmg seems to be a bit more around 3% from what ive seen.
Maybe paladins have a higher procrate or smth?
Altho even with 3% procrate, that basicly means that you heal yourself for 6% of the dmg you do, but procbased isnt very reliable.
In any case, i dont have either, and i dont see myself getting hand of morchock over the dpsers, and going for DW heroic pretty fast anyway, so betting it will be the next weapon anyway, unless the procc is OP for dps?!

i think its probably higher for paladins due too reckoning also possible more of our things might proc it its amazing on cleave fights too since AS will proc it of all 3 targets if you get lucky

and ive heard its BiS for DW frost DKs but since unholy is ment to be a few K dps more i think most will switch to that and go for the tentacle axe

and im not sure who it would do more damage in the hands of a tank where it will do more damage per proc or a frost dk who get alot more hits in

It's presumably affected by Divinity, possibly even double-dipping. We had one drop for us last week, so I should have logs to scrutinize this weekend.

I'm with Khira on this one; at first I was pretty skeptical about a proc-based weapon, but the proc rate seems high enough (15% i what I've heard quoted) with no apparent ICD and a fairly large effect (10k heals are pretty beastly, and as Khira's log shows it can crit).

There's definitely an argument to be had about proc-based healing versus more stamina (vs. avoidance, in some cases). We've had that discussion before regarding SoI, or the Judgement glyph. But this effect is quite a bit stronger than either of those, which makes it a more interesting test case. In my opinion, based on the evidence I've seen so far, the Souldrinker proc is large enough to tip the scales towards it being more valuable than the stam you give up (~40 for equal ilvl HoM, plus maybe 60 or so to make up for CTC).

theckhd wrote:(15% i what I've heard quoted) with no apparent ICD.

Item - Dragon Soul - Proc - Str Tank Sword LFR
Item - Dragon Soul - Proc - Str Tank Sword
Item - Dragon Soul - Proc - Str Tank Sword Heroic

15% proc chance and doesn't show an ICD.

I wonder if Glyph of Seal of Insight interacts with the proc.

theckhd wrote:(10k heals are pretty beastly, and as Khira's log shows it can crit).

Minor correction. It can't actually crit.

Epimer wrote:I wonder if Glyph of Seal of Insight interacts with the proc.

Edit: one sec, was looking at damage done vs heal received
Edit edit: hahaha was trying to figure out why the proc wasn't healing on target dummies. Derp.

Edit edit edit:

At 200,595 base hp
w/o Glyphed SoI Damage: 3009, Heal: 6379
w/Glyphed SoI Damage: 3009, Heal: 6379

So no, doesn't look like it.

It does look like it benefits from Divinity, as 200595 * 0.015 * 2 * 1.06 = 6378.921

I suspect it does interact with various "increase healing received" buffs, judging from the range of values from last night's logs:

Code: Select all

Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +8547
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +8486
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +8484
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +8238
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +7771
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +7769
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +7714
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +7712
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +7629
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +7545
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +7542
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +7489
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +7487
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +7195
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +7142
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +6936
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +6934
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +18513
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +15890
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +14444
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +13577
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +13574
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +12728
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +11573
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +11570
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +0 (O: 17095)
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +0 (O: 15541)
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +0 (O: 15541)
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +0 (O: 12435)
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +0 (O: 12435)
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +0 (O: 12431)
Shadowyn Drain Life Shadowyn +0 (O: 12431)
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +9908
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +9906
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +9402
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +8821
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +8632
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +8547
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +7958
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +7780
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +7771
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +7769
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +7642
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +7195
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +10256
Shadowyn Drain Life  Shadowyn +10012


The log is here if anyone wants to dig around. The logs include a full clear of LFR and the first 3 in 25N.

Kihra wrote:

theckhd wrote:(10k heals are pretty beastly, and as Khira's log shows it can crit).

Minor correction. It can't actually crit.

Oh, I see. I misread the quoted log; I thought it was healing for ~10k and critting for 20k. So the baseline heal is ~20k? That's even better than I thought. Though I don't understand how it's getting so high; even at a generous 250k health, that's around a 4% damage proc and an 8% heal. It's either interacting with something in an odd way, or we're missing something.

[23:15:57.744] Kihradin Drain Life Kihradin +20990
[23:16:00.192] Kihradin Drain Life Arm Tentacle 9863
[23:16:00.192] Kihradin Drain Life Arm Tentacle 9863
[23:16:00.553] Kihradin Drain Life Kihradin +20909
[23:16:00.553] Kihradin Drain Life Kihradin +8252 (O: 12657)

theckhd wrote:

Kihra wrote:

theckhd wrote:(10k heals are pretty beastly, and as Khira's log shows it can crit).

Minor correction. It can't actually crit.

Oh, I see. I misread the quoted log; I thought it was healing for ~10k and critting for 20k. So the baseline heal is ~20k? That's even better than I thought. Though I don't understand how it's getting so high; even at a generous 250k health, that's around a 4% damage proc and an 8% heal. It's either interacting with something in an odd way, or we're missing something.

[23:15:57.744] Kihradin Drain Life Kihradin +20990
[23:16:00.192] Kihradin Drain Life Arm Tentacle 9863
[23:16:00.192] Kihradin Drain Life Arm Tentacle 9863
[23:16:00.553] Kihradin Drain Life Kihradin +20909
[23:16:00.553] Kihradin Drain Life Kihradin +8252 (O: 12657)

10k is the typical fully stacked heal. The 20k numbers are on the Madness fight where it benefits from a triple scale. Max health +20%, damage done +20%, healing done +20%.

I just had a quick bash on a dummy self buffed with 203k hp, drain life was healing for 6461, with seal of insight glyphed it was healing for 6979.
I'll be raiding tonight and will try to post logs for anyone interested.

daishan wrote:I just had a quick bash on a dummy self buffed with 203k hp, drain life was healing for 6461, with seal of insight glyphed it was healing for 6979.
I'll be raiding tonight and will try to post logs for anyone interested.

Hmm. I can't replicate this. I'm getting the same Drain Life heal with or without the glyph, with or without the seal, or any seal or any glyph.