Morthis

So I'm fairly new to the paladin class. When TBC went live, I was one of the crazy people that decided to reroll a paladin and do all the old content for the 5th time instead of spending my time in Outland.

So after hitting 70 and getting into some good gear, I'm starting to really enjoy the staying power paladins have. My gear is now to the point where I actually have to look at items and decide which stats I prefer, rather than having to upgrade everything because it's some pos item. Which is what brings me to this question, maybe some more experienced paladins can share some insight here, since I haven't had much time to expirement with different stats yet.

How do you value different stats on gear? How much mp5, for example, are you willing to give up for 1% spell crit (22 spell crit rating)?

I hadn't thought too much about it before, especially since some of the first pieces from Kara I got were the chess legs and shade shoulders (which combine mp5, spell crit and healing), but then when T4 helms started dropping, I actually had a hard time deciding whether I'd prefer mask of pennance or the justicar healing helm. At first glance, the T4 helm felt more like a sidegrade than an upgrade, but I picked it up because I've been shifting my gear more towards spell crit. Now that I meet the requirements to add a spell crit meta, I definitely prefer the T4 helm.

So far, what I've had the hardest time with is comparing mp5 to spell crit. Healing is a little easier, because spell crit indirectly adds to healing (and the higher your spell crit, the more you can "rely" on that crit for bigger healing) as well as mana efficiency. However, mp5 vs spell crit was a reliable way to sustain my mana pool vs an unreliable way to sustain my mana pool. Now that I've got the gear to sustain my mana pool pretty well either way, I need to find a good way to evaluate the two against each other.

Overall, spell crit seems more useful to me. It adds to healing as well as mana effiency. Mana efficiency is not something easy to obtain. I can drink potions to fill that blue bar, but I can't really drink anything to make my heals more efficient (save for adepts elixir thanks to spell crit). However, there comes a point where the mp5 is still worth more I imagine.

Right now, I've valued 20'ish spell crit rating about equal to 6mp5, and healing mostly as an afterthought compared to spell crit, good spell crit healing gear can be hard to find, items with high +healing aren't.

Appreciate any input from others.

 

◊ Vulajin

Let's say you're spam-casting max-rank Holy Light (840 mana) with perfect timing and no Light's Grace, so that every cast takes exactly 2.5 seconds. For each 1% of those casts you crit, you will regen 840 mana, so that on average each cast you will regen 8.4 mana. Over the span of five seconds (exactly two casts), you will therefore regen an average of 16.8 mana; i.e. 1% spell crit is approximately equal in value to 16.8 mp5 in this instance.

Let's instead say you're spam-casting max-rank Holy Light with perfect timing and permanent Light's Grace (every cast 2.0 seconds). 1% crit is still worth 8.4 mana per cast. However, you can fit 2.5 casts into five seconds. 8.4*2.5 = 21; i.e. 1% spell crit is approximately equal in value to 21 mp5 in this instance.

Now let's say you're spam-casting max-rank Flash of Light (180 mana) with perfect timing (every cast 1.5 seconds). 1% crit is worth 1.8 mana per cast. You can fit 3.33 casts into five seconds. 1.8 * 3.33 = 6; i.e. 1% spell crit is approximately equal in value to 6 mp5 in this instance.

Now, will you always be casting in these perfect patterns without stopping? Hell, will you always be spam-casting heals without waiting for even a single tick out of the five-second rule? The answer to both questions is probably not. However, you can safely bet that the value of mp5 will scale up relative to the value of spell crit the further you get from these "perfect" situations. The key to note is that Illumination's regen scales directly to the speed of your casting and the rank of heal you're using. Mana/5 does not. The less often you cast, the lower the value of spell crit drops. If you come out of the five-second rule, it drops still further.

 

xi0nic

At the moment, I'm just switching from Protection to Holy, so I'm in the same situation as far as gathering gear goes. On the surface, one would think that +spell crit would be the way to go, but as Vulajin points out, this is not necessarily the case.

I personally value +healing and +mp5 at about the same place. Intellect would be 3rd, with spell crit taking up the rear. With +healing, I can safely use even one lower rank to conserve mana, and stacking mp5 keeps any healer going for the long-run.

 

Unraveller

Real quick ,real dirty.

When evaluating Paladin Gear, use the following point system:

+1 Healing =1 point
+1 Spell Crit Rating=1 point
+1 Intellect =2 points
+1 MP5 =7 points

I'll post the math when I have some more time... But the assumptions are:
8000 base mana
No Blessing of Light
1000 +Healing
5 minute duration fight
75 MP5
4000 mana regained via mana spring/pots/etc

 

• zepi

I know that the meanest Palas in my guild have over 1600 +healing in raid situations, so assuming only +1000 is quite low. Few kara / Maulgar drops and you'll reach 1500+ unbuffed I guess.

 

vorda

Correct. I'd love the math behind that post, so that I can edit it for my own stats! (still having a hard time deciding what gems to use)

 

Morthis

Would love to see the math for that when you have time.

My current stats are (unbuffed):

8900 mana
1300 +healing
105 mp5
18.5% spell crit (before talents)

My mp5 seems pretty good, which is why I'd been leaning towards more spell crit.

 

Belvarn

First off : Mana is about 7300, Healing + 747 with all healadin on (no major enchants yet though - and mainly rewards from outland quests), and mp5 (which i'm guessing is mana regen every 5) is about 150.

I would personnally choose +Healing over others with mp5 coming in second, then spell crit then int. With a more efficent heal u shld have to heal a lot less often - although with illumination +spell crit might be more useful so more of your healing spells crit and therefore give you mana back so mp5 becomes redundent (in some respects)

That is Holy perspective though. if your a retadin (although if your raiding your most likely a healadin.)

On the other hand your a retadin mana use if highly comsuptive and your bar can drop quicker than a fire mage in Molten Core, and so you might be more interested in getting as high a mp5 as poss. (remember BoW can add an extra 40 to whatever your gear gives you - BoM ain't all that useful even as retadin beacuse you have to rely on holy spells (ie mana usage rather than pure weapon DPS (CS SoV SoC etc...) ).

and here's a scary thought - I have been playing pally for almost 2 yrs now - and yes I'm still learning - as are we all i think.

Anyways hoped that helped to some degree.

 

dar3652

According to your calculations, 21 spell crit rating(0.95% to crit) is worth the same amount of points as 3mp5. Most theorycrafted information like this is calculated for the purpose of sustained healing or being able to push yourself for longevity. Assuming you are chain casting flash of lights as earlier stated 1% crit is equivalent 6mp5, double the amount of what it states in your calculations. Using pre-karazhan gear you can hit +1500healing with at least an 8k mana pool. I would agree with the int being worth 2x the amount of healing in your point system but i would boost up crit a little and make mp5 worth less, since with no crit having to chain cast you max rank holy light (840 mana) you'll be OOM within a minute regardless of your mp5.

 

dar3652

another thing to keep in mind, if you have light's grace up constantly you will be able to cast 2.5 max rank holy lights in 5 seconds making 1%crit(22 crit rating) equivalent to 21 mp5 instead of 16.8mp5.

 

Vitae

So very many paladins forget when they're doing math that crit heals don't just restore mana, they make your heal do 50% more.

On a raid (wrath of air totem on me/healing power/adept's, Blessing of Lighted/amplified tank) my holy light does about 4700. It's a pretty standard value for me to have in karazhan or 25 mans, since we have so many paladins. 1% crit is a maximum of 21 mp/5, and in realistic scenarios I've found it's more like 7 mp/5. It's also equivelent to an extra 23.5 healing on holy light, which would take 33 +healing to match.

So a potential 21 mp/5 (though more like 7) + 33 healing per crit %. Or about 1 mp/5 per rating (1/3rd in practice) and 1.5 healing per rating.

Using your values for healing and mana/5, that'd make crit worth...
+1 healing = 1 point.
+1 mana/5 = 7 points.
+1 crit rating = 4 points, 8 when chain casting.

Just as an exercise in how TRULY ridiculous full out mana regeneration can be, let me go off on a tangent about that 5 minute fight you mentioned. To chain cast Holy Light for 5 minutes would require 126000 mana.
I've got about a 35% crit rate on holy light, so that goes to 81900.
I start with 13000, so we're down to 68900.
Mana spring is about 45 mana/5, BoWisdom 50 mana/5, mana tide will add in another 3k mana, down to 60200.
A shadowpriest doing 1k dps will restore 400 mana/5, so the gap is now 36000.
Three super mana potions is 7200 more mana, bringing the gap down to 28800.
70 mana/5 from a flask makes that 24600.
Toss in 3 guaranteed crits from divine favor, we're down to 22300.
Two uses of Divine Illumination save 6300 more mana, down to 16000.
Actual mana/5 from gear, for me at least, is around 60 if memory serves, making that 12400.
As long as I'm being retarded, toss in 16 mana/5 from mageblood and another 14 mana/5 from mana oil and we're at 10600.
So we'd fall a bit short of the goal to cast a Holy Light every 2 seconds for 5 minutes - best we'd be able to manage is every 2.2 seconds or so. Good thing that's all that's possible with lag. Of course, there isn't a single fight in the game that calls for that level of healing (regardless of how hard something hits, sometimes the tank is full hp from evasion and you can't heal him - in theory there could always be someone else missing hp from an AE, but that begins to really reach).

For the holy light every 6 seconds figure I'm calculating my 4 point per spell crit rating value on, using the above consumables etc. you would plain and simply never run out of mana. The mana expenditure is 455 mana/5 (less factoring in DF/DI), and really, the shadowpriest alone covers that, zero consumables required.

Given how much cheaper crit is than mana/5 on the itemization table, it's almost always best to go for the spellcrit gear. Using gems as a handy example, you can get either 18 healing (18 points), 3 mana/5 (21 points) or 8 spell crit rating (32-64 points). That said I don't necessarily agree with those point values, but just trying to demonstrate my point.

Granted you can make the argument that +crit's extra healing is more likely to be overhealing, but that's something you have to value personally, since play style will really vary the impact of that.

 

Athinira

Vitae: While what you say is true, there is one important factor (taking the Blizzard item formula into account) that i did the math on some time back, and that is mana regeneration periods.

Mana/5 sec and crit are "almost" equal worth when casting (crit being slighly superior for an illumination specced paladin, but in this case slightly does indeed meen VERY slightly). However for mana regeneration periods spellcrit does absolutely NOTHING, which means that when you aren't casting (including when inside the 5 second rule but still not casting) mana 5/sec is very much superior.

Spellcrit is good for Healing per Second output though its a random output (but healing those 500-700 extra on FoL is nice) since its chance based though, so its not to be entirely dismissed. But from my experiences and math you get mana regen and +healing first, spellcrit later.

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Morthis

The way I originally looked at it, and what made me compare it to ~6mp5 is looking at how many spells I'll usually cast in a 10 second window. If we cast one max rank holy light in that 10 second window, that's 840 mana. 1% spell crit would, over time, reduce that mana cost by 1%, so 8.4. 8.4 mana per 10 = 4.2 mana per 5. Throw in a few flashes of light or a lower rank holy light and I figure it'll be around 6mp5.

Course it entirely depends on the fight. Any patchwerk like fight where mass consumables and constant spamming is needed, spell crit becomes insanely efficient compared to mp5.

 

Elenmir

An approach that doesn't depend on how/what/when you cast is to look at the total amount of mana you'll have available to cast, which works out to:

manaToSpendPer5s = (baseMana * 5 / fightDuration + effectiveManaPer5s) / (100 - crit)

(effectiveManaPer5s includes all sources: mana per 5s from gear, buffs, potions, spirit ticks, etc. 5/5 illumination assumed.)

Take the partial derivatives of this with respect to crit and effectiveManaPer5s, and you find that 1% crit is equivalent to (d(manaToSpendPer5s)/d(crit)) / (d(manaToSpendPer5s)/d(effectiveManaPer5s)) mana per 5s, which works out to:

1% crit = (baseMana * 5 / time + effectiveManaPer5s) / (100 - crit) mana per 5s.

As an example, with 10k base mana, 150 mana per 5s, 30% crit, and a 360s fight, 1% crit = 4.12 mana per 5s, from a pure mana regen point of view. Longer fights increase the relative value of mana per 5s. Shorter fights and heavier buffs/consumable use increase the relative value of crit.

(A similar approach could be used to find the relative value of intellect.)

 

Vitae

The thing is, if you're casting LESS than once per 6 seconds (assuming the shadow priest) mana/5 is pointless, because you will NEVER run out of mana. Who cares if it's better than crit if you're casting once per 13 seconds, if you're not going to ever run oom anyhow? This argument only has meaning when you're in danger of running out of mana, and to run out of mana, you must cast fast enough that spell crit trumps mana/5.

That changes somewhat if you're not using consumables AND don't have a shadowpriest, but that situation is basically nonexistant on raids, for me at least.

Athinira: Additionally, where do you get the idea that mana/5 and spellcrit are almost equal worth while casting? Are you assuming you're just casting Flash of Light? Probably 95% of my healing is done with Holy Light, though I can only speak for myself.

 

Unraveller

Updated Values:

Re-calculated my estimates with the following modifcations:

Raid buffs, BoW, Mana Spring, 1200 healing, 25% crit. As well, there was an error in my original calculations (a big one). I had included the bonus Mana from a crit heal, but not the bonus health!!! (that's what i get for screwing around on excel at work...). The result of all this is:

Intellect: The value of Intellect : Total Healing drops as mp5 increases. So the addition of BoW and Mana Spring (don't even talk about shadow priests...) has reduced this comparative value.
Healing: As the baseline, the value has remained unchanged, but comparitively it has increased as the # of heals cast in the window of time (5 minutes) increase.
Spell Crit: Originally undervalued for 2 reasons. Amount of mana available was understated. The addition of BoW and MS has increased this value.
Mana per 5: Remained largely unchanged, but as the base values increased, this has dropped comparitively.

Anyway,

1 Healing = 1 point
Intellect =0.75 points
Spell Crit = 3.0 points
Mana Per 5= 4 points

I'll format the spreadsheet and upload it tomorrow. It is FAR from perfect or complete, it's a broadsword solution to a problem that requires a scalpel. But it's a start.

It should be noted, if you want to include a 250 mp5 shadow priest, than the value of +healing and +crit skyrocket, while intellect and Mp5 remain the same (drop in comparision).

 

Vitae

Remember that we actually get back 7.5% of their dps as mana due to VE + spiritual attunement, not just 5%, so it's even worse. Though sadly in my original useless tangent up there I forgot about the VE nerf and was using 8%.

 

Athinira

Yes im an FoL spammer. Holy Light is useable but not easily substainable over a long period even with a high amount of spellcrit.

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masteen

1) Does anyone actually spec holy and not take Illumination? What would you take in it's place, especially considering it's a prereq for DF and Holy Shock?

2) Why would you spam FoL over HL? Base FoL7 = 2.64 heal/mana, HL11 = 2.76 h/m (if my math is correct), and that margin should only get wider once +heal is factored in, because of the cast time.

 

Athinira

No, its one of the tree defining talents noone should skip.

You haven't done any real math before you have looked at +healing.

FoL rank 7: 180 mana, 475 average healing, 2.63 HPM, gets 42.8% of +healing
Holy Light rank 11: 840 mana, 2321 average healing, 2.76 HPM, gets 71.4% of +healing

Adding 500 +healing.
FoL: 689 average healing, 3.8 HPM
Holy Light: 2678 average healing, 3.18 HPM

Adding 1000 +healing:
FoL: 903 average healing, 5.02 HPM
Holy Light: 3035 average healing, 3.61 HPM

FoL mana efficiency scales incredibly well with gear.

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• Igniter

+Heal shouldn't be your top priority until your mana pool can be sustained mana potting along with your regen. Once you have a decent sized mana pool (would of been 8k buffed in naxx) focus on your mp/5 and spellcrit. +Healing is just a bit extra (althought to totally avoid it would be bad)

 

Emily

I think the main way this concerns Paladins is in their choice of gems. So, what out of the rare quality craftable gems (Living Ruby, Nightseye etc) would you say are the optimal choices for red, blue and yellow sockets?

 

Thelyna

This is just my gut feeling rather than anything backed up with theorycraft, but for sockets I roll like:

Yellow = Luminous Noble Topaz (+9 heal, +4 int, orange gem)

Red = either Teardrop Living Ruby (+18 heal, red) or Royal Nightseye (+9 heal, 2 mp5, purple) - most often the latter, because my gear is weak in mp5 at the moment.

Blue = either Royal Nightseye (+9 heal, 2 mp5, purple) or Lustrous Star of Elune (3 mp5, blue) - most often the former, because I prefer 9 heal to 1 mp5. There's also the socket-utility of bicolour gems (if you put a purple gem in a socket you get credit for one red gem and one blue gem for metagem requirements).

 

Belvarn

Jewel selection helps but it also depends on the gear - you don't really want to waste blue jewels on something your going to swap out soon (or what jewels are avalible to you at the time) - but with slots having jewels is a must - although the selection most likely depends on personnal choice about what area your currently lacking in. Int gems might be put on a backshelf to +mp5 or +healing. The Teardrop Living Ruby is almost a guarentted must have though (at least in my mere opinion it is).

And FoL should never be undervalued - with a decent +