Kigale

You may have missed the post where I asked if assassination dps is high enough to justify the debuff. It was answered with: yes but it isn't worth the talent points if a ret is around. If true, this makes this utility unique ... unless hunters are going to drop frost traps every CD. Although some buffs/debuffs are not unique in theory they may be in practice.

 

• Avitus

Question is of course how much of these changes are intended. If intended, they might be the missing link to debunk SoR + SotP and rid us of this uncertainty.


1. It really doesn't matter what we perceive as boring. If it's better, people will use it. No one said spamming shadowbolt for extended hours is the most challenging/entertaining way to play wow, but that's the best way to play a warlock currently.

2. I agree and I do hope they're on top of this. Blizzard stealth readers, you following this?


The working theory at the moment is that SoR is weaker while soloing/unbuffed, yet due to scaling better it overtakes SoB raidbuffed at a low Point of Inflection where the major factor is AP.

What might be the missing link to debunk all this are the current undocumented changes which may or may not be intended.

 

burghy

Mana it's not an issue simply because of DP, I tested it before this judgement "buff".

 

GSH

The biggest problem is that SoR is both the levelling Seal and the spellpower Seal. This is a paradox, because you have zero spellpower while levelling.

For example, if SoR and SoB changed places (ie you got SoB at level 1, and SoR at level 64), everything falls into place. You have an AP seal for the majority of the game where you rely on AP. At the point where you start getting SP armor, you get an SP Seal. You can weight SoR much further towards SP, and lower the AP coefficient significantly, making it a good tool for Holy, but useless for Retribution.

 

• Avitus

Yep, as debated for dozens of pages somewhat back, it never made sense from a design standpoint. We work with what is given though ;/

 

Ngita

I did some reasonably extensive testing on this 2 weeks back on ptr. My sustained Holy dps on live with 41/20 was 360 dps in a mix of BT/Sunwell Healing and elemental shaman gear. My sustained dps on ptr in my pve healing gear was 320 dps as 51/5/5. On the other hand using offspec Ret t4-t6 Ret gear to dps in I was able to sustain around 520 dps and after 50 level 70 normal mobs I was still full Mana. I switched gear to holy to heal/regen out of combat and had 0 dps talents.

 

burghy

There's something really wrong with those numbers. What is your spell power on ptr? I'm doing around 600 dps with a mix of sw/bt healing gear (53/0/0 spec - 1340 sp). Are you using bom and retribution aura?

 

Blutelf

Whilst checking new WOTLK flasks I came across the good old level 50 Flask of Distilled Wisdom (+65 INT) which looks like it's the best flask for Holy Paladins. WoWhead still only has +38 mp/5 and +125 spellpower flasks, basically upgraded L. 70 versions of the current ones.

The last time this was brought up here, over a month ago, there was no alternative level 80 flask. Has something changed in that regard?

 

Proudmoore

Unless it applies only to offensive spellpower (which I wouldn't expect), the Flask of the Frostwyrm, which you mentioned, would surely be pretty reasonable?

Distilled Wisdom is 82 Int, or 1233 mana (with Divine Intellect and BoK), which equates to 16.4 Spell Power, 0.5% crit, and up to 15.4mp5 with Replenishment (And an additional 17mp5 over a 6 minute fight from the intial mana). I'm not going to attempt to model its effect from JoW, but I would be tempted to say that either the Flask of Pure Mojo or the Frostwyrm one would be superior in just about any case I can think of.

(E) Rereading that, I admit, it may not be so clearcut as I had originally though. Five minutes fights (or shorter), Distilled Wisdom would certainly be better than Pure Mojo - but unless our mana problems are significant, I'd've thought Frostwyrm would be the way to go.

 

• frmorrison

No, there are only those two flasks, however I feel 125 spell power is better than the Int flask.

 

SirSilk

Don't forget that the 1233 mana means you get 308 more mana from DP every minute. Which is ~26mp5.

 

Proudmoore

Ah, you are right, I forgot that, which almost certainly kills Mojo at least. Minor quibble though, you mean that that's "up to" 26mp5, depending on how often or effectively you can use DP.

 

Cathela

If you judge every 20 seconds (i.e., being responsible for a raid judgement) then you'll get 6% of your mana back per minute, which is equivalent to 0.5% of your total mana as mp5. In that case Distilled Wisdom is worth another ~6 mp5. It seems to me that Distilled Wisdom pretty easily beats 38mp5, and a level 80 version of Distilled Wisdom -- hell, even a level 70 version -- would absolutely smoke it.

This is basically just a consequence of the change to many regen mechanics to function on a percentage of total mana basis: It turns Intellect into a regen stat that in many cases is equally or more powerful than mp5, especially on a per-itemization-point basis.

My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.

 

Arthaal

Personally, I don't know that I'll be gemming/enchanting/flasking for spell power/mp5 anymore. The downranking changes, combined with the fact that HL at max rank is one of, if not the, biggest baseline heal in the game now means I'll be quite happy with it hitting for whatever my ungemmed/unenchanted amount of spell power from gear gives me.

It's highly dependent on how incoming damage looks and what healing will be like of course, and we might still reach a level of SP where FoL HPS reaches a level that allows us to sustain a tank through most situations (in which case SP stacking would lead to a greater increased efficiency than anything else), but I doubt it.

We now gain so much from int (SP through Holy Guidance, spell crit -> efficiency and regen through JoW/Replenishment/Divine Plea) that it already outstrips mp5 from a pure regen point of view. The elimination of downranking and small heal/huge heal paradigm really doesn't make SP stacking very attractive.

Whatever it is, it'll probably cause Forbearance...

 

Pitbuller

[Flask of Distilled Wisdom]
Summarum: Numbers may vary how often some skills are used.
16spell power.
23 spell crit rating.
15.4mp5 Replenish.
17mp5 initial mana pool in 6min.
26mp5 DP.
6mp5 Jow.
Total: 64.4mp5.
Extras: Mana tide(24% or 28% glyphed mana pool) and water elemental regen(0.6% total mana per 5s).

Pretty competitive as low level flask. This is very good example how bad stat mp5. 60lvl int flask give more mp5 than 80lvl mp5 flask.

Slow, slower, shaman weapon.

 

Oakenshield_Drenden

Working on my specs for tomorrow...Got 3 I'm thinking about

Fully holy including beacon

Holy + Ret Crit

and a somewhat different

Mostly Ret + Holy
I'm primarily going to heal heroics and light raids (Kara, za) so most likely will go with one of the first two - although I'll admit the 3rd one is interesting particularly as I think about a good combined solo/heal spec.

Any thoughts/input on these? If they don't look good, any other specs you'd recommend?

Also, has anyone done a revamped holy gear rating list given the gear changes and healing mechanics changes? If so can you share a link?

Tx

 

Hulabaloon

The guys over at Rawr seem to be on track for having their next release ready for 3.0

 

SirSilk

You should be able to heal pretty much any lvl 70 content speccing 51 into ret. You don't need illumination if you have JotW. I specced down to divine storm (skipping RV and picking up 2 Handed and Vengeance for solo), and then went into holy for 10 points.

 

Oakenshield_Drenden

Glad to hear that the ret build could work - would love to be able to heal the stuff I'm doing (heros, kara) and still do some real dps. You mind posting your build?

Also thanks to hulabaloon for the rawr info - thought it would be too much to ask that it was ready, but that's really good news.

 

Palados

Well, why won't they change mp5 into % of your mana regen stat? It would make it competitive and in line with the latest changes. Just % should be low enough for it to not be extremely attractive to stack.

 

bv728

Mana Regen Rating, obviously. No flat %s anymore.

I dunno if it'll happen, but it'd have to be rating.

 

fox

Just to clarify -- are you including 25-man raids in that list? Also, are you using a Ret gear set or a Holy gear set and does the level of gear matter or not?

The reason I ask is because I can definitely see Enlightened Judgements (assuming JoW is fixed), JotP, Beacon and Infusion being useful but I haven't managed to actually get into a good group on the PTR to definitely say one way or another.

 

allythepally

Given the changes to how pushback works, Imp. Concentration Aura is a lot less useful. 2/2 Imp BoW is probably better, and then a point in Blessed Life or Imp. LoH.

 

SirSilk

Gear will certainly make a difference. I was typically using holy gear in raids, BT/Early Sunwell. Any build should work through BT where you can just spam FoL, especially since it will be significantly higher healing than it is currently on live.

25 man raids may be better with a sheath build at 70. With mana regen being nerfed, and Divine Plea not available you are going to need a consistant form of mana regen from JotW. So, once you go for JotW you need to go down to sheath for the SP increase.

Just my opinion.