The Healadin Thread - Page 11

galzohar · 11/10/07, 7:44 PM

The crit, healing and mana from int are far from trivial, however I do agree it's too low to make int the "stack that!" stat. Healing still gives better returns per point of itemization, but you can't just ignore int when comparing items, as it does have a significant value. Granted 8 int is only (with kings and talents) 144 mana, 3.36 +healing and ~0.12% crit (~2.65 crit rating), which even added together is kinda less valueable than 18 +heal or 9heal2mp5, but it's not that much less if you look at the spreadsheets.

Also remember that if you go by the spreadsheet, you'll probably socket everything with 9heal2mp5 gems except for yellow sockets with a good (anything that helps healing/mana) socket bonus where you socket 4 int 2 mp5. If you go with my theory that more +healing means you can FoL more and HL less, though, then +healing is by far the most valueable stat to stack, and rarely will you socket something other than 18 healing gems in items. Of course my theory isn't totally complete yet as there are things I should still check (as I assumed you use nothing but max rank HL and FoL and ignored lower ranks of HL such as rank 9), as well as if anyone comes up with a good reason for why my theory is flawed.

Note that this is nothing new in 2.3. If you weren't using 4/5 T5 hasted low rank HL build your playstyle will be almost completely unaffected by the patch.

Foeresh · 11/11/07, 5:40 AM

Bah long post, logged me out because I'm on my laptop and I lost it all.

Anyway - essentially even considering the extra stats given by int you are going to lose about 50% of your iLevel points to the +mana (the calculations came out to right around 4 points of "value" added on by the +healing and crit, whereas int is 1 iLevel points per point of int) That is the main reason I primarily focus on other stats other than intellect. I was also perhaps not clear that I was talking about looking for clear upgrades and the "best" pcs of armor available pre-raiding. In the case of a side grade the int values do need to be factored in, but when the iLevel is going to be changing by a significant amount chances are the +int on an item is going to remain about the same if not increase while you also upgrade the stats I listed that I look for first.

You did lose me at the theory part tho - I did do the calculations in relation to the Libram of Absolute Truth (LoAT) with diff ranks of HL. My final conclusions:

1. Currently it is more efficient to use HL4 if you have LoAT and your target has BoL active on them.

2. If your target does not have BoL active, leave LoAT in your pack and use FoL 7 if you are looking for efficient heals.

3. After Patch 2.3 (Tuesday) it will be more efficient to use HL4 if -
a. Your target has BoL active
b. You have less than 1360 +healing

4. After 2.3 it will be more efficient to use FoL 7 if -
a. Your target does not have BoL active
and/or
b. You have more than 1360 +healing

Higher ranks of HL past rank 4 did not benefit enough from the 27 less mana cost to make a large enough difference in their efficiency. Therefore I have left HL5-11 out of the comparison.

In general FoL 7 will be the most efficient heal you have available (Healed/Mana) while HL11 will be the most powerful heal you have (Healed/Second).

Bbrevus · 11/11/07, 7:39 PM

Originally Posted by Yilona

The new libram [Libram of Mending], as well, is no longer really that appealing.

Of all the librams, I'd say [Libram of Light] is actually the most appealing to me as a FoL spam bot. However, it's going to be difficult for many pallies, like me, to get if they don't already have it. Another nice alternative is the [Blessed Book of Nagrand], if you haven't already DE'd it. If you're raid healing (which happens on a few boss encounters and on trash), the Libram of Souls Redeemed pretty much does nothing unless there are at least 4 pallies in the raid.

It really boggles me why the only two healing librams available in SSC/TK/ZA/BT/Hyjal are both based on Holy Light, when they've made it very clear they don't want you using Holy Light unless you really need a hruge heal, which means you won't be using it *that* often (certainly not as often as FoL). It seems like another major itemization "whoops."

With macros to swap out your Librams based on the heal cast aren't [Libram of Mending], [Libram of Absolute Truth] still worth hanging on to? Free mana is free mana, right?

Ragnor · 11/11/07, 9:16 PM

Librameister is an addon which will switch librams (or any item really, but it's made with librams in mind) based on some conditions: If you cast Holy Light, If you cast Flash of Light, If your target has Blessing of Light (or GBoL)

Because spell bonuses aren't calculated until the spell is done you can now get full benefit from all your healing librams. The switching won't incur any extra global cooldowns either, since it overlaps with the cooldown from your spells!

Librameister | World of Warcraft @ Curse

Prinsesa · 11/11/07, 10:01 PM

Librameister is an addon which will switch librams (or any item really, but it's made with librams in mind) based on some conditions: If you cast Holy Light, If you cast Flash of Light, If your target has Blessing of Light (or GBoL)

Because spell bonuses aren't calculated until the spell is done you can now get full benefit from all your healing librams. The switching won't incur any extra global cooldowns either, since it overlaps with the cooldown from your spells!

I already manage to simulate this behavior by adding a line of: "/equip Blessed Book of Nagrand" at the end of my FoL stopcasting macro, and a similar "/equip Libram of the Lightbringer" at the end my HL stopcasting macro.

I expect I'll change the Lightbringer to a Mending come Tuesday.

jusion · 11/11/07, 10:29 PM

Originally Posted by Prinsesa

I already manage to simulate this behavior by adding a line of: "/equip Blessed Book of Nagrand" at the end of my FoL stopcasting macro, and a similar "/equip Libram of the Lightbringer" at the end my HL stopcasting macro.

I expect I'll change the Lightbringer to a Mending come Tuesday.

I could be wrong, but doesn't libram switching cause a GCD while in combat? This would make it kinda dumb to use in actual raid situations.

Thelyna · 11/11/07, 10:48 PM

If you swap a weapon or ranged/libram slot item in combat, you do get the gcd. However, if you're casting you can swap an item without incurring a gcd.

Prinsesa · 11/11/07, 11:11 PM

I could be wrong, but doesn't libram switching cause a GCD while in combat? This would make it kinda dumb to use in actual raid situations.

The GCD I incur when switching the libram in combat is concurrent with the GCD I incur from casting my FoL/HL, since they can occur simultaneously, so there's nothing to lose.

Foeresh · 11/12/07, 6:25 AM

Yes it would be worth it to hang onto those Librams in order to switch them out. However Libram of Mending would be more valuable than Libram of Absolute Truth in most cases. Libram of Absolute Truth's bonus would be better if you needed to spam HL, but if you aren't going to be casting HL more than once every 5 seconds or so LoM would benefit you more.

In terms of sheer efficiency it would be best to have LoM up for the first HL, and then have a conditional /equip script. Once you knew the name of the buff a simple script could tell you it was active (by simple I mean copy and paste from WoWWiki) in which case an algorithm for the macro/script would look something like this

/cast Holy Light (Rank 11)
/script if(LibramOfMendingBuff is Active) /equip Libram of Absolute Truth else(/equip Libram of Mending)

bah nevermind castsequence wont work. What a waste :-(

Prinsesa · 11/12/07, 6:45 AM

Foeresh, there's currently no way to actively check for buffs in macro commands while in combat as far as I know.

The closest you could probably get would be along the lines of:

/cast Holy Light
/castsequence reset=10 Libram of Mending, Libram of Absolute Truth

That would cause you to equip the Mending for your first cast, then equip the AT for every subsequent cast for the next 10 seconds, at which point you would equip the Mending again for the extra buff.

kalbear · 11/12/07, 6:44 PM

Do you mean stats that you should shoot for before you start raiding SSC or TK? Or an actual list of gear? I try to avoid lists of gear because its easier to go to WoWHead and go through their item database using the filters, but I do provide a list of trinkets (many of which are obtainable before raiding) as well as generic stats and rules to follow. If you need more specific help feel free to shoot me a tell in-game or through the PM system here.

I was mostly looking for pre-raid gear to shoot for. Either overall numbers that should be sought after before trying heroics/kara, or actual gear. The problem with Kaliban's is that it only lists paladin healing gear that is specific for paladins, but that might not be optimal and only takes into account drops/quests. lootzor is better, but I'm not quite sure what actual values I should be looking for. And that's the real key here.

Ideally, I'd like the same kind of targets that you need for tanking. For instance, I know that for tanking I need 490 def and a total of 102.4% avoidance. What kind of +healing/mp5/crit should you shoot for for pre-kara?

galzohar · 11/12/07, 7:12 PM

See with tanking it's easy because that's a special breakpoint where you become immune to crushes with holy shield up and immue to crits in any situation. In healing it doesn't work like that, as the better you and your group are, the less you need. Even if one would figure out a minimum value you would want much more due to people (and you) screwing up. Just get the best there is pre-raid and you should be safe, as if it's the best there is it can't be too poor can it?
Just as a side note I healed ramparts at lvl55 as a ret spec with 140 +healing (with VT support of course). The tank was actually a llv60 nub on top of it. So as you can see the minimum required stats for an instance is far lower than most people think - it's just that in the higher end instances the performance requirement will be extreme when you go with minimum required gear. And besides, a lot of the pre-raid gear is actually not very easy to upgrade in raids, might as well get it.

Since there is no conclusive agreement on the stat values to put on lootzor (or even a way to figure them out using a spreadsheet) it's impossible to give you those values and even more impossible to make a gear rankings list. What I'm going to do is to use the spreadsheet that tells you how much healing you can do with your gear, and value each 4 healing as 1 mp5 on top of what the spreadsheet suggests and create an AEP kind of system, rank up the gear by it and choose appropriately. Of course you could just go by the plain spreadsheet, which will result in a lot more heal/mp5 balance rather than the massive +healing which I support until convinced otherwise (since 1 EXTRA mp5 per 4 +heal makes a huge difference).

kalbear · 11/12/07, 7:17 PM

Just get the best there is pre-raid and you should be safe, as if it's the best there is it can't be too poor can it?

And that would be the kind of information I'm looking for - what the best there is, is, pre-raid.

I'm not really worried about what gear I need to get for healing in normal instances. I'm doing fine with +500 healing and totally prot. Maybe not optimal, but okay. What I'd like to get is a list or a general guideline for a set of healing gear that can be obtained pre-kara (and ideally, pre-heroic) that could be used for healing in kara. If not the actual list, a set of values to aim near. The protection thread has a great list of equipment by slot and a general idea of how it is an upgrade; that would be the sort of thing I'd be looking for.

But let's just shelve that for a moment. What are good general numbers needed for kara healing to start out with?

ETA: this is from the holy priest threat. Naturally the spirit should be removed, but perhaps it'll spark some discussion:

Q: What level of gear should I be at for <insert progression level here>?
A: To run Karazhan: 1400 +heal, 180 Mp5 *or* 400 spirit. Easily obtained through crafted pieces.
At the end of Karazhan: 1600 +heal, 200 Mp5 *or* 500 spirit.

At the end of T4 content: 1700 +heal, 200 Mp5 *or* 500 spirit (don't gain much from Gruul/Mag)

At the end of T5 content: 2000 +heal, 230 Mp5 *or* 600 spirit.

Note that these numbers change dramatically in 2.3 when the Meditation change goes live. Numbers are raid-buffed (food, oil, flask or two potions).

My suspicion is that for the cookie-cutter holy build, you can get away with having less +heal and more +crit. Possibly something like +1000, +100mp5/+200crit. But I don't know, and that's what I'm kind of looking for.

galzohar · 11/12/07, 8:03 PM

Please look at the spreadsheets and my posts it should answer a lot of your questions...

And I'll say it again, since we can't completely agree on which stats are best, we can't really agree which gear is best, either, and thus cannot form any list except for items that are obviously better which you should be able to see for yourself with a quick wowhead sweep or even use made-up guestimated values on lootzor.

• Zurm · 11/12/07, 10:07 PM

Kalbear, there is no right answer to the "what stats should I have at X point" question... the priest thread's seems fairly arbitrary and is simply the author's stats at that point... but since we can't say "stat X is better than stat Y" for our class (as a very large part depends on playstyle, group makeup, etc) then you really are just going to have to figure it out for yourself. I've seen paladins succeed stacking healing, mp5, or crit, and I've seen them succeed with a massive variation in balance. It's up to you