If // when I get meteorite crystal I plan on macro'ing it onto my Divine Illumination and using it during heroism. This would likely result in less usage than popping it on cooldown, but I expect it'd give greater results per use.
To get the most mana regen out of this, you'd have to be haste capped and spamming FoL once per second. The first tick would net you 5 * 60 = 300 mana, the second tick would net you 600 mana, the third would net you 900 mana and the fourth would net you 1200 mana, totaling up to 3000 maximum mana return over 20 seconds (you might expect this number to be somewhere around 2-2.5k mana if you're spamming holy light instead, and/or are under real-world conditions). 2.5k mana is about equivalent to around 100 Mp5.
Mana every 5 seconds never (to my knowledge) ticked every five seconds, even before WotLK. I'm not exactly sure of the mechanics involved now, I'm assuming every time it changes, your mana regen changes and the ticks are every second (?). So your math is still wrong.
Even ignoring that, there's the question (at least for me) of whether the 20 seconds of mana regen are refreshed during those 20 seconds of casting mentioned in the tooltip.
@Varuk: The way I've always used Divine Illumination was on the more spammy parts of fights, around its CD. I also tried, but wasn't really fussed about using it during bloodlust. Using it twice outside BL > using it once during BL. This trinket is on a 2 minute CD, so that's even more uses during a fight. My point is, I wouldn't try too hard to use it during BL, if you know when BL is going to be used, then by all means try to sync its cooldown with that. But if not, just use it on every cooldown.
Mana every 5 seconds never (to my knowledge) ticked every five seconds, even before WotLK. I'm not exactly sure of the mechanics involved now, I'm assuming every time it changes, your mana regen changes and the ticks are every second (?). So your math is still wrong.
Even ignoring that, there's the question (at least for me) of whether the 20 seconds of mana regen are refreshed during those 20 seconds of casting mentioned in the tooltip.
@Varuk: The way I've always used Divine Illumination was on the more spammy parts of fights, around its CD. I also tried, but wasn't really fussed about using it during bloodlust. Using it twice outside BL > using it once during BL. This trinket is on a 2 minute CD, so that's even more uses during a fight. My point is, I wouldn't try too hard to use it during BL, if you know when BL is going to be used, then by all means try to sync its cooldown with that. But if not, just use it on every cooldown.
Time to redo the math again. According to Wowwiki, mp5 ticks every 2 seconds.
Don't bother. That's pre-WotLK stuff. It looks way more than once a second now, more like 5 times a second or so for me.
At least when I was playing pre-Wrath and in Classic, mp5 tic'ed every 5 seconds.
Now in Wrath, mp5 gives me mana every tick which is a nice boost since you get mana back smoothly and that tic is every 2 seconds. So something that provides 10 mana per 5 seconds actually gives you 4 mana every 2 seconds.
Note non-mp5 mana gains gain you mana whenever its effect goes off, so that is likely that is what you are seeing.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Don't bother. That's pre-WotLK stuff. It looks way more than once a second now, more like 5 times a second or so for me.
Ugh. I redid it before I read this. I've checked a few sources (post 3.0, mind you) and they seem to say MP5 still ticks every 2 seconds, but I'll try to confirm that in-game later tonight. For now, I've edited my post to show the possibly wrong math for if MP5 actually does tick every 2 seconds.
I really wish the numbers were higher on this so that my work would actually be merited, but I got it wrong originally and just had to fix it, y'know?
@frmorrison: No. I didn't play back in classic, but in TBC, for as long as I can remember, mana ticked every 2 seconds. The wowwiki page hasn't been updated since June of 2008, way before WotLK, so it has TBC info.
As for WotLK, it clearly updates more often than that. I would say way more often than once a second. But I've no idea how to check. I got naked, that seems to update every tick. Even with 12 mp5, still seems to do the same. So it's definitely more often than once a second, even if it does skip the occasional tick.
Later edit: Also, mp5 seems to update the moment you switch gear in/out, not in 2 second ticks or whatnot. Of course, this is just me staying here looking at my mana values, no exact math. :-)
I was getting easily 3,100 absorptions - this is with [Illustration of the Dragon Soul] trinket and Divine Guardian. This is stable absorbtion number as long as i keep all trinket stacks. Now i have a bit more SP and i think i am getting higher numbers, but i didn't recorded logs from last raid.
To clarify, Trinket, SP Totem, MotW, Flask, Food. Together i have usually around 2850 SP. I could get more with regemming a little and choosing another gear. And of course changing Saphirion trinket to another one with SP.
Your numbers are pretty off here. 2,850 spellpower translates to 2,565 shields with DG. I don't know of any traditional int-stacking paladin who runs those levels of SP, Illustration or not. And until 3165 Intellect is obtainable on gear, Sheath will continue to contribute more spellpower through raid buffs alone than Holy Guidance.
I'm interested in how you record logs of your damage absorption, since combat logs do not currently track absorption. Where are you getting the 3100 numbers?
As for WotLK, it clearly updates more often than that. I would say way more often than once a second. But I've no idea how to check. I got naked, that seems to update every tick. Even with 12 mp5, still seems to do the same. So it's definitely more often than once a second, even if it does skip the occasional tick.
Later edit: Also, mp5 seems to update the moment you switch gear in/out, not in 2 second ticks or whatnot. Of course, this is just me staying here looking at my mana values, no exact math. :-)
Updating more than once a second is likely an artifact of the changes with 3.0/Wrath that made mana/energy regen appear smoother. Quoting Bornakk from the current warrior "rage nerf" post:
We modified the system for displaying power bars in Wrath of the Lich King to have the client display its best guess of how much power they have, which is very deterministic for mana or energy, but not so much for rage...The client displays its best guess and the server validates the power usage against the value it knows they actually have - the two can be out of synch occasionally which throws the data off.
I don't recall any backend change to how mana regen is calculated, so it's probably safe to assume it's still on 2 second ticks.
Your numbers are pretty off here. 2,850 spellpower translates to 2,565 shields with DG. I don't know of any traditional int-stacking paladin who runs those levels of SP, Illustration or not. And until 3165 Intellect is obtainable on gear, Sheath will continue to contribute more spellpower through raid buffs alone than Holy Guidance.
I'm interested in how you record logs of your damage absorption, since combat logs do not currently track absorption. Where are you getting the 3100 numbers?
World of Logs has recently added a kind of "best-guess" addition for damage absorbed. Here are my own real-world numbers to add to the discussion:
Over the course of all boss kills on a raid night, Sacred Shield was estimated to be about 4.6% of my overall healing. Looking closer, on Hodir for example, it was 7.7% of my healing, and it had 73.9% uptime (which I'll need to eke out more, obviously.) The average absorption for all kills was 2.7k, and was 4k on Hodir (these numbers really seem too high – any idea why they're so big?).
I'll edit this post to include my Spell Power numbers, but I stack int>crit>sp=haste>mp5, so they're not stellar.
(these numbers really seem too high – any idea why they're so big?)
I see that there was a second holy paladin casting SS's as well. Presumably on a fight like Hodir, you were both placing them on the MT. More than likely the wonky/unconfirmed SS stacking is what caused it to look like your shields were absorbing almost double their standard amount.
Might of been a Discipline Priest shield..... I've seen them up to 8k on my logs. I think we've pretty much tested the $%#$ out of Sacred Shield and seen no evidence of stacking. Even with a Pandora Plea proc (putting me at around 2900 spellpower) and specd into prot for the bonus to SS, I've never seen absorbs that high.
Your numbers are pretty off here. 2,850 spellpower translates to 2,565 shields with DG. I don't know of any traditional int-stacking paladin who runs those levels of SP, Illustration or not. And until 3165 Intellect is obtainable on gear, Sheath will continue to contribute more spellpower through raid buffs alone than Holy Guidance.
I'm interested in how you record logs of your damage absorption, since combat logs do not currently track absorption. Where are you getting the 3100 numbers?
2850 SP is:
75% SP = 2137.5 + 500 = 2637.5 + 20% from DG = 3165.
I just took a look at logs. There is absorbtion. However it is not divided trough player's spells. I calculated exact number of how much i should absorb with my Spell Power and i found those numbers in logs.
I see that there was a second holy paladin casting SS's as well. Presumably on a fight like Hodir, you were both placing them on the MT. More than likely the wonky/unconfirmed SS stacking is what caused it to look like your shields were absorbing almost double their standard amount.
From my testing of SS, it doesn't stack in the proper sense. You can get both shields active, but a hit will eat through only one of them, and only the next hit can use the next shield.
The reason the absorption seems so high is because the best guess is really not that good at all. He's just assuming the last shield to get applied will be the last to absorb the damage, and I don't really think that's how it works.
2850 SP is:
75% SP = 2137.5 + 500 = 2637.5 + 20% from DG = 3165.
I just took a look at logs. There is absorbtion. However it is not divided trough player's spells. I calculated exact number of how much i should absorb with my Spell Power and i found those numbers in logs.
Wow, what a rookie mistake. I got so caught up in calculating the spellpower coefficents that I forgot to add back in the base 500 absorption.
New numbers as follows: 3,580 -> 3,822 absorbed per shield. 57,330 absorbed per minute per sacred shield cast with DG.
From my testing of SS, it doesn't stack in the proper sense. You can get both shields active, but a hit will eat through only one of them, and only the next hit can use the next shield.
Have also noticed while doing general vezax that if we have 3+ sacred shields on the tank then yes all can be active at the same time, but it seemed that another new one wasn't procing untill all were used/faded. Had alot of time to just stand and watch my DoTimer bars and was getting periods where it'd be 10-15 seconds after MY shield had faded before a new one would proc. May just be rng/avoidance streaks but it was pretty consistantly doing it so may be worth looking into.
@frmorrison: No. I didn't play back in classic, but in TBC, for as long as I can remember, mana ticked every 2 seconds. The wowwiki page hasn't been updated since June of 2008, way before WotLK, so it has TBC info.
As for WotLK, it clearly updates more often than that. I would say way more often than once a second. But I've no idea how to check. I got naked, that seems to update every tick. Even with 12 mp5, still seems to do the same. So it's definitely more often than once a second, even if it does skip the occasional tick.
Later edit: Also, mp5 seems to update the moment you switch gear in/out, not in 2 second ticks or whatnot. Of course, this is just me staying here looking at my mana values, no exact math. :-)
Guys, this isn't very hard to test. As Paladins, you don't have any talents that gives you spirit-based IFSR regen (like Meditation for Priests), so any regen you get IFSR is from mp5. So, cast a Sacred Shield on yourself. Do you get mana ticks rolling up more than once every second? OK, this indicates that client side, mp5 is spread out as opposed to being given to you in lumps every two or five seconds. Now spam Sacred Shield/BoK until you're OOM. Now spam BoK on yourself a few times. When are you able to cast BoK on yourself? Is it always within a few tenths of a second of getting enough mana to cast the spell on yourself or do you sometimes end up having to wait a second or more before you can rebuff? If it's the former, then that indicates that mana regen is updated every 0.1s on the backend as well as on your client. If it's the latter... well, it isn't the latter as any rogue can probably tell you.
#
# We modified the system for displaying power bars in Wrath of the Lich King to have the client display its best guess of how much power they have, which is very deterministic for mana or energy, but not so much for rage.
An apparent "double standard" exists because the game has far fewer healing specs than damage specs. Most 25-player raids are going to have a diversity of healers so it's okay in our minds for them to have more discrete niches. While there are many fights where single-target damage is not particularly useful, there are very, very few fights that are not tanked, and therefore where single-target healing is not particularly useful. Besides, while the paladin niche may be single-target healing, when I look at raid stats, nearly all of them are managing to heal people besides the MT. I've run 10-player raids with 2 paladin healers plenty of times. It works fine.
Somehow I'm not getting the impression that he's run 10-man Ulduar with 2 paladin healers. Are there any reports of duo-healing Ulduar with only paladins? Let alone hard modes?
I must be missing some massively important fact. I do not understand how a pure paladin healing team can cover Mimiron phase 2, Hodir frozen blows, Kologarn raid damage, etc. And sure, it's unimportant because I only run 25-mans, but this still manifests itself as a hindrance to me. When it comes time to go on "of the Nightfall" or "Herald of the Titans" runs, you can't afford to take more than one holy paladin.
Most of all I find this comment very disheartening. To me it confirms that we will not receive raid healing tools certainly for the rest of this expansion, and probably throughout the next. If the design team's logic is "there is always going to be single target damage in a fight, so you don't need aoe heals" then it's pretty much settled. There's no real arguing with that.
No paladin is asking for Circle of Healing or Wild Growth (at least, I hope they're not, as it would ruin the distinctiveness of the class), but there needs to be some way for a paladin to be the worst raid healer while simultaneously being capable OF raid healing. Blizzard took great pains to ensure that shamans, priests, and druids COULD heal tanks this expansion, albeit as the worst tank healers. Thus it's completely illogical to me that paladins remain so utterly incapable of healing any real raid damage. The most we can do is snipe chain heal targets with a glyphed Holy Shock, and they didn't even provide a meaningful set bonus for that.
We've been very close to the cusp, but never quite managed to maintain it. 20-yard GoHL heals were overpowered. Crittable GoHL heals were NOT overpowered. Both have been nerfed, neither have ever been smarthealed, and we are necessitated to waste a glyph slot with them. It's not even a choice like "if you need more mana, you take SoW; if you need more throughput, you take SoL." There's no ifs, ands, or buts--if you're a holy paladin, you have 2 glyph slots to customize, because one of them must invariably be GoHL.
Somehow I'm not getting the impression that he's run 10-man Ulduar with 2 paladin healers. Are there any reports of duo-healing Ulduar with only paladins? Let alone hard modes?
I must be missing some massively important fact. I do not understand how a pure paladin healing team can cover Mimiron phase 2, Hodir frozen blows, Kologarn raid damage, etc. And sure, it's unimportant because I only run 25-mans, but this still manifests itself as a hindrance to me. When it comes time to go on "of the Nightfall" or "Herald of the Titans" runs, you can't afford to take more than one holy paladin.
Most of all I find this comment very disheartening. To me it confirms that we will not receive raid healing tools certainly for the rest of this expansion, and probably throughout the next. If the design team's logic is "there is always going to be single target damage in a fight, so you don't need aoe heals" then it's pretty much settled. There's no real arguing with that.
I cannot speak for the specific situations, not having two-healed them myself, but I am confident that paladin heals can take care of both Mimiron and Hodir, assuming that there are specfic assignments. Call me a meter padder, but the HPS/HPM of spamming a HL rotation on the raid with beacon on the tank is enough for any smart paladin to effectively double efficiency. There is no damage (thus far) that is SO intense that a paladin HL rotation among 5 players is not enough to keep them all, plus the tank, up. It is certainly a challenge in pre-nerf 25 man XT during tantrum, but even then, paladins have the ability to both tank and raid heal. (Note, we had a ret pally for awesome super radical JOL on steroids!)
Fights like Kologarn, in 10 man at least, can EASILY be 2-healed by paladins, assuming each was assigned to one specific group of people, and both keep JOL on the tank at all times. Consistent heavy raid damage, and knowing that your heal will not be clipped, allows paladins to become some of the fastest, most effective raid healers.
Somehow I'm not getting the impression that he's run 10-man Ulduar with 2 paladin healers. Are there any reports of duo-healing Ulduar with only paladins? Let alone hard modes?
I must be missing some massively important fact. I do not understand how a pure paladin healing team can cover Mimiron phase 2, Hodir frozen blows, Kologarn raid damage, etc. And sure, it's unimportant because I only run 25-mans, but this still manifests itself as a hindrance to me. When it comes time to go on "of the Nightfall" or "Herald of the Titans" runs, you can't afford to take more than one holy paladin.
Not to question your experience, but in 10mans 2 paladins could heal the fights, even most hardmodes with possible exceptions to freya/mimiron where the raid damage would probably be too much and too fast. Hodir frozen blows could potentially be healed by 1 paladin alone if the tank used partial frost gear (like most do). I usually run with a priest in 10man and often beacon the tank and do alot of raid healing on fights that require it.
Is it the optimal setup? hell no, but it isn't unthinkable either which is pretty much what GC was saying I feel.
I'm actually relieved to hear these opinions. Seems to me that I'm just suffering from a mental block assuming paladins can't heal XYZ scenario without actually trying it. If I'm understanding this properly though, general consensus is that we're not the suboptimal one-trick ponies we were in Burning Crusade, and any holdover from that is purely psychological.
At this point, raid healing as a holy paladin is less about the addition of new heals and more about the execution of our current ones.
Honestly paladins make quite decent raid healers in the current content. We will never have the massive AoE healing capacity that priests and to a lesser extent druids have, no, but just doing machine-gunned 1.3s holy lights is enough to get you to top meters on fights with favorable damage patterns. You have to be fast with it, and you will have to split up groups if you're doing 10 mans with two single target healers (pallies, shamans and disc priests -- yes, shamans are single target healers; their chain heal is completely defunct atm).
05/29/09, 8:38 AM
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