Non-holy pally healing gear

[swirly]

I play a prot pally. My tanking gear has started to approach the limit of what I can get from badges and so I have started to ponder buying badge healing gear. I need to know if any of it is worth spending badges on. I'm not looking at what would be good if I ever respeced to holy since I know I will never do that. Instead I'm looking at what would be good for when I heal as a prot pally.

I figure that the only way a person can decide if badge gear is worth getting, is to look at what other gear is available to them and then compare. So that is what I am doing. I've set up point values for various stats and then compared various purple gear to see which is best. Then I can look at how attainable each piece is for me and decide if the badge loot in the list is worth the investment. For now I am only considering heroic, 10 man, PvP, and badge gear. I could potentially add 25 man gear, but I figure that in most situations there is a better person for the gear to go to than myself.

So the first thing to do is consider what occassions I will have for healing.

1: Normal runs. In these cases it probably wouldn't matter too much if I use holy pally gear or prot pally healing gear. They are just too easy to matter.

2: Heroics. Gear could matter for healing in these, but odds are that if I had to heal a heroic I would just use my priest. So I'm not overly concerned with this. It could be a nice option though if it can be worked in easily. I don't really expect to be able to solo heal heroics, but I might try anyway. : )

3: Raids. Being prot, I'd be tanking most of the time. There are some fights where multiple tanks just aren't needed and so healing is what I would do instead. This situation would be the main focus of the gear. It is a situation where we already have main healers and I would be mostly just helping out where I can. As a prot healer I run out of mana very quick if I use my big heals. Therefore I generally am casting flash of light. Most raid encounters have some form of raid damage which means I can expect incoming heals on myself from other healers and thus some mana returns from that.

So here are the point values I'm looking at.

10 +heal = 8 haste = 4 mp5 = 30 crit = 20 sta = 30 int

The way I am calculating things is I am taking the stat value on an item and dividing it by the point value above. I am then adding all the resulting totals together to get a score for the item. For items with gem slots I am assuming that +18 heal gems will be used in all slots unless the bonus is +9 healing and there is only 1 non-red slot to fill in which case I would be using either +9 healing/+4 int or +9 healing/+2 mp5 depending on the socket color. Meta slots I am currently counting as +26 healing even though it is quite possible that other meta gems would be better for me.

So with all of that being said. Here is the resulting spreadsheet.

I figure that the ratios I am using are bound to be wrong and so I'm hoping to see some discussion on what people think more correct values would be. Feel free to also comment on if there would be a better way for me to calculate things or anything else that you think would be useful. I kind of just threw this together for my own benefit and then figured I might as well post it on here to get thoughts/improvements/suggestions. Also figured that there was a slim chance it could be useful to others.

[WimpySmurf]

As a holy healer I've tended to use this for my points system:

1 heal = 1pt
1 mp5 = 4pt
1 crit = 2pt
1 int = 1pt

But I get +heal & crit out of Int so it's much more useful to me, since crit is both more +heal and mp5 from talents.

I'd think for a Prot Pally in healing gear you'd want to stack mp5 & heal. So I'd adjust your values to make mp5 more important because if you don't have mana you can't use it.

Haste rating is probably rated a little to high for a Prot pally since all it will do is help you use up the mana you do have. I do understand it'll let you increase your HPS but I'm not sure if HPS is what is needed out of a Prot Pally in healing gear.


So I'd think you'd want to look at something like:

10 heal = 5 Haste = 5 mp5 = 30 crit = 20 sta = 30 int

I haven't really thought through the sta & int ratios but they're at a rating that I don't think it affects your table very much other then causing well rounded gear to sit above gear loaded with single stat.

-WimpySmurf

[swirly]

So I'd think you'd want to look at something like:

10 heal = 5 Haste = 5 mp5 = 30 crit = 20 sta = 30 int

I think you probably mean something more like

10 heal = 11 Haste = 3 mp5 = 30 crit = 20 sta = 30 int

With the way I am doing things, the higher the number the less a stat is valued. Say you have 10 mp5 on an item. 10/5=2 item points for that mp5 with what you said. 10/3=3.33 item points for that mp5 with what I think you meant. So the lower the number in the scale, the more it is worth on an item.

I'm not sure I agree that mp5 needs to be prioritized more, but I'm going to take some time to think about it and let others comment on the subject before I explain my thinking too much. : )

[Concillian]

Meta slots I am currently counting as +26 healing even though it is quite possible that other meta gems would be better for me.

Meta slots should probably be treated as 12 INT + incredibly awesome proc

Insightful earthstorm is 5% proc for 300 mana. Average is 300 mana per 20 casts, or 15 mana per cast on average. In terms of MP5, the value varies some depending on how much you cast. If spamming (cast every 1.5 seconds) this averages 50 MP5. Even if you cast more moderately (every 3 seconds) it's still a rather healthy 25 MP5.

Well worth varying your socketed slots a little in order to get this gem activated.

Also on socketing, the blue text heal / MP5 gem is over-value. In fact, any blue text half / half gem with MP5 is overvalue because the actual gem value would have it at 1.x MP5, but they roudned up to 2.0 MP5.

As such, generally socketing is done so that blue and red and "I don't care about socket bonus" sockets get Royal Nightseye (+9 heal / 2MP5). Then 2 sockets somewhere are chosen for INT / MP5 gems (or Heal / MP5) to make the meta requirements. This will go a long way in helping with the mana issues that any pally without illumination is going to have.

[Kevin]

Note skip to the last 2 paragraphs if you want my numbers and not my other musings


As I play around with various builds I've not yet healed with a build that wasn't at least 20 deep in holy (I'm currently a build like that but I haven't done any real healing with it) so I've done most of my healing having most of the highest value holy talents.

You are going to run into a couple of issues that paladins with points in holy don't generally worry about. The first is stutter while casting. There is enough AoE damage or random targeted damage in the situations that you look to be healing in that it could matter. Oddly enough when you are dealing with stutter it's probably when your extra healing will help the most for the other healers. :)

No illumination really starts to devalue intellect and spell crit. While int gives your more mana and thus a little more longevity as any spec when you have illumination it directly translate to +MP/5 and then if you get deeper in the tree it becomes +healing too. It's a very nice stat for holy pallies. For you, like you seem to be saying not so much. But as Conc says you should probably get the +12 int / chance on mana when you cast. Keep in mind that when you auto refresh a seal as a paladin just from swinging at a mob that this counts as a cast. So you can get 300 mana just from swinging at a mob that you previously judged. Good deal in my book and since cleansing doesn't reset your swing timer if you are helping out with debuff curing this is even nicer as not only are you spamming a spell every GCD you are also getting extra casts as you whack at the mob that you judged something on.

Oh and yes as a prot pally that is helping with healing you really should be trying to be somewhere where you are keeping some sort of judgement on the mob while throwing spot heals. Nightbane for example in Kara. If for some reason you are on a run with a prot warrior or another prot pally (I know we try not to take to actual tank specs into Kara anymore because there is no point) and you aren't tanking Nightbane, you should be up with the melee keeping judgement of wisdom on him if you are the only pally there or judgement of the crusader if it's another pally tank and they are keeping up wisdom, or whatever. Besides the 150 - 200 DPS that auto attack + seal of righteousness gives is better than not adding any or just the 60 or so of autoattack and running seal of wisdom and if you take extra damage, oh well, heal yourself and it's not really costing the raid anything.

Since you probably aren't being counted on for heals anyway keeping the judgement up can be way more helpful. Even on something like Maiden where too many people get way too nervous about her little chain effect than I think they should, get in there and whack at her and keep judgement of light of up, the healing that gives the melee is pretty significant and it will mean you are always woken up after a repent just in case the other healers don't dance it right. Better that you move out and heal the tank if all the other healers missed the dance than an enh shaman who can do real DPS. Besides you can still generally cleanse even with the silence affect, at least I know I managed it on Girly a couple of times.

Anyway that isn't gear. I agree that MP/5 isn't the biggest need. Your job more often than not is probably to hit your crappy little flash of light (and it's crappy as prot, it's not even that great as holy with over 1500 +heal I got used to my 1.5s cast doing over 2K healing from my shaman, not 1300 or so....) to help stabilize the most injured targets until one of the heal spec folks can get a heal on them. You are basically acting like a HoT that is moving to the most critical target. The other job you might have is to blow your mana with holy light for 20-30s to let a heal spec just sit and regen. Even a shaman will likely pick up 100 - 200 MP/5 while not casting and it can be nice. After you are pretty much OOM for letting them regen you can go whack away with judged wisdom and running wisdom and get some mana back to throw spot heals.

If you actually plan to heal a heroic as prot spec and not take your priest (you really want the rep or there is a drop or something) then yeah you will need MP/5. The pally healing game is quite different for me than the shaman or priest game.

A holy pally can do AMAZING throughput on a single target (2s cast heals that smack for 5K healing without a crit when I'm only at 1500 +heal is very good but it will also suck me dry really fast). A holy pally also has AMAZING efficiency on a single target but it's very poor throughput. I get like 13 HP / mana on flash of light, but it's only like 1K HP/s. Holy Light off the top of my head is like 6 HP / mana but I can get like 3300 HP/s. I'm not holy spec right now so I can't look at what Dr. Damage shows for that, but it seemed to be something like that (and the mod factors in crits and meta gem procs and such). As prot those drop to like 850 HP/s at 7 HP/mana for flash and 1500 HP/s at 4.5 for holy light (remember holy pallies get 2s holy light vs 2.5 after that first cast and I will over 'prime' that buff with a downranked HL early on).

You will not have either of the pally strengths. And I know as a shaman healer, the efficiency of my heals aren't hugely different so I choose the heal based on how much damage I need to heal and how many people may need to be healed and how much time I have, even when I'm enh spec and healing my choices pretty much are the same. As resto if Krash was in gear like Girly has, LHW is around 1400 HP/s and 5 HP/mana. Healing Wave is about 1700 (2000 with healing way stacked) and 6.2 (7.5 with way stacked). Chain (if it hits all the targets) is about 2K and 9.5. Chain still tends to be as mana efficient as HW if you only hit 1 target (and way isn't stacked) but the HP/s drops off a good bit. But the variance on HP/s and MP/HP is a lot smaller for a shaman than for a pally. The same holds true for priests as well. Oh when I'm enh spec the numbers for LHW and HW don't really change much (since I still tend to get improved healing wave talent for more cast speed as enh and I still tend to get the 5% cheaper heals too since I like the 3% hit talent and I don't really care much about cheaper totems, armor from a crit heal or better self rez). Chain Heal loses like 30% of it's +healing so it takes a noticable hit, and actually just ends up being even closer to the others.

So unlike an enh shaman in resto gear (where you have about as much AP as int so you end up with just about the same +healing as if you were resto) and where you don't really change your regen that much and where you don't really change the ratios of HP/s and HP/MP that much a pally really does. If you are going to be doing a real healing job and not just healing because it's better than trying to DPS then you want MP/5 and +healing and who cares about anything else.

It's doubtful you'll have the throughput or longevity to do any serious healing since your longevity gets pretty much cut in half compared to a holy pally and you lose about 40% of your throughput. You'll make up both of those faster via +heal and +MP/5 than you will from anything else. +heal helps the MP/HP and may let you /stopcasting heals a bit more which makes the mana pool go a few more seconds (it's not like a priest where it also gives you more chance at huge regen ticks). You get enough MP/5 and you can keep throwing those little smooth the bump heals out.

I actually think that something like 10 heal = 15 Haste = 4 mp5 = 25 crit = 30 sta = 25 int might be a better way to go. Int is still better than stam. You only really need enough stam to get to an acceptable level and since you will have the prot talents you need even less than a holy pally might. More int = more base time till OOM and a bit more throughput. Same with crit.

Again I agree with Conc on gemming. And while I do like MP/5 more than you, as prot you are generally a bit safer going in and whacking since your job will likely not have you spam healing as much, so extend the mana pool with seal of wisdom/judgement of wisdom.

[swirly]

Also on socketing, the blue text heal / MP5 gem is over-value. In fact, any blue text half / half gem with MP5 is overvalue because the actual gem value would have it at 1.x MP5, but they roudned up to 2.0 MP5.

As such, generally socketing is done so that blue and red and "I don't care about socket bonus" sockets get Royal Nightseye (+9 heal / 2MP5). Then 2 sockets somewhere are chosen for INT / MP5 gems (or Heal / MP5) to make the meta requirements. This will go a long way in helping with the mana issues that any pally without illumination is going to have.

My problem with the 9/2 gems is that when you apply the point system to them, they pretty much always lose out. I fully believe you that they are over-value according to how blizzard does things. The problem is that what blizzard considers the proper ratio and what is correct for a prot pally healing is different. GG and I both ended up with 10 +heal = 4 mp5. I believe wimpy meant 10 +heal = 3 mp5 since that favors mp5 more than what he said. So let me use the 10=3 scale for the example since it favors mp5 more than what I think should be.

We have 18 heal vs 9 heal and 2 mp5 on gems. 18/10=1.8 which would be the value of the red gem according to the scale. For the other gem we have 9/10+2/3=1.5667 as the score. So we have 1.8 vs 1.5667 which means that the +18 heal is better even according to the scale that I think favors mp5 too much. If you go to the 10=4 scale then you end up with 1.8 vs 1.5 and so the +18 heal is even more ahead. Now if you gain a socket bonus that gives more mp5 or +heal then the values are close enough that the 9/2 gem pushes ahead. 2.23333 vs 1.8 on the 10/3 scale and 1.9 vs 1.8 on the 10/4 scale for a 2 mp5 socket bonus.

Lets say you had an item with 2 blue sockets and a +2 mp5 bonus. That ends up with 18 +heal and 6 mp5. So with the 10/3 scale that is 18/10 + 6/3=3.8. An 18 in both slots is 36/10=3.6. So on the 10/3 scale the double 9/2 is slightly ahead due to the bonus. On the 10/4 scale you end up with 18/10+6/4=3.3 vs 36/10=3.6 so now even with the bonus the 9/2 gem loses.

So basically the numbers seem to say that in the best case 9/2 gems are only worth it if you can get a bonus for using them. Now using them to activate the meta you mention is probably enough of a bonus to make it worthwhile. On their own though, I just don't see them as better than the pure 18 +heal gems. It can also be argued that the scale is simply wrong, but well...that is the point of this thread.

I should probably go back through the list of items and switch out some of the gems for 9/2 ones where there are bonus's to be gained. My gut tells me there were very few cases where that was the case. I recall many of the items having a red, yellow, and blue slot on them. In those cases you can't get a socket bonus that makes it worthwhile to not use 3 +18 gems. At least without putting some kind of purple quality gem in the yellow slot. Even then you are looking at (on 10/3)...(18+11+9)/10 + 4/3+5/=5.1333 vs (18+18+18)/10=5.4 Now that ignores the int from the purple gem, but even if we value the int super low at 20 we end up with...5/20=0.25 so 5.38 vs 5.4 which means the three 18 +heal gems win even with a purple quality gem in the yellow slot and using the scale that favors mp5 more.

I may go back through the spreadsheet and think of a way to represent gems seperate so that I can change them easier and see which items have them, but I'm still not sold on the 9/2 gems except as a means to activate the meta.

[Taelas]

The plain and simple fact is, if you don't focus on MP5, you won't have a mana pool to sustain you through longer encounters, even assuming you auto-attack for JoW/SoW (which will take away from your healing). MP5 is the only solid passive mana regen a non-Holy paladin has while healing.

[Mordekhuul]

My healing experience is entirely in 25 mans. Anything below that I main tank it. In kara, in fact, paladins can solo tank almost every encounter, which is pretty fun.

At first, in collecting healing gear I focused pretty hard on mana per 5, figuring I'd need it for longevity in raids where I'm not tanking.

Turns out, I really don't. When I heal I'm the 8th healer, or even a 9th healer on a fight like Najentus where our elemental shaman heals as well.

The most healing intensive fight is Najentus, that I heal, and I don't run out of mana when I'm full prot, assuming some mana pot use, and I never stop casting, honestly. I FoL throughout the encounter, with one exception. Once tidal shield is up and the raid is topped, I start casting Holy Light on one of my assigned target as soon as the call to break the shield goes out. In this way my HL is hitting just after the shield breaks, and I toss off 2-3 more HL's in the 10s window before Najentus starts using her raid damaging abilities again, and then go back to FoL spam.

No mana issues on that one.

The second fight I heal on is Supremus. We typically have a bear and a 2nd prot warrior with us, so I prefer to simply heal rather than be a 4th tank or MT. In that case, I focus on helping keep the two off-tanks topped off, and use holy light a good deal more than I'd like. Even then, with mana pots, I don't run into mana issues.

Finally, on Gorefiend (first kill last night!), I'm an 8th healer, since it is a one tank fight. I do very little raid healing, and hover over Grid waiting for someone to get nailed with the fire damage spell that does damage over time after an initial few thousand damage, because it is easy to lose someone if you don't dispel it almost instantly (much like on Maiden of virtue back when we were undergeared). Easiest fight on mana of the three.

I'd imagine, as mentioned above, that heroics are the place you really have mana issues to worry about, honestly, though I've never gone in as a healer.

Incidentally, to help fit an extra tank into our Vashj + Gorefiend kills last night, I decided to fill a pure healer position, but I spec'd 42/19/0 holy for the first time ever, which was a fun change of pace =)

[Taelas]

As long as you're 8th or 9th, no, it wouldn't be an issue. Healing needs only be sufficient; after you've reached that point with any number of healers, adding additional healers won't really add anything (other than ease slightly up on the other healers).

But if you have to replace a healer, you have to focus on MP5.

[Pantalaimon]

As long as you're 8th or 9th, no, it wouldn't be an issue. Healing needs only be sufficient; after you've reached that point with any number of healers, adding additional healers won't really add anything (other than ease slightly up on the other healers).

But if you have to replace a healer, you have to focus on MP5.

To be fair, this discussion is pertaining directly to the OP's original situation - raids where he tanks some fights or perhaps trash, and then does a gearswap for the bosses where tanking is not required. So essentially he'd always be an 8th or 9th healer and/or cleansebot.

Don't get me wrong, I wish our holy pallies would focus more on longevity and less on HPS:P But I'm tempted to bow to Mordekhuul's experience in this matter, since his situation is exactly what Swirly had in mind.

[swirly]

I updated the spreadsheet for those who may be interested in it. Gems are now seperated from the gear so they can be modified on the fly much easier. I also pointed all the numbers in formulas to specific fields so that if one decided to change the scale, they would only have to change one field. This makes it easier to see what going from 10 heal=4 mp5 to 10 heal=3 mp5 does to the scores. I've also done some sorting of the list so it is ordered by score. Haven't figured out how to make it resort on a value change, but not even sure that is possible. : )

Link is the same as before, but here it is again. The spreadsheet

[Pantalaimon]

Haven't figured out how to make it resort on a value change, but not even sure that is possible. : )

Link is the same as before, but here it is again. The spreadsheet

This may be a little advanced for this application, but if you have time or are interested, there are hooks in Excel that allow you to perform macros on Events, such as worksheet changes. A quick google gave this, which is actually quite a decent explanation and better than I could manage off the cuff:

Code:

Event macros are triggered by an Event and are installed differently from regular macros.  These Worksheet Event macros apply only to the sheet they are installed in.

The sort will be invoked upon sheet activation and on double click by use of Event macros.

As coded below the macro will sort the rows between the top row (header row), and the last row that has something in column A.  The technique to lookup from the bottom is also used on one of my toolbar buttons
      personal.xls!GotoBottomofCurrentColumn
    (see my macros for my toolbar buttons)

To install these worksheet event macros. Right click on the sheetname, View code, insert the following:
         
    A    B    C    D    E    F
1     Who      -B-     -C-     -D-      Qty     -F-
2      Guy 2     1      30      14       6      39
3      Guy 4     44      14      94       8      77
4      Guy 1     23      67      58       9      16
5      Guy 3     65      56      68       96      64
6      Totals      133      167       234      119      196

Private Sub Worksheet_Activate()
  Dim LRow As Long    '-- SORT on Col E then A
  'Find row before last row in Column A with content
   LRow = Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Offset(-1, 0).Row
   Rows("2:" & LRow).Sort Key1:=Range("E2"), _
      Order1:=xlAscending, Key2:=Range("A2"), _
      Order2:=xlAscending, Header:=xlNo, _
      OrderCustom:=1, MatchCase:=False, _
      Orientation:=xlTopToBottom
End Sub

Private Sub Worksheet_BeforeDoubleClick(ByVal Target As Range, _
      Cancel As Boolean)
  Cancel = True   'get out of edit mode from DoubleClick
  Worksheet_Activate
End Sub

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/sorting.htm
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/event.htm

Basically I find it best to assume that Excel can do nearly anything until proven otherwise! :D

[Concillian]

Basically I find it best to assume that Excel can do nearly anything until proven otherwise! :D

With enough VB experience this is pretty much true. Short of trying to be a database app, excel can do just about anything, in all but a few cases it does it will less user friendliness, polish and ease than just about any other program that can do it, but everyone has it...

[swirly]

I'm not sure I agree that mp5 needs to be prioritized more, but I'm going to take some time to think about it and let others comment on the subject before I explain my thinking too much. : )

I suppose that I should get off my butt and actually post what is going through my mind. I start with thinking of the fights where I have been best used in a heal role. Maiden, Nightbane (situationally depending on group comp), Eagle boss, Whoever that spine throwing boss in BT is, Leo the blind...thats all that comes to mind right this moment.

Maiden: I'm pretty much useless on this fight. I'm usually told to help dispel and heal so as to minimize the number of people in melee. With my fps I'm rarely fast enough to dispel before somebody else does. I can throw heals to help out some, but typically the fight is so easy that I could just stand and do nothing and things would go mostly the same. Basically we are just too over-geared here for this fight to matter.

Nightbane: Occassionally it is decided that a raid group is a bit light on healing and so I should help out healing on this fight instead of tanking. Generally I also am asked to gather up the skeletons while he flies as well, but I can do that fine in healing gear. The last time I helped heal on this fight I was pretty much able to spam FoL on the tank for the whole fight without running out of mana. This is probably due to how much mana I regain from being healed through the skeleton phase. So the most useful thing here is making my FoL hit for as much as possible. Course it is kara and so it doesn't really matter anyway. Runs are generally just straight stomps of the place anymore unless we are really over-loaded with 2nd or 3rd alts.

Eagle Boss: Typically there are two tanks and two healers in a ZA run. The general feeling for eagle is that it is best to have the other tank tank him and for me to assist on healing. There is enough damage going around in this fight that I can drop FoLs pretty much forever. Last time I did this fight there were some learning issues as well though which meant I had to drop bigger heals more than I would like in order to keep people up. So thus I did find myself running out of mana near the end of the fight. Normally I don't think that should be an issue, but it does point out that it isn't a bad thing to have some extra mp5 tp recover from that.

Leo: The last time I did this fight I recall not having any mana problems at all. There is probably enough damage going around from inner demons or whatever that I get plenty of mana back to FoL forever. Plus we have so much extra healing typically that I end up spending some time not even casting cause nobody needs healed. Its basically a fight where there are periods of healing and then periods of doing nothing. So bigger heals would be the most helpful here for the periods of healing. Its doubtful that it makes much difference either way though.

Spine throwing boss in BT: This is yet another fight where I can pretty much FoL forever and in fact can even throw some big heals in once and a while without running dry. This is basically due to the amount of damage going out in this fight. Everytime he does the whole everybody takes 9k thing I'm going to end up topped off on mana from getting healed. Not to meantion if I happen to get a spine in me which means I get healed even more. So mana is a non-issue in this fight. The biggest benefit for me here is being able to keep people topped off so that we can break the shield as quick as possible. This probably means bigger FoL to keep people full and faster ones to bring them up faster if they are marginal (meaning not needing a big heal).

So looking at the situations where I end up healing it would seem that mana is normally not an issue. Now this is partly due to the kind of healing I am doing. If I sit there and throw big heals then I will go dry. That is pretty pointless though expect for odd emergencies. Pretty much all I do is spam FoL endlessly and dispel where necessary. Now these fights also seem to all have a raid damage component which means that I'm going to be gaining enough mana back to be able to cast FoL forever. So thus all the experience I have had so far seems to say that +heal is the most important thing and mp5 is useful for emergency recovery, but generally not too important. So with all this being said, I'm going to go through the ratings one by one.

10 +heal = 8 haste = 4 mp5 = 30 crit = 20 sta = 30 int

10 +heal: I use this as my baseline stat. So no real thought into it by itself. It is used for comparing to everything else.

8 haste: This one I really don't have much of a feel for. I have pretty much 0 experience with it. I read somewhere that for a dps class +1 haste is better than +1 spell damage. Does this relate to healing? I'm not really sure. I figure faster heals are more thoroughput though. So I ended up deciding to just call it even with +heal. So that would be 10 +heal = 10 haste. Now thinking about my heal experence so far I find myself mentioning emergency moments some. In an emergency I need to be able to dump as much healing as possible in as little time as possible. With having no holy talents, my big heal is really slow and can be stuttered to be even slower. So my thinking is that maybe haste should be valued slightly better than +heal just for those emergency moments where it can help counteract that lack of talents a small bit. Thus why I knocked a few points off of the scale so it became 10 +heal = 8 haste. Is this what it should be? I really don't know. For me this stat is the biggest question mark. Both wimpy and GG said I was over-valuing it. So I'm really wondering if I should rethink this one some. I'm really unsure here.

4 mp5: My experience so far has been that in fights where I need to heal, I can pretty much spam FoL for the whole fight with my current gear. This makes me think that mana regen isn't all that important for the role I play healing. I do believe that a baseline level is required though. So the trick here is what value of mp5 gets me to that baseline. So I ask myself...if I had a choice between 10 heal and 3 mp5 which would I choose? For some reason it helps me to look at bigger numbers so..how about 100 heal vs 30 mp5? Looking at that, I'm drawn towards the 100 heal. How about 100 heal vs 40 mp5? Here I really start to be more torn. So thus it seems to be about the break even point for me. So taking it back to the small numbers that gives us 10 heal = 4 mp5.

30 crit: Crit pretty much does nothing for me other than add a little bit of throughput. Since my heals tend to be smaller, quite often my crits aren't overheals...or at least not as often as happens with big heals. So there is still some use to crit, but it isn't valued anywhere near as much as for a holy paladin. I'm actually tempted to devalue it even more than it currently is. Maybe something like 10 heal = 40 crit. Doing the same exercise as with mp5 is where I end up at the 30 though. If I were given the choice between 10 heal and 40 crit, I'd take the crit every time. Given the choice between 10 heal and 30 crit I start to be more quesitonable. So thus it feels like the value is somewhere around there.

20 stam: I've heard conc rant many a time about how people undervalue stam (especially priests..which I'm guilty of myself on mine hehe) and so this is a bit of a nod towards that. The times when I have felt the most useful healing as prot are the times when the other healers have found themselves dead for some reason and my tiny heals ended up being enough to finish things off. So basically it seems to me an important part of being a healer is actually staying alive. Now GG is right that being prot I do have some built in advantages and so may not need to value stam quite as much as I do. What it really comes down to though is the same question as the previous examples. If I had to choose between 10 heal and 30 stam which would I choose? Probably the 30 stam. If I had to choose between 10 heal and 20 stam which would I choose? Possibly the heal, but I'm not really sure. So thus I feel the value is somewhere around there. Maybe inch it up to 25 instead of 20, but something around there seems right.

30 int: Int tends to be a stat that I often ignore. I'm going to end up with enough of it on items to not really even have to consider it. I also am not sure I really care much about it adding extra casts of a heal. This is because I feel that I'm not going to run dry anyway. I kind of look at my mana as something where as I heal people it drops, but then I also take some damage and so it goes back up. So it kind of fluctuates between 60-80%. Its rarely ever full, but it rarely ever runs out either. Still...it doesn't hurt to have it and while I say that I'm going to end up with it anyway, its probably good to account for it some. So thus I ask the usual question and the place where I seem to be questionable in the choice is 10 heal = 30 int.

So that is the reasoning behind the numbers I've been using. As I said above, haste is the stat that I really have the least clue about. The rest of them I can see going a bit one way or the other, but haste I could see being completely wrong (or completely right).

Also, since the meta gem choice was brought up, I should mention that I've been convinced that Insightful earthstorm is in fact the way to go if you have a helm with a meta in it. While I do devalue mp5, its not to a degree that I can neglect the fact that that gem is insane.

[Kevin]

I suppose that I should get off my butt and actually post what is going through my mind. I start with thinking of the fights where I have been best used in a heal role. Maiden, Nightbane (situationally depending on group comp), Eagle boss, Whoever that spine throwing boss in BT is, Leo the blind...thats all that comes to mind right this moment.

Yeah I really don't know the state of your healing gear. I actually assumed you were at around 1500 healing, 100 MP/5 while casting and about 8K HP, unbuffed. Reading what you mentioned about the fights lines up mostly with my thinking though, which I think it's why MP/5 falls in line with what you are thinking. However if you do think you might heal a heroic, it needs more value. That is about all there is on that.

10 +heal = 8 haste = 4 mp5 = 30 crit = 20 sta = 30 int

10 heal = 15 Haste = 4 mp5 = 25 crit = 30 sta = 25 int

A few things that you might not be thinking about.

22.08 crit rating = 1% crit. So I'm basically saying you need a bit more than 1% (1.132) crit to = +10 heal. I feel good about that. You are saying 1.359. I know that nothing is nicer than seeing that crit heal when you really need it. Sure, sure more +heal means it's not as big of a deal. But I like crits. That could be the shaman in me and the fact I've healed a lot as holy spec and just can't let it go. The armor buff from the shaman heals is noticable. It's a small difference but I think it fits better.

80 int = 1% crit. So 25 int = .3125% crit and 375 mana. Flash of Light costs 180 mana. So my number is basically saying that 2 more flash of light casts + .3125% crit is worth +10 healing. You at 30 are saying you want .375% crit and 450 mana (or 2.5 more FoL casts till dry). Not a huge difference on our numbers again.

Now with haste.

FoL = 1.5s cast. FoL with 8 haste rating = 1.492s cast (you can use http://haste.lastliberty.org/spellcalc.php to just get the numbers quick, it's german but shouldn't be an issue to understand if you only speak/read english). 15 haste rating = 1.486s cast. And yes with the changes haste will lower the GCD down to 1s. But it still caps at 1s on the GCD. You'll note in practical terms there isn't a lot of difference there. Lets look at bigger values. Lets look at 60 vs 24. 1.445 vs 1.477. I'm saying you want to be to a 1.445 cast to give up 40 healing. You are saying a 1.477 to give up 40 healing. OK why for me? Again for me this could be because I still /stopcasting a lot while healing. That means the haste rating is only good for getting that first heal there.

Let's say your FoL hits for 1300. Flash of Light get 42.86% of your +healing per cast. Lets look at really big numbers. 100 healing vs 150 haste rating or 80 haste rating. 1.369 cast or 1.427 cast.

So that base throughput (with 0% crit) is 1300 / 1.5 = 866.66 HP/s

100 healing: 1343 / 1.5 = 895.22 HP/s
150 haste: 1300 / 1.369 = 949.60 HP/s
80 haste; 1300 / 1.427 = 911 HP/s

Maybe I undervalue it too much. Your value gives you similar throughput and maybe I'm considering stopcasting too much. The more you sit around the less value the haste has. The more times you stop a cast or just don't cast the less value haste has. The values above are just comparing pure spamming of FoL without any crit factored in.

Anyway that should help you nail down what you think about it better I hope.

And finally stam. Staying alive matters and I do value stam a fair bit on my healers, I often put on PvP healing gear depending on the fight but on some fights it doesn't matter much at all, on others it's a big deal. For the content we are in right now, I like to get to 9K unbuffed once I'm there having more doesn't really matter that much. That's why I lowered it's value.

My values aren't that different than yours. Stam and haste have the biggest difference, I agree on the MP/5 and my crit and int values are minor tweaks. You can just have your spreadsheet factor in just what a spam situation will look like if you really want to find out better values. You can get the haste formula here: http://www.wowwiki.com/Spell_haste_rating

When I gave my values they were more gut feel than any kind of rigorous math. :) I did more math in this post than I did when I was thinking about them. I really should have done the math first. :)

[swirly]

Now with haste.

FoL = 1.5s cast. FoL with 8 haste rating = 1.492s cast (you can use http://haste.lastliberty.org/spellcalc.php to just get the numbers quick, it's german but shouldn't be an issue to understand if you only speak/read english). 15 haste rating = 1.486s cast. And yes with the changes haste will lower the GCD down to 1s. But it still caps at 1s on the GCD. You'll note in practical terms there isn't a lot of difference there. Lets look at bigger values. Lets look at 60 vs 24. 1.445 vs 1.477. I'm saying you want to be to a 1.445 cast to give up 40 healing. You are saying a 1.477 to give up 40 healing. OK why for me? Again for me this could be because I still /stopcasting a lot while healing. That means the haste rating is only good for getting that first heal there.

Let's say your FoL hits for 1300. Flash of Light get 42.86% of your +healing per cast. Lets look at really big numbers. 100 healing vs 150 haste rating or 80 haste rating. 1.369 cast or 1.427 cast.

So that base throughput (with 0% crit) is 1300 / 1.5 = 866.66 HP/s

100 healing: 1343 / 1.5 = 895.22 HP/s
150 haste: 1300 / 1.369 = 949.60 HP/s
80 haste; 1300 / 1.427 = 911 HP/s

Maybe I undervalue it too much. Your value gives you similar throughput and maybe I'm considering stopcasting too much. The more you sit around the less value the haste has. The more times you stop a cast or just don't cast the less value haste has. The values above are just comparing pure spamming of FoL without any crit factored in.

Anyway that should help you nail down what you think about it better I hope.

I have no idea where I will end up with this post, but I want to do some math on haste and so figure I might as well share whatever I do.

First I'm going to compare 100 haste to 100 heal so as to see how they relate on a 1:1 scale. In addition let us look at different FoL values: 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500. So basically a range of really bad gear to really good gear.

100 healing

100 * 0.4286 = 42.86 healing added to each FoL.

542.86h / 1.5s = 361.9067h/s
1042.86h / 1.5s = 695.24h/s
1542.86h / 1.5s = 1028.5733h/s
2042.86h / 1.5s = 1361.8867h/s
2542.86h / 1.5s = 1695.24h/s

100 haste

New Casting Time = (Base Casting Time * 1570) / (1570 + Spell Haste Rating)

New Casting Time = (1.5 * 1570) / (1570 + 100)

New Casting Time = 2355 / 1670 = 1.41

500h / 1.41s = 354.6099h/s
1000h / 1.41s = 709.2199h/s
1500h / 1.41s = 1063.8298h/s
2000h / 1.41s = 1418.4397h/s
2500h / 1.41s = 1773.0496h/s

Haste - Heal = Gain from haste

500: 354.6099h/s - 361.9067h/s = -7.2968
1000: 709.2199h/s - 695.24h/s = 13.9799
1500: 1063.8298h/s - 1028.5733h/s = 35.2565
2000: 1418.4397h/s - 1361.8867h/s = 56.553
2500: 1773.0496h/s - 1695.24h/s = 77.8096

So assuming that your heals hit for at least 1000, haste will do more for you per point than heal. With Blessing of Light my FoL are hitting for around 1200 currently with no enchants (except glyph), green quality gems (that are going for socket bonus that they shouldn't be going for), a couple items still blue (ring and cloak), and some of the purples not being what the sheet would say I would need. So I think fixing some of that should easily get my FoLs to 1500.

Baseline: 1500h / 1.5s = 1000h/s
100 Heal: 1542.86h / 1.5s = 1028.5733h/s
100 Haste: 1500h / 1.41s = 1063.8298h/s

Gain from base

100 Heal: 1028.5733h/s - 1000h/s = 28.5733 h/s
100 Haste: 1063.8298h/s - 1000h/s = 63.8298 h/s

So at 1500 FoLs you have 2.25 times the HPS from haste as from heal. This makes me wonder if the ratio shouldn't be 10 heal = 4.5 haste. Now we do have that assumed 1500 heal built in so I'm thinking we probably want to round that up to 5 haste in order to favor heal slightly more. So 10 heal = 5 haste. Also, assuming that FoL is being spammed non-stop, haste has a built in negative effect on mana whereas heal doesn't. We could take this into account by lowering the rating for mp5 or by raising the rating of haste. I don't like changing mp5 to accomodate for more haste so I think that the correct path is to raise the rating of haste. How much though? I'm thinking maybe add 2 points for a mana penalty. So that brings us to 10 heal = 7 haste.

I said in a previous post that I might consider 10 heal = 25 stam and the more I've thought about it the more I've agreed with that. So I'm going to go ahead and incorporate that as well. So this leaves me at.

10 +heal = 7 haste = 4 mp5 = 30 crit = 25 sta = 30 int

I suppose I should look at the other values since GG commented on them and my net is acting up too much to do anything else anyway.

22.08 crit rating = 1% crit. So I'm basically saying you need a bit more than 1% (1.132) crit to = +10 heal. I feel good about that. You are saying 1.359. I know that nothing is nicer than seeing that crit heal when you really need it. Sure, sure more +heal means it's not as big of a deal. But I like crits. That could be the shaman in me and the fact I've healed a lot as holy spec and just can't let it go. The armor buff from the shaman heals is noticable. It's a small difference but I think it fits better.

Looking at the crit rating = % converstion values helps here. So thanks for adding that. I hadn't looked it up before. : ) Lets do some more math! Looking at 100 heal = 10% crit.

A crit does 150%. So at 10% crit we are saying that 1 in every 10 heals is a crit. Once again let us assume 500, 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500 for FoL sizes.

10 FoLs with 10% crit

500: 9*500 + 500 * 1.5 = 4500 + 750 = 5250
1000: 9*1000 + 1000 * 1.5 = 9000 + 1500 = 10500
1500: 9*1500 + 1500 * 1.5 = 13500 + 2250 = 15750
2000: 9*2000 + 2000 * 1.5 = 18000 + 3000 = 21000
2500: 9*2500 + 2500 * 1.5 = 22500 + 3750 = 26250

10 FoLs with 100 heal

100 * 0.4286 = 42.86 healing added to each FoL.

500: 10*542.86 = 5428.6
1000: 10*1042.86 = 10428.6
1500: 10*1542.86 = 15428.6
2000: 10*2042.86 = 20428.6
2500: 10*2542.86 = 25428.6

So at the 1500 level and below 100 heal wins and at the 2000 level and above 10% crit wins. Earlier I went with assuming 1500 heal for the ratings and if I do that again then it looks like heal should be valued slightly above crit. So it would seem GG is right about where to value crit. 22.08 crit rating = 1% crit so valuing heal slight more would give 10 heal = 25 crit. One could push it up to 30 like I had it to favor lower gearing levels or down to 20 to favor high gear levels. One could also push the value up or down due to crit being unrelaible. You could go 20 heals without one or you could go 5 heals with 2. So there is certainly some flex here. Having done this math though I think I'm going to agree with GG that 25 is the right value.

So now we have

10 +heal = 7 haste = 4 mp5 = 25 crit = 25 sta = 30 int

[swirly]

Spreedsheet has been updated to reflect the values in my previous post. I should also note that currenty the Insightful meta is being pointed as 25 mp5. As conc said, it can go up to 50 mp5 sometimes. With spamming FoL being the main focus of the spreedsheet it might be worth considering raising the pointing of the meta even more. I'm just unsure really how to point it. I could raise it to around 35 mp5 which is about a cast ever 2 seconds so as to account for lag/human error in the spamming. There is also a question of how to account for possibly having to lose points in other places to meet it's gem requirement. For now it is still at 25mp5, but I'm quite open to thoughts on how else to point it.

Spreadsheet link

[Concillian]

Well to meet it's gem requirement you are going to give up 36 healing.

assume you get +9 healing on a set bonus when giving it up for a total net negative 27

Turn your equivalence into units and you are -2.7 units

The gain is 8 INT (gems) + 12 INT (meta) + 4 MP5 (gems) + 35 MP5 (meta)

20 / 30 = 0.67 units from the int
39 MP5 / 4 = 9.75 units from the MP5

Combine them and the meta is worth ~7.75 units (or 77.5 + heal equivalence). This is considerably greater than the +26 healing meta which offers an excessively useless meta bonus for a paladin (-2% threat), as this is worth only 2.6 units in comparison with the 7.75 units for the insightful meta.

[swirly]

This is considerably greater than the +26 healing meta which offers an excessively useless meta bonus for a paladin (-2% threat), as this is worth only 2.6 units in comparison with the 7.75 units for the insightful meta.

Just to be clear. I said somewhere earlier that I was convinced that you were correct and that Insightful was in fact the way to go for meta gems. I know that the one line I said it on would be easy to miss in the walls of text I've been posting. So just thought I should repeat it. You are right. Insightful is insane and definately the way to go.

What I am wondering now with my most recent previous post is...what value do I set it at in the spreadsheet? Currently it is counted as 25 mp5. Is this too low of a rating for it? Even at 25 mp5 it absolutely blows away the other meta. Its not so much a comparison between those two now though. It is more a matter of getting an accurate rating for the Insightful meta so that when you look at the score for a helm with a meta and one without you get an accurate comparison.

[Concillian]

If you want to use the approximation that it offers 35 MP5 + 12 INT, then you have 2 options:

1) set it to 35MP5 and 12 INT (or convert the INT to your MP5 equivalence and use 36.4 MP5) and set your other items to the appropriate values with the gems to activate it.
2) set it to 7.75 * 4 = 31 MP5 and set your other sockets as all +18 healing

Choose how you think is easiest.

If you want to assum 25 MP5 then usee 26.4 MP5 and so gems on gear to meet requs or set it 21 MP5 and set all sockets to +18 heal.

My conversion to "units" was an attempt to give you a value to use for it after compensating for what you'd lose on the gems needed to satisfy requirements, not really to convince you of what you had already been convinced of.