How do you gem your gear? Personally I have been using crit gems to gain a percent or two of crit, though I have seen several paladins gem int. So last night I decided to do some math and figure out which is better.
WARNING: I will be doing a lot of math in the next few paragraphs, if you want to skip to the bottom for my conclusion be my guest. :-)
Lets get some basic numbers out of the road first. WoW Wiki says that for int it takes 166.6667 int to get 1% crit. Crit rating then, once again according to WoW Wiki, takes 45.91 crit rating to get 1% crit. So lets take for example my character, Falkron. Currently I have 80 crit on my character from gems. So from that we see I get 1.7425% crit (roughly). If I gemed int instead of crit I would get 800 more mana and .4799% crit (roughly).
Which one is greater though? To figure this out we need an example situation. We will use the 2D OS raid I went on last week. During the fight I landed about 76 Holy Lights, 21 Holy Shocks, and 14 Flash of Lights with 51% (39 hits) critical strikes, 57% (12 hits) critical strikes, and 36% (5 hits) critical strikes respectively. This is with the 1.7425% crit from the gems. Since the main arguement for int over crit is that you have more mana to start with and you get some crit from it as well, we need to take a look at whether you get more mana from the int or the crit.
With the talents all the critical return 60% of the base mana of the cost. So for me Holy Light costs 1103 mana (with Libram of Renewal and Glyph of Seal of Wisdom), Holy Shock 751 mana (with Glyph of Seal of Wisdom), and Flash of Light 293 mana (with Glyph of Seal of Wisdom). Thus I get 662 mana back from Holy Shocks, 451 mana back from Holy Shock, and 176 mana back from Flash of Light.
So with the crit gems during that fight I got roughly 1 extra critical Holy Light, no extra critical Holy Shocks, and no extra critical Flash of Lights. From the int gems I get no extra critical heals from any of the spells. Now I would like to point out this is a very rough estimation and is liable to error.
Based on those numbers I got roughly 662 mana back from those gems' extra crit during that fight. If I had gemed int I would have had 800 mana to start with right away, plus a very small chance to get even more mana. Since paladins tend to overheal an insane amount of their healing, the extra healing from that one extra critical Holy Light (like 4000-6000 more healing) probably just added to my overhealing percent. So it looks like I will be changing my gems over to int gems.
Intellect gems win!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
PvE Healing Spec for 3.1 [UPDATED]
From a purely PvE perspective there were mainly 2 specs you could use depending on whether you wanted to max your raid utility or your own personal performance. Those specs were: 51/5/15 and 53/0/18. While both could vary slightly from those, the main difference was the inclusion of Blessing of Kings (10% stats buff) or Sanctified Seals (3% crit). The next patch will change that though with the removal of Blessing of Kings from the talent tree, making it into a base spell.
In its place, Blessing of Kings is replaced by Divinity, a clearly healer/tank talent as it increases all healing done and all healing recieved by 5%.This effectively ends the debate of whether or not to pull 3 points from the prot tree to place in Sanctified Seals as the 5% extra healing will be far superior to that extra 3% crit. EDIT: I have been doing some more research into this and came across a post on the official forums. Many of the posts talked about the extreme overhealing that paladins do, and I have to say I am no exception. I normally run between 55% and 75% overhealing during raids. So the extra 5% healing really won't do all that much for us; it helps but most of the extra healing will go to the overheal count. The extra 3% crit on the other hand will give us more critical heals, thus giving us more mana back. As the game is now, mp5 doesn't do a whole lot for paladins, so we get most of our mana back from critical heals and Divine Plea. So the 3% crit is superior to the 5% extra healing, but I would suggest going with a mixture: 3 points in Sanctified Seals and 2 points in Divinity.
The talent spec I will be specing into come 3.1 isa simple modification of the 51/5/15 spec. The only difference being I will have Divinity instead of Blessing of Kings. EDIT: a modification of the 51/5/15 spec: 51/2/18.
In its place, Blessing of Kings is replaced by Divinity, a clearly healer/tank talent as it increases all healing done and all healing recieved by 5%.
The talent spec I will be specing into come 3.1 is
Healing Macros
Whether you are a big fan of using macros or not there are several wonderful macros out there for Holy Paladins that will vastly improve (and make less chaotic) the way you heal.
First off there are the focus macros, which are the ones I use the most. They allow you to cast your important spells on to the correct targets without actually having them targeted. These require that the main tank, or the tank you have been assigned to heal, is your focus target. That can be done by the macro:
/focus target
Beacon of Light macro:
#showtooltip Beacon of Light
/cast [target=focus] Beacon of Light
Casts Beacon of Light on your focus target.
Sacred Shield macro:
#showtooltip Sacred Shield
/cast [target=focus] Sacred Shield
Casts Sacred Shield on your focus target.
Judgment of Light macro:
#showtooltip Judgment of Light
/cast [target=target] [target=focustarget, harm] Judgment of Light
Casts Judgment of Light on your focus target's target if that target is an enemy.
Custom timer macros are helpful in figuring out when to recast your important spells and they require either the Deadly Boss Mods addon or the BigWigs addon in order to work.
Deadly Boss Mods addon macro:
/dbm timer [time] [message]
Examples:
/dbm timer 60 Recast Beacon of Light!
/dbm timer 30 Recast Sacred Shield!
/dbm timer 15 Recast Judgement of Light!
BigWigs addon macro:
/bwlcb [time] [message]
Examples:
/bwlcb 60 Recast Beacon of Light!
/bwlcb 30 Recast Sacred Shield!
/bwlcb 15 Recast Judgement of Light!
You can add these to the end of any of the focus macros or any other macro you want to have give you a visual timer to tell you when to recast a spell.
First off there are the focus macros, which are the ones I use the most. They allow you to cast your important spells on to the correct targets without actually having them targeted. These require that the main tank, or the tank you have been assigned to heal, is your focus target. That can be done by the macro:
/focus target
Beacon of Light macro:
#showtooltip Beacon of Light
/cast [target=focus] Beacon of Light
Casts Beacon of Light on your focus target.
Sacred Shield macro:
#showtooltip Sacred Shield
/cast [target=focus] Sacred Shield
Casts Sacred Shield on your focus target.
Judgment of Light macro:
#showtooltip Judgment of Light
/cast [target=target] [target=focustarget, harm] Judgment of Light
Casts Judgment of Light on your focus target's target if that target is an enemy.
Custom timer macros are helpful in figuring out when to recast your important spells and they require either the Deadly Boss Mods addon or the BigWigs addon in order to work.
Deadly Boss Mods addon macro:
/dbm timer [time] [message]
Examples:
/dbm timer 60 Recast Beacon of Light!
/dbm timer 30 Recast Sacred Shield!
/dbm timer 15 Recast Judgement of Light!
BigWigs addon macro:
/bwlcb [time] [message]
Examples:
/bwlcb 60 Recast Beacon of Light!
/bwlcb 30 Recast Sacred Shield!
/bwlcb 15 Recast Judgement of Light!
You can add these to the end of any of the focus macros or any other macro you want to have give you a visual timer to tell you when to recast a spell.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Reader Q&A
I will try to address specific questions sent to my email (lightsbeacon@gmail.com). So send away!
Raid Healing: Loatheb
Each week I will look at a raid boss and how to heal it as a paladin. Giving you tips on the ins and outs of each fight.
This week I will be looking at Loatheb, one of the more interesting raid bosses in wrath, and my personal favorite. This particular fight requires a far more focused approach compared to most fights from a healing perspective as Loatheb prevents any healing for the majority of the fight. A few seconds into the fight Loatheb casts Necrotic Aura which prevents all healing for 17 secs. Now this is not a silence, so you can cast while the aura is up but your heals will do nothing until it lifts. Once the aura drops the healers have 3 seconds to heal everyone up before Loatheb casts the aura again. This gives us paladin healers a chance to shine with our amazing burst healing abilities.
Lets start off with what spells you will use during this fight. Holy Light will be your main spell for the fight, when timed right you can get 2 of them off in the 3 seconds. To do that you must start casting Holy Light when there are roughly 2 seconds left before Necrotic Aura fades (Deadly Boss Mods help extremely in figuring out when to start casting). With the proper talent spec your first Holy Light will decrease the cast time of the second Holy Light, allowing enough time to then land a Holy Shock on anyone else who still needs some health at that point. To increase this healing even more you should make sure that Beacon of Light is on the tank before you start casting the first Holy Light (it can be a good idea to refresh Beacon of Light after each healing cycle as mana should not be an issue in this fight). With that you should never have to directly heal the tank during the fight and neither should any other healers. You can use Sacred Shield to help negate some of the damage that the tank is taking if it becomes too much (it shouldn't). Finally you want to make sure you judge Judgement of Light on Loatheb right before you cast the first Holy Light so that it is active during the entire time you can heal, giving a small but helpful boost to your healing. This brings us to Flash of Light, which, except maybe at the beginning of the fight when people are not taking much damage, I would not suggest using during this fight.
A note on glyphs here, if you do not have the Glyph of Holy Light, I would suggest that you get it. It helps in all fights, but especially in this one as generally people are close to each other because of the spores.
Combining all of these elements you should be able to pull your weight in this fight, possibily even topping the healing charts. When I heal this fight, 80+% of the time, especially on 25 man, I outheal all the other healers in my guild, even those that generally outheal me on other fights.
This week I will be looking at Loatheb, one of the more interesting raid bosses in wrath, and my personal favorite. This particular fight requires a far more focused approach compared to most fights from a healing perspective as Loatheb prevents any healing for the majority of the fight. A few seconds into the fight Loatheb casts Necrotic Aura which prevents all healing for 17 secs. Now this is not a silence, so you can cast while the aura is up but your heals will do nothing until it lifts. Once the aura drops the healers have 3 seconds to heal everyone up before Loatheb casts the aura again. This gives us paladin healers a chance to shine with our amazing burst healing abilities.
Lets start off with what spells you will use during this fight. Holy Light will be your main spell for the fight, when timed right you can get 2 of them off in the 3 seconds. To do that you must start casting Holy Light when there are roughly 2 seconds left before Necrotic Aura fades (Deadly Boss Mods help extremely in figuring out when to start casting). With the proper talent spec your first Holy Light will decrease the cast time of the second Holy Light, allowing enough time to then land a Holy Shock on anyone else who still needs some health at that point. To increase this healing even more you should make sure that Beacon of Light is on the tank before you start casting the first Holy Light (it can be a good idea to refresh Beacon of Light after each healing cycle as mana should not be an issue in this fight). With that you should never have to directly heal the tank during the fight and neither should any other healers. You can use Sacred Shield to help negate some of the damage that the tank is taking if it becomes too much (it shouldn't). Finally you want to make sure you judge Judgement of Light on Loatheb right before you cast the first Holy Light so that it is active during the entire time you can heal, giving a small but helpful boost to your healing. This brings us to Flash of Light, which, except maybe at the beginning of the fight when people are not taking much damage, I would not suggest using during this fight.
A note on glyphs here, if you do not have the Glyph of Holy Light, I would suggest that you get it. It helps in all fights, but especially in this one as generally people are close to each other because of the spores.
Combining all of these elements you should be able to pull your weight in this fight, possibily even topping the healing charts. When I heal this fight, 80+% of the time, especially on 25 man, I outheal all the other healers in my guild, even those that generally outheal me on other fights.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
About Light's Beacon
First off, I did not name the blog incorrectly. I know that the spell's correct name is Beacon of Light, though it was originally called Light's Beacon and wowhead.com still has an entry for a spell called Light's Beacon (http://www.wowhead.com/?spell=53651).
In any case welcome to Light's Beacon, a blog all about paladins! In this blog I will cover any and all topics that affect the paladin class, though my main focus will be Holy Paladins. I am hoping through this blog to learn more about paladin healing and in the process help you all as well.
In any case welcome to Light's Beacon, a blog all about paladins! In this blog I will cover any and all topics that affect the paladin class, though my main focus will be Holy Paladins. I am hoping through this blog to learn more about paladin healing and in the process help you all as well.
About Falkron
My name is Falkron, or at least my main character is named that. I am a 2 year wow veteran, having started playing shortly after The Burning Crusade was released. About half of that time was spent playing as a paladin on one server/faction or another (I have 2 paladins level 70 or above). During The Burning Crusade I raided as a protection paladin, all the way up to Hyjal. In WotLK I raid as a Holy Paladin, aka Falkron, and have done everything except 3 drake Sartharion (which my guild is working on). I have however raided as Retribution and Protection at some of the raids as well, being whatever my guild needs me to be.
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