Pop the Bubble

Yesterday afternoon, I read a great article by Ambrosine on I Like Bubbles. Her post focused on why some Paladin tanks ask a Discipline priest to not bubble them O_0 

Wait, wha? 

Yup, I do understand that there is an issue of the bubble actually being “too” powerful, scaling too well, and preventing any damage from actually getting to the tank, and in turn not requiring any heals.  This effect, causes the paladin to not regain mana from Spiritual Attunement. This, apparently, is what these tanks are complaining about. Now, to be fair, most, if not all of these Paladin tanks that complain are found using the LFD system, they may just be starting out, and are running 5 mans. However, if  you actually plan to tank, and fulfill that role, then it would be best for you to learn your class. 

Popping the Bubble - Learning your Role

Holy Haste Batman

Morning all…

This. Is. CONFUSING!!!

I have begun to step back and look at the stats that I’ve recently been stacking for my Holy set. You see, I am the epitome for a casual 10 man raider. If you look at my gear, you will see pretty much all 10 man level gear for the current tier (except for a couple pieces). Because I usually only run 10 man raids, I have geared and gemmed slightly differently. However, going into ICC has really changed my perception of what stats should really be used.

I subscribed to the Spellpower/MP5 mentality early on, and have really held onto it for what I feel is too long. Don’t get me wrong, I do loves me some SP as well as some mana regen, but I have begun to shift my stat allocation more towards the current cut and dry preferences. Intellect and Haste are king now, and I think that I’m finally coming to terms with that.

As of right now, I’m sitting at a little over 600 haste, and a mana pool nearing 32k. I don’t think that I ever realized how helpful these stats really were until I first pugged Torvalon in VoA 25, and lost one of the tanks, simply because I couldn’t get the heal off fast enough. Also, I had not realized how hard the Deathbringer really hit, until a tank died because I was OOM from all the Holy Lights I was tossing out.

Haste is a really interesting stat, in that you have to have sooo much of it to really notice a difference. I now really notice the difference. I have learned that Flash of Light is great, but Holy Light is king in several situations. I guess that I just didn’t want this to be true, but I feel that it is. With my new stat allocation, and gemming mentality, I can now spam Holy Light, keeping Light’s Grace up, as well as popping a Judgement every once and a while for Judgements of the Pure, increasing my haste (for Holy Light) even further.

There’s one thing though. Once you begin to get so much haste, you begin casting longer spells much quicker. And because you are casting them quicker, you are casting more of them. Unless you really pay attention, and keep your mana regen abilities rolling, you will go OOM very quickly. Yet another thing that I’m learning the hard way.

From what I have read, the base haste cap to shoot for, as a Holy Paladin is around 700. This is easy to reach with talents and abilities, but it is better to reach that number with stats alone, allowing talents and abilities to increase that amount even further. With haste affecting the spell casting speed, it also affects the global cooldown as well, at least down to a minimum of a 1 sec GCD. I did some research and found some info on the Maintankadin site with some further calculations for the haste effect on spells.

Source: DisRuptive1 (on Maintankadin)
For those people above who aren’t sure, to get the 1-second Flash of Light (and 1.33-second Holy Light) you need:

20.6% Haste from gear
15% Judgement of the Pure
3% Retribution Paladin’s Swift Retribution
5% Shaman’s Wrath of Air Totem

Cast Speed / Haste Effect = New Cast speed

Flash of Light
1.5 / (1.206 * 1.15 * 1.03 * 1.05) =
1.5 / (1.49993235) =
≈ 1-second Flash of Light

Holy Light

2.5 – Light’s Grace / (1.206 * 1.15 * 1.03 * 1.05) =
2.5 – 0.5 / (1.206 * 1.15 * 1.03 * 1.05) =
2 / (1.49993235) =
≈ 1.33-second Holy Light

To get Holy Light to 1 second cast time (fun!) you would need 60.8% haste from gear instead of 20.6% (proof below)

1-second Holy Light
2.5 – Light’s Grace / ([1 + x%] * 1.15 * 1.03 * 1.05) = 1-second Holy Light
2.5 – 0.5 / ([1 + x%] * 1.243725) = 1
2.0 / ([1 + x%] * 1.243725) = 1
2.0 = [1 + x%] * 1.243725
2.0 / 1.243725 = 1+ x%
(2.0 / 1.243725) – 1 = x%
x% = (2.0 / 1.243725) – 1
x% ≈ 60.8% haste from gear

This shows that it is even possible to get a Holy Light down to a 1 second cast, though the sheer amount of haste to achieve that is steep. There is a way to push spellcasting speed to the sub-1sec level; however, it is not necessarily beneficial, as your spell will cast faster, but you can only cast that spell once avery second due to the 1 second GCD.

Well, there you have it. Some good info on Haste, and why it is slowly becoming my best friend. Just remember, the faster you cast, the more you cast, the more you cast, the faster you can go OOM, so keep an eye on your mana bar, as it’ll disappear quicker than you think.

Illuminating the Lightsworn set bonuses

When I first saw the set bonus.

As of last Thursday, I believe, I now have the 2pc t10 set bonus for my holy set. It is a beautiful set bonus, and far out trumps the rediculous 2pc t9 set bonus. I had been slowly collecting my Frost emblems over the last few weeks, eventually reaching the 95 emblems I needed to get the headpiece. It was a good feeling to finally have it. Especially since it illuminated that oh so beautiful text in the tool tip:

While your Divine Illumination talent is active, your healing spells are 35% stronger.

Since I currently do not gem like everyone else, and do not have the MASSIVE amounts of mana that others may have (though I am sitting at 30k), anything that helps me increase my throughput while gaining mana is a plus.

Normally, if I am running low on mana, I’ll pop Divine Illumination and Divine Plea at the same time.  This will allow me to continue casting some bigger spells without eating the mana that I’m trying to gain back with Divine Plea. It also allows me to cast those bigger spells in an attempt to mitigate the 50% decrease in healing spells that is enacted upon hitting Divine Plea.

With the 2pc set bonus, I can now mitigate that even further, allowing me to reduce that decrease in healing to only 15%, and still only costing half mana to cast the spells. Now, if only it was usable more often. It did add some new playstyles however.

For example:

• Use Avenging Wrath and Divine Plea.  This will again reduce the decrease in healing to 30%, allowing for better throughput  while still regenerating mana. I have used this for a while now.
• Use spellpower trinket and Divine Plea.  This works much like the Avenging Wrath style, dependant on the amount of spellpower increase. I have used this for a while now.
• New: Use Divine Illumination, and Divine Plea.  This reduces the decrease in  healing to 15%, allowing you to continue throughput for discounted mana costs.

What I’m trying to get at, is that I almost feel as if this Set Bonus is a bit OP… but don’t get me wrong… I loves me some set bonus.

Oddly enough, I’m not sure how well the 4pc T10 set bonus is in comparison. Much like tiers before this, it appeared to go from great 4pc bonuses for early sets to great 2pc bonuses for the next tier up, and it appears to have happened again.

For example:

• 2pc T9 Set Bonus: Increases the duration of your Judgements by 10 sec.
  - (WTF?)
• 4pc T9 Set Bunus: Increases the heal over time effect from Flash of Light in conjunction with Sacred Shield by 100%.
  - (For me, this was awesome, cause I used Flash of Light a lot more then Holy Light.)
• 2pc T10 Set Bonus: While your Divine Illumination talent is active, your healing spells are 35% stronger.
  - (SEXAHS!!!!)
• 4pc T10 Set Bonus: Your Holy Shock spell causes the next Holy Light you cast within 10 sec to have 0.3 sec reduced cast time.
  - (Very situational, as Holy Shock isn’t often used by those who use Holy Light a lot, though for me it would be somewhat of a time saver. Nearly half a second in reduced cast time never hurts.)

There may be other Holy Paladins out there salivating over the 4pc set bonus, but it is kind of “meh” to me, nothing compared to the sheer utility of the 2pc bonus. In addition, you may have 10 sec to cast the Holy Light for the reduced cast time; however, due to GCDs,  you actually only have 8.5 seconds. Sure that seems like a lot, but if things are crazy, that time flies. It also appears to be more useful for movement fights. A good example that I can think of early on, is the Lord Marrowgar fight.  If he goes into a Bone Storm, you’re going to be moving a good bit, and if you stop, you’ll likely either get hit by his Whirlwind, or Coldflame. Having a little bit extra time (.3 sec in fact) to get back to running can be helpful, though situational.

My final recommendation is to pick up the 2pc bonus. I happened to use shoulders and headpiece, which seems to be the consensus among other Paladins. For the other pieces, dependant on your raiding level, pick up the offset pieces, or even the Emblem of Frost pieces to fill in the spaces.  Once those two T10 pieces are upgraded to their Heroic Sanctified versions, they are actually considered BiS, so it’s definitely worth it.

As for me, I currently have T10 head and shoulders, t10 equivalent offset ICC 10 man boots and leggings. I plan to pick up the EoF chest piece and belt when I get a chance, and eventually the gloves… but that’ll be a lot of Emblems later.

Diamonds are Forever: Paladin Gemming Part II

Welcome to Part II of my guide to Paladin Gemming. Here we’ll cover Prismatic, Dragon’s Eye (Jewelcrafter only), and Meta Gems. Again, I have marked each with what spec it works best with. In this case, I also marked some for their PvP uses, mostly including those with Resilience or Stun/Silence/Fear reduction effects.

First up, we’ll talk about the Prismatic gems. These provide increases to all stats in a single gem, most often used as filler gems, as they match every color, and can be used to fill the requirements of one red, one yellow, AND one blue gem for Meta gems.

Prismatic
	Enchanted Pearl	+4 Stats
	Enchanted Tear	+6 Stats
	Nightmare Tear	+10 Stats

It’s obvious what is provided by each, and the only difference is the amount of stat increase, and cost. Obviously Nightmare Tears are far more expensive then the lesser Enchanted gems.

Diamonds are Forever: Paladin Gemming

Good afternoon folks…

Big 'ol Gem

Got a new topic on my mind, this time dealing with Gems. Not just any gems, but gems good for Holy and Retribution paladins. I would go into Protection paladins, but I think that has been covered fairly thoroughly.

A good while back, I had created a sheet with all the different gem types, and their uses. Some of that has changed due to the +healing +spell damage combination, but not that much. So, here’s my little guide to gems and what I’ve chosen for my own gemming needs on both my Holy and Retribution sets.

The Basics

Below I have put together a set of tables including the different colors of gems, as well as the attributes in which they modify. Each gem will match the same color slot, in the cases of gem bonuses; HOWEVER, you can put whatever color gem, in whatever color slot you want, there is no limitations, only the loss of the extra gemming bonus.