December 28, 2009

Modifying the BIS Resource Rankings

I've been changing some rankings around recently, most notably the trinket selection. Heroic Sliver of Pure Ice is a 1 minute on use trinket which provides technically more mp5 than a heroic Solace, but the passive Solace does require less thinking than Sliver so I've moved Sliver below Solace.

I've also rethought my stance on the older Talisman of Resurgence trinket and realized that it is still the best for my playstyle and philosophy. Remember that all alternatives are listed on the specific slot pages, so anything you think is wrong is up to you. This list is not absolute, and that is important to note. It fails to acknowledge all playstyles, guild ability, and personal preference. It's simply a look into what I, as a high end raiding paladin, prefer as the best items to use.

December 11, 2009

3.3 General Gearing Guidelines

I don't like telling people what to do, so take this post as you will. This is the general approach to gear in 3.3 that I will be using with the logic behind it. I still don't believe in Flash of Light builds as viable in hard content. Normal mode encounters and everything else you can pretty much roll your face on the keyboard and get things done. I'm not saying you can't gem full on spellpower and be a flash guy, but your longevity is going to take a hit in terms of the raw power heals you can produce for extended periods of time. I don't buy the excuse of "well, the other healers just aren't doing their job" when your raid fails if you go FOL spec. That means YOU aren't doing your job.

The armory has been updated with a lot of the 277 ilvl hardmode loot in the past days. There are a LOT of gearing options for us to the tune of 4 ilvl277 items per slot, all itemized differently. The main site has those options listed on each slot's individual page.

Rant aside, here's what I'm going to do in 3.3:

1. Always stay above 675 haste rating, the soft cap in raids
Haste above the soft cap is not wasted using holy light. Any time you use flash, however, you'll get little use out of additional haste. The more haste, the better. If you sub out haste, just make sure you're at or above the magic number and you're pretty much golden.

2. Keep stacking intellect
The BIS gear in 3.3 can put you around 41,000 unbuffed mana. If you're a HL power user, you're probably going to use it all during ICC hardmode. When choosing an item, when do you drop some intellect? That's personal preference, but if it's around 200 or above mana it takes quite a bit of spellpower/haste/crit to make it worth it to me, on the magnitutde of about 20+ spellpower for an item.

3. Spellpower comes with gear
Don't sweat spellpower. It comes with more gear, though not at the high rate that SP gemmers obtain.

4. Haste/MP5/SP items are king
These are the best itemized pieces. Crit has long since lost its crown of best regenerative stat for us. This means you'll be dabbling into mail quite a bit since Blizzard itemizes shamans that way moreso than us. Don't believe mp5 is that good? Try healing without replenishment, which provides 400mp5 with a 40,000 mana pool. You'll be struggling in normal 10 mans with mana. If you can maintain around 300mp5 with gear you're going to be in a very good place. Once you reach the haste soft cap it's generally ok to start using sp/crit/mp5 pieces.

December 7, 2009

3.3 Items Live

The site has been switched over to 3.3 items now. It will be continuously updated as new items are released, but the listing is pretty in depth on each of the item pages.

December 5, 2009

3.3 Next Week!

With 3.3 coming next week, the site will be turning over to 3.3 holy paladin gear. Most of it is already listed if you click on the 3.3 link and the slot pages are much, much more in depth for 3.3. There is still a LOT of items to be discovered in Icecrown though, so updates will be frequent.

If you're visiting on Monday 12/7 you may notice the switchover to patch 3.3 as the main patch. Things will be a little off for a few minutes but that is it.

November 12, 2009

Icecrown Gear

Icecrown gear has started coming in. You can see the progress before 3.3 by clicking the patch to view on the main website.

September 19, 2009

Future Updates - Unsure

My guild has abandoned me after Blizzard implemented their lovely faction swap, so I find myself with no raiding guild for the time being. Obviously future loot is a long ways off, so if by then I don't get a guild this site may not get updated.

August 31, 2009

3.2 Itemization

3.2 has been active for a while and I've played quite a bit of it, so I can give my subjective view of what's going on in terms of holy itemization. Agree with it or not, but I've found that it works at a high level perspective (high level being Yogg+0, Algalon 25, etc).

The best types of items:
1. spellpower / haste / mp5
2. spellpower / haste / crit
3. spellpower / crit / mp5

Once you start really getting Coliseum gear with a ton of haste and reach the magical haste number of 675 (I actually have 672 right now and my FOL says 1 second cast) the number 3 itemized gear becomes better than number 1. At this point your flash of light is 1 second and your global cooldowns are 1 second, therefore flash of light receives no additional bonus from haste. If you've played any 3.2 you'll know that flash of light is used much more often. I even intersperse flash throughout Algalon when I can since a balls out HL spam is not sustainable anymore even with 32k unbuffed mana.

How much mp5 do you need? I try to keep it floating around 150 unbuffed. Any more than that seems unnecessary at this point, but it can only help. I personally prefer to max out my throughput before regen still just because the high level fights still require high throughput. Regen can come from a lot of places including seal/judgement of wisdom now.

July 9, 2009

Patch 3.2 Feature

I've added the ability to add in patch 3.2 items to the site for future BIS theorycrafting by myself. It's a continuous WIP due to the new items with a new instance and new gearing philosophy. I am leaning towards the notion that mp5 will be roughly 3 times more useful than crit per item point, so this will effect BIS items. Extremely high ilvl Ulduar haste/sp/crit items remain top dog until new items of high ilvl replace them in almost every case. 3.1 itemized items with several sockets are still likely better than mp5 items with fewer/no sockets since int is still the best stat to gem for in 3.2.

June 18, 2009

New Paladin Changes

Holy paladins are getting a pretty major update in 3.2. Here are the direct changes:

  • Holy
    • Beacon of Light: The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.
    • Divine Intellect: This talent now gives 2/4/6/8/10% increased intellect instead of 3/6/9/12/15%.
    • Illumination: This talent now returns 30% of the mana cost of the spell instead of 60%
    Other changes that affect holy include:

    Replenishment: This buff now grants 1% of the target's maximum mana over 5 seconds instead of 0.25% per second. This applies to all 5 sources of Replenishment (Vampiric Touch, Judgements of the Wise, Hunting Party, Enduring Winter Frostbolts and Soul Leech).
    Lay on Hands: The buff from this ability now reduces the physical damage taken by the target by 10/20% instead of increasing the target's armor.
    Mana Regeneration: All items that provide "X mana per five seconds" have had the amount of mana they regenerate increased by approximately 25%.

    These changes mean our best in slot gear will be less focused on heavy crit and more focused on mp5. Haste is still a very good stat because tanks still need fast, large heals. Our rotation will change to beaconing the tank and then healing the raid since beacon overheal will work. The flash of heal hot should also be used on the tank with sacred shield. MP5 gear will be useful if it is high itemlevel and has good socket use since crits only return 30% mana when they happen. Crit still remains highly useful, however, because holy light crits help significantly on hard modes. Our mana regen will need help, however.

    June 16, 2009

    News Page

    I have started the news page for Best In Slot Holy Paladin. I'll post on it when I update the main site with new items. I recently added Pharos Gloves as the new best-in-slot gloves for Holy Paladins, which drop off of Algalon 25. The first post will be seen on the main site as well for quick reference.

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