So MMO-Champion has some data-mined information out there for patch 4.2 from the PTR build 14040. Since we don’t care about the legendary staff since it has hit and we can’t equip staves, I’ll just focus on the Tier 12 holy paladin set and the class changes.
Tier 12:
At first glance, and remember that this information can be changed at any time, our tier does not suck.
Tier 11 had absolutely no haste on any of it. There was mastery and crit, and a lot of it.
Tier 12, on the other hand, looks much more promising.
First of all, despite the fact we have a skirt again, it looks pretty darn awesome.
Second of all, the stats are pretty great.
Immolation Mantle, our Tier 12 shoulders: 282 Intellect, 454 Stamina, 229 Spirit, blue socket (+10 int bonus, which means we’ll just put an intellect gem there anyways) with 134 crit. I know, it’s not fantastic, but it’s not bad.
Immolation Greaves, our Tier 12 legs: 368 Intellect, 611 Stamina, 271 Spirit, a red and a blue socket with a 20 int socket bonus and 233 haste. Yummy! So much nicer than our current tier legs, which are so inferior to the Legguards of the Emerald Brood.
Immolation Headguard, our Tier 12 helm: 348 Intellect, 611 Stamina, 239 Spirit, a meta and a red socket with a 30 intellect socket bonus (tasty!) and 245 haste rating. Yay!
Immolation Breastplate, our Tier 12 chest: 368 Intellect, 611 Stamina, 276 Spirit, two blue sockets with a 20 intellect bonus and 225 critical strike rating. Eh.
Immolation Gloves, our Tier 12 gloves: 282 intellect, 454 Stamina, 0 Spirit, one red socket with a 10 intellect bonus and 176 crit rating and 204 haste rating.
Looking it over, our shoulders and our chestpiece are the likely places where we’ll ditch one of them for an offset piece after we’ve acquired the 4pc bonus, as neither of them have any haste. The shocking thing here? There is absolutely no mastery on any of our tier 12 gear. Instead, we have loads of haste.
I’m actually looking forward to collecting my tier gear, assuming these stats stay the same.
There’s only one other intellect plate piece of loot that’s been datamined so far and it’s a pair of shoulders: 282 Intellect, 454 Stamina and 213 Spirit, with a blue socket (10 int bonus) and 162 mastery.
I might stay with heroic T11 before swapping out to that (assuming I have heroic T11 shoulders. I have the Heroic Burden of Mortality at the moment, but would swap the crit on the tier for the mastery on these), but I guess we’ll see what other changes are in store for us before I make up my mind on that.
Mana Costs
Again, this is just PTR information and is subject to change at any time.
Divine Light will go from 30% base mana cost to 35% base mana cost.
Flash of Light will go from 27% base mana cost to 31% base mana cost.
Holy Light will go from 10% base mana cost to 12% base mana cost.
Holy Shock will go from 8% base mana cost to 9% base mana cost.
Again, this is subject to change, but it seems odd that they dropped the cost of our spells by about 10% with 4.1 and now want to raise them across the board again in 4.2. I guess we’ll see what happens in future builds and launch day. :)
So the mana cost changes make Spirit more desirable, yes? And we’re going into a new tier which means by the time you’re geared through normal modes your mana bar will feel about like it does now. Which, no big deal – unless they plan to bump mana costs every tier. :P
As a wise man once said: “Game over, man!”
“Patch 4.2 PTR Notes – May 10th Update
Classes: General
All healing critical strikes now heal for 2 times a normal heal (+100%), up from 1.5 times a normal heal (+50%).”
I hope your main isnt a Holy paladin cause you have no clue wtf your talkin about, Do you even have any crit at all or you still stackin haste over 25% lmao
Holyrack – While I am happy to debate the value of haste, spirit, crit and mastery, your tone is unwelcome. Please bear that in mind for the future.
As it happens, yes, I do raid as a holy paladin. Do you know who else does? Diamondtear, one of Paragon’s holy paladins, who has cleared all regular and heroic content, including Sinestra, multiple times. (http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/lightnings-blade/diamondtear/advanced)
From Diamondtear’s 4.1 healing guide (located here: http://www.paragon.fi/guides/holy-paladin-guide-diamondtear)
“The importance of stats is bound to be subjective when it comes to healing. It is however generally agreed that Intellect is the best stat. Spirit and Haste a both good stats, with spirit being slightly better in my opinion. Crit and Mastery are both bad stats, with Mastery a bit worse than Crit due to not transferring via Beacon of Light.”
“First remove mastery, then crit, then haste from your items. Add spirit first, then haste, and crit after that.”
“Higher levels items usually improve your performance unless they have truly terrible stats (don’t switch from a 333 spirit/haste item to 346 crit/mastery item).”
Given that a holy paladin who far exceeds my experience, and likely your own, tells us that spirit and haste are good and mastery and crit are not, at this point in time, I’m willing to give Diamondtear the benefit of the doubt. Not that I doubted the value of spirit and haste versus crit and mastery. Without Illumination giving us mana returns from critical heals, crit has dropped like a rock in value. As to mastery, it’s pretty near worthless. You can read what I have to say about our mastery here: http://kurn.apotheosis-now.com/?p=1702
Haste is still important for extra ticks of Holy Radiance and lowering your GCD. While we will not come close to the nearly 4K haste we need to hit the 1s hard cap GCD, every little bit is helpful.
Finally, spirit is regen. That’s godly. You balance spirit and haste because the more casts you complete (due to more haste), the more spirit you need to regenerate the mana you’re pushing through.
Having said that, some crit is still decent so that you can maintain Conviction’s uptime. On my last heroic Halfus kill, I had 98.9% uptime on at least one stack of Conviction and spent approximately 35 seconds out of 5m16s with less than 3 stacks. Raid-buffed, my crit is at about 20% and my haste is at about 21% from gear and buffs, not including Judgements of the Pure.
I’m pretty happy with my stat allocation at the moment.
@ Holyrack.
OWNED! crit? WTF MAN!
I’m still debating this. From everything I can find, we should still be favoring spirit/haste over crit/mastery. Also, bear in mind (@kerial) that diamondtear’s article was written before 4.2 was released and more specifically, it was written for 4.1; before our crit and mastery mechanics changed. And more to the point, as holyrack as implying (I think he’s just trolling); if you managed to get your haste over 25% pre-firelands… well… kudos, but I agree it may be overkill.
From what I gather, the benefit of trading the spirit/haste build for the crit/mastery build will only really shine in 25M content and not so much 10M. The point being, neither build is wrong but in my own preference — if im raping healing charts, and we’re not wiping due to healing deficiency, and i’m not struggling with mana, then the only logical move would be to try out the crit/mastery build. If anything, the burst healing (200% crits now) and added shielding, may be lower hps and maybe even lower total output but not by much, and it would more likely to save a fight than your standing around milking meters and bragging about your mana sustainment. If you’re OOMing… then you have a different issue. Don’t feed the trolls.