More MP5 on gear incoming
by Eliah Hecht 
Jun 8th 2009 at 6:00PM
Mana regeneration has been a hot issue for raiding healers during this expansion. Basically, we had far too much of it in tier 7 content, to the point where we could ignore our mana bars in many situations. I once joked that I could replace our holy paladin's mana bar with a blue piece of paper without any loss of information; it wasn't very far from the truth.
When tier 8 came around they tried to nerf our mana regeneration so that we'd finally care about overhealing and gear for mana regen as well as throughput, but it seems they didn't go far enough, at least for one class. Many Holy Paladins are still ignoring MP5 gear; in fact, the aforementioned holy pally refused to pick up most Ulduar spell plate because it all has MP5 on it and he likes his Naxx-25 stuff better.
He's not alone in this tactic; many paladins are taking the same route, and mourning that this gear is no good for us. Ghostcrawler recognizes this problem, stating that "Regardless of any other changes we might make, mp5 just doesn't seem to provide enough point for point on gear." So what are they going to do about it? He says "It's possible (likely?) we'll just increase all of the mp5 on gear."
I'm honestly not sure this will solve the problem, since I suspect lots of people still won't want MP5, but it's a step in the right direction; MP5 has historically been a very expensive stat, which means the other stats on a piece of gear have to be lower just to get a little bit of mana regen out of it. And he does mention "other changes we might make," so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Caelin Jun 8th 2009 6:05PM
I've noticed how much mp5 there is on the healing plate myself, and I can't stand it. mp5 just isn't as useful as haste or crit (especially crit). I keep asking myself why they keep putting a less than helpful stat on gear that's supposed to be better!
thebitterfig Jun 8th 2009 8:36PM
i'm going to go out on a limb and say that the problem isn't that MP5 is a bad stat, but that it is too expensive of a stat.
consider wrath rare-cuts, which can grant 7mp5 or 16 int. there isn't a comparison. with replenishment and divine plea, intellect simply gives more bang for the buck. the cost of the same amount of mana is simply higher right now with mp5 than it is with int. let us suppose that instead of 7mp5, the lustrous sky sapphire provided, say, 10mp5. is it worth it at that number? what if it gave 14mp5.
until bliz makes mp5 the cheapest way to gear for pure mana for paladins, we won't like it as much as we like int. if it was the cheapest way to get back mana, then we'd gear for it in balance with our other stats, which seems... i dunno... ideal.
RaasBeast Jun 8th 2009 9:33PM
The problem with Holy Paladin gear itemization in T7 content was that it was too good. Gearing for Int, Crit and Haste was too effective. Think about it with Int alone you had all your mp5 concerns taken away through means of Replenishment, Divine Plea and indirectly through the added Crit it gave not to mention the enormous mana pools you were able to achieve. Then take a look at Crit, it not only effects how much we're healing for but also our mana returns.
Playing as a Holy Pally I really do believe we need to be brought in line with other healers. We need something that would work better for AoE than a glyphed HL, but at the same time I really think if they change mp5 to a worthwhile stat Pallys will actually start using for endurance fights. Think back to old school vanilla Spirit Priests (kinda.) I would hate to see another Illumination nerf, but maybe thats what it will take for us to gear away from just crit and int.
Use XT hard mode as an example, while our priests are gasping for mana at the end of the fight I'm able to more or less spam HLs through tantrums and achieve ridiculous HPS numbers while helping raid heal and simultaneously keep up the tank with Beacon. My mana pool combined with the reduced cost of HL through the T7.5 4 piece (yeah i still use it atm) and Libram make it far too easy to be able to do this.
Nobody likes nerfs, but sometimes they're just necessary. =/
Heilig Jun 9th 2009 2:30AM
"i'm going to go out on a limb and say that the problem isn't that MP5 is a bad stat, but that it is too expensive of a stat."
How expensive it is doesn't change its usefulness. If you need zero MP5 to heal effectively, you will heal exactly as effectively with 1000 MP5. They could make the stat free to Holy Pallies and most of them would still just ignore it. Currently they actively avoid it because of the stat budget, and Blizz sees this, but it sounds like they don't understand WHY we don't like it. Simply increasing the MP5 on the gear won't work.
Paladins: "Oh, I just love this meal of steak and mashed potatoes! I could do without the carrots though,"
Blizzard: "You don't want carrots? Why not? Carrots are great."
Paladins: "Well, I guess if you like the way they taste, yeah, but I would rather just have more steak or potatoes."
Blizzard: "Here, have more carrots. Do you like them now?"
Paladins: "..."
Ahima Jun 9th 2009 9:49AM
Shaman: "omg carrots! om nom nom"
:p
Celton Jun 9th 2009 9:54AM
Holypaladin.net posted about this about a week ago and there's a lot of discussion going on in the comments:
http://www.holypaladin.net/index.php/holy-paladins-are-almost-overpowered-changes-incoming-in-patch-32
Ver7ig0 Jun 8th 2009 6:06PM
Blizz really has it in for paladins.
Mcdreamy Jun 8th 2009 6:14PM
Mp5 on plate makes me giggle everytime I see it. What worries me, is that blizz is going to nerf other pally mana regen talents/abilities to force them to embrace the mp5.
Mcdreamy Jun 8th 2009 6:15PM
*What worries me, is that blizz MIGHT nerf other pally....
I didn't mean to imply that that bliz has hinted that they might do that, just worries me that they might.
Ver7ig0 Jun 8th 2009 6:24PM
This is what scares me. Historically, paladins are treated differently from every other class in terms of balancing. I'm betting that rather than make the stat desirable, or change the gear itemization (seeing as there's only one spec of one class that wants SP plate), they're just gonna nerf paladins until they need it.
Most holy pallies I know are grudgingly taking on some mp5 as an ugly side-effect of Ulduar upgrades, but if they make it so we actually NEED it, it will gimp our other stats to the point where our viability in a raid setting will be called into question.
We're still getting brought to raids, so expect to see some nerfs until we're not.
Then we'll get a nice buff, people will cry, and we'll get chipped away into nothingness, and the cycle will repeat.
Josh Jun 8th 2009 7:01PM
Maybe they'll make it as they did with spirit to mages.
Cathaoir Jun 8th 2009 6:14PM
Did they delete this thread on the forums? I was searching for it because I wanted to read through it, and nothing came up.
Mcdreamy Jun 8th 2009 6:17PM
The search feature appears to be broken on the forums. No matter what I search, it brings zero results. Even for something that obviously has matches (like class names: paladin, shaman, druid, etc.)
joshcui2389 Jun 8th 2009 6:15PM
I missed the part about shaman.
s256 Jun 9th 2009 1:15PM
Shaman heals like MP5. If they increase the effectiveness of MP5 overall, they might nerf us all in other ways! :(
Aedilhild Jun 8th 2009 6:17PM
A copyediting suggestion for the sake of players who may not be familiar with a term like mana-per-five-seconds: spell out an acronym for its first usage in articles and include a popup.
impurezero Jun 8th 2009 6:37PM
MP5...that's, like, the new music format that's better than mp3s right?
Kadamon Jun 9th 2009 1:39AM
Well, I have had MP2's and MP4's on my computers at various points, it only stands to say that MP5's as a musical format will interlude themselves upon on us one day.
Until then, I always think of that useage as a gun, not a WoW Stat.
Fadefury Jun 8th 2009 6:18PM
That's honestly one of the stupidest responses to players not wanting a certain stat. LETS ADD MORE OF IT!!!! Go back and replace the mp5 for crit or haste and it solves the problem. I've said the pally gear in Ulduar is a joke from day one when the first piece dropped. There are pieces of loot in there that have the stats you want but a good amount come from hard modes deep into the instance and the gear is very rare to begin with. There are actually a lot of mail non set pieces that we take over the plate gear just because the stats fit us better. Almost reminds me of back in WoW Classic when I'd spend dkp on cloth/leather/mail gear just because the stats were better. I thought they solved that problem in Wrath but they are just going back to their old ways. It all confuses me really
George Jun 8th 2009 8:26PM
I dont think you understood what Blizzard are trying to accomplish, paladins are complaining that their gear is undesirable due to MP5 being such a lousy stat for them,
"Regardless of any other changes we might make, mp5 just doesn't seem to provide enough point for point on gear."
So, Blizzard is most likely going to buff the amount of MP5 on all healer gear to make it desirable, although, because pally regeneration just didn't seem to be nerfed enough in 3.1, so I can see blizzard nerfing holy paladins to bring them in line with other healers, so then they will want the gear with the newly buffed abundance of Mp5, essentially killing 2 birds with one stone.
In theory this could work, although paladin regeneration is difficult to balance atm because of Divine Plea.
Also of note, Other healer commentors have mention that Mp5 may simply be a weak stat to stack over Intellect due to replenishment, so maybe a complete overhaul of the stat should be in the works.
P.S. Wall of text Crits your eyes for 6000