Posts with tag spell-power

Every week, WoW Insider brings you The Light and How to Swing It for holy, protection and retribution paladins. Every Sunday, Chase Christian invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. Feel free to email me with any questions you want answered, like why paladins are so awesome.

There was some talk on the official forums recently about the logistical issues presented by plate gear with intellect on it. The best part of the preceding sentence is that it was true last year, it's true this week, and will probably continue to be true next year.

While the gear itself was originally called spell plate due to its spellpower stat, it's now usually referred to as intellect plate. The issue isn't with intellect plate or holy paladins, because they've both been serving their purposes perfectly. The problem is how intellect plate interacts with boss loot tables, affecting everyone else in the raid.

Theorycrafting was once just a thing for the geekiest of geeks, the hardest of the hardcore, the most nerdiest, basement dwelling-est, living with mom-est gamers out there. As the World of Warcraft has grown in popularity and end-game raiding content has become more and more accessible, however, theorycrafting has become something that is relevant to the everyday casual gamer as well. Through sites such as Elitist Jerks, more and more people have become exposed to the deeper mathematical concepts that drive this game. Such sites, however, are often fraught with convoluted, difficult-to-follow information and strings of calculations that can be hard for users to understand. I will admit that there are many times when the math some of the players post in these places can go way over my head.

To that end, there have been many easy-to-use tools developed in order to simplify the aspects of theorycrafting into a practical application that players can use. Things such as Rawr or Simcraft have become a very popular source of information regarding theoretical data and how it can be used within the game, giving access to information such as talent spec choices and gearing upgrades. Even still, such programs are not without their flaws, and often the theoretical mechanics used by such programs can be rather confusing to follow. It's my wish to bring theorycrafting to the general population in a different approach. Instead of merely tossing out information at random with the hopes that someone out there will grasp the concept, I wish for people to understand the basics that fuel theorycrafting by presenting it in such a way that is easy to understand.

To that end, I wish to present the theory behind the mathematical calculations for spellpower. How does spellpower scaling function? What effect does the stat really have for increasing a player's power? Why does spellpower behave the way that it does? These are all questions that form the basic principles behind theorycrafting, and it is the allure of figuring such things out that draws people to theorycrafting. As the game becomes more accessible to more people, so too should the theory that drives it.

Every week, Raid Rx will help you quarterback your healers to victory! Your host is Matt Low, the grand poobah of World of Matticus and a founder of No Stock UI, a new WoW blog for all things UI, macro, and addon related. It's time to gear us up some healers! Let's take a look at all the phat loot the coliseum has to offer.

The Crusader's Coliseum offers a wide variety of gear and equipment for both new and veteran healers. It's time for us to start equipping ourselves in order to be prepared when Icecrown Citadel hits. While we're not exactly going to be healing Arthas to death, it's a good idea to start working on our stuff now.

We'll start with Trial of the Champion for the fresher 80s before we move to Trial of the Crusader where all the good stuff is.

In a recent set of posts on the subject of Prot Paladins wearing holy gear in PvP, Ghostcrawler mentioned that Prot Paladins are not intended to be able to out heal Holy Paladins in the same gear and that fixes are intended that will remove their ability to do this. I'd like to offer a suggestion: destroy all spell power plate. Destroy it! Destroy, destroy, destroy! Exterminate it! Extirpate it from the surface of Azeroth! Perhaps in a Cataclysm of some kind. (Except Judgement. That can stay.)

My reasoning isn't to nerf Holy Paladins as healers. I love all healers equally. Rather, my idea here is to incorporate a class design that's been picking up steam since the end of Burning Crusade. Back before patch 3.0 dropped, two Paladin specs wore spell plate, Holy and Protection. Since that was two specs out of a possible six plate wearing talent specializations (2/6 = 1/3 = roughly 33 percent, I'm not doing a repeating) that meant that there was a fairly sizable minority that wanted the stuff.

Flash forward to Wrath of the Lich King. There are now three plate wearing classes. Two of them (six total talent specs) have absolutely no use for spell plate. The one class that does use spell plate? Well, the Protection tree was revamped, so tanking Paladins don't wear it. Retribution has been giving spell plate the stink eye forever. So we now have 1 out of 9 possible specs wearing the stuff, and yet it drops everywhere. There's no reason spell plate needs to exist, much less be a protected species by Blizzard when they went out of their way to do away with tanking leather, for example.

Mining
Miners are given Toughness, an ability that at max rank, awards +50 stamina. This is a lovely bonus for tanks! A tank's talents will take this well beyond +500 hp, and stamina is also multiplied by buffs and talents such as Blessing of Kings (and not all stats are). This is also going to be helpful in PvP, where stamina is especially important.

Herbalism
Herbalists get Lifeblood, a self-heal, that at max rank, awards +2000 HP over 5 seconds on a 3 minute cooldown. This can be used in or out of combat, and the spell effect entails flowers sprouting up from the ground all around the character.

It is difficult to gauge the actual benefit of this ability across classes and in different situations. In the last few seconds of a close fight, where it is you or them, even a small boost in HP could bump you up to victory. Then again, tanks benefit more from stamina due to talents that factor in your total stamina to then award you with extra stamina (Sacred Duty), increased power (Touched by the Light), and other benefits. It is also difficult to say whether an extra boost in damage might also be worth more than this small heal in a tough spot.

Almost all classes find this ability helpful while leveling and soloing. Raiders will often use it to top themselves off or buy some time until their next heal.

Skinning
Skinners become Masters of Anatomy, and gain 32 critical strike rating, which is equal to 0.70% crit. This is especially useful to classes who have talents that boost stats based on your crit rating, increase your crit by a %, or where your crit rating actually grants you other stats, such as mana for holy paladins.

The Skinning and Mining bonuses equate to about 2 gems worth of stats, and Lifeblood is all about how you use it.

Conclusion and Comparison
As you can see, for most of the professions, the benefits and stat increases are approximately equal. Let's use spell power to demonstrate this:

• JC: +39.
• Enchanting: +38.
• Inscription: +37.
• Tailoring: 250 SP for 15 seconds of every 45 seconds+. This averages to +83 SP in ideal conditions (meaning, it procs on your next heal after the cooldown is up). In fact, it will likely always be under, though somewhat near, this ideal. A more realistic average is +75 SP.
  
• LW: +37.
• Blacksmithing: +38.
• Engineers: +18 and a parachute.
• Alchemy: +37.

As you can see, the profession bonuses are basically equivalent, and this is true across each stat. There are some exceptions. As I noted earlier, the Engineering enchants are not only meant to increase your stats, but also combine your gadgets, absorbing them into your everyday armor. Without this absorption, the only way to use them would be to take off your super special raiding/PvP gear in favor of a piece of gear or trinket that you carry around for special occasions. Because of this convenience, they seem to eat up itemization points.

Still, there are several that are still worth taking, even over other options available for that slot. The Tailoring enchant noted above is currently being debated as OP, and may be subject to tweaking in the future. It is also worth noting that because this is a passive proc, it is not always going to be utilized. You might proc it near the end of a fight, for example, or when you're topping someone off between pulls, and waste most of the added spell power.

---

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW.com's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.

There's a great question about the mechanics of spell casting when a proc / buff is or is not active. It's a very fine point that most people don't consider, and it's a mechanic that has been reiterated by Ghostcrawler and company recently. Take a few minutes to read it, you'll be glad you did.

Today's reading music is Frank Sinatra and Natalie Cole singing They Can't Take That Away From Me.

I love the way we dance 'till three.

Mortur asked...

"Now that the Battle.net conversion has been released for a while and bugs have been being dealt with, do you feel that there is much reason anymore for holding off on converting your account to Battle.net? Have the authentication issues after a patch been going away?"

Welcome back to the Queue. We offer you service with a smile.

Kenmoe asked...

"Is the construction of the Argent Tournament colosseum at all dependent on realm participation like Quel'Danas was? I was wondering if the goblin dailies 'A Chip Off the Ulduar Block' and 'Jack Me Some Lumber' helped construct the building faster. If so, is there any way to see progression like there was with Quel'Danas?"

Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.

Maintenance day, maintenance day! One of the best days of the week, or one of the worst? I'll leave that to all of
you to decide.

Nautical D asked...

I stopped playing WoW just before 3.0 patch came out and deleted all my characters and items to make sure I didn't return, is there any way I could get back and start on WotLK without having to roll new chars?

I'm sure The Queue is the last thing you're all interested in the day the PTR goes up, but too bad! You get it anyway! Let's get the Q&A started, eh?

Velina asked...

I have a Shadow Priest I leveled to 34, then had her boosted to level 60 through Recruit-a-Friend level grants. She's now stuck in level 25-30-ish questing greens and SFK blues. I'm wondering what would be the best way to gear her. Would she be able to survive questing in Outland in her very low-level gear, or am I going to have to round up some gold for her?

I've seen a lot of people asking these questions as we've been getting into the expansion: Now that I am trying to gear by Death Knights, what stats should I get? What's good for a Death Knight? Which armor should I take. We've started getting in that somewhat in the last few columns, with advice on reputation gear and starting zone gear, but I figured today we should delve a little bit more into the why of Death Knight stats.

Today's column will double as a little bit of primer on how Death Knights get their power, and what stats you should be looking for on armor in general to make your Death Knight the best it can be. It's not completely in depth, but it should get you well on the road to understanding just how Death Knights get all that awesome power and sexiness.

We'll have 3 sections today. The Good are stats that are excellent choices for DPS, Tanks, or both. The So-So are stats which still do us some good, but are pretty situational or conditional in their usefulness. The Outcasts are those stats that you should avoid -- Well, I'd say avoid like the plague, but we're Death Knights. We like the plague around here. So I'll just say you should avoid them.

TBC saw a rise in the necessity of Hit Rating. Is Hit as important in Wrath? I ask because Hit isn't nearly as fun as Attack/Spell Power or Crit rating.

A couple of days ago at the midnight release of Wrath of the Lich King in Anaheim, CA, our very own Dan O'Halloran had an opportunity speak with Tom Chilton (also known as Kalgan), Lead Game Designer of World of Warcraft. They spoke on a wide variety of topics, from raid philosophy to the growth of the game in North America and many things in between. Read on to see what Kalgan had to say!

WoW Insider: What did Blizzard think was the most surprising class development of The Burning Crusade? Did you think Paladin tanks would be as popular as they were, did you anticipate the Druid supremacy in the arena?

Another day, another edition of Ask a Beta Tester. Today, as a special treat, I am going to answer your questions while blindfolded. And on fire. And covered in bees.

...actually, I don't really like that idea so I'm going to answer your questions like I normally do, starting with Naraxus's question...

Something I was thinking about was how much of an important stat "Hit" was on endgame gear in BC. A couple of patches ago a lot of the lower level gear was given a hit stat to it and I was wondering if the 70-79 gear in WotLK has "Hit" or is it just basic stats and spell power, attack power etc?

There's some Hit on leveling gear, but not enough to keep you capped right to 80 in my experience. I actually didn't really try, I concerned myself more with survival and longevity. In the case of a Priest, that meant stamina, spirit, and spell damage. Leveling gear is a bit more simplified. Raw stats, and some attack power/spell power in most cases.

You'll also find some crit, hit, and haste, but your leveling gear isn't going to have as many random stats slapped on it as you see on some raid gear.

If you're like me, you've been madly farming the elusive Great Brewfest Kodo since Brewfest began. Even when I was having a bit of hand trouble, my little dwarf found his way into Blackrock Depths to do beer-laden battle with the big, bad, belligerent brewmaster. But there's an important tip that you should remember while Brewfest continues.

The two spell trinkets are both useful to all spell casters (who don't out gear them) after the content patch unifies spell damage and spell healing into Spell Power. Right now, the Dark Iron Smoking Pipe is a spell damage trinket, and the Direbrew Hops is a healing trinket. But in the content patch, both will be turned to spell power -- the Pipe has 43 spell power and 155 on use, the Hops have 44 spell power, 153 on use.

Of course, this begs the question about how the Pipe and Hops will compare to other trinkets when the patch hits. Timbal's Focusing Crystal from Heroic Magister's packs 44 spell power. You'll have to decide whether you want an on-use bonus 154ish spell power from the brewfest trinkets, or Timbal's on-use proc for 285 to 475 extra damage. The Hex Shrunken Head from Zul'Aman is a clear upgrade from the Hops and Pipe, since it has more constant spell power and high on-use spell power.

Coren's dropped trinkets are equivalent to the 41-Badge trinkets purchaseable from G'eras. The Essence of the Martyr and Icon of the Silver Crescent are both slightly better than either Hops or Pipe since they have 44 spell power, and 158 spell power on use. But for 41 badges each, I'm probably not going to lose any sleep over 5 spell power every 2 minutes.

[Thanks Rikitiki for the tip!]

I have a priest alt getting close to 70. Planning on doing healing come Wrath. With the conversion to spell power should I be picking up healing gear or damage gear right now? How is, for instance, Spell fire stacking up against Primal Mooncloth? Is spellfire actually able to heal better right now in the beta? How about damage?

I strongly recommend hopping over to Wowhead's Wrath site and doing some research on how the numbers turn out. In most cases, DPS gear has better DPS stats (hit, crit) and Healing gear has better Healing stats. The spell power numbers are just much, much closer. In your particular example, the Primal Mooncloth Robe has more spell power than the Spellfire Robe, but it has mp5 and the Spellfire has crit. A DPS spec/class would rather have the crit.

A few weeks ago I covered the effects of the spell power change in Hybrid Theory, with some raw numbers to look at. You can read that over if you'd like, but I mostly just suggest hitting up wotlk.wowhead.com for specific items.

For more answers to your questions, read on!