Heroic/Naxx Ready?Follow

I just want to get some feedback on whether or not my holy pally is Naxx ready, or is he even ready for some of the tougher heroics. I have run heroic VH a few times (even when I still had more greens), got to Epoch in H Strat, wiped a few times on Stoutbeard in Nexus because the dps were being idiots (I kept the tank alive for 2 minutes after the dps had died and were just sitting there watching when they could have rezzed and came back to help), but I know I still need to run more to get some badge gear. Anyway here is the armory link to my toon. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

I have been working on getting better boots, and enchantments. Since I just dinged 80 last Thursday, I have slowly been getting better gear. As you can see some of my gear is TBC loot. I have been holding off on getting enchants for that gear mainly because I think I will be upgrading it soon. If it will make a difference now I might just bite the bullet and enchant those pieces. Thanks for the info.

Agree with Mark wholeheartedly on this point. My wife's mage is an enchanter. All those greens from SSO boxes ended up as valuable enchant materials so that my upgrades were relatively easy to enchant.

As to the original question: I hit 80 Sunday morning and went into heroic Utgarde a little later that day. 1200 SP, ~25% Holy crit, somewhere around 110 mp5 unbuffed (it's been dropping quite a bit). Had no problem at all until the last boss, we wiped once and I died right near the end (hooray for a Boomkin with backup heals!). We tried Naxx 10, and while I felt pretty good about my performance, I probably shouldn't be in there just yet, unless the rest of the group is over-geared.

Is the mana cost of spells based on your total mana or is it base mana? I can't remember. If it's total, then mp5 will still be an important stat. If the latter is the case then cracker you are correct in saying that mp5 doesn't really matter anymore.

Right, i mean obviously theres no way you are going to go thru the game and find perfectly balanced gear for what you want. But generally if one item has Mp5 and the other does not...the stats on the item lacking Mp5 are going to be better, assuming the item is of the same iLevel. Mp5 isnt bad if the item is a raw upgrade in spellpower, int, crit. But dont go out of your way to get a Mp5 Trinket or something like that.

When I dinged 80 I was in my SWP/T6 gear. So about 1450 sp, 15% crit and 13-14k mana and it was pretty tense healing. Felt like I was healing Brutallus.


By 1600 I was feeling a little better and by that time I was at 15-16k mana and my crit had gone up a bunch. It is really dependant on where the rest of your players are at. If the tank is undergeared you are gonna need more, if you're dps is lacking then fights are going to go on longer and once again you will feel the crunch.. But as a general rule I feel that 1500-1600, 20% crit, 15k mana (min) seems like its attainable and will get you through most heroics. Not promising anything on Loken but you should be fine on the rest.

I find that, other than tank gear, the biggest help for our healing is the dps hp pools. On Stoutbeard in Nexus, for example, if your dps only have 14k hp, they can get two shotted by his whirlwind before they can get out of range. Nothing you can do about it. But as soon as they can take two, or even three hits then get to a safe spot, it makes hitting them with a holy light that much easier. Same thing with most of the bosses in northrend dungeons. Same thing with raids.

The suggestions when you are slightly undergeared, like you are, would be to make liberal use of Sacred Shield, and Bacon the tank every pull. SS slows down the burst, letting you react slower and letting your gear keep up. Same thing with Bacon, allowing you to focus on your (under geared) dps and still keep the tank alive.

As a paladin healer, the main stat that boosts you the quickest from new 80 to heroic dungeoneer is int. More int will up your game more than anything else. The fact remains that in dangerous situations (which most of them are, since few tanks are overgeared for the content) holy light will save you and your party better than flash of light. Sure its more expensive, but we have divine plea now. With sufficient int, we gain back tons of mana each Plea, and the -20% penalty is easy to ignore when you switch to pure holy light for the duration. As such, the libram that reduces HL cost is the single best upgrade for the badges.

MP5 is a lvl 70 stat. Paladins don't need it. I even Kings myself instead of Wisdom, mp5 is so useless. Of course you are going to get some from gear or getting a blue socket bonus, but not something you should look for or base your stats on.

Edited, Dec 16th 2008 9:51am by Zeynothix