Healadins: Why Weapon Speed is Important!

[Simca]

Since patch 3.2, Seal of Wisdom has become even more of a staple than it previously was. Why?

Judgements:
Patch 3.2.0 (2009-08-04): Some of these attacks were considered ranged and some melee. They are all now considered melee attacks that can't be dodged, parried or blocked.

This is huge, whether you realize it or not, because Seal of Wisdom procs from melee attacks. This means your Judgements have a chance to proc Seal of Wisdom's 4% MAX MANA return (not base).

Now the thing even less people realize is that the chance for Seal of Wisdom to proc from Judgement of Light/Wisdom/Justice is a PPM (Proc Per Minute) effect. This means that all weapons are equalized for proccing Seal of Wisdom from Judgements, right? WRONG.

A slower weapon has a greater chance of proccing a Seal of Wisdom from a Judgement, up to nearly 100% at a 4.00 speed. Assuming the standard 15 PPM for Seal of Wisdom, we get the following:

1.5 speed: 37.5%
Notable weapons: Heartcrusher/Heartsmasher (haste/crit, ToC10 Tribute, ilvl 245)

1.6 speed: 40.0%
Notable weapons: All PvP 1-handed maces, Firesoul (haste/hit, FL10, ilvl 219), and Splintered Icecrown Parapet (haste/crit, Marywn N, ilvl 219)

1.8 speed: 45.0%.
Notable weapons: Nearly all caster weapons in the game are 1.8 speed.

2.1 speed: 52.5%.
Notable weapons: Quel'Delar, Lens of the Mind (haste/crit, ICC5 quest, ilvl 251)

2.2 speed: 55.0%.
Notable weapons: Lockjaw and Lockjaw Heroic (haste/mp5, Rotface10/10HM, ilvl 251/264), Valius, Gavel of the Lightbringer (crit/mp5, Lich King 10, ilvl 258), and Seethe (haste/hit, Devourer of Souls H, ilvl 232)

2.3 speed: 57.5%.
Notable weapons: Warmace of Unrequited Love (mp5, H Nexus, ilvl 200)

2.4 speed: 60.0%.
Notable weapons: Glinting Azuresong Mageblade/Polished Azuresong Mageblade (crit/hit, Onyxia10/25, ilvl 232/245)

2.5 speed: 62.5%.
Notable weapons: Titansteel Guardian (crit, no int, crafted, ilvl 200)

There are no epic lvl 80 weapons with speeds other than those listed in the list here.
Basically, every increase in weapon speed by 0.1 gives you a 2.5% chance increase in getting Seal of Wisdom to proc from Judgements.

Okay, dcemuser, I see how weapon speed can increase your mana return through SoW/Judgements, but how can I calculate this?

It's so easy a caveman could do it:
Mana return through SoW from Judging = [(Weapon speed * 0.25 * 0.04 * MAXIMUM mana pool)/(Frequency between judging)] * chance to hit (usually 96% since they are now considered melee attacks)

To convert this number to MP5, just multiply by 5.

For example, let's pretend I'm rocking Lockjaw (a 2.2), with 40k mana (fairly standard), and I judge... every 50 seconds, because I don't want to risk losing out on JotP if it misses. Then my mana return is 84.48 mp5. Lets compare this to a 1.8 weapon. Imagine there was a weapon equal to Lockjaw in every way, except that it had a 1.8 speed. In that case, the return is 69.12 mp5.

Big deal you say, it's only equivalent to one and a half mp5 gems, you say. Well, when we change the frequency, things change a lot more.

Alright, now, let's pretend I'm judging every 20 seconds, to maintain JoL, or JoW, or even Heart of the Crusader in some 10-man group with weird buff synergy.
With a 2.2 speeder, the mana return will be 211.2 mp5. That is equivalent to some of the best mp5 trinkets in the game. Now, with a 1.8 weapon it's only 172.8 mp5, which is a fairly massive difference.

Okay, I believe I've made my point - don't ignore the weapon speed on weapons because a lot of the time it ends up being more valuable than the static mp5 or int (rarely) on the weapon.

Edit: Worked on the examples a bit, going to throw up some real comparisons and better formatting later. Have things to do now.

[thoukaia]

last time i checked, non-white melee attacks have a set % chance to proc SoW which is not modified from weapon speed (or i could be wrong)

at least shield of righteousness' chance to proc SoW definitely isnt modified by weapon speed DUH

[Simca]

last time i checked, non-white melee attacks have a set % chance to proc SoW which is not modified from weapon speed (or i could be wrong)

at least shield of righteousness' chance to proc SoW definitely isnt modified by weapon speed DUH

Equipping a 3.9 speed weapon on a dummy shows a 95% proc rate, 1.4 barely procced at all. Not nearly a large enough sample to be conclusive, but still.

[FiveDkp]

Quel'delar is 2.1 and casting any spell resets the swing timer so if you want to melee your mana back, you best be doing nothing for a bit.

[Simca]

Quel'delar is 2.1 and casting any spell resets the swing timer so if you want to melee your mana back, you best be doing nothing for a bit.

Your facts are correct, your conclusion makes no sense though.

Casting any spell resets the swing timer: Correct.
You best be doing nothing for a bit... has nothing to do with the speed. Although this topic is not about meleeing, the same proc chance applies to meleeing as well. So you would have to wait 1.5 seconds for a 45% chance or 2.0 seconds for a 57.5% chance (making up numbers here, I know PPMs are affected by haste when considering melee swings, so 2.0 is totally unrealistic with JotP).

Edit: The reason I made up some numbers here is after doing a huge wall of text, twice, along with a lot of math, I'm not really in the mood to math out something unrelated and more complicated at this juncture.

[Simca]

Sorry I forgot the one encounter which completely changes my vision!!
Did you do the encounter yet?

God, it's not just about going OOM, it's about using less Divine Plea, and being able to sustain overhealing for longer periods of time.

Could you please take it elsewhere? I'm sure there's some MP5 vs throughput discussion that desperately NEEDS you right now, and guess what, it's not this thread.

[Simca]

I'm sorry for making fun of you, you probably are completely right that weapon speed is very important for a healer, take this cookie.

Might want to ask your other healers to step up their game if your DP time hurts them so much, I mean you are already going to take stupid weapons and lose stats just so you can proc a judgement of wisdom faster...

GJ knowing your class mechanics. It's Seal of Wisdom, bud. Seal of Wisdom restores 4% max mana and is amazing. Judgement of Wisdom restores 2% base mana and is nearly worthless for healers.

As for losing stats, yeah, I'd trade 10 mp5 for 0.4 weapon speed anyday, and you should too if you knew anything about how your class worked. This is only to be used when comparing items of equal itemlevel or comparing items with a higher itemlevel that have terrible itemization and ones with a slightly lower itemlevel with amazing itemization.

[Simca]

Get your head out of your ass, you know aswell as me that weaponspeed is the worst to go for as Holy, if you are having mana problems then you are doing it wrong, not the class.

If 80 mp5 is nothing, why don't you unsocket your helmet and take out the metagem or replace it with +attack power? "Doing it wrong" includes not realizing what stats increase what things and that includes weapon speed, no matter how minor and insignificant you deem it. Not gearing your character to the best of your ability towards worst-case scenarios for both throughput (Dreamwalker) and mana regen (Lich King) is a sign of poor play.

The entire reason I'm making this post is to just alert the Holy Paladin community at large, which is still relatively unaware of the large-reaching implications of the melee range change in patch 3.2.0. I have seen around 2 posts on Elitist Jerks mentioning the concept of weapon speed, 2 on a random blog, and 0 on MMO-Champion, and as such, I believed it something that some of the min-maxers around here would care to see math for. Just because you don't care to maximize your character for a worst-case scenario doesn't mean that others might not want to as well. Or who knows, they could be just a lower gear level and trying to pick between Azuresong Mageblade (the 232 version) and the Anub10 mace (also 232). Well guess what, this thread could help them out.

If you still fail to see the purpose of this thread, I would kindly suggest that you bring it to my attention in PMs, where you can rage at me for days without further derailing this thread.

Thanks.

[Evilution]

Aww I'm sorry that I wrote Judgement instead of seal, guess that means I'm bad at my class now right?

Yes, you are terrible at your class, and you seem to be quite the prick too i might add while the ball is in the air.
Next dumb question?

[nwo]

This is an interesting post that cleared up some of the uncertainty that was going on inside my head for the past few months.

8)

[FiveDkp]

Yes but you are homing in on the techinque of meleeing the boss to regain mana.

[dotnumb]

Yes but you are homing in on the techinque of meleeing the boss to regain mana.

Man I dont think I've ever seen one of our holy pallies melee'ing a boss... ever.

So aside from LK, what other fights do you normally do this on? How effective is it really, and does the stat loss in terms of SP+Haste really equated to being less valued that switching to what could be an inferior weapon just to get a couple melee swings in?

Seems a bit odd to me, but I personally have never had mana problems on my pally and I can not recall ever hearing one i've raided with talk about meleeing back mana.

EDIT: Also, why not just use some weapon switching macros to switch to a 2H'ed get a melee swing in, then switch back to cast the heal?

[Mizumi]

You have time to melee? I think you have too many healers in your raids......
Plus if you need to melee to regain mana you have a serious problem somewhere.

[vesseblah]

Ok, I might be missing something here since my paladin got deleted on level 12, but have few other healers raiding ICC...

You're basically saying that ideally paladins in Lich King fight should hit with speed 4.0 weapon every 20 seconds to regen some mana that they might need later, effectively making them cast 20% fewer healing spells due to the time spent melee'ing? Doesn't really make much sense to me.

Even if not reading your post that black and white, you're suggesting to use 3-4 tiers lower weapons of slower speed just to proc bit more mp5. I'm quite sure it's worth the 200 spellpower lost. What's wrong with good old weapon swapping macros other classes have used for years? Slap boss once every minute with your 3.5 speed lolret sword and then get back to healing, instead of using subpar healing weapons?

[Quehn]

...with 40k mana (fairly standard)

I herd puladins nid mp/5, so u liek dem diskuss bout dit, sins u dew nawht haev dem manaz

I think this post is a total overkill, since you barely ever come close to going oom as a holy paladin while fully buffed, and with replenishment, unless your dps are scrubs of course.

[Haush]

Just registered here to point out how most of you are completely missing the point.

What OP means is that when you Judge you have a chance to proc your active seal because judging counts as a melee attack. Most normal holy pallies judge from a safe range, OP mentioned nothing about directly meleeing the boss.(We judge to keep up our haste buff)

Since Seal of Wisdom is a ppm it has a higher chance of proccing if you look at it as a single hit when you have a lower weapon speed. Since f/e when you would be meleeing the boss a slow weapon will proc more often of a hit but since faster weapons have more hits it evens out. However for judging, which is a single attack every now and then you will gain more mana when you have a slow weapon simply because you have more chance to get that proc.

Ofcourse it isnt necessary just yet for mana reasons, but hey. Who knows what hardmodes will bring?

[Priesten]

From the OP: "This means your Judgements have a chance to proc Seal of Wisdom's 4% MAX MANA return (not base)."

Yes but you are homing in on the techinque of meleeing the boss to regain mana.

Man I dont think I've ever seen one of our holy pallies melee'ing a boss... ever.

So aside from LK, what other fights do you normally do this on? How effective is it really, and does the stat loss in terms of SP+Haste really equated to being less valued that switching to what could be an inferior weapon just to get a couple melee swings in?

You have time to melee? I think you have too many healers in your raids......
Plus if you need to melee to regain mana you have a serious problem somewhere.

All three of you seem to have some serious reading comprehension issues.

[Desul]

I don't think people are getting it Your not suppose to melee the boss.

Judgements are considered "melee".
You Judge every 10sec or so.
Slow weapon gives you 4% mana back more often through seal procs when using judgements.
Fast weapons proc less often.

So what the conclusion is, is that "slow" weapon have a hidden 80mp5 bonus to them due to the mechanics of the game...
Revert to the first post for the math.

[Jonisawsom]

These are probably the same failadins I get in my random LFG daily runs .

Seriously though, if all the ppm stuff is true, that's some interesting info. Who wouldn't want an extra 40 mp5? Only issue I see is that normal modes are already tough no? Will you be able to spare that many GCDs in hard modes? I suppose like you said, you already should be judging about every 50 seconds anyway so maybe you can squeeze in a few more without letting your tanks die.

[Kampret]

Faster weapon speed is indeed nice to have, why? Because if ur a pro healadin, u will most likely have used mouseover techniques/addons and leaving yer paladin hacking away at the boss in between casts, altho obviously this doesnt apply to all bosses, but it works wonders on the fights like anub/fester/rotface

judgments is a nice mana gain bonus here and there but i wont count on it too much, just keeping the haste buff is more than enough