Offheal gear: weighting healing/crit vs. mp5

In my first run through Heroic MrT, I got the Breastplate of Fierce Survival since there was no pally healer in the party. I'm currently wearing the Breastplate of Many Graces, which has served me long and well with its massive amount of mp5.

I won't get too much of that mp5 back from gemming the new chest piece - so if you were building your offheal set, would you go for the huge +heal ups, or stick with the mp5 for spamming flash of light vs. Aran, Kael, and the 5v5 fight in MrT?
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Good question. It's probably covered in the sticky:

http://maintankadin.failsafedesign.com/viewtopic.php?t=486

However, if not ... I'd lean towards mana regen, since we don't get illumination. Then again, I have virtually no healing gear and am a noob at paladin healing. I'd be surprised if the question wasn't answered in the sticky, though.

Well, you can get a rare blue gem with 3 mp5, or go with a rare red gem for +18 heal. That's as good a place as any to start for your ratio. If I were in your place I'd probably socket all +heal in the new bp and just use mana pots if it looks like your healing is going to make or break a fight.
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Last seen wearing...

Well, with the changes to mana regen there are a lot of people who don't understand it, and I'm one of them.

FYI, 18 healing gem has always outpaced 3 mp5 gem...They're really not comparable. 9 healing 2mp5 was the best before the patch (at least for priests).

I'd just gem for +healing and hope you get grouped with a shadow priest when you're healing =P
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Saviorself - 70 priest
Expriest - 70 warrior
Wafflez - 63ish priest
Crittoris - 66 pally and rising!

Yea, I'd also say go for the better healing. You aren't going to be healing any 5 man groups and if you are called on to off-heal in a raid you'll just have to make sure you are in a Shadow Priest group and to make sure other people are healing you if you are taking splash damage.
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Kikiel Level 70 Paladin of Bronzebeard

If the fight lasts longer than 2 minutes, mp5 is key for a non-holy specced paladin. If it doesn't, heal is key. Crit is effectively useless.

The general rule of thumb that I use for itemization is that 9 healing is worth 2 mp5. So for that chestpiece you'd need roughly +50 healing to offset the mp5 in terms of itemization. That seems about right. Honestly, with the right gems they're probably pretty close to each other, with the new one having a slight edge due to the crit.

healing as prot is not about landing big heals, it's mostly a "cushion". While on the tank, prothealer will be spamming fol much more than a holy one(that would usually use downranked holy light for keeping it's cast time buff up), so the tank, instead of going down to "omg400hp", he goes down much later, and to "gezz1400hp". It's about buying that extra second for the healers to land THEIR big heal.
the other good role for prot healer is to handle minor raid damage, like the occasional aoe or life tap or whatever. in those situations, you also just need small heals.


In both situations crit is unlikely to be much useful.
for prothealing, mp5 >>>>>>>>>>>>> crit on a long fight.(take off a few ">"s for a short fight)
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Quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur (Anything said in Latin sounds deep)

I wouldn't discount +heal, not by a long shot. To start with the obvious, it's that much more cushion you're adding when spamming flashes. In addition, I find that I definitely work in some Holy Lights....for example in a fight I often offheal, Naj'entus, after Tidal Shield is broken getting people back in a safe range quickly is a top priority, and a single flash really doesn't have the power to make most people able to survive an AoE hit in the first few seconds after the burst. Therefore I find it most effective then to switching to HL for 10-15 seconds there, hitting fewer people but potentially making a life/death difference for those people, then returning to FoL spam.

Of course, I'm also at a point where I can pretty much spam FoL indefinitely, so there's quite a bit of potential healing going to waste if I don't throw in some HLs from time to time...it's one of those things you get better at balancing with time and practice.
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For prot healing you want enough mp5 so you can spam fol constantly, once you have that stack as much heal as you can.
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