Mp5. Stack it, lack it, love it, hate it. It's a stat that's been put all over our gear for all of our specs. Holy, prot and ret have all had or have gear that is loaded with MP5.
Holy’s >t5 stuff is stuffed something fierce with spell crit which I believe was a shortsighted mistake when the illumination nerf hit. All that gear was probably designed just before the devs decided that holy was just too damn good. The fact that they keep sticking us with overstuffed crit rating on fresh gear is beyond me (ala S3 Redemption). However, there’s a lot to be said about spell crit for the holy tree but the consensus is still mp5 > crit. Here is a recent discussion about it. Mp5 = good for holy. End of story. The other specs it’s not so cut and dry.
Prot hates mp5. Or does it? Initially all of our new tiered prot gear was given some amount of mp5. The community bitched and moaned until it was removed. Why was it so bad for the tiered sets? Spiritual Attunement. SA is probably the single best ability we received with the advent of 2.0 and yet it seems like it was totally overlooked by Blizzard at first. Holy was getting too much of a buff from it via Vampiric Embrace and Vampiric Touch. Prot paladins everywhere cried. They removed the ability of SA to regenerate mana if the paladin’s health was full. In general a huge nerf for the ability but prot felt it the most. Mp5 such a bad idea still? Yes. There’s never a time that the miniscule amount of mana regenerated through that stat on gear would benefit a prot paladin enough to make it worth its extremely high budget cost. Except on the Righteous gear. On Righteous I propose that it is actually better to have mp5 because often times in 5 mans the tank isn’t taking enough damage for SA to have an effect. Had they never nerfed SA then who cares? But they did and so Righteous is budgeted properly for this, although it could serve to lose some int for stam. Then you realize you’re supposed to walk into Karazhan and tank in the blues you’ve collected in instance. Righteous now sucks. Luckily the tiered gear was remedied of this paradox but it still makes the gap between blue mp5 stat'd prot gear to heavy stam epic gear a difficult one. There’s no reason that deep in the prot tree there shouldn’t be an improved SA talent to revert it back to its old function or simply increase the amount of mana gained from the base effect.
Ret hates mp5. Even more than prot. It’s just not enough bang for the buck on the gear. It simply does not have the value of pure dps stats and it cannot compensate for simply chain potting. Mp5 talent? No. In complete exposition here, ret doesn’t have mana problems. As long as you’ve specced properly there’s no reason to run into mana issues. These mana issues ret encounters are primarily in pvp and that’s the same place plenty of other low-int high-dps geared classes run into problems. Mages have a paltry amount of int on their arena gear and are able to kill/support just as long as we are. Sure, they’ve got things like mana gems and evocate, but in the end everybody can sit and drink. In an arena any larger than 2s you should be getting plenty of mana back from SA, certainly enough to compensate for the (currently) shit poor evo and 1 or 2 mana gems a mage can use. SA is a godsend for ret and anybody grouping with a healer that has at least a taco sized brain will know that you get mana back from their heals, prolonging not only your life but their own. The answer to ret’s mana problems are not in a new or piggy back talent (although I’ll welcome one with open arms if Blizz ever decides they’re feeling generous), it’s in intelligent play and cooperation between team members.
Tips for keeping your mana up in pvp as ret:
1) Use rank 1 consecration. Unless you’re sitting on a phat mana pool that leaves room for a 660 mana dot, then there’s no need to use top rank. The extra DPS simply isn’t enough to make a difference. Even with 300+ spell damage it’s just not going to make or break your fight. Use consecration for breaking stealth, preventing bandaging or anything else you need a dot effect for, just don’t use it for its sick deeps.
2) Have your partner heal you. If you’re grouping with someone who can heal, hybrid or not, let them heal you and you can heal them. It’s not necessarily mana efficient but its mana conserving. That little extra you get could be enough to get off a finishing judgement. If you’re with a dedicated healer then better still. Make sure they know how SA works and keep your blue rage up.
3) Sit and drink. I can’t count how many times people have just continued to fight a losing battle when they could have saved themselves and the others they were fighting with just by running around a corner and drinking. Arena water isn’t expensive, in fact it’s cheap. Uncap that honor you’re saving for next season and pick up a couple stacks; it’ll save your life.
4) Pot. It’s frowned upon, I know, but it’s perfectly ok to use a token purchased pot in a BG. Sure, you can’t rely on them in the arena, but it’s sure nice to have them in a clutch.
5) Use rank 1 SoC. If you don’t plan on judging it, why seal up top tank? Or, if you’re getting spam dispelled then you can burn the other person’s mana by using the lowest rank. Whatever version of dispel they may be using on you I guarantee it costs more mana than rank 1 SoC. This is a moot point come next patch, but hell, it’s always good to know now.
If ret receives an mp5 talent, so be it. If it doesn’t, I won’t be crying. I’d much rather see the ap to sd talent implemented before mp5. I can understand that
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