Paladin Itemization

It's no surprise that Blizzard has chosen status quo in regards to the current Paladin itemization. Initially I wasn't very happy because revamping my gear was a problem, and secondly the drastic change to illumination called for a change in healing style. The change helped me improve my downranking speed a lot because no more can you spam mindlessly while still maintaining a full mana pool, well, that is if you don't have a shadow priest.

I've looked extensively at Paladin loot all the way to Illidan and Archimonde, and also spent some time spying at the gear paladins in top PVE raiding guilds are choosing. Surprisingly to some, DnT paladins (Ryuujin, Xaviera and Kronagan included) are continuing their tradition to keep base crit at a high level (25%~). At the same time, they have very high heal and somewhat decent mp5. I'm just a bit shocked they didn't balance their gems to get mystical skyfire (focus), instead, they socketed destructive skyfire (crit/reflect). I think that's a huge mistake. Right now they're sitting on 1.8k~ heal, 90mp5 and 25% crit.

The loot they're wearing is really the only available ones, unless you take mail or outright druid/priest loot. With their choice of gear, they could reach 2.2k heal, 100mp5 and 25% base crit. Of course, this is assuming you have access to _everything_.

Nihilum for whatever reason have chose to gear Awake/Johnnyr heavily. Possibly because both of them are in their arena team, or maybe because they're officers (kek). Both of them sit on 2.2k heal already, but are 80mp5~and 21% crit. This is evidence that in PVE you are largely pigeon-holed towards a certain set of gear, especially for healers. Gems and non-class specific loot enable players to deviate from the standard stat configurations, but otherwise you will end up wearing what Blizzard whats you to wear.

There is a 'new-age' healadin that completely ignores crit (as best as possible), but stacks mp5, then +heal. Currently I am somewhat a manadin (lol) sitting on 1.6k heal and 150mp5. Ragnor mentioned that some paladin managed to stack up 250mp5 raid buffed. This is entirely possible. One of the great advantages I have as a manadin is Talasite Owl, which alone is 29mp5 max and on average 25mp5 (oh I'll write a bit about the new JC-only gems later). It's going to be a bit annoying though when it comes to BT and Hyjal considering I'm already having problems selecting gear in SSC. Mind you I haven't got a single item from SSC yet, because I'm still in the eternal struggle to choose a fixed gear configuration.

For example, should I take Tempest-Strider Boots (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30066) or Boots of Courage Unending (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=30027)? Assuming I take Tempest only after all shamans have one, the practicality of the manadin build becomes questionable. To be realistic, one would have to take the latter. And I think that's the case I'm dealing with. Should I be a rash realist or a cautious idealist? Maybe it's best to be a cautious realist.

The other ongoing issue is gemming and enchants. Hell, getting pigeonholed is one problem, having too much variety is another (-.-")! However, I am certain I will continue to use mystical skyfire, and therefore assuming I get 4p T6 (-helm), blessed adamantite bracers and girdle of hope, I'm ending up with 1 metagem slot, 5 blue slots and 6 yellow slots. So I'm intending to get 5 royal blabla whatever the 11/2mp5 ones are, 4 10 crit gems and 2 greens gems - possibly rune covered chryoprase and 5int/2mp5 one. FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS =D