Lifestealing vs. Crusader for FC's

[Kaanaa]

Hello!



I wanted to share some information regarding Flag Carrier weapon enchants, from personal experience and actual numbers.



On my twink Flag Carrier Prot Paladin Kaanaa I've tested the following weapon enchants:

* Icy Chill

* Lifestealing

* Crusader



Now, Icy Chill, I can tell you, still has a ridiculously low proc rate. I know you'll say probably say "We already knew that! -.-" but I figured it's worth sharing since they supposedly fixed the proc rate several patches ago.



After that, I moved onto Lifestealing, which is, from all the input and guides I've looked at, the recommended enchant for flag carriers wielding a one-hander. Sadly, the results were incredibly lackluster.



When I'm battlegrounding, I keep on my recount. It lets me know what spells are being most effective, how often I'm dodging, blocking, etc. and a wealth of other information to help me be a better flag carrier.



Over 10 days, my Lifestealing accounted for only 0.3% of my total healing done. Now, it's worth noting that I have both max Lifeblood (300 Herbalism), Gift of the Naaru (which now scales with AP) and typically use Judgement of Light, however, this was still incredibly low. There are a few other key notes I'll include - usually I only use my Lifeblood when I LOS Aimed Shot hunters after their debuff expires, so the healing there is a little inflated, but I almost never throw self-heals, with the exception of Lay on Hands.



I did notice, however, that the few occasions where I equipped my two-handed axe which is enchanted with Crusader, I was getting quite a bit more net healing. As a result, I figured I'd give it a chance on my one-hander, which is equipped 90%+ of the time.



Over 2 weeks of testing, I received the following with the same gear, same play style, same strategies:

Week 1 --- 2.7% Healing

Week 2 --- 2.2% Healing



As you can see, this, by leaps and bounds, outperformed Lifestealing. The argument could be made that Lifestealing also dealt a marginal amount of DPS, however, the Strength from Crusader's proc appears to provide about the same.



Hope this helps!



Kaanaa

Silver Hand

29 Prot Paladin FC

 

[The Love Fool]

Hiya there Kaanaa,



Thanks for sharing this info, it was very helpful. I'm currently gearing a Holy Paladin however, I've also put together what seems to me like a best in slot list of gear for a Flag Carrier, which I'm hoping to acquire along the way aswell.



One of the things that I couldn't decide on however was the weapon enchant, as many seemed viable. I was leaning more to Icy Chill for the snare I must say, however I think I'll go for Crusader now (which I hadn't initially considered as I assumed Lifesteal would give better results).



Also, on a side note, if you wouldn't mind to much would you be able to link your Flag Carriers armoury page please? The theory behind my gear seems sound however, I'd just like to ensure that I'm moving along the right lines. =)



Thanks again,

The Love Fool <3

 

[Kaanaa]

FC Tips

Hiya there Kaanaa,



Thanks for sharing this info, it was very helpful. I'm currently gearing a Holy Paladin however, I've also put together what seems to me like a best in slot list of gear for a Flag Carrier, which I'm hoping to acquire along the way aswell.



One of the things that I couldn't decide on however was the weapon enchant, as many seemed viable. I was leaning more to Icy Chill for the snare I must say, however I think I'll go for Crusader now (which I hadn't initially considered as I assumed Lifesteal would give better results).



Also, on a side note, if you wouldn't mind to much would you be able to link your Flag Carriers armoury page please? The theory behind my gear seems sound however, I'd just like to ensure that I'm moving along the right lines. =)

You're very welcome! I normally log out in RP clothes - I'm not a very big fan of people copying me. >.> I put a lot of work into my gear, as I'm sure you understand, and pretty much have full best in slot.



I will give you this advice though: I'd go Prot, if you want to be a flag carrier. The simple reason is you won't have a ton of time to stop and heal, and with the exception of blowing your Aura Mastery, you're susceptible to Kicks and Counterspells which will cripple you, especially with the number of Rogues in 29's (though, admittedly, some are too stupid to actually use Kick). Prot just has too many super useful tools from 6% damage reduction, 40 second stun, 4 more seconds on Hand of Freedom, dispel resistance, a fair bit more armor and slightly better stats when you -need- to kill a DPS on you. I typically have an equip macro that throws on my Thermaplugg's Left Arm, and I have the AP/Strength from my gear to back it up along with the HP to win just about any 1v1 except against very skilled and geared players without using cooldowns.



I will share my spec with you, however:

wowhead.com/?talent#sZVG0GMh:jZc



As one last note, I have a Holy set and have respecc'ed Holy to play around with full BOA's and almost BIS gear. While in Holy, I have run the flag, and did probably better than most, but Prot is much, much better in my opinion.



Hope that helps!



Kaanaa

Silver Hand

 

[Kaanaa]

One More Note

If you do go Holy, and aren't running with the Afflicted add-on, I highly recommend InterruptBar. I use it all the time and love it. Very unintrusive, straightforward add-on that tells you when Kick, Counterspell, etc. is on cooldown.



Kaanaa

Silver Hand

 

[Misterflix]

Why no 30 Spellpower?



Or use a Skullbreaker?

 

[The Love Fool]

Aye it's no problem at all, I fully understand your reasoning, personally I don't 'generally' mind people copying my twinks (if they can, hehe) but I DO know how annoying it can be sometimes if you've spent a fair amount of time perfecting your character's gear and testing what works the best, just to have somebody come and copy it completely without doing any other research, especially if said person is one of the more annoying twinkers out there.



Onto your spec advice, I was looking into whether it would be worthwhile spec'ing prot for FC'ing or whether I'd be fine staying as Holy (I'll spend thousands of gold making and gearing a twink, yet I always seem to try and be cheap when it comes to respec costs.. go figure lol). Anyway, I came to the same conclusion as yourself that prot is superior.



My spec was pretty much exactly the same as yours, however I could not decided whether in teir 1 I should put 5 points into Divinity, making myself easier to keep up when/if I run with a healer and meaning I'd have to spend less time self healing; reducing the chance of an interrupt OR whether to put the points into Divine Strength, to aid me as you mentioned, when I need to fend off DPS on my own. How did you arrive at the decision that the Divine Strength option was superior, may i ask?



I must admit I will probably go with 5 points in Divinity, in the end, as that spec is also not a bad Survivalist healing spec either, so I can just switch out to my Healing Gear when I'm not running the flag and not gimp my healing too much in the grand scale of things. This is unless ofcourse it will gimp my FC spec too much in your opinion?



EDIT: Sorry for going massively off-topic by the way!

 

[Kaanaa]

30 SP / SKullbreaker

Why no 30 Spellpower?



Or use a Skullbreaker?

I rarely cast heals, so Spellpower is not nearly worth it for me, and the amount of difference it makes on Judgements is definitely not worth sacrificing the passive healing of Crusader.



A better argument could be made for a +22 Intellect enchant, but if I get to the point where I OOM, I would have died anyway.



Second, I'm Alliance and Skullbreaker isn't available to me. Besides, I use a one-hander with more Stamina on it for max scaling with Kings as well as higher actual DPS.



Kaanaa

Silver Hand

 

[Kaanaa]

My spec was pretty much exactly the same as yours, however I could not decided whether in teir 1 I should put 5 points into Divinity, making myself easier to keep up when/if I run with a healer and meaning I'd have to spend less time self healing; reducing the chance of an interrupt OR whether to put the points into Divine Strength, to aid me as you mentioned, when I need to fend off DPS on my own. How did you arrive at the decision that the Divine Strength option was superior, may i ask?



I must admit I will probably go with 5 points in Divinity, in the end, as that spec is also not a bad Survivalist healing spec either, so I can just switch out to my Healing Gear when I'm not running the flag and not gimp my healing too much in the grand scale of things. This is unless ofcourse it will gimp my FC spec too much in your opinion?

To be quite blunt, 5% extra healing scales very very poorly at this level. If you have a pocket healer that always queues with you, I can see it being worthwhile. But take a Flash of Light / Flash heal with 150-ish Spellpower as an example. You'll be looking at around a 300 HP heal. Increase that by 5%, and you've gained 15 HP off of 5 talent points. To me, it's not worth it, especially with Aimed Shot so prevalent in my battlegroup which knocks it down to a measly 8 HP for 5 talent points. I'd rather have the DPS capability and better Block.



There are times, especially with hunters, where your best chance of survival is aggressively going after them (Hand of Freedom out of Concussive Shot, Hammer of Justice before they change into Aspect of the Hawk, Purify their Stings and use Judgement of Justice on them). Don't forget, your Strength will scale with Kings as well.



Kaanaa

Silver Hand

 

[Kaanaa]

Spec Note

After looking through my talent tree, the only thing I might change is removing 2/5 Toughness in favor of 2/5 Anticipation.



This only reduces incoming physical damage by less than half a percent (which is like 3 HP on a 500 crit Ambush), and at most takes 1.5 seconds off of Crippling Poison and 1 second off of a Frostbolt, both of which will be re-applied before the duration.



2% Dodge, I'd say, is much more worthwhile.



Kaanaa

Silver Hand

 

[Screamforme]

As a paladin, doesn't the strength from crusader also increase your ability to block? If so, and I am pretty sure it does, that would be another advantage to it

 

[Kaanaa]

Strength and Block

Yes, it increases the amount blocked (block value).



Kaanaa

Silver Hand

 

[darzk]

Indeed, I would go with Crusader, or a passive +15 agi, as a FCing chant.



Crusader increases block value, as noted, increasing the *amount* you block, not the frequency, but likely your blocks will already stop the entire attack.



+15 agi is additional armor + dodge (and crit) and is always there.





I found it strange that crusader worked out to more direct healing than LS for you. By all accounts, LS should be a good 1.3 hp/sec more than crusader.

 

[Zyrkonos]

I just thought that a crusader proc, increasing your AP, also increases the healing from Gift of the Naaru.