2.4 Badges

Today some of the pricing was announced on the new Badge of Justice loots in the next patch and while the number of badges needed seems a bit high, I think it makes sense for the quality of the items you will be getting.

The other main change is that mana regeneration is being changed to be dependent on both intellect and spirit. From Elitist Jerks Forums:

Granted, but again, I'm more concerned with what happens with mages. Unfortunately, I checked my math again so that I can use an inequality. (I'd like to apologize if my math skills are not too honed for the company I'm in.)

s*√i*k

(s+1)*√i*k>s*√(i+1)*k

(s+1)*√i>s*√(i+1)

〖(s+1)〗^2*i>s^2*(i+1)

(s^2+2s+1)*i>s^2 i+s^2

(2s+1)*i>s^2

i>s^2/(2s+1)

This means that if your Int is greater than the given number (related to your spirit), adding Spirit will increase your mana regen better than Int. So, let's pick a number. Say, 400. That's your Spirit. This means that if you have greater than 199.75 Int, it is better to put one point of Spirit on than one point of Intellect, for purposes of mana regen.

Thus, this change does not really benefit Mages at all, but it might have implications for very high-Spirit casters. It seems the rule of thumb would be that if your Intellect is less than half your Spirit, increasing your Intellect to the point that it is half of your Spirit would yield better regeneration than simply stacking Spirit.

So with my spirit really low right now, the added spirit from the new 2.4 badge items will drastically increase my mana regen which will be quite helpful.

The one thing I'm looking at here is replacing my Spellfire set with the new Sunwell Badge items. The Shroud of the Lore'nial is 100 badges, Voodoo Woven Belt is 60 badges (2.3 haste loot) and the Enslaved Doomguard Soulgrips are purchaseable for an unknown number of badges (I'm thinking a mage pair of Gloves will appear shortly as these appear more suited for locks).

The difference between those three badge items and my Spellfire set is:

+119 Armor
+86 Stamina
+39 Intellect
+33 Spirit
+62 Hit Rating
-22 Crit Rating
-86 Damage

It's tough to justify losing 86 damage like that. But gaining 62 hit rating translates at almost 1:1 to damage or crit. So the total loss in Hit/Crit/Damage (all 1:1 relationships via different socketing) is -46.

So do you take the 46 point loss in Hit/Crit/Damage for 86 Stamina, 39 Intellect, and 33 Spirit? 39 Intellect = 585 more mana which is one to two extra fireballs per fight. It also is 0.5% extra crit rating (or 11 spell crit points). So the gain of Intellect offsets 11 points of that loss, so I'm losing 35 points (ignoring the 585 extra mana).

So to lose 35 Hit/Crit/Damage, I gain 86 stamina and 33 spirit. 860 hit points is nothing to just toss aside as meaningless, but it comes at a cost of damage. So the question is which is more important? Right now, with ice block and other damage avoidance options, it is rare when I die in a fight. However, how many times have I died by less than 860 hit points? I couldn't tell you. Add to that the 33 spirit. Doing some quick calculations, added 33 spirit and 39 intellect affords me an additional 45 mp/5 out of combat. With Mage Armor, that's an additional 13.5 mp/5 in battle. With an 8 minute fight, that's an additional 2,160 mana or an extra five firebals. With my fireballs averaging 2,400 damage or more, that's an extra 12,000 damage which would outweigh the 35 damage I lose. However, that assumes that I run out of mana after using all my gems, evocation, and potions, which I do not do (yet). And with more MP/5, I shouldn't in the future.

It's a tough call. I might wait for some more theorycraft numbers to come out and then rue the day I made my Boots of Blasting as the new Boots of Incantations look pretty nice...+12 stamina, +1 intellect, +23 spirit, -1 hit, -21 crit, +15 damage.