Enhancing Magic

[Sol_Aureus]

Enhancing Magic Potency Returns:

Turnovers:

NOTE: These levels apply to all magic potency types (and magic accuracy). Keep in mind that WHM gets +18 Healing Magic Potency, +8 Enhancing Magic Potency, and +8 Magic Accuracy from our traits.



Legend:
Red Text with light gray background: This level gives no returns (outside of Stoneskin) with AF Boots equipped.
Red Text with dark gray background: This level gives no returns (outside of Stoneskin) regardless of if AF boots are equipped or not.

NOTE: Stoneskin is only partially filled out because I haven't had a large enough sample size to figure out a formula for sure. The trend shows that for every 25 levels of enhancing magic potency, there's a level where it increases the mitigation by 1 instead of 2, but since it's such a large gap I don't trust it to be accurate constantly, especially considering the formulas for the others are so convoluted. The shown values for Stoneskin are the ones that I have confirmed myself.

NOTE 2: I had the gear for Enhancing Magic Potency levels 396-449. Anything listed on the chart that is not one of the levels in that range is projected data using the formulas that I gathered.



Basically this means don't stack Enhancing Magic Potency passed 438, it's not worth it because Regen caps out with the AF boots equipped at that level.

Specific mechanics:

Stoneskin:
Enhancing Magic Potency is the only thing that affects Stoneskin. Enhanced Stoneskin makes WHM's Stoneskin a lot better than, say, a BRD's (at 398 potency it's 534 vs 780). Every 1 Enhancing Magic Potency increases Stoneskin's mitigation by either 1 or 2, most of the time it's 2 per level.


Protect:
Protect is affected by Enhancing Magic Potency. For every 4-5 points in Enhancing you have (alternates 4-5-4-5), Protect gives 1 more defense (NOTE: There is some fluctuation in this formula, although it's very slight. The actual formula is every 5-4-5-4-5-4-5-4-5 levels repeating, but because it's an odd number of numbers per cycle when it repeats it ends up being 5-5 at the end/beginning of each cycle. So 3 cycles would look like 5-4-5-4-5-4-5-4-5-5-4-5-4-5-4-5-4-5-5-4-5-4-5-4-5-4-5.]. For every 7-6-7 repeating points in Enhancing you have, Protect gives 1 more to all elemental resistances (3 cycles look like: 7-6-7-7-6-7-7-6-7). See the Enhancing Magic chart for details on exact numbers.


Regen:
Enhancing Magic Potency is the only thing that affects Regen. For every 1-2-2-1-2 (repeating 3x) then 1-2-1-2-2 (repeating 3x) Enhancing magic potency you have, the amount your Regen cures per tic increases by 1.

2 cycles look like: 1-2-2-1-2-1-2-2-1-2-1-2-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-2-1-2-1-2-2-1-2-1-2-2-1-2-2-1-2-1-2-2-1-2-1-2-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-2-1-2-1-2-2-1-2-1-2-2. This one is a bit more confusing so I'll break these 2 cycles down: it repeats the 1-2-2-1-2 pattern 3 times, then repeats the 1-2-1-2-2 pattern 3 times. That's one cycle. Since I listed 2 cycles, it just repeats the same thing every cycle: 1-2-2-1-2---1-2-2-1-2---1-2-2-1-2--/--1-2-1-2-2---1-2-1-2-2---1-2-1-2-2--/--1-2-2-1-2---1-2-2-1-2---1-2-2-1-2--/--1-2-1-2-2---1-2-1-2-2---1-2-1-2-2--/

The WHM AF Boots' "Enhances Regen" stat increases the amount your Regen cures per tic by up to 41, and because the bonus the boots give scales with your enhancing magic potency, it changes the formula for Regen. The new formula increases the amount your Regen cures per tic by 1 for every 1-1-2-1-1-1-2-1-1-2-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-2 repeating levels of Enhancing magic potency you have.

The cap for Regen at level 50 is 203 HP per tic.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

Yay Sol! Thanks for all the hard work buddy.

[Starkbeaumont]

very nice. thanks as well

[carraway]

This is an awesome resource, thanks.

[tachi]

Do you mind posting the gear used to hit cap? just wondering if you needed DL drops or just lots of melding? I would gladly forgo some of the healing potency in favor of a much higher stronger protect/regen/SS.

[Blenkinsop74]

Nice post Sol Just got linked he by a friend. This is the kinda WHM I want to be. I do not think you can be this and tip-top on cures.

[Sol_Aureus]

Do you mind posting the gear used to hit cap? just wondering if you needed DL drops or just lots of melding? I would gladly forgo some of the healing potency in favor of a much higher stronger protect/regen/SS.

I have Darklight Gloves and Breeches which is how I was able to get such high enhancing magic potency numbers. My gear I used was:

Wand of Tremors (Double-slotted VIT, total of +27)
Paragon's Crown (+10 VIT)
Felt Robe (Single-slotted, VIT+16) or Mage's Robe (VIT-10)
Darklight Gloves (+15 Enhancing)
Darklight Breeches (+5 Enhancing) or Felt Gaskins (VIT+4)
Mage's Pattens (VIT+3, +5 Enhancing) or Healer's Boots (Enhances Regen) for "with boots" regen testing

And for accessories:

Dated Sphene Choker
Amber Bracelets
Amber Ring x2
Dated Sphene Ring x2
Dated Heliodor Ring

Changed them around to get whatever Enhancement Magic Level I was trying to test.

Now of course I don't use all this gear when playing WHM normally, my normal gearset is

Chiran Zabran's Tempest
Healer's Circlet
Healer's Robe
Raptorskin Satchel Belt (Double slotted Enmity-, total of -12)
Darklight Gloves
Darklight Breeches
Healer's Boots
Blessed Earrings
Black Pearl Choker +1
Amber Bracelets +1
Blessed Ring
Turquoise Ring +1

With this gear set I have 304 MND, 213 VIT, 538 healing and 422 Enhancment.

Stacking VIT is only semi-viable. There are quite a few things out there now that give lots of Healing Potency + (like Blessed Ring, Chiran Zabran's Tempest) and with that much healing magic potency, they'll far outperform any VIT pieces you can put there. Arguably you could replace the Turquoise Ring with an Amber Ring depending on how much you want to put into Enhancing, but personally I prefer the 18 MND because it not only gives the healing magic potency, MND directly affects how much your cures hit for.

I settle on 422 enhancement because it's a nice level, your Regen is just over the poison damage in Vale so it completely counteracts it and you have recent turnovers for Protect's DEF and MDEF values.

The Darklight Gloves are definitely something that every WHM should want. That 15 enhancing magic potency is really nice for Regen. The breeches are arguable, you lose the 30 second recast reduction on Presence of Mind and 3 Healing magic potency, but I think the 100 MP and enhancement bonuses are worth it.

No WHM should ever use the Mage's pattens full time. Maybe for a protect macro, but the bonus that the AF boots give to regen is ridiculous, it's gonna take a LOT to make me want to unequip those.

[StateAlchemist]

You know what effects Enhancing Magic Potency? Vitality. Wait. I don't see any WHM's in VIT gear when they buff. Why u no have 2 sets of gear? :O

[Blenkinsop74]

You know what effects Enhancing Magic Potency? Vitality. Wait. I don't see any WHM's in VIT gear when they buff. Why u no have 2 sets of gear? :O

He more than likely does State. And I do, mostly in 2 WHM parties. Cannot be all things

[Sol_Aureus]

You know what effects Enhancing Magic Potency? Vitality. Wait. I don't see any WHM's in VIT gear when they buff. Why u no have 2 sets of gear? :O

Well the problem is how finicky macros can be.

Personally, I have only a couple gear changes in my macros for stuff, and I'm still considering taking them out just because they don't always work.

As an example, my protect macro is:
/equip feet "Mage's Pattens"
/wait 1
/ac "Protect" <t>
/wait 5
/equip feet "Healer's Boots"

Pretty simple, just gives me an extra boost to enhancing when I'm casting protect. Since it's a 5 minute spell I can afford to swap gear for it, even mid-battle. The problem is, sometimes it doesn't reequip the healer's boots. No, I'm not interrupting the macro with another one or anything. It just sometimes doesn't happen. And in the midst of battle I don't always notice that it didn't reequip my boots, so my Regen becomes gimped until I notice.

If protect lasted a half hour or something more substantial like that then sure, I'd have a full gear swap macro just for the enhancing magic for it, but since it's a short time there's really no use in full gear swapping for it. It ends up being less efficient because you're wasting time swapping gear (since the game does it 1 piece at a time). Swapping 1 piece of gear per macro is fine since it's a negligible amount of time taken, but anything more than that isn't worth it.