Yilona

Pretty much. =)

 

Maikel

Illumination definitely aids in healing but if your Tankadin will not be speccing further into the Holy Tree, definitely have them stack Mp5 on their healing gear. Many paladins are beginning to put a heavy emphasis on Mp5 since Illumination's nerf.

Spellsurge on whatever your paladin uses to heal with in their Main Hand could help them be more effective at endurance healing as well since I imagine they switch to healing a role on boss fights, and AE tank for trash. Maybe?

 

Zurm

so from my understanding of this thread, for healing there are two viable gear paths to follow?

1) High healing/mp5: This route is higher efficiency and more powerful heal, but lacks the sustained HP/S output of the next. FoL is the primary heal

2) High crit/120 haste: This way you would use 4pc t5 + 120 haste to hit 1.5 second Holy Lights (with lights grace) and down rank significantly, using the extra crit bonus to HL as your primary method of mana retention.

Using the spreadsheet on the 4-5th post down on the front page, it seems like build 1 is better for fights around the 6 minute mark or longer, while the crit build is favored for fights below that time. The issue being, however, that you can't realistically use FoL for all fights all the time (case and point: bloodboil, gorefiend, etc)

Does a hybrid of these two make sense? Anyone have any comments further? Because while looking at many end-game raiding guilds (my guild is 4/5 hyjal and 4/9 BT) I seem to see these two gear sets very frequently, but no real hybrids.

Edit: I'm working on updating the spreadsheet I'm talking about to feature the SSC/TK buff changes in 2.2. Should only be a handful of items, but if someone else is doing it I'll let them take point.

 

tiberion02

Your leaving out the "I have a Shadow Priest, High Healing/Spell Haste/4pcT5" set. This is particularly helpful in keeping HPS high. For a paladin, between shadow priest, manapots/trinkets and other forms of regen, I would personally prefer this setup. Almost any paladin can use very effiecent FoLs during low incoming damage, but I prefer the ability to go from a cheap, sustaining heal like 1.5sec HL4, to an expensive but high HPS 1.5sec HL9+ (makes for great MT healing if your paired up with say, a resto druid or 2).

 

Zurm

Well, IMO, a shadow priest changes everything. Currently, I rarely get a shadow priest as I am normally in the MT group (although on fights like gorefiend/bloodboil I do). But with a shadow priest, I do switch to HL. In the HL spam build I spoke of, even if you didn't have a shadow priest, if you had very high crit (20%+ unbuffed, before talents) you could make it work better than someone who had say 15% crit and 50 more mp5.

 

Zraknul

Our prot pally runs that spec. I think the idea is to get the extra mileage out of the crit that comes with pally healing gear.

As mentioned by some others earlier in the thread, ~3000 hp non-crit rank of HL and a decent balance of stats is a good system. Flash heal while generally the better raid heal there are times I use some ranks of HL on raid healing. Rank 8 for me does ~3k a target without BoL, which is really useful for Illidan phase 2 where the raid damage can be really high; FoL not being sufficient HPS.

 

Zurm

Question for all the raiding holy pallies who currently kill Illidan...

Do you guys get shadow priests for pretty much every fight in BT after Gorefiend/Bloodboil? I'm usually dropped in the MT group, but I do get a shadow priest when we do Gorefiend (as per my request). Just curious as to what I should be expecting.

Also, if you could make sure to post your character name/server if its not in your profile that would be awesome (so I can do some gear research).

Thanks in advance!

 

Yilona

We typically run with 2-3 shadow priests, so usually all of the caster groups get them. We usually have (this is a rough group makeup):

MT
feral/resto druid
warlock
holy/prot pally
resto shaman

fury warrior
dps warrior/ret pally
rogue
rogue
enh shaman

hunter
hunter
hunter
resto shaman
spriest

holy pally
holy pally/resto druid
resto druid
spriest
holy priest/holy pally

mage
mage
mage
ele shaman
spriest

So I would say I have an spriest the majority of the time. I definitely always make sure I have an spriest for Naj'entus and Gorefiend, when I do 4 piece T5 raid healing. The only exception to this is for Illidari Council, when I'm off by myself healing our mage tank. I'm too far away to get spriest ticks on this fight, so I heal without it.

*edit* Just noticed you said for after Gurtogg/Gorefiend. Prior to the patch, we only had 1 spriest for Shahraz, and that spriest was always for a stacked pally/priest healing group (MT healers). For Council, as I mentioned, I don't have an spriest because I'm off by myself with the mage. For Illidan, I definitely have an spriest every time.

Usually (for the higher healing-requirement fights) we do 7 healers with 3 spriests, 8 healers with 2 spriests, and 9 healers with 1 spriest. Only rarely do I have severe mana problems.

I hope that's what you were looking for. =)

 

Zurm

Thanks! That was exactly what I was looking for. My guild is currently 4/9 MH and 4/9 BT, so I'm kind of at the point where I'm looking to optimize myself for the *real* end game.

Also, you mentioned a ret pally, I know this goes slightly off topic (and I suppose as a farming guild you guys have more room to experiment), but how DOES the ret pally do in terms of DPS/utility. Seeing as how in 2.3 we get a massive ret buff with the CS cooldown going to 6 seconds, I'm just trying to see if it's worth looking for a ret pally (or improving my kara-level gear). While you're at it, an armory or quick breakdown of ret gear would be awesome!

Thanks a ton in advance, Yilona!

 

Heric

i'm really torn on what to do for socketing, i see alot of people stack all +healing gems, i see some people stack almost all +crit gems. i'm contemplating stacking the 9heal/4int since the heal is nice and int adds more healing/crit/mana. i've also thought about socketing all matching sockets using either 9heal/2m5 and 9heal/4int, but then i would have to pick new metagems since 26 healing one doesn't work with that set up. is there any consensus on the best way to go or is it just down to personal preference.

 

• Chicken

Personally I'm of the opinion that the [Bracing Earthstorm Diamond] isn't worth using simply because of the loss in socketing freedom, and I prefer having the [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond] since it has a lot less annoying gem requirements.

But I'm only specced for 20 points in Holy and I value mana/5 fairly high, so I enjoy being able to freely use the healing + mana/5 gems (Outside of two healing + int gems my healing gear has to support the requirements of the meta gem).

 

Zurm

The [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond] is better, IMO, first for the socketing freedom adn second because for some inexplicable reason the proc rate our paladins see is consistently higher than the other classes using it. I have a sneaking suspicion that it procs off of Illlumination.

 

Kysen

This is exactly the strategy I use when healing except I prefer to use rank 5 holy light (costs a little more) for targets that dont have BoL, the extra 6% crit is worth it anyway. I have dropped FoL from my spell bar and just chain cast HL.

I would even go as far as saying that with a 1.5 second HL (i'm not there yet) you can keep up raid healing on par with that of a druid/shaman minus the mobility, this also becomes even easier when you have a shadow priest in the group.

 

Zurm

While we are at it, has anyone thought of a good way to model the [Ashtongue Talisman of Zeal]? Just curious, as I'm approaching the ability to get one and was curious as to whether or not it is extremely good, situational, or just plain bad.

 

Aurelius

After looking at some WWS parses, i'm fairly certain that trinket is utterly useless for holy paladins. If it scaled with +healing it would probably be much better, but as of now it's pure junk imo.

 

Seki

Pretty much what Aurelius said -- If it scaled with healing it would be somewhat useful, I'd even use it if it had passive healing on it. I only use it for killing mobs when doing my daily quests, the tiny buff it got in 2.2 made it just a teeny bit useful for damage.

 

• goss

Illumination, and yes it does (or at least did, prior 2.2, haven't explicitly checked since).

 

Yilona

This is a little OT, but I'll go ahead and reply here:

We've had a ret pally, ele shaman, and enh shaman for almost our entire end game (T5 + T6 content), so they're not a new thing for us.

There's an entire thread in the main discussion devoted to discussing Retadin viability, but for us, the benefits are:

- Judgements are up almost 100% of the time. This is a big deal, especially with the JoL UA bug.

- He does pretty good dps... not mind-blowing, but certainly decent enough.

- He gives an extra blessing without the requirement of another paladin healer. Our healing makeup for almost all fights, except those that require a ton of healing, is 2 holy paladins, 2 resto druids, 2 resto shaman, and 1 holy priest. The ret paladin means one more blessing, which is huge when going from 2-3 blessings (means wis/might, salv, and kings for everyone).

- Most importantly: He brings flexibility. Our guild runs with a reasonably tight roster. Having a member that can respec and suddenly become an excellent healer for fights like Shahraz, Archimonde, etc. is an amazing asset when you normally run with 7 healers total. This is true of our elemental shaman, feral druid, etc. Having this flexibility is really beneficial, especially when dealing with raiding attrition.

With these huge plusses going for him, when one of our pallies (reroll from a warrior) said he was aiming to go ret at the beginning of TBC, we had no problems with it, and it's been invaluable to us.

As for gear... You'll have to message our Retadin (Saabik on these forums, Sabik on our forums). He knows so much more than I ever could. I do know, however, that he treats his ret just like a warrior, and that seems to be how Blizzard is taking the class with 2.3. =)

 

Yilona

I don't have any WWS to back it up, but the [Ashtongue Talisman of Zeal] has a very miniscule HoT (compared to what priests and druids are putting out these days) AND it's completely uncontrollable (i.e. I'd say it's all overhealing a substantial portion of the time). Furthermore, it takes up a debuff slot when you judge, which can be a problem. Finally, there are lots of other decent/good trinkets out there that you could use, instead.

I bought it, tried it a couple of times, and quickly banked it. I doubt I'm ever going to use it.

 

HolyHotty

I was bored in class today, so instead of learning about media properties and cyber law, I did some calculations :P

A 70 +healing trinket adds 33.6 healing to a flash of light and 56 healing to a rank 9 or higher holy light (didn't bother to figure out the penalties for lower ranked heals since I'm only interested in the best case scenarios for comparing trinkets). That's 50.4 healing on a flash of light crit and 84 on a holy light crit. Theoretically that's 38.8 for each flash of light and 66.1 for each holy light with 25% base spell crit and no t6.

Flash 31% crit:
33.6 reg
50.4 crit
38.8 avg
100 casts = 3880 healing

Holy Light 36% crit:
56 reg
84 crit
66.1 avg
100 casts = 6610 healing

Now, the Ashtongue trinket has a 15% chance to proc. Under ideal and unrealistic circumstances it will proc about once every 7 casts, do the full amount of healing, and not get wasted by another proc and heal for 760.

Ashtongue Talisman:

760 x .15 = 114 healing per cast
100 casts = 15 procs = 11400 healing

Of course less casts means less procs, but that also means less healing being done by the other trinkets, so the proportions are the same until you get below 7 heals, statistically. But it should be just as effective for people with the 4 piece t5 bonus and haste gear spamming holy light.

After using it for a while last night it seemed to work just as advertised. According to wws it procced almost exactly 15% of the time (15.8%), was not overridden by any other class' HoTs like it used to, and stacked with the other paladin's trinket proc. I saw it tick enough times to make me feel like I wasn't wasting a trinket slot, and altogether it did 26,000 healing out of 2.1 million with 7% overheal (however this was with lots of flash of light spam for purposes of testing the trinket).

Since the individual numbers are so small healing wise (33.6-84 and 190 out of 1900-8000+), we're not talking about the difference between keeping the tank alive or the raid wiping, but rather getting the most out of our gear choices. With that in mind and taking overhealing into consideration, it seems like the 12 second HoT has a greater chance of not overhealing the target and giving you the most healing possible. For example, if you use a 2000 flash of light to heal -1000 hp, then the trinket did nothing. Healing for 1966 will do the same thing with no detriment. Of course the opposite is true, but 99% of the time, people don't die because of 34 or even 300 health, and with 50% overhealing I'm probably not going to kill anyone because I healed them for 50 less hp. With the talisman, assuming it procs, I can heal someone with -1000 hp, get the same job done, then do an additional 190 healing if they take damage in the next 12 seconds. Basically adding 190 to my next heal. The same is true for big heals. I can crit the tank for 8200 and with all the other healers overheal for a lot, or I can crit him for 8166, get the same job done, then sneak in 190 on my next heal. The only time using this trinket would be detrimental is in a situation where the trinket doesn't proc, you heal the tank, and he ends up dying by less than 85 hp, or 169 after 2 crits for a worst case. On the flip side, the trinket could have procced 11 seconds ago, the tank takes a huge hit, something prevents you or the other healers from healing, and the tank ends up getting saved by 190 or less health, or you heal him for 8000 then 190, and he survives a big hit right after by 150 hp.

Let me know if my logic or math is seriously flawed, because I'm trying to decide whether this trinket is worth using or not.

Also, how do you guys usually heal on Mother? :P Thanks for the input!

 

Aramul

HoTs do not tick when the target is at full health. Thus any overheal numbers for HoTs are inherently flawed. To get an accurate number for the overhealing of the trinket, compare the healing done by it to the number of procs. If we're expecting the HoT to heal for 760 each proc, and it only heals for, on average, 380 per proc, we have a real overheal of 50%.

Ultimately, I'd rather not rely on a proc to save a tank from death.

 

HolyHotty

The overheal shown on wws is from the HoT actually ticking on the tank, but him having less than 190 hp missing. The total healing done would be considerably higher than what is shown on wws if it ticked at full hp. Anyway, here's a wws from part of tonight's raid using my normal style of healing for the most part: Valhallen - WWS

I think I'll be using it from now on unless a tank actually dies because I was just short on a heal. As you can see it added a decent amount of healing, 70k with 9% overheal so 63748 effective healing. A lot of the procs happened at times where the tick was not wasted and it added a full 190 health in addition to my heal. With a 70 healing trinket, I would have done 25,913 more healing after calculating crits and overheal.

Granted you have more control over the static +healing, but 64,000 healing vs 26,000 is worth a second look imo.

 

• Karakas

I think the Ashtongue talisman is VASTLY underrated. I don't think it's mindblowingly good or anything, but it's certainly not the trash that others make it out to be. Considering the derth of good healing trinkets available, it's an optimal choice for someone who does not have the Fel Reaver's Piston or the Memento of Tyrande. At the moment, I pair it up with the Lower City Prayer Book, and I definitely think of it in a positive light.