So basically in every raid you need to have a) Healers with blanketing (Monks and Druids) and b) Spot healers (Paladins and Disc Priests). I would never put monk spot heal (does not mean tank heal only) even though you could get more HPS with EF blanketing because monks are just utter shit in spot healing.

Just make your healing composition work. Sometimes EF blanketing is really good, but not always even is you could do much higher numbers.

This can also be noticed by watching videos, logs and streams of high end guilds holy paladins. EF maybe, blanketing really rarely. If it would be the way to go propably it would be used always.

EF results in mostly overhealing whenever I heal with a periodics-heavy healer (Druid, Monk, Holy Priest, or Shaman with Riptide glyph--my healer comp is 1-2 of these classes + me); it clashes with their HoTs, which will hit harder and faster. I've only found it useful in very specific situations where I can't hard cast for long periods of time, like Blade Lord P2, in combination with Holy Avenger or lucky Divine Purpose procs.

@Neo: My guild is in almost the exact same position as yours in terms of how progression has been going, though a couple bosses behind due to attendance/RL issues. I'm not sure it is worth going through the trouble of getting the PvP 4pc set (unless you already have it) when you are so close. Perhaps using Speed of Light and chaining a Swiftness Potion to get you down the hall faster (and back to hard casting) might be enough to get you that extra bit of healing to get your kill (though I'm not sure how much of a difference the sprints make--I'll try it in LFR tonight).

@Smag: I wish there was a glyph for Devotion Aura as well, but BoP and BoSac with Clemency have been a savior for those physical damage bursts.

The goal of using 4pc + DP is to spread the hot to as many members of the raid as you can. 10-20k ticks x 10 people /2 = 50khps on the beacon target. Of course, that's the quick math of it. That's not including the EF ticks on the beacon target itself, or the HR + HS used to build HP. It's also not including the ~70k-160k/2 hit from the EF main hit. So it ends up being roughly 60k hps on your beacon target.

It's definitely a useless talent to pick right?

4pcPVP + DP + EF is the greatest thing that's happened to HPallies this side of DS.

Until you don't get a Divine Purpose proc when you need the output for a burn phase like Force & Verve. Or you're in a 25 man and don't have the regen or procs to cover more of the raid, meaning the Druid, Holy Priest, and Monk eat your lunch and/or raid spot.

It is a niche setup and random is random. The perfect complement would be to reforge to Crit.

The situation you present isn't realistic outside of you using Holy Avenger to quickly blanket the raid or a very long string of Divine Purpose procs. Even then, it quickly becomes difficult to maintain above 6 targets (assuming you have already 3 holy power, it takes 3 GCDs per EF, which leaves you with enough time to get it up 6 EFs before the first EF rolls off--DP I'm sure would help, but that's RNG, as Joe mentioned).

I'm not sure anyone is saying the combination is useless--the potential is pretty incredible as you described on paper--but in live raid situation, you have to spend almost all of your resources (GCDs, mana, HP, and personal focus) on just HoT maintenance that in the big picture (others healers healing and tanks preventing/mitigating damage) the potential can never be realized except in the most extreme situations (constant raid damage, some grouping, etc.--maybe Elegon or Tsulong at night?).

I haven't found a ton of logs to compare for this, but just on item level alone, I imagine the T14 pieces are better. If you were using the 483 PvP pieces, I'd say depends on the fight (at least until 5.1).

An important thing to keep in mind about comparing the 4pc bonuses is how they work and the situations they were designed for. One bonus requires resources be spent to gain resources, and the other just simply gives you resources more often. The latter seems far better on the flexibility alone given larger variety of healing spells that we use in PvE vs. PvP.

In PvP (at least Arenas, which is where my PvP experience lies), Word of Glory is the go-to HP spell given that one or 2 people are taking damage at a time and PvP bonus drives more Word of Glory usage. In PvE, 3-25 people are taking damage at once, so a bonus that gives us more resources to spend on either Word of Glory (for one of those 3 people) or Light of Dawn (for 5+ people) seems far more practical.

The strangest thing about the PvP gear is that I find myself going out of mana much more often because I have less spirit and also because I find myself casting Holy Radiance a lot more, plus Crusader Strike on top of that. Maybe it's just because it's 458's, but I think in full PvE gear (at 488 iLevel I'm at), I was really starting to get into a groove with my mana usage and being able to get through fights pretty easily. Sure, the Divine Purpose procs when you're in PvP gear as like candy, but using Holy Radiance and Crusader Strike more and Holy Light less seems to be hurting me in mana for my playstyle. I can't complain about the output, however, even though sometimes it feels inconsequential.
What really bothers me is that in PvP gear, I always feel bad about casting Eternal Flame on someone who already has the HoT, but needs it to save their life. I never feel that way in PvE gear.

What's the % proc chance for Divine Purpose? I'm hardly a theorycrafter, but with Holy Shock at a 6 second cooldown (assuming i'm wearing PvP gear), I can cast 10 Holy Shock per minute, and with the current set bonus, I can cast 12 Holy Shock per minute, then 4-piece is gaining me 2 holy power per minute. In 5.1 it's a 4 second cooldown. I can cast 15 Holy Shock per minute, so I'm gaining 5 holy power per minute. Doesn't that mean that Divine Purpose needs to proc 5 times per minute in order for me to gain more holy power than the 4-piece will net me in 5.1?

Just to use my raid from last night, on our Imperial Vizier kill, I gained 30 Divine Purpose procs (in pvp gear) over a 7:50 fight. 30 procs in 470 seconds works out to 3.82 procs over 60 seconds. The encounter seemed average to me anecdotally regarding lucky proc streaks and not proccing at all, and the Imperial Vizier fight has what I'd call a good mix of moving and standing still, plus just enough burst damage to be used as a benchmark for me (granted I'm not in heroic modes yet, so someone else feel free to take the ball and run with it).

So if my math is correct, and of course I know I would need a larger sample size but maybe some of you can pitch in on that, that means Divine Purpose procs in PvP gear gains you more holy power than the current 4-piece bonus, but once it changes in 5.1, the ability to cast Holy shock once every 4 seconds nets you more holy power over a fight than the pvp gear does.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. As I said, I'm hardly a theorycrafter.

The 4set pvp, should not burn your mana faster. It should greatly reduce your mana needs. Paladins burn mana to produce holy power. So we can say that there is mana equivalent per charge of holy power. With my average and low quality mathematics, I see that pvp 4set makes my EF cost around 30%-35% less mana.

To make good use out of the pvp 4set you should remove Light of Dawn from your bars and maximize HoPo generation (wasting your mana on HoPo conversion).

Crusader Strike when there is no Infusion of Light Proc and you are in melee range (attacking from the back). Use it wisely because it can affect your mana if abused, and keep in mind that there is a steep miss/dodge/parry change.

Flash of Light on beacon target (if injured) and when there is no Infusion of Light Proc and you are not in melee range. You can glyph it if you want, and you always profit from the pvp gloves.

Radiance on any target (prefer players close to each other). Radiance usage as HoPo generator is only effective under Infusion of Light Procs. You should however cast Radiance under no proc, in times of heavy AoE dmg.

You should minimize Divine Light and Holy Light usage under normal circumstances.

I firmly agree with Milney. While the numbers from EF blanketing may seem far superior, I feel like it's taking away from one of the Holy paladins biggest strengths, their burst aoe healing. If I pop HA and go into a HR/LoD rotation with a HS thrown in sometimes for extra HP generation, I feel like a god that no other healer can touch without a healing tide/tranq/revival. The thought of telling the other healers in my raid to severely alter their play style to accommodate my meter padding just seems selfish to me. I am by no means trying to start an argument here, I guess it's just my two cents.

PS I will update my char info when I get to my pc its currently my mage main from cata.

Except for the 4.3 patch, paladins never had much AoE. Paladins have always been spot healers. Every healer should realize that meters are telling half the truth, or they may even lie. Successful healing means that the fight was successful with little or no casualties. Anything more than that is really unnecessary.

I disagree about heal sniping etc. If i snipe the heals, I make the other healer more mana efficient, and I diminish my mana pool. And if I go oom, that other healer will be able to cover me because he has the mana to do it. If he has no mana too, then he was overhealing. As a healer, I can manage my overheals, but I can do nothing about the overhealing of the other healer. Keep in mind 1 thing, total healing cannot be greater than total damage taken. So If I heal as much as I can without diminishing my mana, other healers can heal less and reserve their mana, and carry out more complex tactic assignments etc. This is not sniping, it is helpful. Their role is still really really important, because of all those CD they have, and their heals that save members because I am out of range (or unable to heal for some reason).

The only bad thing here, is that paladins have to rely on pvp gear to be competitive. Some times it is more than that. With no pvp gear, there are fights that paladins cannot be effective at all. If you feel that your healing setup needs EF, then pvp gear is a no brainer choice. If you can stick to specific healing assignments we good tank healing control and supplementary AoE on big burst, then Sacred Shield with pve gear, and LoD blanketing seems a good choice too. There are logs that show, there is big potential in Sacred Shield and LoD if executed properly, and sometimes it is better in terms of throughtput than EF blanketing. Just use what your raid needs more.

I cannot really understand why does EF snipes Renewing Mists, Wild Growth etc? Those spells can snipe EF too. I am really against the term "heal sniping", it is unproductive and meaningless.

It is not selfish If someone needs to change his playstyle. Welcome to World Of Warcraft. During the years I have played Tank, Dps, Healer. Every single fight, every single role needs optimization and playstyle adjustments. Healing duty needs cooperation, and good teamplay. I tune my toon to be as effective as possible, so I expect the others to do the same thing so we can all profit.

4 PvP is being used for saving healers' mana in non-critical situations, when the raid takes random damage (Feng) or moderate stable damage (Protectors in elite mode). Saved mana can be used to give full HPS on demand in critical situations (Vizier or Shek'Zeer P2). Wasting a half of your main heal just to put HoT (which will overheal) on 100%HP target is not such a great idea in most cases, I think.
In fact, it is a nice bonus even without HoT component, as many fights of the current tier require fast direct heals (and WoG spam is much better than HL spam).
P.S. I heal in pair with resto druid, and 4 PvP solved all problems with healing in our raid.

At least I'm not going to bother going with 4pc PVP gear. I'm healing with a mistweaver monk and/or shaman/druid and there is no need for blanket healing. I can save my holy power for spike damage (to use for LoD or EF) and I'm using SS or EF depending heavily on the fight.

I'm never going to compete with monk on healing meter but that is not the point. Healing meters rarely indicate anything else than to see if we don't have enough raw healing for the encounter. Also healing constant raid damage for mistweaver is so easy to heal mana efficiently that I won't even bother. Healing spikes of burst damage is the problem usually. I'm much more efficient in direct heals than monk why I would never put him to position to look for spot heals when necessary (I mean when someone drops fast and I don't have HP in store). Many people here tend to argue that EF blanketing doesn't affect on tank heal, and they are propably right. However when I'm talking about spot heal I talk about whole raid, not only on tanks.

I could do more HPS with 4pc PVP yes. However that would affect the whole playstyle of my fellow monk, which would be retarded. Monks are really bad where paladins shine. If someone is playing, say with disc priest or shaman I could recommend trying 4pc PVP set to see if it helps. I have no experience of my own on that situation but I think it would help. However in my situation I can't see any benefit for our HEALING SETUP doing this.