I only initially liked the look of the BT trinket proc effect, cause in theory it should be up 100% of the time, I'm not sure how I can get an exact % given that ticks don't show up on wws if they're overheal.

I don't think i made it clear though, I was only looking at all of this through an FoL spam point of view, I fully recognise that use effects have their place in many encounters where you know that there will be points which you will need to switch to HL, and I do have them macro'd to DF. But often enough either because i am wearing shadow resist, or because i don't have a shadow priest, I swap in 1/2 mp5 trinkets for the encounters where +healing /use would be useful (hence my lack of interest in /use).

With the 2.4 spellhaste GCD changes, is anyone going to try out spellhaste stacking with 4pc t6?

Scarab making a comeback?

1second Holy Lights and/or 1 second FoLs. Wow, that haste gear is going to be worth alot.

Comeback? It never left. At least it never left my trinket slot since i got it.

Well, if you get every single piece of currently available haste gear (including the blacksmithing shoulders) you'll be at 250 haste rating, which is about half of what is needed to hit the GCD.

So 1.25 second GCD, 1.25 second FoL, 1.75 second HL. However, thanks to the itemization of many of those pieces (shoulders, bracers, back, belt) you lose out on a bunch of crit and mp5. I suppose we'll have to test it for ourselves.

Well, I'm going to ignore the changes with regards to reduced HL, because we've had that for ages. I am going to do a "quick" calculation to try and compare spell haste to +heal for FoL in terms of raw hps. I don't see it as an improvement to allow you to get a quicker FoL to stop someone dying, because if that is the cause then your healers need a rethink.

Take 10% spell haste, thats 157spell haste rating and lets see how much extra hp it gives over a period of time.
New cast time: 1.5/1.10 = 1.36s, and take a base 2200 +heal and 29% FoL crit.

In 15s you can do 10FoL's. In 15s with 10% haste you can do 11.03FoL's, thats 1.03 extra casts.

Now to work out an average FoL including crits (assuming BoL and the Libram),
Normal FoL = 475 + (0.43*2200) + 0.12(475+(0.43*2200)+185+105) + 185 + 105 = 1916.32hp
Crit FoL = 1916.32 * 1.5 = 2874.48hp
Average FoL = 1916.32 + 0.29(2874.48 - 1916.32) = 2194.19hp

So an extra 1.03 casts will give an extra 1.03 * 2194.19 = 2260.02hp (over 15s)

Now I will try and equate that to +heal without haste gear.

2260.02 / 10casts = 226hp per cast (assuming that this is an average crit, it gets a bit diffucult to work out the +heal without having the normal and crit heal values to refer to, so i'll guesstimate it).
200normal heal would give a 229 average heal inc crits
198normal heal gives 226.71
197normal heal gives 225.57

197 is close enough, so 197 taking off the coefficient: 197/0.43 = 458.14 +heal

-----
I'll just finish off with getting an "AEP" value:

So 458.14 +heal gives the same hps as 10% spell haste at this gear level,
45.814 +heal equates to 1% spell haste (15.7 spell haste rating),
45.814/15.7 = 2.91

1heal = 1point
1haste rating = 2.91points

And I'll throw in how much +heal int gives, so that we can compare the plate haste gear in terms of hps:

1int = 0.385points

-----

So here we go:

[Dawnsteel Bracers] 23int, 28haste, 64heal: 154.34
[Blessed Adamantite Bracers] 22, 0, 62+22: 92.47

[Dawnsteel Shoulders] 28, 38, 81: 202.36
[Lightbringer Pauldrons] 29, 0, 86+11+11+7: 126.17 (more if you use 22heal gems)

[Girdle of Lordaeron's Fallen] 32, 38, 70: 192.9
[Girdle of Stromgarde's Hope] 26, 0, 79+22+11+7: 129.01

[Handguards of the Templar] 28, 25, 75: 158.53
[Lightbringer Gloves] 29, 0, 86+22: 119.17 (more if you use better hps gloves than T6)

[Brooch of Nature's Mercy] 24, 33, 75: 180.27
[Nadina's Pendant of Purity] 14, 0, 79: 84.39

[Shroud of the Highborne] 23, 32, 68: 169.98
[Cloak of Ancient Rituals] 20, 25, 51: 131.45
[Shroud of the Final Stand] 22, 0, 64: 72.47

[Dark Blessing] 19, 30, 431: 525.62
[Hammer of Atonement] 21, 0, 443: 451.09

[Blessed Band of Karabor] 20, 30, 73: 168
[Ring of Calming Waves] 27, 0, 64: 74.40 (similar hps to MH ring)

------

Well, what can I say, I am a bit shocked at how much better haste gear is for 100% FoL spam. Granted there arn't many encounters in BT/MH where I personally would not use HL (Archimonde and Council depending on who I am healing with, Azgalor, Kaz'rogal, Shahraz too but I need all the mana regen I can get there because of SR gear). Saying this, I personally will add crit into the mix for final item values, however I know it is an everlasting debate and many will say that for the sake of the math you mast class crit as overheal

The ring is a no brainer, probably even in both slots. With regards to the other items, the amount of haste gear that you can safely put on comes down to how much mana you need for HL (plus a bit of a safety margin in terms of mana).


------

edit: I forgot the neck.
edit: I forgot to invert the AEP haste value.

As a disclaimer I would just like to say you should not be considering downranking Holy Light as a main source of healing until you reach later T5/T6 content (the only time you should be downranking to rank IV or V is to keep LG up). Your gear won't be able to handle it until then.

Downranking HL gives one distinct advantage over FoL. You are able to modify your HPS greatly using different ranks of HL, as opposed to the relatively static HPS you have using only FoL. It provides more flexibility to your healing.

Most people will write off HL downranking because on paper is is much less efficient than FoL spambotting. If you do it well and have the gear to support it though it is nearly as viable.

As long as you are able to sustain HL downranking it is much more viable since you are not just more flexible, but provide more HPS all the time. HL8 for example is stronger than FoL and it is possible to chaincast it with a certain level of gear and support.

Edit: And, to be honest - I think it does not make sense at all to have 50% of your mana left at the end of the fight because of being such a high skilled FoL-spammer.

Just because you spam FoL doesn't mean you can't cast mid-high rank HLs. It's just that after a certain rank there's just little point to HL over FoL, but obviously if HPS is an issue HL away, with whatever rank is needed. But using a HL rank that does similar HPS to FoL and costs a lot more mana is kinda pointless, no matter what gear you have.

I have a quick question with regards to Blessing of Light. My guild is nearing the end of tier 5 content, and I have been the sole paladin healer for most of the ride (I have been 70 for 2 months now). For the entire time, even though I have been healing tanks almost exclusively, I never seem to get BoL on my assignment. Even warrior tanks want Sanctuary over Light. I've always felt that BoL is an important part of having effective holy paladins in a raid, and I have posted some math to back up my point, but the tanks still feel BoL benefiting one paladin healer is a "waste of a blessing slot." Since this is the most prominent and best thread I've been able to find discussing paladin healing, and I'm hoping some of you can share your experience with me.

It sounds like your guild just doesn't understand the power of blessings. 3 paladins alone are completely justified in any fight due to blessings pretty much, and your guild probably should be recruiting to make ends meet in that sense.

However, if you are the lone paladin healer, it may be realistic that you shouldn't have BoL on tanks (unless you're the only one healing that tank), because kings (not sanctuary) is really a much greater boost to survivability than your extra throughput would be. Not having BoL does substantially mess up your efficiency and throughput, obviously, but it isn't actually worth putting up until you have a second blessing slot free.

Hi all,
I don't know if my question is out of place anyway.. I'm mainly a FoL raiding pala with 2450~~ +healing and 111mp/5 wc unbuffed. My question is about the spellsurge enchant, as I'm aware it's 50mp5 when it does proc, is it worth taking over +81 healing?

Thanks

Sanctuary is a neglicible damage reduction and very low threat. Kings>light>might>sanc for tanks unless threat is a total nonfactor than sanc beats might, and if you're the only healer on the target light>kings unless he takes very low overall damage yet has a good chance to get gibbed (which never realistically happens).

Get two weapons, enchant one with 81 healing, one with spellsurge, then use the addon (can't remember the name exactly) to swap between the two during the downtimes.

As the sole paladin in a raid healing you will have a very tough sell trying to convince people that Light is worthwhile. Sanctuary is not the greatest buff, but its not bad either.

Consider that a boss' unmitigated white hit is around 10k on your tank. With 60% mitigation from armor, you're looking at a 4000 hit. Now consider that your tank has Sanctuary. The base amount of the damage is reduced by 80, so it becomes a 9920 base attack. With armor reduction you're now looking at a 3968 hit. So your tank basically just gained .32% more mitigation from Sanctuary against that attack. Over the course of a long fight those small gains you're making add up to a decent amount of free damage. Sanctuary on a Prot Paladin also causes 87.4 additional threat per block as well (67.275 more threat per block for a warrior), so it's a decent amount additional TPS.

As the only Holy Paladin you can count BoL as an extra 80 healing or so for your FoL (125 if you have the kara libram). Its up to you as a guild to decide whether the small mitigation and TPS increases are more valuable than 80 more healing on one healer. Generally I would go with the extra healing.

Generally my guild does Blessings in the following order for tanks: King > Light > Sanctuary > Might. There are a few exceptions (Bloodboil namely), but we also run with 2 or 3 Holy Pallys usually, which makes Light much more worthwhile.

To add onto Quozzy's post:

Back: [Shroud of the Highborne]
Chest: [Hauberk of the Empire's Champion] (Warning: Mail)
Feet: No Healing/Haste item for this slot
Finger 1: [Blessed Band of Karabor]
Finger 2: [Signet of the Quiet Forest] (or 2nd BBoK)
Hands: [Handguards of the Templar]
Head: No Healing/Haste item for this slot
Off-hand: No Healing/Haste item for this slot
Legs: [Achromic Trousers of the Naaru] (Warning: Cloth)
Main Hand: [Dark Blessing]
Neck: [Brooch of Nature's Mercy] (Warning: contains SPI)
Shoulder: [Dawnsteel Shoulders]
Trinket: [Scarab of the Infinite Cycle] (Warning: Proc based, 10% chance to proc per cast, 45s cooldown)
Waist: [Girdle of Lordaeron's Fallen]
Wrist: [Dawnsteel Bracers]

All this would add up to a total of 369 passive spell haste rating (23.41%) or 689 spell haste rating with the Scarab's proc (43.72%).

Passively, your FoL's would take 1.21s to cast, hitting 1.04s (just above the 1.0 limit) with the Scarab's proc.

Passively and without Light's Grace, your HL's would take 2.02s to cast, hitting 1.74s with the Scarab's proc.

With Light's Grace, this would drop to 1.52s without the Scarab proc and 1.24s with.

However, this gearset would only have 30 MP5 and no spell crit.

CasterWeaponSwapper is the name.


For Blessing, I would do Might over Sanc all the time.

We'll see how it looks on the PTR in action. I'm skeptical of massing spell haste given that obtaining enough to be noticable will lower your crit/mp5 as well as cause you to spend mana much faster than before, so mana will progressively become an issue the more haste you equip.

Now it is true however that many fights and during most trash, massing spell haste will show a substantial improvement to your characters capabilities in both FoL and Cleanse(Shahraz trash anyone?).

So while I believe spell haste will have it's place, I for one will only use 2 Blessed Bands and perhaps the Illidan cape/Dawnsteel Bracers(given Winterchill's poor use of allocation) for most boss fights. Again, we're going to have to see how this will effect our longevity. At the same time, I don't see single target HPS being our weak point atm.

Another depressing part of this change is that the new best-in-slot trinket(along side Memento of course) has gone from a blue to... another blue for overall healing. (Prayerbook to Scarab). TBC Healing trinket choices have been rather annoying. Of course we'll have to what a see how the Scarab plays out in practice, perhaps it will proc more times than not when I gain no benefit from it, where as the Prayerbook almost always nets me back at least 100 mana.(whether that 100 mana per use is neccesary is another question alltogether)

I may end up finding that massing spell haste will result in a substantial buff to my character overall, not only in HPS but also with how fast my character will be able to react to sudden bursts of damage being inflicted upon the raid, and thirdly, the periodic offhealing I can provide to raid members(if raid healing is lacking) while being assigned to a tank and the tank now not being in danger with the drop in sustained HPS being poured onto him. Again, will depend on of course how my mana will hold up given this reallocation of my gear on spell haste over crit/mp5.(What good is casting faster if you're oom?)

Edit: A question I'm currently asking myself is whether or not having spell haste will reduce the GCD on instant casts that otherwise would have no benefit from speed-increasing effects? In other words, will spell haste only adjust the GCD that starts up when a cast begins for spells with a cast time? (Will spell haste enable you to spam cleanse faster?)

The way I understand it is, the GCD invoked from the spell you just started casting will be shortened. Since instant-cast spells have no cast time, I'd assume the GCD to stay consistent.

The other point you made, however, got me to thinking. A lot of our boss healing is single-target on a tank, where most of the time you are going to be cast/canceling heals. The haste will be great for massive spamming (which, truth be told I generally do on most bosses and trash), but on serious fights where you'll need to pay attention, I don't think the Spell Haste is worth the stat loss.

I'll probably mess around with a spell haste set that doesn't break the T6 bonus, but right now thinking about it leads me to believe it'll probably be more of a trash thing.

Even when cast-canceling haste will have benefits, as you have less time when the tank is "waiting for a heal" as well as when things get rough you have more HPS to get him back to full.
The efficiency gain from having more FoL HPS and thus needing less HL is not big (definitely not going to be worth all that regen if efficiency is what you're looking for), but it's there. Again if you need efficiency you wouldn't be gearing haste anyway as other gear gives much better efficiency so that doesn't really matter.

If your tank is sitting below 100% for a while, the problem isn't going to be solved with Spell Haste, because that lies on the other healers. Between rolling Lifeblooms, Rejuv's, PoM's, Renews and the like, a tank should gain a hefty amount of health relatively soon after taking damage. It's because of this my time spent tank healing (mainly Illidan) is being AFK and spamming FoL.
A gear set with Spell Haste will dominate trash meters, no question. The real argument is, does it really matter if you just healed over a Druid's HoT that would've brought your target to full regardless?
I'm probably going to try out Haste just to give it a fair shot. Most likely, I'll wear it on trash and swap to a more balanced set of gear for bosses.

Longtime reader, never really have posted to voice my opinions before, but I'm looking for feedback, so here goes.

Pretty much after reading the thread, itemization wise, to gear as a healadin, there's only a few options to gem for, either full +Healing, a mix of Healing/mp5/crit, or in my case, I went very extreme spellcrit. The idea behind it was that with the 1.5x modifier to crit heals, I would by going spellcrit makeup for the lack of healing with that, and the lack of mp5 with illumination.

I'm relatively new to the guild I'm in since I took a hiatus from raiding, but after returning and trying to stack spellcrit, I haven't had any issues with healing except for long fights such as Bloodboil/Council/Illidan, for which I still pot. To get to the point, we just killed Illidan last Wednesday, so apparently my gear choices are irrelevent towards winning the game, but from a theorycraft point of view, I'm not sure if I'm holding the raid back with my choices, or by some stroke of luck, carrying them forward. My raidbuffed stats with an adepts elixer/guardian elixer are around ~2000 Healing, ~37.5% FoL spellcrit, and ~125 mp5.

I don't have the best gear yet for spellcrit, but we run with 3 paladins, one stacks +healing, I stack +spellcrit, and another paladin does the mix. To try and help Galz with his earlier problem of judging crit overheal and effectiveness, I've noticed in our recent wws'es that the +heal paladin tops the heal chart pretty easily, but I'm generally not that far behind, around 1-2% off his total raid effective heal. I'm not sure if this helps the crit argument, but I was just curious if I am achieving something by breaking a certain crit% threshold, or am I totally flawed in entirely focusing on spellcrit. Thoughts?

The same argument could be used against mp5, crit and +healing as well, so I don't think it's a viable argument against haste.