Did some testing on the BoL nerf between live and beta. Did this with same gearsets. Approximately 2000 +heal and the Libram from Karazhan.


HL4: L 1925, B 1500 (-425)
HL5: L 2325, B 2000 (-325)
HL7: L 3250, B 3050 (-200)
HL9: L 4325, B 4225 (-100)
HL11: Approx equal


Also a note in T5 4pc. After a crit, it gives a 10 second buff of -.5 cast time on holy light. Much to my surprise though, it does not get consumed with 1 Holy Light cast, so you can cast 1.5 speed holy Light for the next ten seconds. Obviously, its a nerf from current 4piece, but its still a decent set bonus.

That's disappointing rank 9 took a hit as well since I use it a lot. Was hoping it was high enough to escape the nerf. Thanks for the info.

Yeah, 4 and 7 aren't even worth having on your bars anymore. 9 is okay, but nothing I would use often. Looks like we get to FoL spam with the occasional HL11 now. :\

RAnk 9 taking a hit is extremely odd since to the best of my knowledge it doesn't suffer from the downranking penalty when assessing the amount of +heal applied to it.

Can someone please test if the new caster meta (12 crit rating and 3% increased crit "damage") really only applies to damage, or if it affects heals as well? Might be a good gem if it does work on healing.

Also, I've been hearing rumors that the [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond] no longer procs off illumination on the PTR... can anyone confirm/deny this?

Dunno if they fixed it but it would make sense if they do, and I'd probably use [Insightful Earthstorm Diamond] anyway due to how much mana it is and the requirements.

Been rather busy the past week or so, with going out of town and all. Almost finished with the sheet, by adding all the new 2.3 stuff. It's surprising how high some of that stuff is ranked...

I agree with you on the Insightful Earthstorm Diamond; however, I really hope you're wrong on the flash bot stuff. I'm going to try to refrain from FoL spam as long as possible. I think it will come to figuring out what ranks work best now. I'll most likely have to adjust from HL 4, 7, 11, which is my current set-up.

This post shows pretty conclusively that you will be forced into HL11/9 with tons of cancelling if you still want to have your gear for HL... but since you're cancelling illumination isn't as good, hence crit isnt' as good, hence you're better off gearing yourself for FoL. So sadly, IMO at least, it is true that we have be forced into the FoL spam route, I have already begun converting my gear own gear accordingly.

Well, stacking crit still wouldn't be a horrible thing... would it? You still get mana back from the crit on FoL... albiet small.

@Naive: But if what you are saying is right, just going with [Royal Nightseye] would seem to be the best, eh? You get the +heal and the mp/5, both of which you seem to be saying are going to be the real key stats to stack. Or is that not enough healing and too much mp/5?

Edit: Moved to main section under gems...

Short summary is that you loose the value of epic quality gems if they have mp5 on them, and get far more out of them if they have int.

If you are MT healing, you only need 2 paladins to use BoL. BoL should only be second to kings in a raid situation for a tank. That being said, in terms of healing a MT in 2.3, I don't see using any rank of HL below 9 being useful. The nerf was so severe that you're better off cancelling 9 or 11 as needed then downranking.

In terms of librams, the kara and lurker librams are still the best we have. Unfortunate that both have lost effectiveness (kara libram was nerfed, HL was nerfed which in turn made the lurker libram worse), but the kara libram is still very good, simply switch it out for a blue libram if you find yourself having to raid heal. Then again, you really should *never* raid heal as a paladin. We have no hots or AoE heals, we should be assigned to single tanks to maximize our effectiveness.

And you bring paladins to raids mainly for buffs, not heals. Three blessings is generally better than having a slightly better healer.

Any thoughts on the [Libram of Mending], the new 2.3 libram available with heroic badges? I'll be picking that up for sure since I've had horrible luck (never seen the Kara or SSC librams drop). Still stuck with [Libram of the Lightbringer].

Considering how much cancelling you'll have to do while raid healing, I would find that libram to be pretty... well.... bad. I would still use the blue trinket.

I've seen this before and I still have to disagree with it. Depending on the type of area damage, paladins can be very effective as a raid healer. I wouldn't take one over a shaman on a fight like VR or Azgalor where you have nice clumped together people taking damage together. But in fights where you have a spread raid or targets taking regular (but less than MT) damage paladins are very effective at keeping a target up and doing a great amount of raid healing between or simply spamming flash ad nauseum. Fights like Kael P4/P5, Vashj P3, A'lar, even Magtheridon we use Paladins on the raid or raid/off-tank etc. And it's worked very well for us.

Edit for clarity: it's the *never* I'm taking issue with. I agree we make very, very good MT healers and that is more often than not what our job should be. But there are more than just 1 or 2 gimmick fights where we can do other things as well.

To support Mongoe, I've done very well raid healing on certain fights where the raid takes good amounts of damage (Naj'entus, Gorefiend, etc). These fights only need one healer on the MT, so there's no reason your Pallies can't be helping out with the raid.

But I agree with the fact that a Pally's first job should be MT healing. There are just a few select fights where Paladin healing the raid is actually very good.


I also disagree a bit with the claim that crit is useless with FoL. Crit is still very useful, imo, since it both helps your efficiency (Illumination) and your healing throughput (1.5x healing). Granted, crit won't be worth as much mp5 if you're not using HL a lot, but if you're never having mana problems (I'm not now that I'm a FoL spam bot), losing some mp5 for crit is a great way to increase your throughput.

It's also a matter of itemization... unless you start picking up shaman gear, most of the healing plate in BT/Hyjal has either haste or crit on it. Since haste isn't really worth using anymore, crit is pretty much the way to go for those high ilvl epics.


At the end of the day, it's all up to the individual. It's up to you to assess your healing situation and look at your WWS parses and determine if you need more mana efficiency, or if you should go for some more throughput.

I just disagree with huge blanket statements that may mislead someone from ever checking it out for themselves whether these ideas are viable for them (crit with FoL, or raid healing as a Pally).

*edit* I just reread your original threat with the edits you made, and I'll agree with what you've said there about the value of int and that crit is still useful with FoL. I just want to make sure people don't disregard crit entirely, as it's still very useful. =)

You could attempt to do a tier6 haste set. I'm able to get to 1.78s with Light's Grace using tier6 with the blacksmithing haste shoulders, ZA also offers a few random haste epics.

Otherwise, if you'll be becoming an FoL bot i'd just stack +heal, as mana regen really shouldn't be an issue at all (assuming you can get a group with a mana totem).

I updated the gem section on the main post with some commentary on epic gems and the relative values of each kind of gem we might use, anyone have some input? Trying to put down as helpful much info in this post as I can.

I've suspected the T5 Nerf/BOL Nerf was incoming, and have shifted to 4pc T6 (need legs) and FOL spam for a few weeks now. It works, works nicely, but is supremely boring. The only "variaton" in any fight is to try and keep LG up via HL9 when I can for high burst fight. If this is the extent of end game Paladin healing, new heal spell plz. They could easily put DI at 31 pts, and give us a new 41pt spell for healing. Holy Shock is neat, but basically useless on most fights other than when I have to run and healing myself just happens to be useful for that split second.

Something creative like "On mobs next successful strike, heal that target for 800" and make it a Judgement. Put an internal CD on the judgement itself, and it might be useful for 1 or 2 Paladins, not to mention give more importance and synchrocity with ret paladins.

I've always been a fan of giving us an aoe hot (ie, target x, put a hot on that person and all raid targets within 5yds). It is fairly sad that at most you can consider paladins having 3 heals (this is including HS, which as we all know is a joke), while every other healing class has 4-5.

But alas, I guess we'll have to wait for 51 pt talents & level 80 skills.

That's very nice to hear. I just got the plans last night. Have the bracer plans too. We're getting everyone decked out in shadow resist before I'll see any hearts though. But I anticipate by 2.3 I'll be able to get some.

If I go the haste route (in attempts to not become a FoL bot) with [Dawnsteel Shoulders] and [Dawnsteel Bracers], around what spell crit should I be shooting for? They will obviously lower my crit as it is right now, since my [Crystalforge Pauldrons] have two +8 spell crit gems.

I guess my stance with crit is a little different - I personally value crit at 8mp5 for FOL spam, and as such will be using the S3 gloves when they arrive on the vendor in conjunction with 4pc T6. Longevity is never, ever, ever a problem for me with FOL spam, and as such I figure I may as well increase my crit % to bolster any possible HL's I may be throwing out, in conjunction with higher hp/s with FOL.