Looking at your Armory, you have plenty crit, health and mana for your content level but lack in MP5 and +heal. In your shoes I'd give serious consideration to taking [Wave of Life Chestguard] over Ecclesiastical Cuirass. It'll give you 15 MP5 and more than 80 +heal. You can afford the loss of crit and health, and the armour's not important.

Alternately, you can save another 50 badges and take [Gavel of Naaru Blessings] for a flat trade of 6 MP5 for 119 +heal. Given that you haven't yet enchanted your current weapon, that's a potential increase of 200 +heal on your current level.

I agree, weapon should be picked first. Then I would consider the Chest slot.

To keep this conversation rolling I threw together a quick "at a glance" look at what a Paladin with all the gear available Pre-Kil'jaedan might look like and here's what I got:

chardev.org - A World of Warcraft character planner v.3.a

Passive Spell Haste sits around 155, which could just as easy shift to your 175 figure any number of ways -- swapping out for the M'uru gloves, changing the +10 Spell Crit gems to +10 Spell Haste, etc. Not everybody gems the same, and I just threw this together for the sake of science so let's steer clear of dissecting this one example. In this case, you end up with 155 Spell Haste, +2646 Healing, 25.20% Holy Crit, and 170 Mp5. Once again, this can change entirely based on how you gem.

My personal answer to this is that as a Paladin I've never found Spell Haste to really be game breaking. It's certainly not bad to have on a piece of gear, and it helps raise the tempo of my play, but to be totally honest there's no fight in the game since Spell Haste was implemented that's punished a Paladin for not having even 1 point of it. The way I see it, one of the main benefits for Spell Haste on a Paladin is that it makes cancel faking your Holy Lights a bit more efficient, and a bit less dangerous since it raises the cast speed on the recast. It's an obvious increase to throughput at an increase to your mana consumption, and reduces your global cooldown on your other spells, but I've never felt like I should bother getting any more than comes on a piece of gear, ever.

When I sit down and heal for the night I just don't come across a situation where I think Spell Haste would have made a significant difference, ever. Now, that's not to say that it doesn't have the potential to do so (because it most certainly does) but I've never come across an encounter where I've found myself saying, "If I had some more Spell Haste, there's a chance I could have landed that last heal and saved the tank" because in Sunwell when your tank dies it's for very specific reasons:

1) Internal diceroll comes up with a huge "fuck you" and gibs the tank.
2) Healers make large play errors for who only knows what reason, probably because they're retarded.
3) Tanks make large play errors for who only knows what reason, probably because they're retarded.
4) Enrage Timer.

I know there's more, but the point is that there is nothing fixable by shaving fractions of a second off a spell. Yes, there's the potential there, but actually doing the fight and seeing these encounters throws potential right around the window, and the potential is traded for the practical: That is, practically nothing exists that rewards a Paladin for getting excess Spell Haste. One will practically need a metric fuckton of it to really change how their Paladin functions in an encounter, which is like having enough to land an additional cast every second or third enemy swing.

Let's turn the clock back a bit, think back to Naxxramas. I can say that on a fight with Patchwerk level healing, Spell Haste would be absolutely phenomenal. However, where in the game now do you see a fight that is on the same level of healing intensity that Patchwerk was at Level 60? As a Paladin, there really isn't anything remotely comparable with it except maybe a Mage on Gurtogg Bloodboil getting Fel Rage, but that isn't a level of healing that you have to sustain for very long.

I won't turn down a piece of gear with Spell Haste on it by any means, but for the time being there's really no reason that a Paladin has to run out and actually stock up on it to be an amazing tank healer. In my opinion, just take what's already on the gear, and gem to improve your baseline stats (Healing/Crit/Mp5).

Getting your holy lights from 2.0 to 1.75 is a huge boost to your character's overall healing capability, needed or not. Last night on Kil'Jaeden, if my Holy Lights were at their base cast time, we would have had many more deaths I'm pretty certain.

It's difficult to cite specific examples as to when I find spell haste to be valuable because it's always nice to have in my mind. It buys you margin for error as well as a significant boost to your HPS like I said. Much more than any other stat would. Most of it's value comes into play when you're spot healing the raid, less-so when you're tank healing because mobs have swing timers you can align casts to, but I still feel much better beginning a cast on a tank at 70% knowing it'll be 1.8 instead of 2.0.

But I've said this many times: There's no clear-cut way to gear as a holy paladin in Sunwell, especially with the new addition of a whole new stat(haste). Healers should gear mostly off what they feel is needed, as all guilds use different strategies, take advantage of different group synergies etc. I strongly suggest you try running with 150-175 spell haste and see how you like it first if you haven't though. I might be able to supply a fraps of a Kil'Jaeden attempt to demonstrate haste's usefulness, but that obviously won't be for at least a week or two.

In response to increasing +heal/mp5/crit: Like I said before, these have the most value when mana is an issue. Otherwise, they're diminished by a long shot. However, since there is so much haste passively on Sunwell items, you reach 175 or so without even gemming for it. In my ideal suit, I use all spell crit gems in yellow sockets over haste because I have enough haste. The increased stability/longevity of my mana bar then becomes more useful.

Healing mage in BB encounter you chain HL11 for 30 sec. Healing in Brutallus or M'uru/Kiljaeden fights you may more or less chain heal HL11 for a few mins. I think all Sunwell encounters, save felmyst and Kalecgos (at least for me) are more healing intensive than mage getting fel rage. Twins encounter may depend on tactics and kill order though.

Why were you expecting the legs to be a bigger upgrade? [Legplates of the Innocent] are very well itemized for where they are. Having both mp5 and crit make the item much better because of how the item budget works. [Gladiator's Ornamented Chestguard] is not so well itemized, it has a lot of its budget on stam and resil, and it doesn't split the stats between crit and mp5. Personally I would get the weapon first as well, and try to get the chest from Eagle boss in ZA if you can.

Also, make sure you enable all normal buffs (BoK, BoW, etc) they can change the values a lot.

The hps number is fairly accurate for most things except for haste. It doesn't value intangible benefits of haste, like the benefits of faster heal cast times besides HPS.

If the original poster is still around, would you mind changing the "blessings" for holy priests & resto druids to Kings > Wisdom?

The Ret module is very good, since it allows a lot of customization of your raid makeup, and is better than the Healadin module (because healing requirements are not static like dps is).


Kings is better than Wisdom for Druids/Priests, but not worth updating the post. The post is just there to give you some idea what blessing to do if you had no idea where to start.

I am still around, and I still read this thread dailey. Eirmad (endoscient on these boards) is my liason... he's a guildy and an extremely capable holy paladin who's been keeping me posted on the happenings of this thread. He did write up an updated version of the main post, we are still going through it but it should be up shortly.

That said, I'd argue that buff change is more of a matter of opinion than fact, and most guilds allow the classes to choose for themselves which buffs they get. I just made more of a basic suggestion with the gem/buff section.

I've only pulled Kil'jaedan a couple of times so I'm not allowed to have an opinion on Spell Haste regarding his encounter yet. Otherwise, what you're describing pretty much sums up my disappointment with Haste altogether: It's nice to have, and it's nice to have the Holy Lights flowing out a bit quicker since it comps you a bit of user error, but overall when you're doing what Paladins do best (tank healing) you can generally predict the damage that's going to land and adjust accordingly anyways. To me it's really just a comfort stat, so I can't really bring myself to want more than the gear provides which is a decent amount.

I'd agree that Spell Crit is probably the way to go since it'll help extend your mana pool, along with the fact that there's no Spell Crit on a lot of the new Sunwell gear such as the Neck, Twins Mace, M'uru Shield, or M'uru Chestpiece. For me, 25% Holy Crit is a must-have baseline so I'll do what I have to in order to meet that number. MP/5 is really abundant on a lot of the Sunwell items and you and I both came back with numbers around 170 MP/5 which seems to be about where high end gear-levels are going to set Paladins. This pretty much leaves gemming as the only option to pick up more Crit, but there doesn't seem a way to be able to trade the MP/5 for Crit effectively. I guess if you really wanted you could pass up on the M'uru shield and keep the Felstone Bulwark to pad your crit, or you could keep the Shahraz neck, but otherwise gemming seems to be the only option. :\

On Brutallus I've only had to use Rank 11 during Stomp, and on M'uru I do use Rank 11 pretty much exclusively but the damage is so predictable that you can cancel fake to keep your mana pool in order. My point was that the intensity of Patchwerk healing is something I haven't seen in the Burning Crusade, and it just so happens to be a fight where Spell Haste would really steal the show.

I apologize as well if my response seemed harsh in any way. I too am very much used to the condescending sarcasm that litters the large majority of boards and misinterpreted it as such.

Well I can't say I've checked it, but if it's at all accurate of what is best for a Holy Paladin, it won't be what's best for you. Crit contributes only to HPS for you due to lack of Illumination, so most of the gear you'll want to pick up is healing with a lot of Mp5 because w/o Illumination, your only mana regen will be coming from that. And I don't know that there is a site with help for offspec healing pieces, but as I said you basically would want to shoot for just healing and Mp5 to sustain yourself.

is there a mod similar to recount that allows us to look at total sources of mana regen during a fight? I say like recount because the mana gained portion of recount doesn't reflect mana you get through rgeen while casting or not casting and I'd really like to be able to view all sources of mana to make gear decisions easier. Does something like this exist? Thanks

WWS shows all mana gains, but that requires outside game parsing to get those numbers.


Assessment used to have mana gains as well, but not all working with 2.4 yet.

Okay... It might've been in here before but I couldn't find anything.

I've been fortunate enough (because I had contacts) to get into a BT guild, right. We're working on Bloodboil now, got pretty much everything down in MH (ugh Archi), missing Kael'thas in TK... but okay, that's beside the point.

I've been raiding with these guys in my mixed gear (new badge gear, old badge gear, Kara gear, a TK piece... quite mixed), and well, I always end up pretty low on the healing done in 25-mans. Not that it matters to me personally that I'm not the best, but something startled me ... I'm even way below guys that, gearwise, I should be way outhealing.

Raidbuffs with a well-fed buff, my stats are pretty much...
~2250 bonus healing
~25% Holy crit
~125 mp5 (while casting obviously)
~12.5k mana
~15 spellhaste (woo, one item)
(Armory here, that's unbuffed though).

And I usually have like... 300, if I'm lucky 400 HPS max. In heroics etc I can easily reach 800/850. Obviously that's just you healing and in 25-mans you have way more healers, but nevertheless - assuming I don't slack - I shouldn't be so far behind guys with similar spellcrit but only 1600 bonus healing and no spellhaste? Let's say mana is not an issue (because pretty often we got SPs). And I'm not talking being a bit behind, I'm talking like... Sometimes twice as much healing done as me. What's up with that really? Maybe I'm not entirely grasping the concept of this all, but it just sounded a little weird to me.

I could use a tip from some experienced healadins.
I really don't want to read the whole thread to get this answer since I play a resto shaman myself.

I would just like to know if the choice of spells by my RF's pallys is good. I got the impression they love FoL too much, but maybe I am wrong. I would just like to hear some opinion on it.
Typically they use FoL for about 75-80% of their healing output. Isn't HL better for most situations and how should it be used?
Our pallies are usually assigned on MT healing or other spot healing.

Any help appreciated.

Here is a WWS report for one of our latest BT runs as example:
Wow Web Stats

Check your overhealing stats as well as your effective healing stats. I'll wager that you'll see yourself losing 60% or more of your heals to overheal and topping the meter. The reason for this is probably because they're healing more pre-emptively than you are.

One thing I also believe is happening but I'd need to see a WWS report to confirm is that you may be using more Holy Lights than you need to. When you see an 8k dip and automatically blast HL11 as soon as you finish casting your current HL, the other Pali healer casting a Flash or two and two Priests throwing on Renews will heal at least half the damage before your spell lands.

My advice is to install an addon that shows the targets of other healers. In my guild we ask healers to use Grid, and to install GridStatusIncomingHeals for this purpose.

EDIT: @Mandrachalos - Flash has far higher HPM than HL, but HL wins on HPS. It is therefore acceptable to use Flash in all circumstances where it provides sufficient HPS, gearing up to HL as required.

I've been putting a ton of time into Int vs spi vs MP5 calculations, and at no point in gear progression or encounter progression is wisdom ever better than kings, even ignoring the 10% stamina, for mana regeneration. I *didn't* say anything about boomkins or spriests as those are *much* closer and fight dependant, but the math far and away supports holy priests and resto druids taking kings over int.

I also am slightly bothered by a respected poster and person who maintains post thousands of people look to for information disregarding information contrary to what is currently there. "More of a basic suggestion" isn't a good reason to not be accurate, people use these forums as gospel and saying something is a "matter of opinion" for something that is easily and objectively analyized and concluded feels...wrong. Pages of debate about mana regen vs healing vs haste and so on, and those being "personal preference" and "basic suggestions" are much more applicable as opinions as they are much harder, if not impossible, to effectively and accurately model. This, however, is not.

Had a raid tonight and guess what - Karma struck. I ended up second on the healing done (first being a shaman - curse you, chain heal). And yeah, I thought pre-emptive healing etc etc was the cause. Most of our Pally healers at least use Healbot so I can see when they cast stuffs. I'll look into overhealing etc.

Edit: Don't have WWS but my Recount says I had 47% overhealing, 7% being HL. I only use HL11 and FoL7 though, I haven't really looked into using downranked HLs etc. Reckon it's worth looking into on my current level of raiding? (mid-BT).

I have found myself using HL9 much more than HL11, in pretty much every content.

You should have been looking into it round about the time you started 25-man raiding, if not sooner. HL11 is a fucking beast of a spell. Geared, flasked, oiled and fed for full regen I have more than 100 MP5 above your stated tally, and I'd still go OOM if I didn't downrank to HL8 two times out of three.

Plus, you just don't need to cast HL11 all that often. Going binary with it makes no sense. Either you're wasting mana by casting it when you don't need to, or you're not casting it because you don't need to, letting Light's Grace lapse and cutting your HPS by 25% when you need it most.

My friend don't concern yourself with topping healing meters as a Paladin, especially if you're raiding Black Temple which favors dramatically towards Chain Heal and Circle of Healing. If you're using a meter such as Recount (or something similar) then I would just concern yourself with continuing to look into your efficiency, but the only thing that should matter to you in Black Temple is keeping Tanks alive and any other utility which your raid composition allows for you (Cleanse, Judgements, BoP's, ect ect...) If your Tank is living at the end of encounters and wipes are not caused to Tanks dying, then you're doing your primary objective.

The first thing I had to learn as a Paladin to become a better healer was to ignore healing meters. I was feeling the same way you are," WTF why are these guys so ahead of me on meters?!?!?!" But then I realized that it was just how our healing team worked out, we were a heavy raid healing team and that's what Black Temple required. We usually run with 8 healers. 2 of each type is typical for us, I never get a SPriest, I'm always in Tank group for Devo Aura and I obviously still place bottom on meters for many encounters. But, my raids rarely wipe due to a Tanks death I think if you look beyond the meters you may find the same peace of mind that I have. Healthy Tanks = Healthy Raids.

However, if you do wish to increase your HPS or boost yourself a bit on those meters, then I would suggest looking at the mods you're using and playing with them to maybe make healing easier and faster to react to. Do you use Grid?

Anyways, I know how you feel and if you have any questions on how I personally dealt with them, feel free to post or PM.

Best of Luck through the rest of Black Temple

**EDIT -- Also, start using Holy Light (Rank 9), it has the same co-efficient as (Rank 11), aswell try to get used to replacing some FoL's with Holy Light (Rank4/5). Use 4/5 at your discretion. It's of course all dependent on your healing style, but keeping up Light's Grace is crucial.

<3 Secs

Tbh I never had any reason to look into it, for everything went fine until now. But yeah. As I said, last night went pretty well, ended up being second on Recount with over 550 HPS (first being a Shaman with over 900). And again, it's not that I want to end up high necessarily, I was just wondering really why I got only half as much healing as some who have <75% of my stats.

I'll try using downranked HLs and all and see how that goes. If there's anything else, I'll let you know. Thanks a ton.