It's tough to say. If they buff Beacon of Light(bigger radius and larger ticks please) such that it's no longer worth getting Sheathe, then ditching a crit or two from Holy Power to obtain Improved LoH may or may not be worth it. In most raid settings, I value crit very lowly.. especially in lower amounts such as 1 or 2%. Likely not the case if I had Sheathe, as I'm not too much of a fan of the ability and I feel on average a quarter of the potential effective healing from a given Sheathe proc will actually contribute anything, it still would bump crit over the edge as being better in my books than Imp LoH.

Seeing as Beacon of Light is definitely not worth getting for PvP, it's going to be a pure PvE talent. With that in mind, I'd be extremely surprised to see it not get buffed from it's current state by quite a noticeable amount.

First off, my character is a holy pally (obviously) with 1800 BH, 27% crit, and 116 mp5, and is a FoL spammer type healer for kara and early ZA.

I have been reading a bit about key statistics and it seems haste is very important but im not sure if I can give up mana effiency/crit for it. From my experience having a whole lot of crit seems to be the best route, but this is really just my opinion. Crit means mana effiency and big heal bonuses. I would like some feedback on crit being my stat to focus on or not.

Another thing, i have been reading that most people use HL instead of FoL often. Maybe post ZA or 25 mans this is true, but I never seem to have a problem keeping up the tank with FoL and the occasional DF holy shock., especially if I have a semi-decent 2nd or 3rd healer. Plus I never really have mana problems, but I do when HL comes into play, which is only for "powerhealing" to me right now. Should I be attempting to find haste gear and practice HL or will my current strategy work in later instances?

Looking for any help on the subject, thanks.

You simply could not practice haste healing in lower tier instances due to difference on tank incoming damage, unless you try to reduce the number of healers to the very minimum. Don't bother with haste till you really need it, to be honest. I doubt I would benefit from healing to the same extent as crit/healing/mp5 in Kara. With your stats and without shadow priest you would likely go oom too faste with hasted HL, even downranked. You could of course use haste to make your FoL more powerfull, but in this case it won't train you how to play in higher tier instances.

Im back with more stupid gear questions. I looted t4 shoulders today but noticed that if I equip them my spell crit goes under 20% and I THINK thats too low. Should I slap 2 +10 spell crits on them or should I change my gear as a whole some way?

T4 shoulders' not really an upgrade over what you have right now. Not worth spending 2 epic gems on it.

Hi lads!

I currently have T6 gloves and legs, T5 helm and shoulders, the boots from SSC, the belt from ZA, and the chest from badges. I currently have loads and loads of crit, but no yellow sockets on my T6 gear yet. I have access to T6 shoulders and head, if i manage to gather enough DKP. Now, my holy light (which is my primary spell, i might add) has a 37.something chance to crit. This is completely unbuffed and looks to me like its a bit much. Should i resocket my T5 gear for haste? Should i just wait for T6 parts (both of which have yellow sockets) and socket those with haste instead?

I have a simple question. In my guild every single time we raid, the druid CL (also raid leader) places himself in the SPriest group, taking a spot that a Paladin or Resto Shaman could have. (That group is usually set up Resto Druid, Spriest, w/ the last 3 spots either being all priests or 2 priests and 1 shaman.)

Does the Resto druid increase the effectiveness of that group? If not, is there any reason that he places himself in there other than for selfish reasons? The other paladins and shamans have discussed this and we can't see any reason for him to place himself there.

Thanks.

I have a question if I may:

1) Since both the GCD and FoL are set to 1.5 seconds, will Spell Haste now (since the change of allowing it to reduce the GCD) allow you to spam FoL between 1 and 1.5 seconds?

From my raiding exp. I've always seen druids with the MT group going tree form. For the increased in healing. Along with druids having a fair mp5 with spirit, to me it sounds more selfish. I could be wrong, just what I'm more custom to.

Shadow Priest/CoH Priest/Holy Paladin/Shaman(Resto) leaving the 5th spot for either another paladin or perhaps another CoH priest.

Thank you very much. That is the same conclusion we came to, however as he is the Druid CL/Co-GM/Raid Leader (/sigh at his numerous positions) as well as the RL friend of the GM we can't say anything.

Needless to say it increases the difficulty of certain fights, but we manage to pull through.

Either way, thank you.

There are other possible reasons besides "selfish" ones.

Could be that he is (or thinks he is) good and you guys are bad. And he needs the extra help to carry you guys through the raid. Or maybe not even "bad". Maybe he just feels he can better maximize the added resources.

Could be that having an spriest allows him to simply spam his biggest heals without having to divert attention from managing the raid to maximizing his heals per mana ratio. Without doubt raid-leading almost invariably comes with some measure of decreased performance from the raid leader. The spriest could be his way of compensating for it.

Being "Holy Pally Number Two" (or sometimes even "Three") in a guild that doesn't have a lot of spriest love to go around means that I'm often excluded from the benefit of an spriest myself. But that's fine. Holy Pally Number One is better than I am, plain and simple. And he can make the most of being in the spriest group. I don't resent that. Rather, I work harder and try to learn from him so I can be better.

It sounds like you have some resentment over this. Don't. It's only an issue if it causes wipes. If it makes things more difficult on occasion, that's fine - think of it as a challenge. No biggie.

The bottom line is that there's no fight pre-SWP where a holy pally needs an spriest. And even in SWP, Kalecgos and Felmyst definitely don't require that. Does it help you boost your numbers and make you look pretty on WWS? Sure. But that's not the point. The point is downing bosses. WWS is a good tool, but our performance is hard to measure in numbers.

Don't get into that number-comparing dps mindset. They can always work on "dps-ing harder". We can't heal harder. Our performance is mostly measured in a yes/no. Is your tank standing at the end of the fight? Or is he sucking dirt?

Nah, I don't have any resentment over it, I was just wondering if it was necessarily the best way to maximise our healers' abilities. I do not run meters any more and haven't for a while. The only person in the raid who cares about meters are a few of our dps, and that druid, and he is at such a constant low position that he has stopped asking them to be linked.

Chain chugging pots, w/ flasks and consumables and mana oil up I do not have noticeable problems with my mana. One other point, we have noticed more that he is just selfish as he took the Crystal Spire the first time it dropped for us last week over both the Shaman and the other Paladin who was using a Merc-Glad mace, claiming he doesn't need mana regeneration and instead just straight healing.

That just sounds selfish - claiming you don't need the mana regen, but still put yourself in a spriest group. A druid never needs a spriest, there are maybe 2-3 fights in entire Hyal, BT and Sunwell where it is 'nice', but even on those fights it is better to give it to someone else.

If I'd think I were better than the rest I'd give myself the hard job (e.g. no spriest or difficult assignment), so that the "newbs" have less chance of screwing up. This just smells like an ignorant and/or selfish raidleader.

I take it your guild uses a "best fit" allocation system over DKP? CSoK's special ability doesn't affect Lifebloom, but it does affect all three Chain Heal jumps. A resto Druid should never be given it over a Shaman or an MT healer. You need a new raid leader or a new guild, I think, as your current RL is either a loot whore and meter chaser or he does not know how to play his class at the most basic level.

I'm not sure as to what you mean by "best fit" but we use loot council between the 2-3 officers that are usually in the raid, those being the Druid CL (the one who is the RL), the Hunter CL, and the Rogue CL, and they don't argue with him over healing gear distribution b/c they aren't healers and do not want to get involved.

Unfortunately, it seems you are correct on the loot-whore part as well, as we were in SWP clearing trash (we can't even get people to work together well enough for Kalecgos) and the pattern for the leather healing chest dropped. He immediately took it, because he had "called dibs" on it before we entered Sunwell. He has yet to level to 365 LW to actually make it.

ANYWAY, I went wayyyy off topic of pally class mechanics, so /emorageoff.

Thanks for your feedback.

"Loot Council"???

I take it back. While there are a few ways to reason out the spriest thing, combined with the rest there's no justification for the way things are being run. And this whole "Loot Council" thing would lead me to believe that the problem is larger than just this one RL.

Find a new home.

Depends on what you want to do with your paladin. Arena gear is good for arena. It's not good for pve. If you want gear for pve go for top raids you're not shy to go on. So for example T5 helm is definitely better than merc, and T6 is even better than T5 still. Arena gear is really for massive stamina and resilience.

EDIT: Oh and if you're an engineer, goggles are good as well.

Well, I'm sure my guild would have no problems gearing out another Holy Pally, but I levelled this one with my girlfriend's druid, and would like to try to not leave her in the dust, at least when it comes to gear. She doesn't raid, so I've already far outpaced her on our mains (my second 70, her third).

I would absolutely love to run some T4/T5 with him (and also my main, want to pick up a few gimmick items), but T5 guilds are non-existant on our server. Either they're T4 level, or they've skipped T5 to (try to) get 4/5 3/9.

My current plans are to find some kara runs to tag along with, but with my meager 1050 +heal to start, I'm hard pressed to find anyone who will take me. For as bad as my server is when it comes to pve (we've got ~3 Sunwell guilds on Alliance, the rest are ~1/5 0/9 AT BEST) most groups/guild have abnormally high expectations.

Could you link the armory?

The gloves were a good choice. The next thing is to run Kara for Tier 4 Helm (best thing until T5-T6 helm) and any other healing gear you can get, and of course badges (Badge 1 pants and healing weapon are great).

Season 2 Helm is decent, but T4 is better (note Season 3 Helm is better than T4).

Remember you can wear non-plate for healing stats.

Haha prepare to laugh. Or maybe cry. Armory Link.

[E] I did discover an interesting trick with those two trinkets. Apparently, they don't share a cooldown, so you can actually pop them both at the same time. Useful in conjunction with my cooldowns for getting out of a tight spot. Haven't really needed them just yet, but it's fun to pop them and hit 6.6k crit HL11s.

Well, I figured the gloves would be an obvious choice, as you really can't match the benefit of +2% crit on FoL. "Free" crit = good, right? Though, I did sacrifice a lot of honor for them. If I hadn't picked them up, I'd only be ~6k out from getting a S2 ret wep, as was my original intent.

I do consider them to be a worthwhile investment, however.

As you can probably tell with much of my gear :P I just dinged 70 (as in Saturday), so I'm still sitting on what I picked up levelling. I levelled as ret, but I can't say my ret gear is much better.

As for healing, this is my first real healer, so it's interesting. Longetivity hasn't been an issue in instances yet... But then my experience there has been healing BM 2-3 times and SL once. BM I could do without drinking, I'm pretty sure, if I remembered to use my cooldowns more often. I could also just be spoiled by running everything with a tank (my gf's druid) that was uncrittable the day she hit 70 (with ~30% dodge), so I expect the experience to be slightly different once I start hitting kara/etc.

6 mp5 enchant to chest is basically free. 81 heal to weapon is fairly cheap. Buy the crusader hat and spend your honor on bracers and/or boots. Don't overlook kodohide stuff, I think mp5 works better than crit at starting levels of gear and progression. Upto you if you want to insightful gem crusader's hat, the gem is at least 10mp5.