The more I play on the PTR the more I realize just how large of a nerf the IoL change is. Testing Kologarn last night, there were at least half a dozen deaths that occured after I HS'd a target but before my HL landed -- deaths that wouldn't have happened if IoL still hasted HL. Once I realized that I stopped using HS entirely. I can't justify spending a GCD to heal for ~5k when I could spend the same amount of time healing for ~11k. If somebody dies during the HL they'd die anyways if I HS'd first.

On another somewhat related topic, I find it humorous how quickly blizzard went back on their word about AoE healing. I remember during beta blizzard swore up and down that they did not want TBC levels of AoE damage in boss fights any more -- and yet, Kologarn is that and more. I didn't even do any tank healing; there was enough deep raid damage that Beacon actually provided reliable HPS on the tank.

I'm not sure that I came to the same conclusion. I think the math I was able to put out all shows that while stacking spellpower will get you nowhere in improving the effectiveness of SS, the Tier 8 bonus itself is actually quite a decent increase in effective HPS.

The problem is that in any fight where mana is being tested and you don't have breaks where you can safely and effectively use DP, the 4 piece Tier 7 is simply too good to pass up. In raw throughput, however, T8 bonus is not really all that bad.

Mind that HS was intended to be a mobile heal mechiansm. You're really not supposed to be weaving HS into any healing "rotation" for the exact reasons that you've discovered.

And what does developer intent have to do with anything? You could say the same thing about whirlwind -- it's intended to be an AoE attack, not a single target attack, and use that to justify it getting nerfed. It doesn't change that it would be a massive nerf to that spec, just like the IoL change is turning out to be for us.

In the past IoL played a huge role in my playstyle. Now, I only spec into it so I can get deeper into the tree. Obviously it is developer intent that it be nerfed, but that doesn't mean it should just be accepted. We had a great thing, an actual skill-testing mechanic in our healing playstyle and now it is gone. I'm not happy with that and neither should you be.

I doubt we'll see any changes to our set bonuses, so it will be interesting to see how people gear well into Ulduar. However, a 4P bonus I'd love to see would be:
It could even be for the full amount healed, but that might be a bit too much. If it was on a standard 45 second internal cooldown it'd do a number of things. First, outside of the cooldown it would make us focus on the tank which is the role we are intended for. I also think that it would make up for the mana gain in HL casts by allowing us to use Divine Plea more often. If you proc a 10k HoT (2,500 every 3 seconds) on the tank it makes the 50% healing penalty to DP much less dangerous. Paladins who are paying attention would always try to use DP when this proc'd on their tank. Being a chance on crits every 45 seconds, it's not going to be a reliable heal to make our healing OP. You probably aren't going to be able to time your HoT to proc during those critical times.

I think it'd be a fun mechanic to watch for. It's more or less the same as lowering the DP penalty, but it requires you to pay attention and gives a small window for when you can use it.

Well it looks like our 2PT8 has led to an unexpected rise in demand for a more reliable/powerful HoT effect. Up until this was revealed, we had basically conceded the whole "we need a hot to heal effectively" war.

Ironically enough, we already have access to such an ability... Sheath of Light.

I had considered making this post a while back, before the set bonuses were revealed. I tried to stage it as logically as possible so it wasn't just another "Holy sucks so much we may as well go ret!" post that we're all familiar with from beta. In that interest, I outlined the pros and cons of Traditional Holy vs. Sheathe Holy. When I did, it seemed that the sacrifices were simply too great to justify it.

However, there's a rising tide that I'm trying not to get swept off my senses in for a Sheath build. So much so that I've converted to one on both live and the PTR, to surprising success. And I do mean success. Sheath's proving to be a powerful spec for Malygos and multi-drake Sarth alike.

But first, to quote Robin Williams in Aladdin, there are a couple, ah, provisos, ah, a couple quid pro pros.

Sheath builds are meant for tank healing and tank healing alone. The sacrifice of Holy Shock, Beacon, and JotP is too great to maintain anywhere near the raid healing potential of a 51/x/x holy paladin. (However, I would advise us all to reconsider just how high that potential is in a post-3.1 world.)

Sheath builds lack mobility. Think of the Sheath build as a suped up Mustang. Very powerful, but very old school. This is basically a return to BC paladinry on 'roids. You will notice the lack of Holy Shock and JotP on movement-heavy fights, but it's not uncounterable.

Sheath needs melee. At least an 8 yard range to be superior mana-wise to Traditional Holy, any further and you miss out on the mana benefit. But you should be that close anyway, until SoW gets nerfed.

Sheath could be considered suboptimal now, but the benefits are multiplied in 3.1. With General Vezax corrupting JotP, and JotW being one of the few mana regen spells that works on that fight, Sheath builds will greatly excel on the fight. Furthermore, the IoL nerf, along with the aforementioned SS and GHL nerfs will serve to lacken the relative benefit Traditional Holy has over Sheath Holy. Plus, GC has all but sworn that JotW will be buffed to make up for ret losing SA, which will further boost Sheath's mana superiority over Holy.



Basically, the appeal of a Sheath build is that it's more mana efficient than Traditional Holy, thanks to Judgements of the Wise. Furthermore, thanks to Sheath of Light, a Sheath build's single-target HPS is comparable (possibly greater) to a traditional holy build. In other words, the best option for old-school tank healing.

The reason Sheath works is because Illumination--the holy-defining ability--is so low in the holy tree, while the deep tree is filled with situational talents. There are only 4 noticeable sacrifices for Sheath and JotW:

-Holy Shock
-Divine Illumination
-Judgments of the Pure
-Beacon of Light

You also lose Light's Grace (which we've long lamented being suboptimal, and we only take because there's no better alternative), Infusion of Light (Art of War replaces this in ret, and procs Instant FoL more often, albeit without the initial heal of holy shock), and 2% crit with holy spells. However, none of these are severe enough losses to outweigh Sheath/JotW. Only the four mentioned above are worth making us think twice about healing as ret.

Holy Shock is the biggest loss, in my opinion. It hurts our mobility, and emergency/reactive healing options. However, it's usually devoid from tank healing rotations. So if you're just spamming heals on the main tank, you won't notice its loss as much as you'd think.

Divine Illumination is nice for Bloodlusts, but JotW already offsets the loss, and does it much more consistently to boot. Especially if it gets buffed.

Judgements of the Pure is the only throughput nerf you eat by going ret. However, it can be made up at least partially with gear, and again, it doesn't hurt so much if you're spam-healing the tank instead of reactively healing.

Beacon of Light...is Beacon of Light. We've beat our heads against brick walls trying to make it work to the best of it's ability, and while we all generally agree that it's a good spell, its level of invaluability is questionable on any fight other than Patchwerkian ones. 80% of the time we use it as insurance on ourselves, or keep it on the tank and try to snipe heals, praying someone else doesn't get it before us. If you spec Sheath, I think you'll find the times you've been sitting there saying "God I wish I had a HoT for 60% of my 15k Holy Light crit" outnumber the times you've been sitting there saying "God I wish I had Bacon." (Note: The preceding statement does not apply to Jack Russell terriers.)

Here's some more interesting tidbits about Sheath builds:

As of this post, Sheath hots applied before DP are NOT affected by the healing penalty. That is, if you bomb a crit heal on the tank, then DP, the hot will continue to tick for its full strength. However, Sheaths applied after DP is activated will be at half strength as expected.

Sheath hots roll like Mage Ignites.

Sheath hots work only on effective healing. (Maybe they'll change this to be more like Ancestral Awakening or Living Seed, but I doubt it.)



Anyway, it's really not as crazy as it sounds. I'm not saying it's THE definitive way to go, but... I would really liken it to priests. As it stands right now, and even more so after the patch, Sheath builds are our equivalent to Discipline priest builds: great for tank healing, but nothing else. Meanwhile, Holy mimics priest Holy--the more versatile, raid-healing capable spec.

But for those of you looking to maximize your ability to perform the job that you're going to be assigned 95% of all raids (tank healing), it's certainly worth investigating. Try it out, and give me your thoughts.



EDIT: One other pro I forgot to mention is the additional spell-power scaling Sheath gives you through AP buffs. Lillwin and I, our other best geared holy paladin, were sitting at roughly the same spellpower before buffs. After buffs, I had over 300 more than he did. This further boosts Sacred Shield and solidifies sheath as a great tank healing solution. Still, try at your own risk. After all, buffs don't scale, while Intellect does (or might, eventually--since Ulduar hasn't upgraded the Int levels very much). You are giving up Holy Guidance's 20% Int as SP for 30% AP as SP.

I'm around Naxx10 gear level right now, I might try a Sheath build tonight just for messing around, would you say this build has most of the required talents? I know there's lots of options ones in there just trying to get the most important ones.

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

Except the developer intent in this case reinforces the current HL Paradigm. There's nothing skillful about weaving HS prior to the IoL changes - in fact, you were probably doing it due to either perceived benefits or because you deviated too far in your assignment and now needed to roll some dice for catchup. In Ulduar, you can subout these mistakes for poor placements of FoL casting I guess.

Anyway, you've already discovered that chain-casting HL with that GCD was the proper way to go when stationary.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm almost certain there is a corrupted Judgement mechanic in effect on the Vezax fight for precisely this reason.

The problem with the HoT aspect of course is, assuming your chain casting holy lights at 1.6-1.8s (without the 15% haste I'm unsure what a realistic number would be in full T8), the HoT component keeps landing every 3s:

0s (HL) -----> 2s(HL crits for 18k) ------> 4s(HL lands again for 12k) -------> 5s(2500ish tick) --------> 6s(HL for 12k) --------> 8s(HL + tick for 14,5k-20.5k)

Basically, every now and again the HoT lands in between ticks, but it's overall usefulness in limiting incoming burst damage is less than expected because it also occasionally ends up lining up with your incoming HL for what most likely will result in just more overheal. 15% haste on the other hand is easily modeled as 15% more throughput. This also ignores BoL effectively doubling your overall output in some scenarios, which is quite powerful.

A wise point, but be mindful. Ulduar's heavier tank damage is going to have an effect on our overheal. The odds of a Sheath tick forcing you to overheal will be greatly diminished as tank damage goes up.

Beacon allows you to output 100% of your HPS on one tank, and <=100% of your HPS on another tank as the fight permits.

Sheath allows you to output ~130% (depending on your crit rate) of your HPS on one tank.

I don't think that either is "the right answer." I think it really depends on the situation. Currently, I'm planning to use my dual spec for both Sheath and Beacon. Thus, I have one heavy-duty tank healing spec, and one more versatile raid healing spec that I can use to take advantage of Beacon as necessary.

Yeah, 130% output on a single target if we assume no overheal... but would they really design encounters where the HPS required on a single tank would surpass that provided by HL spam? That's the only way you could really ever reach this 30% throughput increase.

115% output on 1 target and <= 115% on a second tank for the beacon + haste build.
130% for the ShoL build.

These are both pie in the sky best case scenarios... Even if we ignore BoL in the first case, 15% difference in single target throughput isn't taking into account Light's Grace (essentially extra haste) and the 3% lost crit from not being able to maximize Holy Power with 43 points into retribution. Seems like even in theoretical realms the benefits would be pretty slim considering what you'd have to lose.