The Holy Paladin Guide for WotLK - Page 21

Malleus · 12/13/08, 7:17 AM

Originally Posted by Flidais

But instead of changing gear for those situations, has anyone thought of glyphing both SoW and SoL, and simply changing which seal you use based on what the fight needs? Yeah, using SoL would be a cut to our mana efficiency, but if most of us are ending fights with 60% mana or more, is that extra efficiency really necessary when we need HPS more than HPM? And getting a flat 5% bonus to all heals via a glyph is a lot easier than picking up 5% haste or SP through switching gear.

I can't envisage a situation where Blizzard would force raids to bring a Paladin using a Glyph that can only be made by discovery. Assuming that we can always have enough throughput without Glyphing, our main issue becomes mana economy. With that in mind, a better replacement Glyph would be the new version of Glyph of FoL, which provides both effective cost reduction and an increase in HPS on any occasions where we may need to switch down from Holy Light spam.

Endoscient · 12/13/08, 12:30 PM

Just because we aren't having issues in the short and easy Naxx fights doesn't mean we should just drop our regen. Once we get to harder fights in Ulduar, mana might not be as unlimited as in 4-5min Naxx fights.

• frmorrison · 12/13/08, 3:30 PM

Originally Posted by Flidais

Any thoughts?

While two Seal glyphs sounds nice, in practice it is better to have stuff that helps you out all the time. like currently HL, SoW, and Divinity. After next patch, I think adding in Flash of Light one would be good in place of Divinity.

Intoxify · 12/13/08, 4:15 PM

In terms of opinions, how does everyone feel about this drastic change to the FoL glyph, especially in light of HL infinity? I'd been finding myself using FoL as a gap filler for 5 and 10 man content, and I was especially looking forward to it's use in PvP. I can't help but feel that Blizzard is attempting to make FoL more attractive to paladins as more than a top off spell, but taking away our only option for a HoT hurts.

StormGust · 12/13/08, 4:58 PM

Originally Posted by frmorrison

Assuming it was 20 yards, that will help make up for the cooldown on CoH/WG, and would make it so two Holy Pallies can duo heal Naxx 10.

HL would have a greater output than CoH/WG, because it lacks the CD, CH, because it is able to Heal more people and is a faster cast, while still being able to heal the MT. The only downside is, that the Glyph lacks a smart targeting mechanism (though if it ignores full health targets, that isn't that much of a problem) and would require a little more effort in targeting by the Paladin/Raid positioning.

It may be true that 5 yards was to limiting, but even 10 yards may be to strong for most cases, at least with the current way this glyphs functions.

Arthaal · 12/13/08, 6:12 PM

CoH's output at max rank is [(720 + (SP * 0.42?)) * 6 (glyph)]/6 (seconds - cooldown).

Assuming a 25% crit chance and 2000 SP and no hasted GCD =

[(720 + (840)) * 0.75] + [(720 + (840)) * 1.5 * 0.25] * 1.1 (Spiritual Healing) * 1.1 (Divine Providence) * 6 (targets) / 6 (seconds) = 2124 HPS

Glyphed component of HL output at max rank [(5166 (avg. output) + (SP * 1.42)) * 0.1 (10% from glyph) * 5 (number of targets)]/1.5 (seconds - hasted cast with LGs up):

Assuming a 45% holy light crit chance (34% spell crit chance) and 2000 SP =

{[((5166 + 2840) * 0.55) + ((5166 + 2840) * 1.5 * 0.45)] * 1.12 (Healing Light) = 10984 HPS
(10984 * 0.1 * 5) / 1.5 = 3661 HPS

Factoring in crit splashes off crit heals effectively double dipping on the crit multiplier. That would happen 34% of the time in the above scenario:

[(1098 * 0.66) + (1098 * 1.5 * 0.34)] * 5 (splash heals) = 4282 HPS

Very nearly twice the HPS of cooldown limited CoH. However, CoH's previous top end HPS was 4 times that amount, or 8496 HPS.

This puts glyphed HL a little less than half way between the previous CoH and its current implementation in terms of raw healing output.

It's a little more complicated than that however, once you consider the way the glyph handles overheals on the initial target in calculating the value of the splash. Endoscient (edited: sorry for miscrediting) posted earlier with a grep utility to calculate the value used in cases of crit overheals. If you could clarify this behaviour for me, that would be helpful, as rereading your post just ended up confusing me more. The glyph uses the effective healing done to calculate the splash unless more than 66% overhealing was done, in which case it uses the overall healing done value?

One final point: this increased range on the glyph in no way created these numbers... assuming your raid group bunched up, you had access to these better than 6s CoH figures before the recent patch notes. The only difference this increased range makes is increasing the number of "targets" you can expect to cover in non-ideal or contrived encounters.

Endoscient · 12/13/08, 7:21 PM

You are using that crits heal for double in the calculations, where they only heal for 50% more.

I am also fairly certain that Glyph of Holy Light doesn't smart heal, it heals 5 random targets in range. I will test to make sure though. You are also ignoring the fact that while the priest isn't casting CoH they can be using other heals to heal up the raid, while the GHL assumes spamming HL.

I was the one who posted how the proc works, and then updated the original post with it. To quote from there "If your heal doesn't crit, it will proc off of effective healing amount if its less then 50% overheal, otherwise it will proc off total amount. If it does crit, it will proc off of effective healing amount if its less then 66% overheal, other wise it will proc off total amount." So the amount it procs for is going to be on average a good amount less the 10% of HL.

StormGust · 12/13/08, 7:32 PM

Originally Posted by Endoscient

You are also ignoring the fact that while the priest isn't casting CoH they can be using other heals to heal up the raid, while the GHL assumes spamming HL.

A holypriest, while raidhealing, will not be able to heal the MT, a Paladin on the otherhand, would be able to

I was the one who posted how the proc works, and then updated the original post with it. To quote from there "If your heal doesn't crit, it will proc off of effective healing amount if its less then 50% overheal, otherwise it will proc off total amount. If it does crit, it will proc off of effective healing amount if its less then 66% overheal, other wise it will proc off total amount." So the amount it procs for is going to be on average a good amount less the 10% of HL.

Most encounter either have: a high amount of AoE damage once in a while (i.e. you will have a nice amount of effective Healing) or small amounts of damage periodically (i.e. you will get the full 10%, if I understand the mechanics correctly)

edit:
Completely forgot that bacon is effective Healing only, so forget about the first part of this post ~~

Arthaal · 12/13/08, 8:28 PM

I fixed the numbers from my above post to use the proper crit healing multipliers and also fixed a few other mistakes in the math. If we consider what Endoscient added regarding overhealing mechanics, and look at an average HL spam fight for overhealing numbers (e.g. I averaged 66% overhealing on last week's Naxx run) it becomes fairly obvious that the fairy tale scenario where HL glyph becomes better than CoH with cooldown (and keep in mind, still doesn't rival CoH in its current form for raw raid healing output) is pretty far off realistic.

If I simplify widly and use my 66% overhealing figure, we could say that all my heals overhealed by 66% (unrealistic, but it saves hashing out all the different scenarios), in which case I would be getting splash heals of total healing (not effective healing) regardless of whether or not I crit, so I would technically be getting the full 10% benefit... which is an odd mechanic to be certain, as it would almost encourage HL spam on a full tank just to get maximum benefit from the splash.

I'm just thinking aloud but without the smart healing side of the equation, most of that splash probably would end up wasted. Increasing the range of the glyph without smart healing benefit really only makes it more likely that you'll end up massively overhealing someone at max HP -1...

StormGust · 12/14/08, 8:06 AM

Originally Posted by Arthaal

I'm just thinking aloud but without the smart healing side of the equation, most of that splash probably would end up wasted. Increasing the range of the glyph without smart healing benefit really only makes it more likely that you'll end up massively overhealing someone at max HP -1...

Sound like you are ignoring the possibilty of targetting someone besides the MT for HL. For most encounters the smart targetting isn't all that great, because you either have to heal everyone anyway, or the AoE damage is that high, that you are better of topping them of with a direct Heal.

Ishara · 12/14/08, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by Intoxify

In terms of opinions, how does everyone feel about this drastic change to the FoL glyph, especially in light of HL infinity? I'd been finding myself using FoL as a gap filler for 5 and 10 man content, and I was especially looking forward to it's use in PvP. I can't help but feel that Blizzard is attempting to make FoL more attractive to paladins as more than a top off spell, but taking away our only option for a HoT hurts.

I considered the glyphed FoL such a reduction on the inital hit that I wouldnt go near 3 drake sarth with it. Blasting out 1.1s FoLs that average 3.5k (Wow Web Stats) and then a holy shock when it dips is enough to keep the tank up. When the harder instances come along I will still be spamming FoL between HLs the hot just isnt worth keeping up when your tanks are on so much health these days. In pvp I think the amount it heals is so small per tick that id just use HS/HL, but then ive not pvp healed since beta.

Saladin · 12/14/08, 1:37 PM

Originally Posted by Arthaal

I fixed the numbers from my above post to use the proper crit healing multipliers and also fixed a few other mistakes in the math. If we consider what Endoscient added regarding overhealing mechanics, and look at an average HL spam fight for overhealing numbers (e.g. I averaged 66% overhealing on last week's Naxx run) it becomes fairly obvious that the fairy tale scenario where HL glyph becomes better than CoH with cooldown (and keep in mind, still doesn't rival CoH in its current form for raw raid healing output) is pretty far off realistic.

If I simplify widly and use my 66% overhealing figure, we could say that all my heals overhealed by 66% (unrealistic, but it saves hashing out all the different scenarios), in which case I would be getting splash heals of total healing (not effective healing) regardless of whether or not I crit, so I would technically be getting the full 10% benefit... which is an odd mechanic to be certain, as it would almost encourage HL spam on a full tank just to get maximum benefit from the splash.

I'm just thinking aloud but without the smart healing side of the equation, most of that splash probably would end up wasted. Increasing the range of the glyph without smart healing benefit really only makes it more likely that you'll end up massively overhealing someone at max HP -1...

CoH was extremely effective in Black Temple before it had smart targeting. Smart targeting does not diminish overheal--it compensates for players who skimp on their stam levels in aoe damage areas. Judgement of Light and Vampiric Embrace in raids will cover any aoe that hits for 300 damage or less. The only time you will be specifically using HL to aoe heal is in a situation where at least 3 players are taking over 1000 damage at the same time. In that case, everyone will be taking the same amount of damage--the rogue will not be taking more damage than the warrior than the hunter than the mage than the warlock, ad nauseum. When you're in a raid and you go "Oh hey, there's some aoe damage; I think I'll spam Holy Light on the second group," the Glyph heals will not be wasted. Realistically, Glyph heals will only be wasted by hunter pets (due to Avoidance's 75% aoe reduction), and to a lesser extent Ret Paladins using SoB + Warlocks using Life Tap for mana purposes.

Endoscient · 12/14/08, 1:46 PM

CoH pre 3.0 targeting is drastically different the GHL. CoH healed all 5 players in the selected group, GHL heals 5 random targets. There are many times when 3 people take more then 1k damage, but the whole raid doesn't that GHL random targetting will really hurt on. Malygos, Arcane Strikes in P1 and P2, is a great example of this. You are also only thinking about situations where we are using GHL to try to raid heal, with smart targetting it could do a large amount of healing just proccing off of MT heals.

Blizzard said a lot of the reason CoH was nerfed in WotLK, but was mostly fine during 2.4, was that with the smart healing the spell became too good. I don't think GHL need its, probably would be overpowered with it, but was saying you can't directly compare the HPS of a smart heal and a random heal.

Arthaal · 12/14/08, 4:41 PM

Originally Posted by StormGust

Sound like you are ignoring the possibilty of targetting someone besides the MT for HL. For most encounters the smart targetting isn't all that great, because you either have to heal everyone anyway, or the AoE damage is that high, that you are better of topping them of with a direct Heal.

Yes, for the purpose of the math up there, I was ignoring that possibility, but mostly because I was interested in the AoE output of the glyph itself, not HL... which as it is you'd be spamming on someone anyways. Glyphing it is what provides AoE healing benefit, and it's that value I was interested in. Moreover, it really doesn't matter whether you're targetting the MT or someone else once the range gets bumped up to 20yds. That's 20yds from the target in all directions. You might miss out on the ranged group, but unless you run with no melee, you should be hitting a large proportion of your raid. Raid comp would come into play here I suppose, but we typically have at least 50% melee in our raids, so that is what I have experience with.

As far as smart healing not being that great: I can think of one omnipresent raid mechanic that does favour smart healing of 5 targets immensely. Don't stand in fire. Remember the council fight? Tons of small range AoE being thrown aroundthe room, ticking for high damage, some unavoidable first ticks and usually 3-6 people getting hit. It's not a rare mechanic by any means and it's one case where fire and forget 5 target smart healing would perform significantly better than 5 targets within a 40yd diameter being healed.

Originally Posted by Saladin

CoH was extremely effective in Black Temple before it had smart targeting. Smart targeting does not diminish overheal--it compensates for players who skimp on their stam levels in aoe damage areas. Judgement of Light and Vampiric Embrace in raids will cover any aoe that hits for 300 damage or less. The only time you will be specifically using HL to aoe heal is in a situation where at least 3 players are taking over 1000 damage at the same time. In that case, everyone will be taking the same amount of damage--the rogue will not be taking more damage than the warrior than the hunter than the mage than the warlock, ad nauseum. When you're in a raid and you go "Oh hey, there's some aoe damage; I think I'll spam Holy Light on the second group," the Glyph heals will not be wasted. Realistically, Glyph heals will only be wasted by hunter pets (due to Avoidance's 75% aoe reduction), and to a lesser extent Ret Paladins using SoB + Warlocks using Life Tap for mana purposes.

Smart targetting does not simply compensate for players with lower stam in AoE situations. It does in fact lead to less overhealing over simply targetting 5 players at random. It even should perform better in terms of efficiency than randomly targetting 5 non-full HP targets. Any algorithm for smart healing that wouldn't outperform these scenarios in healing efficiency would simply be very poor design (better than random performance is one of the very first benchmarks for AI systems).

To your second point: I wasn't envisioning using HL to AoE heal, I was considering the AoE splash benefit of simply spamming HL on the tank. That, to me, is the main benefit of the glyph in a 25 man raid, which happens to be the situation I'm most interested in. Yes, the glyph obviously has benefits in 5/10 mans, I simply am not as interested in that content. Even assuming you BoL the MT and start throwing HLs around, the extended range makes your targetting even less useful since there are simply more targets within 20yds in all direction of your heal and it's randomly selecting 5 within that spread. Your hypothetical situations for AoE are also, to my mind, a little simplistic. I wouldn't ever break down AoE into 2 types only in the entire end game content. To assume JoL and VE covers any AoE below 300 is just... well for starters, anything below 300 a tick isn't really AoE or even noticible on 20k healthpools and, second, JoL healing varies quite a bit based on class, so its coverage isn't anything you can pin down at 300/s.

Last, the reason CoH was extremely valuable in BT pre-smart targetting is because you could artificially setup groups to create situations in which it would be extremely powerful. Bloodboil being a prime example. Group setup in this case, essentially targetted for you, reducing your potential target pool to 5 known targets. This isn't the case with our glyph.

Conclusion: without smart targetting, increasing the range of the glyph probably won't consistently result in drastically increased efficiency in healing by the glyph, since it simply increases the target pool and the targetting is still random. I don't foresee this glyph becoming overpowered because of this.

Deyus · 12/14/08, 6:54 PM

To me, the HL glyph is completely worthless. Most bosses have such big hitboxes that the splash doesn't reach a single target and I doubt another 5 yards would help that much either. Moreover I am really disappointed with the holy paladin glyphs. Feels like of all specs(any class) blizz hooked us up the least. The divinity glyph is handy indeed but it affects a spell that, in best case scenario, is on a 16min cd.
The SoL and SoW glyphs give you a little room to adjust how you wanna play as a holy paladin, big heals or a lot of heals.
Personally I like the SoL more cause it makes me less dependant on HL spamming and I can keep the tank up with FoL's and the occasional HS instead, it also makes me more mana efficient since the SS gives a 50% crit bonus to FoL and also making the use of SoW less important. Although I do keepthe Light's Grace buff up all the time if I need to switch to more effective healing.

I am currently using the Divinity glyph along with both the SoL and the SoW glyph and feel like it's the best setup for us atm. The FoL glyph doesn't even come into my consideration because the HoT you get is absolutely lame, better pick up the Forethought Talisman if you want a HoT.

The HL glyph can work OK in 5-man instances when dps are close to each other (assuming melee dps) but I feel that putting a beacon on the tank and FoL spamming the dps in need of hp is far better than trying to HL spam the mt and hope the splash is enough to save the dps.

We should also remember that paladins are MT healers and not raid healers, leave the raid to the shamans imo. I would not like to see a change in the HL glyph, I wouldn't use it anyway, I would rather like to see something that boosts our capability to smooth out spikes on the tank, the SS is great and I have a 100% uptime on it but I feel like something is missing. A nice move would be to put the Sheath of Light talent in say tier 3 or 4 in the retribution talent tree. I would gladly drop all the spare points I have to get it.

BTW this is my first post on this forum

Cheers ya'll

Ozball · 12/14/08, 9:03 PM

Originally Posted by Deyus

To me, the HL glyph is completely worthless. Most bosses have such big hitboxes that the splash doesn't reach a single target and I doubt another 5 yards would help that much either. Moreover I am really disappointed with the holy paladin glyphs. Feels like of all specs(any class) blizz hooked us up the least. The divinity glyph is handy indeed but it affects a spell that, in best case scenario, is on a 16min cd.
The SoL and SoW glyphs give you a little room to adjust how you wanna play as a holy paladin, big heals or a lot of heals.
Personally I like the SoL more cause it makes me less dependant on HL spamming and I can keep the tank up with FoL's and the occasional HS instead, it also makes me more mana efficient since the SS gives a 50% crit bonus to FoL and also making the use of SoW less important. Although I do keepthe Light's Grace buff up all the time if I need to switch to more effective healing.

I am currently using the Divinity glyph along with both the SoL and the SoW glyph and feel like it's the best setup for us atm. The FoL glyph doesn't even come into my consideration because the HoT you get is absolutely lame, better pick up the Forethought Talisman if you want a HoT.

The HL glyph can work OK in 5-man instances when dps are close to each other (assuming melee dps) but I feel that putting a beacon on the tank and FoL spamming the dps in need of hp is far better than trying to HL spam the mt and hope the splash is enough to save the dps.

We should also remember that paladins are MT healers and not raid healers, leave the raid to the shamans imo. I would not like to see a change in the HL glyph, I wouldn't use it anyway, I would rather like to see something that boosts our capability to smooth out spikes on the tank, the SS is great and I have a 100% uptime on it but I feel like something is missing. A nice move would be to put the Sheath of Light talent in say tier 3 or 4 in the retribution talent tree. I would gladly drop all the spare points I have to get it.

BTW this is my first post on this forum

Cheers ya'll

Welcome to the forums! Couple comments on some of the points you made:

From my experience healing 25 mans so far I've had the HL glyph do as much as 10% of my healing on some fights, eg Grand Widow Faerlina (while getting Heroic: Momma said to knock you out Avchievement if that changes anything) though I'm not a huge fan of Beacon in most fights as it feels like a huge mana drain to constantly keep up. But fights such as Lotheb it is useful (and Malygos' Vortex on 10 man).

I started Wrath raiding with both SoL and SoW glyphs and the HL glyph (had forgotten about the Divinity Glyph at the time) and did like the flexibility, but then I came and started reading this thread and moved over to the HL spam method of healing in which SoW becomes so invaluable that one would very rarely use SoL for a boss fight. As I'm usuing HL primarily it does kick up the healing of the Glyph of HL. While SS is nice, the power of FoL just isn't strong enough to keep a tank alive in some of the harder encounters, such as Patchwerk, Sartharion with 2-3 drakes (haven't attempted 1 drake yet so not sure about that one). So I'm usually using SS for the absorb and still just spamming HL on the tank.

Also in early beta Sheath of Light WAS higher up the ret tree and blizzard moved it deeper since Holy Pally's were foregoing most of thier tree just to get that talent. So I think it is unlikely they will move it higher again.

Personally I kinda wish the FoL glyph wasn't changing because I was looking forward to playing around with it, eg throwing one on the MT inbetween HLs to see if it helped at all with the spike damage (or times like Web Spray on Maexxna) but I guess it's not to be.

Also I agree that our glyph choice is abit limited, but the HL glyph is mandatory in my opinion, especially if one is HL spamming, which in turn makes the SoW glyph mandatory. Leaving us with 1 Major glyph slot to play with and a couple options still to use: Divinity, FoL, SoL for raid healing trash maybe?. So Although we don't have many choices we do have more than it might seem at first. Depends on one's play style though.

Just to avoid confusion, most of my thoughts here are on healing in raids, primarily 25 mans, rather than Heroics or PvP.

Saladin · 12/14/08, 9:35 PM

Originally Posted by Arthaal

Yes, for the purpose of the math up there, I was ignoring that possibility, but mostly because I was interested in the AoE output of the glyph itself, not HL... which as it is you'd be spamming on someone anyways. Glyphing it is what provides AoE healing benefit, and it's that value I was interested in. Moreover, it really doesn't matter whether you're targetting the MT or someone else once the range gets bumped up to 20yds. That's 20yds from the target in all directions. You might miss out on the ranged group, but unless you run with no melee, you should be hitting a large proportion of your raid. Raid comp would come into play here I suppose, but we typically have at least 50% melee in our raids, so that is what I have experience with.

As far as smart healing not being that great: I can think of one omnipresent raid mechanic that does favour smart healing of 5 targets immensely. Don't stand in fire. Remember the council fight? Tons of small range AoE being thrown aroundthe room, ticking for high damage, some unavoidable first ticks and usually 3-6 people getting hit. It's not a rare mechanic by any means and it's one case where fire and forget 5 target smart healing would perform significantly better than 5 targets within a 40yd diameter being healed.

Smart targetting does not simply compensate for players with lower stam in AoE situations. It does in fact lead to less overhealing over simply targetting 5 players at random. It even should perform better in terms of efficiency than randomly targetting 5 non-full HP targets. Any algorithm for smart healing that wouldn't outperform these scenarios in healing efficiency would simply be very poor design (better than random performance is one of the very first benchmarks for AI systems).

To your second point: I wasn't envisioning using HL to AoE heal, I was considering the AoE splash benefit of simply spamming HL on the tank. That, to me, is the main benefit of the glyph in a 25 man raid, which happens to be the situation I'm most interested in. Yes, the glyph obviously has benefits in 5/10 mans, I simply am not as interested in that content. Even assuming you BoL the MT and start throwing HLs around, the extended range makes your targetting even less useful since there are simply more targets within 20yds in all direction of your heal and it's randomly selecting 5 within that spread. Your hypothetical situations for AoE are also, to my mind, a little simplistic. I wouldn't ever break down AoE into 2 types only in the entire end game content. To assume JoL and VE covers any AoE below 300 is just... well for starters, anything below 300 a tick isn't really AoE or even noticible on 20k healthpools and, second, JoL healing varies quite a bit based on class, so its coverage isn't anything you can pin down at 300/s.

Last, the reason CoH was extremely valuable in BT pre-smart targetting is because you could artificially setup groups to create situations in which it would be extremely powerful. Bloodboil being a prime example. Group setup in this case, essentially targetted for you, reducing your potential target pool to 5 known targets. This isn't the case with our glyph.

Conclusion: without smart targetting, increasing the range of the glyph probably won't consistently result in drastically increased efficiency in healing by the glyph, since it simply increases the target pool and the targetting is still random. I don't foresee this glyph becoming overpowered because of this.

Ah, thank you for the patient explanation Arthaal. I understand what you're saying now, and you've convinced me--at least on the point of AoE throughput when spamming HL on the tank.

The concern about how good GHL becomes when you don't restrict it to the tank may still be worth keeping an eye on, however. A lot of us are seeing these prospective changes and taking from it "When we're healing the tank, spam HL" and at the same time "When we're healing the raid, spam HL." With the exception of Beacon and Shock, we're looking at Holy Light become our sole healing spell for practical intents and purposes. This is the exact catalyst that lead to CoH's nerf: when priests started using it as the only button to heal. Blizzard justified not nerfing Chain Heal by citing the fact that shamans used other healing spells as well. The problem is, if GHL goes through at 20 yards, why would we use anything but Holy Light? That's begging for hardcore nerfage.

Finally, yes my points on aoe damage in raids are arbitrary and simplistic. I'd also like to add that they're intentionally so for the sake of argument. Yes, JoL varies based on the class activating it and the number of paladins judging it, but as you said, 300 ticks of aoe damage are just plain forgettable. That was my point. Anything below a certain threshold is not going to trigger in your mind as "This is aoe damage. I should respong with an aoe spell." Thus, those of us who intend GHL for the aoe healing effect will NOT cast it on such negligible damage zones. By extension, GHL will not end up over-healing 300 points of damage for 900.

Rather, we're not going to use GHL as an aoe heal unless it *is* noticeable raid damage, and in that case, it's very likely that healing is going to be effective and not overheal. Returning to your Council example, we're talking about zone-based aoe; that means that if Group A is standing where a Blizzard lands, then GHL will heal everyone who got damaged by Blizzard so long as it's cast on any member in Group A. That's considerably effective, even without smart heal.

5 yards was despicable.
10 yards would be tolerable.
15 yards would be logical, since every other class' staple aoe heal has a range of 15 yards.
20 yards too closely runs the risk of making Holy Light both our best tank healing spell and our best raid healing spell. At that point, we stop using anything else, and we eat the nerf next patch.

ginerashon · 12/14/08, 10:09 PM

Sorry this is a bit off topic, but I keep seeing people stacking int gems and it's annoying because I don't get the point. I never ever have mana problems with the amount of int I have now( with DP)......It's minimal SP minimal crit.....So why not just go SP/crit gems (Since mp5 is terrible).

Like what is the logic behind stacking so much int, do you guys actually go oom that easy?----Only fight I've had to mana pot on or really watch my DP closely is patch-25man.

Shwump · 12/14/08, 10:19 PM

Originally Posted by ginerashon

Sorry this is a bit off topic, but I keep seeing people stacking int gems and it's annoying because I don't get the point. I never ever have mana problems with the amount of int I have now( with DP)......It's minimal SP minimal crit.....So why not just go SP/crit gems (Since mp5 is terrible).

Like what is the logic behind stacking so much int, do you guys actually go oom that easy?----Only fight I've had to mana pot on or really watch my DP closely is patch-25man.

More int = More mana to spend on holy lighting, bigger ticks on DP, and is effected nicely by BoK

Ozball · 12/14/08, 10:51 PM

Originally Posted by Shwump

More int = More mana to spend on holy lighting, bigger ticks on DP, and is effected nicely by BoK

Also better Arcane Torrent returns for BEs.

ginerashon · 12/14/08, 11:02 PM

Originally Posted by Shwump

More int = More mana to spend on holy lighting, bigger ticks on DP, and is effected nicely by BoK

well like I said, I don't really have mana issues what so ever, so why not stack sp and crit:X

Arthaal · 12/14/08, 11:04 PM

Originally Posted by Saladin

5 yards was despicable.
10 yards would be tolerable.
15 yards would be logical, since every other class' staple aoe heal has a range of 15 yards.
20 yards too closely runs the risk of making Holy Light both our best tank healing spell and our best raid healing spell. At that point, we stop using anything else, and we eat the nerf next patch.

Thank you for clarifying your point regarding the type of AoE damage situations encountered in end game... it appears I had misunderstood your intent in simplifying it to the two "extremes" you had described in your first post.

I think we've just been describing different usage of the glyph and drawing different conclusions based on those respective usage patterns. You're correct, I think, in saying that the overheal is likely to be minimal in situations where true raid-wide damage is taking place. The glyph might be very powerful in those situations, whether you are spamming the MT or throwing heals around, the extra range renders it useful in either case.

The splash component remains dumb however, and if the raid damage is limited to a few members here or there, the increased range becomes a detriment... it's not unusual for raid members to be at less than 100% but still not a priority target for topping off, and those raid members might very well steal one or more of those splash hits. At 5yds or 10yds you might have been able to target them intelligently... or rather, if it was likely they were being hit by the same blizzard/flamestrike/whathaveyou, the splash would have been limited to that damage area. At 20yds, it seems the splash might end up healing someone not affected by the AoE and not necessarily in need of healing.

To clarify, if you're using the glyph as a sweet AoE splash effect that sometimes nets you some effective healing on members with less than full health, but aren't bothering targeting them specifically, I don't think the extra range will make much of a difference.

If you're actively using the splash to AoE heal, the extra range seems a detriment to that play style because of the "dumb" nature of the targeting.

If you're running a heroic 5 man Loken and suffering mightily because your group is idiotic, this increased range is a godsend.

Finally, I personally don't use HL exclusively by any means, but I also realize we only really have 3 spells to cast once our "upkeep" casting has been done (meaning we've judged for haste, applied beacon and resealed) so our choices are limited in that sense. Moreover, it's not like we really have a spell for AoE healing as it currently stands, so to say we would be dropping another spell for HL because of this new glyph change in some situations I don't think is accurate.

Since I can, I spam HL on the MT, I'll throw a FoL or two around on top off targets is the MT seems very stable (except on Patchwerk

) and HS for emergencies (or Divine Favor-HS-HL on major 'oopses') or while moving (i.e. initial positioning of the boss). I also feel paladins are rather spoiled when it comes to in fight utility. Sacred Shield is a great spell to fill empty GCDs with, Hand spells never cease to amaze me by their variety and flexibility (my favourite is HoP and overwrite as a short duration agro drop). Basically, we have tons of other buttons to push, and I don't think this glyph is going to change that in the least, for me anyways.

Tharia · 12/14/08, 11:37 PM

Originally Posted by ginerashon

well like I said, I don't really have mana issues what so ever, so why not stack sp and crit:X

Actually you don't really need to gem anything for current content. But only if you can sustain all out Holy Light you can actually say you don't have mana issuses. You might need this much heal in ulduar, you never know. Int is the best stat for sustained high throughput because it lets you cast more HLs.

ginerashon · 12/14/08, 11:49 PM

I don't know there are just so many things like replenishment, I just really think it's a fun time to shine with stacking our good ol' SP again. But who knows maybe ulduar will require a lotttttttt more.

Arthaal · 12/15/08, 1:49 AM

Theorycrafting alone can answer your question for you: yes FoL and HL both scale relatively well with the new SP stat, with HL scaling better. The argument for stacking int, however, is twofold:

Given that a certain fight in T7 content requires X amount of HPS on the tank and that HPS can be achieved by a mix of FoL (low HPS, high HPM) and HL (high HPS, medium HPM) casts...

1) We previously stacked SP to increase efficiency because: bigger FoL meant less need for HL to achieve our target HPS and that resulted in a net mana savings via FoL's superior HPM. SP was also attractive by allowing us to increase our efficiency further by downranking.

Downranking is dead and while SP still increases the size of our FoL, potentially allowing you to use fewer HLs,

2) A certain level of int will allow you to sustain 100% HL spam with current regen mechanics... and that is greater HPS and will always be greater HPS than that obtainable through increasing the size of your FoL via SP scaling. Moreover scaling HL to higher levels, while it could be advantageous, is simply not necessary since no current encounter requires more than what throughput we are capable of simply with the amount of SP on gear.

So theoretically, if you can already sustain HL spam in gear without gems and enchants, then by all means stack SP/crit... but I really doubt that's possible and the numbers crunched here so far would disagree with you.