Out of curiosity, I plugged frmorrison's Pawn numbers for Holy Palas into Lootrank. (Lootrank doesn't have the socket variables, but the weapons under discussion don't have sockets anyway.) As you can see, L&D and the Hammer rank a good long way behind the Torch.

What interested me about the results was that Turning Tide was a clear winner over Torch, when frmorrison had himself previously claimed that the Torch was BIS.

Okay, that gives me a pretty good place to start as far as a high-level rule for when to use FoL and when to use HL. Like I said, I just need to take on good faith a bit that HL will land after the tank is either taking consistent dmg or takes a bit hit. Right now I'm still in the mind set to spam FoL when that happens simply because it is a faster heal, but I guess if you really think about it, hitting FoL twice still takes longer than one HL, and will heal for less in general.

Another thing I think I will try in the next few heroics that I run is something that a couple of people has already brought up, which is to BoL myself rather than the tank. It makes a lot of sense that if I BoL the tank, and then try to heal him passively by healing another party member, then due to the fact that nobody will have as much health as the tank, hitting a member (or myself) with a heal that will heal that person (or myself) back to full could result in a very small heal to the tank. On the other hand, if I hit the tank with a HL, then there is a better chance that I will be healed back to full since most of the HL healing will actually be used up and not to towards OH.

There's certainly cases where this is the best thing to do, but in heroics it's generally the exception and not the rule. It's great for fights like Keristrasza and Jedoga (if you miss a Volunteer) so that you can forget about having to position or take care of yourself for a few minutes. However, on most bosses and basically all trash, you're never going to be taking a stream of constant damage like the tank is. A typical scenario is one where a mob does an Arcane Explosion that hits everyone in your party for 2000. Your FoLs are hitting for 2k non-crit. You heal DPS #1 for 2000, healing you for 2000. You heal DPS #2 for 2000, doing nothing for you. You heal DPS #3 for 2000, doing nothing for you. You heal Tank for 2000, doing nothing for you. Meanwhile, the tank is still taking more damage from the four mobs beating on him, and you have to cast even more heals on him to catch up the damage.

The fact that no one else has as much health as the tank is actually more an argument to Beacon the tank than not too, because the tank is the one who is most likely to put those Beacon heals to use in a heroic. As you can see from my above hypothetical example, Beacon served you well for the first target you healed, but was utterly wasted on every target after that. If, however, you had beaconed the tank, then a much larger portion of the Beacon transfer would have been put to actual use.

Note that I'm not advocating NEVER beaconing yourself in heroics. As I prefaced, there are some specific encounters where it's the best thing you can do. It just needs to be made clear that in 5-mans, beaconing the tank is preferable. It's only in 10-mans and 25-mans that beaconing someone other than the tank looks better because there are other healers present who may cockblock the raid heals you were intending to transfer to the tank via beacon.

In summary, Beaconing the tank is usually the most efficient use of the spell in heroics except for gimmick fights. Beaconing the tank becomes less and less optimal the more healers you have present in raids.

Long time lurker, first time poster. Just my two cents on making the adjustments and gear to be able to spam Holy Light - I personally found I could not maintain 100% Holy Light spam the first time I did Patchwerk. I found out quickly that I did not usually want to risk /stopcasting (with my luck I always stopcast the heal that would have been ideal). In order to compensate for this, I resorted to alternate my Holy Lights with Flash of Light, chain casting but consuming significantly less mana. After 10-15 seconds you should be able to get an idea of how the swing timer is lining up with your heals, and can work out a pattern and methodology in your head as to which spell to cast (ie. if that Holy Light still leaves him with 20% hp short, follow up with a second Holy Light to ensure he's topped off, etc). I found that you can really learn to predict the incoming damage by shifting around your Holy Lights by second intervals to get that nice juicy Holy Light crit that doesn't overheal...which are extremely few and far between in general.

I found this rotation of Flash of Light and Holy Light significantly eases the mana strain when you don't have enough int or gear in general to focus on Holy Light solely. In addition, because you are still casting heals (albeit for lesser amounts), there's a much smaller chance of having the tank get spanked twice in a row without a heal because you were slow on your Holy Light, or were unlucky to stopcast just before the big hit. (again this is only for while you are gearing up and cannot maintain the spam)

The main times I use BoL on myself is during a high raid AOE damage situation (I have a tendency of finding my way into cleaves) or when I need to take care of a group for heals - As the Holy Light Glyph does not hit us (bug or not), by me being BoL'd, I still benefit from hitting one of my nearby raid members with Holy Light (and the additional splash heals.

Damage in just about any fight is rather spread across the group. That is, you will take just about as much damage as everyone else in your group. Even if the tank could always use the healing, getting 100% beacon benefit on heals you cast when both you and the tank take damage will be less than a lower % of the heals you cast when anyone takes damage (say, if beaconing the tank will only be 30% as effective, you're still using it 4X as much).
Basically you use beacon to heal 2 people that take damage at the same time, and the way to make 2 people take damage with one of them having beacon happen as often as possible is done by beaconing the tank.

Have to disagree here, in mana intensive high AoE damage situations leaving yourself open to crosshealing (and thus spiritual attunement) can provide a vital amount of mana. Especially after decimate etc.

FoL works very well on damage that would previously of only been covered by HL. This is because in my experience the crit % has shot up due to SS uptime, aswell as HS receiving a boost that combined they are capable against the burst. That said I still mainly HL when divine plea is running to compensate.

This is what I often do too, it really helps because most of the time we're assigned to heal the MT, and the extra seconds that you need to move out of blizzard and maybe heal yourself up would put your tank in danger.

I usually beacon my tank and then move around a lot more, if need be I can back out of range of the tank because of blizzard and still heal the tank by bridging a heal through someone else who I see is within 40 yards of the tank.

In Violet Hold the other night, I noticed that this seems to be no longer possible... I used to be able to heal people who were out of range (and LoS too IIRC) as long as they were within 40 yards of the Beacon. Anyone else notice this aswell?

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I see many are suggesting to BoL themselves in raids to make sure to stay alive while doing their job, but wouldn't it be wiser (assuming there are more holydins in the raid. I do understand if many are alone in raids due to us being niched to tank-healing) to BoL any other paladin, to give them the Spiritual Attunement benefit, and let us be healed by others to get our Spiritual Attunement?

Or doesn't SA trigger from BoL, which would mean we'd have to beacon the tank and heal the paladin (less prefered)?

I haven't got the chance to raid yet, so I haven't really been able to answer that question on my own

But wouldn't the BoL effect from beaconing myself and healing the tank count as me healing myself, i.e. no SA trigger? Or would the heal count as coming from the tank? That would seem very unlikely to me.

Since all I've done this far has been heroics I do in 99% of the cases BoL the tank rather than myself, and the only times I've BoLed myself (first boss in Ahn'Kehat) I haven't remembered to check the Recount stats.

Either healing yourself directly, or healing yourself through your own beacon, you do not get SA mana.

Just tested this. 100% sure that Beaconing yourself and any heals on yourself resulting from you healing others definatley do NOT give you SA.

If you really don't believe beaconing the tank is a good idea, and everyone else take equal amounts of damage, you should beacon *anyone* but yourself (or not beacon at all if raid damage is too low).

Due an unfortunate HHD crash i cant test this my self, but could someone answer me, if im using Glyph of Holy Light and BoL, would the Glyph heals "double"?

As in:

First heal 15000 Crit + 5 melee in range gets 1500 dmg healed, then the BoL heal lands on the offtank for another 15000 will the melee in range get yet another 1500 or is it only the initial HL?

editted for typos!

On another note, has anyone consistently used Sacred Shield in 10/25mans? I hate to sound a note of negativity towards one of our abilities (god forbid), but the proc rate seems too low for it to be used on the majority of boss fights. Giving us utility for trash pulls seems rather ... insignificant to me.

The Flash of Light benefit is dubious as best, due to the nature of how long the shields up in big fights. You almost have to take it on luck that if your FoL spamming the tank, it might be up when one of your heals lands. This randomness seems contrary to stabilizing a main tank. I'd prefer to see it changed where the shield and FoL buff operate independently (though both could still proc off of the attacks on the target). That way we could monitor the length remaining on the buff and it might actually stay up longer then 1 second during heavy combat situations.

The 'copy' of Holy Light that gets sent to your beacon is actually classed as a completely different spell in terms of what it will proc (i.e - nothing).

As far as Glyph of Awesome spreading 10% of the total vs net, I'm not certain quite what you mean. It already DOES use 10% of the total amount in quite a few situations, explained at the start of this guide. If you mean the tortured logic of checking for the percentage overheal then using a sliding scale to figure what portion to spread has been canned, and it's now a universal 10%, then Yay!

Edit - vis Feya.

Sacred Shield is the sort of thing I really should love and be happy with, and on paper it looks super. The only real use I've found for it is absorbing random damage people take, usually in Heroics more than raids. I largely discount it when tank healing in a 25 man, mainly since the proc is unreliable - if I could guarantee it would be up for every 60k Breath at Sartharion, then super - every little helps.

In truth it's the spell I would have killed for at Mu'ru, but thus far I haven't found a place for it in this expansion.

Yea again, I spoke with a few paladins on the PTR when they changed was implemented and it was highly untested logic. If it does occur, it would be a pretty impressive change.

When 3.0 first came out BoL and the HL glyph worked that way, they then patched it in where the HL glyph didnt proc BoL. Id be surprised if they brought it back but maybe they are thinking about doing it since it wont be as powerful as it was originally (100 yard range).

SS is something you cast on the tank when he's full HP and can't really benefit from a normal heal, and this happens more than every 30s and will overall do more good than harm.

I would have thought the obvious place to use Sacred Shield was on Loatheb; as an absorption shield, it's not affected by the Aura of Healer Nobbling. I don't use it anywhere else, but on that fight I spam it every CD I'm not Judging, Shocking or Exorcising the boss and it appears quite effective for keeping people on low health alive until the next healing window.

The proc does seem a little weak, though, especially as you have to jump through hoops to tell if you've got it when SS is not on you. It feels a lot to me as if the spell is meant more for Retribution Paladins in an off-healing or self-healing role; even with Sheath spellpower not working to boost it it still neutralises most damage from your Seal of the Martyr, and it makes Art of War Flashes big enough to be useful.