I've also a question concerning the [Darkmoon Card: Greatness] and the use of divine plea.
Does divine plea return the same amount of mana if I use it just at the start of the proc or almost when the proc ends?
I've got it recently but didn't succeed in testing it.
I've also a question concerning the [Darkmoon Card: Greatness] and the use of divine plea.
Does divine plea return the same amount of mana if I use it just at the start of the proc or almost when the proc ends?
I've got it recently but didn't succeed in testing it.
thx for your replies
As far as I know the amount mana returned per tick depends on your actual Int-Value.
When I use divine plea and switch via ItemRack into my tank gear, the next tick gives me greatly reduced mana.
So I think you will get reduced mana per tick when the procc ends.
I have to ask, but is spending so much Itemisation points on Haste really providing anything? I mean, with BiS 10 man gear and a few 25 man pieces and gemming for int I have around 425 haste, with JotP up I have HL casts coming in at around 1.4 seconds. If I regemmed to haste I could quite possibly hit the 1.3 second cast time stated but really? Is ~0.1s off a cast time more important than the extra xk mana pool/xxxmp5/xxxSP. How many times in a raid environment is your 0.1 second Holy Light pace quicker going to save a tank, bearing in mind how little tanks actually (read should) die in current content?
There is nothing in the game right now that requires stacking haste. In fact, on most of the fights, if I'm tank healing and not raid healing (which is most of the time, as the only holy paladin in the guild), I don't even miss JotP if I'm being lazy, because I usually wait ~0.5 seconds after the completion of a HL to start another one anyway.
In other words, my HPS is so out of whack with what is necessary to heal tanks that I can delay my casts and just stand there doing nothing (or FoL somebody in the raid to top them off) to increase my longevity instead. In an environment such as this, I don't see the point of stacking haste on anything, though I'm sure Ulduar will have some bosses that will require more HPS. Until I see those fights, I don't intend on hasting anything.
For sarth 3d i usually am the tank healer or the add tank healer. i mostly spam FoL but spam HL when the tank takes alot of dmg (e.g breath or massive add spawns). I usually leave my DP div illu arcane torrent on cd for a few sec b4 i realise they're up. yet i have mana issues. patchwerk fight is worse. It usually requires HL spamming due to the large amts of dmg taken. I was wondering how you guys can end the fight with so much mana left.
A couple of months ago I posted somewhere here stating the importance of Intellect due to the enormous amount of potential throughput and scaling it provides. At the same time, I alleged that haste provides the highest HPS by far. As the community has long figured, 676 haste is needed to hit the soft-cap of 1.0s GCD, assuming the raid is fully buffed.
Whilst exploring new possibilities, I deliberated the importance of spellpower. This was no easy task as you might have imagined. Using the relative amount of HPS haste bestows, I successfully pegged a similar amount of spellpower based on the ilvl weightage system. Using the newly attained ratio, I compared Intellect to Spellpower, which concluded that beyond the ratio of 1:1.5, spellpower would be relatively better. The significance of this finding? I'm now able to deduce that 63sp weapon enchant is more worth it than 30int as this ratio is 30:63, or 1:2.1. Amongst other things, I now use Flask of Frost Wyrm, 30sp bracer enchant, etc.
For the past 2 months, I've been diligently following my dream gear set which focuses on Intellect. The set also ensures I crawl towards 636 haste (676 with food for softcap). I've decided to update my new findings and post my dream set. Insight will be much appreciated.
Why is haste good?
Haste provides the most significant HPS increase. Presuming you're comparing similar amounts of haste and spellpower (based-on the ilvl weightage system), haste provides approximately 12-14% more HPS increase than spellpower, This % increase does not account for the fact that haste reduces the amount of time you're caught on GCD from refreshing Sacred Shield, Beacon of Light, Seals, Judgements, Hands, and other spells.
Is MP5 any good?
Int is essentially the new MP5. I created my internal spreadsheets by breaking down every stat to HPS and MP5. After much deliberation, I pegged 10int to 7mp5. Other simulations pegged 10int to between 6 to 9mp5. For unbiased results, I always use 6 or 7mp5 as my guage. Either ways, the current MP5 itemization is lacklustre (or some say Int is too strong). As a JC, I won't ever have to see mp5 gems on my gear.
How's crit?
I see more reliable stats out there. Notwithstanding, crit provides a minimal amount of HPS increase. My internal spreadsheets also determine that 10crit rating provides 4.5mp5. These amounts are pitiful, but I can see why some Paladins like their 58% crit.
Disclaimer: My internal spreadsheet assumed 5/5 Divine Intellect, 10% BoK and 5/5 Holy Guidance. Tables and values are subject to change.
Last edited by kingleonardo : 02/03/09 at 3:10 PM.
My internal spreadsheets also determine that 10crit rating provides 1mp5.
This seems quite wrong, let me compute how much mana you would need to spend every 5 sec to gain only 1mp5 from 10 crit rating.
Mp5 / Illumination Coef / Crit Gained = Average Mana Spent
1 / 0.6 / .00217 = 768 mana spent per 5 sec
You need to spend only 786 mana every 5 seconds to make it be worth 1mp5, and FoL spam does a lot more then that. This isn't taking into account the 75% coef for Illumination on Holy Light if you have all 3 cost reducers. Nor the fact that the extra mana you just gained can itself crit, so it scales how high your initial crit rate is also.
This seems quite wrong, let me compute how much mana you would need to spend every 5 sec to gain only 1mp5 from 10 crit rating.
Mp5 / Illumination Coef / Crit Gained = Average Mana Spent
1 / 0.6 / .00217 = 768 mana spent per 5 sec
You need to spend only 786 mana every 5 seconds to make it be worth 1mp5, and FoL spam does a lot more then that. This isn't taking into account the need 75% coef for Illumination on Holy Light if you have all 3 cost reducers. Nor the fact that the extra mana you just gained can itself crit, so it scales how high your initial crit rate is also.
Thanks. I did not multiple the value by 5, which would give me around 4.5mp5.
In regards to the Int build leaving a gap for tanks to die owing to movement, or reactive healing:
First up, I'm sure we agree no tank healer should work reactivly, as such we can assume the int built paladin is spamming holy light constantly, popping Divine Illumination, Arcane Torrent ( if you have it ), Divine Plea, A mana Pot, and possibly the odd demonic rune. Given this set up, speaking from experience, I can spam for about 6 minutes with replenishment before I'm OOM. I have 32k Mana raid buffed atm. On most occasions I also have a Divine Plea soon after I'm OOM, and in most cases out MT has two healers on him.
Trivial information perhaps, but this is background.
As said, we have two healers on our tank, as fate would have it the other is also an Int built Paladin, so on fights like malygos where we have to move, there are huge gaps in our healing style.
We only have the capacity to heal damage, once its taken, and even with both of us spamming Holy Light, we had a couple of cases where the tank died owing to range issues after he dragged Maly out after vortex.
As such, we've decided to leave only one int paladin on the tank, another on raid healing, with beacon on the tank, and we're having one of our holy paladins spec disc.
By doing this we keep a raid healer, we have all the paladins raid healing being transfered to the tank by beacon, and we have greater synergy between the tank healers.
A disc priest nowadaya can keep 10k or more damage mitigation on the tank, and increase their armour by 25%. On top of that you have an int paladin spamming Holy Light on them every 1.4 seconds, and the other int paladin's raid healing hitting the tank too.
This is just an example of how healing classes can work together to minimise the issues of death, owing for instance to a paladin having to move.
I have to ask, but is spending so much Itemisation points on Haste really providing anything? I mean, with BiS 10 man gear and a few 25 man pieces and gemming for int I have around 425 haste, with JotP up I have HL casts coming in at around 1.4 seconds. If I regemmed to haste I could quite possibly hit the 1.3 second cast time stated but really? Is ~0.1s off a cast time more important than the extra xk mana pool/xxxmp5/xxxSP. How many times in a raid environment is your 0.1 second Holy Light pace quicker going to save a tank, bearing in mind how little tanks actually (read should) die in current content?
It goes back to an debate that's been raging for a long while and no-one ever produced a worthwhile point at which everyone agreed, intellect stacking from gems provides more than gemming for anything else; it's a point that cannot be denied because arguments against are subjective to very specific moments in specific raid encounters that rarely happen whereas the benefits of intellect are always present.
These are some of my sentiments exactly. The real question we have to answer does not involve Spell power overmuch; it has been generally consented by well informed posters to not be a stat worth gemming for. The main debate here is between Int and Haste. We should all know most of the benefits of both stats, suffice to summarize both in that Int = greater longevity and Haste = shorter cooldown between heals.
We also have to look at the content people are evaluating. There are leagues of difference between the healing intensity required for naxx 25, Sarth 25 man +3 drakes and Sarth 10 man +3 drakes. There are also large discrepancies in what is required of you based on your healing assignment. I think it is well agreed upon that Sarth 10m +3D is the most difficult encounter currently available to us, and so this is where I will base most of my arguments on. I honestly do not feel that any other fight offers a strong enough challenge to really bring out the best and worst of both gem & enchanting strategies.
In the haste Vs Int argument, it comes down to this: What does each do for me to ensure that I get my job done on any given fight? As paladins, our job is typically somewhat simple: Keep the tanks alive at all costs. Thanks to beacon, this can also mean that sometimes we're capable of throwing some raid healing out while maintaining our primary task. To these ends haste decreases the time between each of your casts, which has the negative impact of increasing the amount of mana consumed per unit time. In a world of infinite mana, haste would be clear victor, but gladly we do not play in that world.
I believe haste, due to its nature: that it in and of itself it decreases your time to OOM, AND that it replaces int geming tends to make players lean towards a FoL based playstyle, or at a mimimun encourages you to use it more. The only other options are to reactive heal, or to cancel-cast Holy Light. Reactive healing on tanks is generally considered to be bad in difficult encounters. Cancel casting may be a valid playstyle, but due to human reaction time and inevitable lag it is "less safe" than straight spam. In the highest end of encounters, high FoL use simply will not do. We saw it in parts of Black Temple, we Saw it in Sunwell Plateau, and we see it in Sarth +3. I would be more than willing to bet we will see it again in Uldar. So from here we see that Haste pushes you towards using more risky healing tactics or FoL, and that unless it is dramatically buffed somehow, FoL has not and will not be strong enough to complete our healing tasks. This leaves us with the idea that we NEED a very high volume of Holy Lights to accomplish our assignments on encounters that are worthy of the title "Challenging."
These arguments raise another question: Will paladins have enough longevity to sustain high volume holy light use, with a Haste gemming? To answer this, we need evidence. I do not have mathematical evidence as to how long a Haste gemmed paladin can sustain holy light. What I do have however, is anecdotal evidence from Sarth +3 10 man. I know that despite having Int gemming, replenishment, 4pc T7, libram of renewal, Glyph of SoW and using DP on as close to on cooldown as permissible by fight conditions, that I can come down to as close to oom as about 15% mana towards the end of the shadron and beginning of tenebron phase. This was in a 2.5 healer set up, and I was healing the drake + add tanks as well as some of the DPS. Would a Haste build have found me Out of mana at that point? I believe so.
Something else to consider, is the psychological effect of running out of mana. As your mana pool gets lower and lower, most players are going to get more and more conservative with their mana. This means canceling that heal when the tank is at 90% and normally you would let it land, and a myriad of other things that you do to try to make your mana hold out as long as possible as it nears empty. Undoubtedly these things are not how you would want to play during a truly challenging encounter and lead to a higher probability of wiping.
Based on all the information available, I believe that Int is the clear winner of the stats that we should stack. High end gear already has a workable amount of haste on it, letting players get their Holy Lights already down to somewhere in the vicinity of 1.5s. While more haste would always be welcome were it to come nearly cost free, the ability to Flat out spam holy light for increased durations outweighs the gain of haste. Allowing a paladin to "carelessly" dump HL onto a tank is quite possibly one of the single greatest things you can do to stop a wipe in ANY encounter. A haste build will increase the probability of that tactic keeping the tank alive, but he will not be able to sustain it nearly as well as an Int build, and when he runs low on mana, his healing tactic will most likely focus on not running out of mana, and possibly let the tank die.
All your argument is saying is that you don't need Int, you never mention why other stats are better. If healing is so easy most of the time that you don't need to Holy Light, then what stat do you want? You could do almost all fights in the game, except maybe Sarth10+3, with no gems or enchants. I am not trying to gear out and find the best playstyle for current content, we clear that in 4 hours a week easily. I am trying to prepare myself best for the challenges I think Ulduar will throw at us.
I really would like to hear why you think gemming for Int is being lazy, and abusing mechanics. Will they probably nerf DP at some point? Very likely. Though I still believe even afterwords Int will still be the stat to gem for. People I am Holy Lighting rarely die, regardless of if I gem for SP or not, so that is why I like maxing how many I can cast.
Endo,
Didn't say gemming for Int was lazy. I was stating spamming HL is lazy when you should be using FoL, HS or Sacred Shield.
Ask yourself this, what is the difference between a paladin spamming HL and priests pre 3.0.8 spamming CoH.
Answer is, nada. Blizzard put jets on CoH to counter the abuse, that isn't an option for HL. They will hit us in the regen department.
As an aside, we saw similar behavior at start of TBC with crit stacking.
The more I have thought about this, we need a nerf to regen.
On top of a change to raid replenishment;
I suspect DP will receive a harsher penatly, or a longer cooldown. I personally prefer they go the more healing penalty route as I have zero desire to see this changed for Ret or Prot specs.
Divine Plea really is the issue, 20% penalty to a class that overheals between 50-70%, and can choose to Avenging Wrath, isn't a penalty at all.
I pray they don't nerf Illumination again, our tree is built around crit.
At the moment, gemming isn't an issue. In TBC, I was an intellect/crit whore, well I still am!
In 3.0.8 it seems they fixed Greatness costing mana. Its a fairly good buff for the trinket, and makes it clearly best in slot. The latest version of Rawr has the trinket modeled pretty accurately.
Show me a Paladin who has gone out of mana in Wotlk, and i will show you a paladin with either a poor PVE specc or a person who can't play his paladin. I've gemmed/enchanted/gear for nothing but one thing, and thats haste. Im currently at 699 hast, and with JotP im down to 1.3 second HL. As far as the mana-issues, the only class with manaissues so far this content are Shadowpriests and Arcane Mages. But what do I know, i've only solohealed Sartharion + 2...
Im going to have to call BS on this. You should at least realize that people can view your achievements via armory and you have yet to complete OS with even one drake up. So you're really have no idea what you're talking about.
I do have to agree with most of the other posters in here that gemming for anything but Int is pretty much a waste of a gemming slot. With the amount of gear you can obtain with has crit/haste on them, you'll have plenty of each to focus on the what will allow you increase the longevity of your healing and nothing does that better than Int.
Didn't say gemming for Int was lazy. I was stating spamming HL is lazy when you should be using FoL, HS or Sacred Shield.
Ask yourself this, what is the difference between a paladin spamming HL and priests pre 3.0.8 spamming CoH.
Answer is, nada. Blizzard put jets on CoH to counter the abuse, that isn't an option for HL. They will hit us in the regen department.
As an aside, we saw similar behavior at start of TBC with crit stacking.
The more I have thought about this, we need a nerf to regen.
On top of a change to raid replenishment;
I suspect DP will receive a harsher penatly, or a longer cooldown. I personally prefer they go the more healing penalty route as I have zero desire to see this changed for Ret or Prot specs.
Divine Plea really is the issue, 20% penalty to a class that overheals between 50-70%, and can choose to Avenging Wrath, isn't a penalty at all.
I pray they don't nerf Illumination again, our tree is built around crit.
At the moment, gemming isn't an issue. In TBC, I was an intellect/crit whore, well I still am!
Silver
First off, the only time you _should_ be using FoL is when you're oom, or very close to it. In every other scenario, HL or HS are better options.
I use FoL in heroics, and on several Naxx fights (Noth, Gothik, Thaddius P1, KT cause we usually have 4+ interrupters). Not because I enjoy finishing fights on 98% mana, but because I'm lazy. Too lazy to press shift+5 every minute for DP, or shift+6 for DI every 3 mins, when I can just mash 2 instead. That's laziness.
You are right in that HL spam is similar to CoH, it's being used almost exclusively, while our other abilities go untouched. That being said, we don't really have that many other abilities. Our 'toolbox' is very limited, and honestly FoL is to HL what an axe is to a chainsaw.
We do need a nerf to regen to move us away from HL spam, but I think it also needs to be accompanied by an expansion of our other abilities. Having to switch to FoL simply because HL is too expensive to maintain isn't a good design; it's simply replacing one spell with another (although HL would be interweaved with FoL spam more than FoL is with HL spam).
I think Divine Plea is a good target for nerfs to regen, but so is replenishment, since we're not the only class with over-abundant mana. Obviously with any change to these abilities, care must be taken not to over-nerf them for others who use them. Mana based DPS classes gain a fairly large benefit from replenishment, whilst DP is a staple for ret and in many cases, prot pallies too. I think shifting DP to restoring a % of base mana + max mana is a viable solution. Enough so that it restores the same amount to unbuffed ret / prot pallies, slightly more to raid buffed ret / prot pallies, and significantly less to raid buffed, int stacked holy pallies.
Nerfs to regen aren't enough though. The response would simply be to spam FoL, and use HL 'reactively' to top up tanks as they start to drop too low, or maintain light's grace. The fundamental problem with our spells, as I see, would still remain; namely that our choice of spell is limited by nothing more than mana. If you have enough mana to cast HL without compromising yourself later on in the fight, then HL is preferable to FoL. As I mentioned earlier, there's no advantage to FoL, apart from its efficiency.
I think some fundamental changes to FoL (or perhaps the addition of another heal spell for paladins) in deep holy could help to make it a more tactical choice. For instance, having it heal for 300% on targets below X% health for instance, would make it an exceptionally good spell, superior to HL in situations where your tank has suddenly dipped very low (of course this would be disgustingly good in PvP, it's simply an example of a conditional). Some form of stacking buff on the paladin or target, applied by FoL to make HL more effective maybe, like an Imp Shadowbolt-esque effect which procced on FoL crit and made HL cheaper / faster / stronger (no daft punk jokes please), or a stacking scorch like effect on the FoL's target? I'm rambling now, but the point is that the synergy that currently exists between sacred shield and flash of light, and holy shock and FoL/HL via IoL, is simply not enough to make anything but HL spam attractive. Simply constraining mana is not a viable way to fix this.
We need some form of situational buff (or addition) to our current abilities, which changes the simple fact that mana-permitting, HL is always best. Something to make our choice of ability be based on situational and dynamic factors such as buffs stacked / procced, tank health, range from target ... anything but how much mana we have.
Out of interest, does anyone know how Intellect would stack up to mp5 for regen if Divine Plea was changed to base mana (but replenishment was left the same)?
Out of interest, does anyone know how Intellect would stack up to mp5 for regen if Divine Plea was changed to base mana (but replenishment was left the same)?
Well replinshment gives you .25% of max mana every second so therefore: 1 int = 15 mana, .25% of 15 is 0.0375, so 1 int is 0.1875 mana/5 just looking at the replinshment, then you also get the extra mana accordingly to the fight length where the shorter the fight is the better int is compared to mana/5 (but is rather small).
So when comparing that 2.5 int = 1 mana/5 for item point allocation, then int only gives 0.46875 mana/5 for the same item points.
So in other words int would lose most of its mana regen in this scenario.
then you also get the extra mana accordingly to the fight length where the shorter the fight is the better int is compared to mana/5 (but is rather small).
small? 1 int gives 18.975 mana at the beginning of a fight ( /w divine intellect and BoK), which equals (18.975/300)*5 = 0.31625 mp5 in a 300sec fight. (correct me if i miscalculated something) Which is actually stronger than what you gain from replenishment (even though you forgot Div Int). If int won't benefit Divine Plea after the probable nerf at all, int still beats mp5 in pure regen, not even considering spellpower and crit you gain.
//EDIT: forgot BoK, shame on me. makes it even better.
Well replinshment gives you .25% of max mana every second so therefore: 1 int = 15 mana
I'll stop you right there - your calculations are wrong. With talents and Kings, 1 Int on gear is 1.26 Int on the page. Each point of Int therefore supplies roughly 19 mana and an additional 0.2375 MP5 from Replenishment. After stat weighting, this makes Int worth 60% as much as MP5 as a regeneration stat only.
First off, the only time you _should_ be using FoL is when you're oom, or very close to it. In every other scenario, HL or HS are better options.
I use FoL in heroics, and on several Naxx fights (Noth, Gothik, Thaddius P1, KT cause we usually have 4+ interrupters). Not because I enjoy finishing fights on 98% mana, but because I'm lazy. Too lazy to press shift+5 every minute for DP, or shift+6 for DI every 3 mins, when I can just mash 2 instead. That's laziness.
You are right in that HL spam is similar to CoH, it's being used almost exclusively, while our other abilities go untouched. That being said, we don't really have that many other abilities. Our 'toolbox' is very limited, and honestly FoL is to HL what an axe is to a chainsaw.
We do need a nerf to regen to move us away from HL spam, but I think it also needs to be accompanied by an expansion of our other abilities. Having to switch to FoL simply because HL is too expensive to maintain isn't a good design; it's simply replacing one spell with another (although HL would be interweaved with FoL spam more than FoL is with HL spam).
I think Divine Plea is a good target for nerfs to regen, but so is replenishment, since we're not the only class with over-abundant mana. Obviously with any change to these abilities, care must be taken not to over-nerf them for others who use them. Mana based DPS classes gain a fairly large benefit from replenishment, whilst DP is a staple for ret and in many cases, prot pallies too. I think shifting DP to restoring a % of base mana + max mana is a viable solution. Enough so that it restores the same amount to unbuffed ret / prot pallies, slightly more to raid buffed ret / prot pallies, and significantly less to raid buffed, int stacked holy pallies.
Nerfs to regen aren't enough though. The response would simply be to spam FoL, and use HL 'reactively' to top up tanks as they start to drop too low, or maintain light's grace. The fundamental problem with our spells, as I see, would still remain; namely that our choice of spell is limited by nothing more than mana. If you have enough mana to cast HL without compromising yourself later on in the fight, then HL is preferable to FoL. As I mentioned earlier, there's no advantage to FoL, apart from its efficiency.
I think some fundamental changes to FoL (or perhaps the addition of another heal spell for paladins) in deep holy could help to make it a more tactical choice. For instance, having it heal for 300% on targets below X% health for instance, would make it an exceptionally good spell, superior to HL in situations where your tank has suddenly dipped very low (of course this would be disgustingly good in PvP, it's simply an example of a conditional). Some form of stacking buff on the paladin or target, applied by FoL to make HL more effective maybe, like an Imp Shadowbolt-esque effect which procced on FoL crit and made HL cheaper / faster / stronger (no daft punk jokes please), or a stacking scorch like effect on the FoL's target? I'm rambling now, but the point is that the synergy that currently exists between sacred shield and flash of light, and holy shock and FoL/HL via IoL, is simply not enough to make anything but HL spam attractive. Simply constraining mana is not a viable way to fix this.
We need some form of situational buff (or addition) to our current abilities, which changes the simple fact that mana-permitting, HL is always best. Something to make our choice of ability be based on situational and dynamic factors such as buffs stacked / procced, tank health, range from target ... anything but how much mana we have.
I can't emphasize how good this post is; this is exactly how game devs think.
If you just nerf paladin mana regen, it won't fix the core issue of keeping healing dynamic, interactive, challenging, and fair.
Paladins are probably OP right now, and they do it by spamming their mana regen skills and holy light. This pretty much violates all the aspects I just described. However, making it so that we can't spam HL anymore isn't going to fix the problem; arguably, it makes it worse. Now we'll just spam FL and use the occasional HL, which is not much better than just spamming HL-- AND it would be a HUGE nerf to our single target AND multi-target HPS (goodbye glyph of holy light!). Then what do we have to offer the raid?
Instead, a nerf to mana regen should be accompanied by something that enhances our ability to use a more diverse set of healing tools and lets us keep our strengths (though not to the same extents). Ghostcrawler alluded to this when discussing holy priests during his discussion of the CoH nerf. Basically, he admitted that they are not happy with the way holy priests are played right now, even after the CoH nerf. He used druid's swiftmend and Disc priest's Borrowed time talents as the kind of mechanics that make healing the kind of activity they want the player to experience.
In the simplest terms, swiftmend and borrowed time have synergy with other spells that make using them strategic and interactive. You can't swiftmend without a HoT, and Disc Priests gain a faster Gheal (an enormously slow spell otherwise) after casting a Power Word: Shield. We have something akin to this in the synergy of our SS and FL. But that's not enough to justify a mana regen nerf that would move us completely away from HL.
In that vein (and not saying it has to be something exactly like this), what if they heavily nerfed our int-based mana regen, but then gave us a talent that did something like:
"Reduces the mana cost of your Holy Light by 20% every time you cast a Flash of Light. Stacks 3 times and lasts until you cast a Holy Light."
First off, the only time you _should_ be using FoL is when you're oom, or very close to it. In every other scenario, HL or HS are better options.
I use FoL in heroics, and on several Naxx fights (Noth, Gothik, Thaddius P1, KT cause we usually have 4+ interrupters). Not because I enjoy finishing fights on 98% mana, but because I'm lazy. Too lazy to press shift+5 every minute for DP, or shift+6 for DI every 3 mins, when I can just mash 2 instead. That's laziness.
You are right in that HL spam is similar to CoH, it's being used almost exclusively, while our other abilities go untouched. That being said, we don't really have that many other abilities. Our 'toolbox' is very limited, and honestly FoL is to HL what an axe is to a chainsaw.
We do need a nerf to regen to move us away from HL spam, but I think it also needs to be accompanied by an expansion of our other abilities. Having to switch to FoL simply because HL is too expensive to maintain isn't a good design; it's simply replacing one spell with another (although HL would be interweaved with FoL spam more than FoL is with HL spam).
I think Divine Plea is a good target for nerfs to regen, but so is replenishment, since we're not the only class with over-abundant mana. Obviously with any change to these abilities, care must be taken not to over-nerf them for others who use them. Mana based DPS classes gain a fairly large benefit from replenishment, whilst DP is a staple for ret and in many cases, prot pallies too. I think shifting DP to restoring a % of base mana + max mana is a viable solution. Enough so that it restores the same amount to unbuffed ret / prot pallies, slightly more to raid buffed ret / prot pallies, and significantly less to raid buffed, int stacked holy pallies.
Nerfs to regen aren't enough though. The response would simply be to spam FoL, and use HL 'reactively' to top up tanks as they start to drop too low, or maintain light's grace. The fundamental problem with our spells, as I see, would still remain; namely that our choice of spell is limited by nothing more than mana. If you have enough mana to cast HL without compromising yourself later on in the fight, then HL is preferable to FoL. As I mentioned earlier, there's no advantage to FoL, apart from its efficiency.
I think some fundamental changes to FoL (or perhaps the addition of another heal spell for paladins) in deep holy could help to make it a more tactical choice. For instance, having it heal for 300% on targets below X% health for instance, would make it an exceptionally good spell, superior to HL in situations where your tank has suddenly dipped very low (of course this would be disgustingly good in PvP, it's simply an example of a conditional). Some form of stacking buff on the paladin or target, applied by FoL to make HL more effective maybe, like an Imp Shadowbolt-esque effect which procced on FoL crit and made HL cheaper / faster / stronger (no daft punk jokes please), or a stacking scorch like effect on the FoL's target? I'm rambling now, but the point is that the synergy that currently exists between sacred shield and flash of light, and holy shock and FoL/HL via IoL, is simply not enough to make anything but HL spam attractive. Simply constraining mana is not a viable way to fix this.
We need some form of situational buff (or addition) to our current abilities, which changes the simple fact that mana-permitting, HL is always best. Something to make our choice of ability be based on situational and dynamic factors such as buffs stacked / procced, tank health, range from target ... anything but how much mana we have.
Mex, nice post. I'll disagree with you on using HL when all I need is FoL, HS or SS (or some combo of said). Just don't see the point of potentially dropping a 20k+ heal when all that was needed was a FoL. By choosing to cast appropiate heals you keep yourself more immersed in the game.
As to more diversified tools, not sure what they could add. Blizzard has been adamant that we won't receive a HoT or AoE heal, we already have two direct heals (cast time) and I have yet to say to myself "gee, wish I had a middle of the road heal". Definately is room for some synergy on our single targets, store the overheals from last three Beacon heals and add a skill (mana sink) that would allow us to instantly apply that to the beacon target once every xx seconds. Not only increase the use of Beacon (mana sink) but at the same time provide a means to compete with other healers on the target we are healing (for example that druid who pops Lifebloom for a 12k heal long before our HL will land).
Regardless, I am not sold that Blizzard feels they owe us anything for nerfing our regen. They have already stated it is high (for all healers), to them its just bringing regen in line with their vision. One thought I have in regards to Divine Plea, change it to 2 minutes and have the Ret and Prot 51 point talents, slash it to a minute; double the heal penalty. That would bring it in line for Holy, while leaving it intact for Ret/Prot.
Mex, nice post. I'll disagree with you on using HL when all I need is FoL, HS or SS (or some combo of said). Just don't see the point of potentially dropping a 20k+ heal when all that was needed was a FoL. By choosing to cast appropiate heals you keep yourself more immersed in the game.
As to more diversified tools, not sure what they could add. Blizzard has been adamant that we won't receive a HoT or AoE heal, we already have two direct heals (cast time) and I have yet to say to myself "gee, wish I had a middle of the road heal". Definately is room for some synergy on our single targets, store the overheals from last three Beacon heals and add a skill (mana sink) that would allow us to instantly apply that to the beacon target once every xx seconds. Not only increase the use of Beacon (mana sink) but at the same time provide a means to compete with other healers on the target we are healing (for example that druid who pops Lifebloom for a 12k heal long before our HL will land).
Regardless, I am not sold that Blizzard feels they owe us anything for nerfing our regen. They have already stated it is high (for all healers), to them its just bringing regen in line with their vision. One thought I have in regards to Divine Plea, change it to 2 minutes and have the Ret and Prot 51 point talents, slash it to a minute; double the heal penalty. That would bring it in line for Holy, while leaving it intact for Ret/Prot.
Aren't you kind of missing the point of what makes us great single target and tank healers? There's no way to know if a FoL is going to be enough at the time you cast it and on the challenging fight(s) it's definitely not going to be enough. The Sarth tank is on full health when you start casting and you have no idea if he's going to take a 10k melee hit before you're done casting. FoL is not going to cover either the melee hit or the breath.
Now lets say you're add tank and raid healing in this fight instead of on the MT. With beacon on the lava blaze/whelp tank, I holy light the raid constantly. Not only does the glyph do a lot of healing but flash of light is again not going to heal a person back up to full when they get hit for 12k from the meteors.
The argument of "all that was needed was a FoL" is invalid here.
Why are people even resisting the benefits of being able to throw out constant holy lights every 1.4s ?
I think if you want to be a reactive healer instead of a proactive healer then go roll another class.
This int stacking business is getting out of hand now. There is no content in the game that requires you to have more than a 20k unbuffed mana pool. I have over 700 haste unbuffed and guess what? I dont go out of mana either, in any situation. On sarth+3 when crap hits the fan, on farm content, when bringing a low number of healers, on anything. And I spam too, I just cast cancel like a good player should. Just because you cant chain mana pots anymore doesnt mean there arent other mana reserves in the game either. Try the loh glyph, dark runes, crazy alch pots, meta gem, soul of the dead, cast cancelling. Learn to time heals with bosses swing/cast timers. As soon as Sarths breath hits, you should have a holy light hitting the tank near instantaneously after the damage hits instead of just mindlessly spamming. You dont need to stack int. As soon as I finish gathering the low level mats Im going to be going JC.. 3x 27 int gems and the rest haste, its the best way to go. And do you people honestly think paladins having infinite mana isnt going to get nerfed? Youd better start getting used to other playstyles now and not have to adapt as soon as the nerf hits.
This int stacking business is getting out of hand now. There is no content in the game that requires you to have more than a 20k unbuffed mana pool. I have over 700 haste unbuffed and guess what? I dont go out of mana either, in any situation. On sarth+3 when crap hits the fan, on farm content, when bringing a low number of healers, on anything. And I spam too, I just cast cancel like a good player should. Just because you cant chain mana pots anymore doesnt mean there arent other mana reserves in the game either. Try the loh glyph, dark runes, crazy alch pots, meta gem, soul of the dead, cast cancelling. Learn to time heals with bosses swing/cast timers. As soon as Sarths breath hits, you should have a holy light hitting the tank near instantaneously after the damage hits instead of just mindlessly spamming. You dont need to stack int. As soon as I finish gathering the low level mats Im going to be going JC.. 3x 27 int gems and the rest haste, its the best way to go. And do you people honestly think paladins having infinite mana isnt going to get nerfed? Youd better start getting used to other playstyles now and not have to adapt as soon as the nerf hits.
Why would you gem your JC gems for Int and rest for haste. If 16 haste is better then 16 int, then 27 haste must be better then 27 int. The only reason to not use one type of gem is to meet socket bonuses or meta requirements, which both aren't an issue here.
Everyone who says Int is useless and they never run out of mana almost never say why SP or Haste is so much better. Why would I want to cancel and risk the tank getting a huge hit right after when I gear slightly differently and don't need to. There is a huge utility in being able to almost always cast Holy Light, and I wouldn't not trade it for slightly bigger or slightly faster heals. They might nerf it later, which is fine and I'll adopt my gearing and playstyle when they do.
Also I see you haven't done Sarth10+3, I would suggest completing all content in the game before you say you never run OOM. With my very Int stacked gear and how my guild does it (with two healers and ignoring portals), by the time all the drakes are dead I am very close to OOM, and healing purely from Divine Plea mana each time it comes up.
Why would you gem your JC gems for Int and rest for haste. If 16 haste is better then 16 int, then 27 haste must be better then 27 int. The only reason to not use one type of gem is to meet socket bonuses or meta requirements, which both aren't an issue here.
Everyone who says Int is useless and they never run out of mana almost never say why SP or Haste is so much better. Why would I want to cancel and risk the tank getting a huge hit right after when I gear slightly differently and don't need to. There is a huge utility in being able to almost always cast Holy Light, and I wouldn't not trade it for slightly bigger or slightly faster heals. They might nerf it later, which is fine and I'll adopt my gearing and playstyle when they do.
Also I see you haven't done Sarth10+3, I would suggest completing all content in the game before you say you never run OOM. With my very Int stacked gear and how my guild does it (with two healers and ignoring portals), by the time all the drakes are dead I am very close to OOM, and healing purely from Divine Plea mana each time it comes up.
I dont bother with 10 mans much at all, I have an extremely busy life and career and barely make my guilds 25 mans. The 3 good ints for easy socket bonuses and the fact that Im not saying int is bad, Im just saying its not needed in excessive amounts. With nice haste youll get more actual effective healing instead of the sniping effect from the other classes aoe heals which is actually two fold being youll be able to use beacon more effectively. Also I fail to see how your spamming will consistently get heals on the tank faster than my cast cancelling and timing with swing/cast timers. I dont lose my tanks and my tanks dont stay at a HP deficit for more than a fraction of a fraction of a second. Also, I would never go straight spell power, thats for fol spamming which hasnt been viable since SSC days. And if you gear correctly with sp/crit/haste pieces your crit should be high enough to not go out of your way for any. Haste is therefore your best bet for pure HPS, reactive heals, and getting less heals sniped. Mana is not an issue in the game today unless you dont play correctly.
Well replinshment gives you .25% of max mana every second so therefore: 1 int = 15 mana, .25% of 15 is 0.0375, so 1 int is 0.1875 mana/5 just looking at the replinshment, then you also get the extra mana accordingly to the fight length where the shorter the fight is the better int is compared to mana/5 (but is rather small).
So when comparing that 2.5 int = 1 mana/5 for item point allocation, then int only gives 0.46875 mana/5 for the same item points.
So in other words int would lose most of its mana regen in this scenario.
This is very wrong for a few reason. As a previous poster said you forgot to take into account Divine Int and BoK. You also forgot to mention the initial mana gained, and the mana from crit.
For a 6 minute fight lets compare 100 Int to 40 mp5 (same itemization), assume 50% initial crit rate and you cast 125,000 mana worth of heals that can crit.
Intellect
126.5 Intellect, with BoK and Divine Intellect
1897 mana at the start of the fight
1537 mana from Replenishment, with 90% uptime.
351 mana from Arcane Torrent, if you are a Blood Elf.
0.759% Spell Crit
1 / (1 - .6 * .50759) - 1 / (1 - .6 * .5) = Mana Pool Increase
1.4379 - 1.4286 = 0.93%
125,000 * 0.0093 = 1163 mana
Total: 4948 mana (or 4597 for non-BE)
Mp5 would give you 2880 mana in the same duration. So Intellect is 72% better then mp5 even if they took away DP's scaling with Intellect.
02/03/09, 11:34 AM
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