Njoror

Assuming you have roughly 30k mana, and you seem to never use it all on any encounter ever, would it then be safe to assume taking a few of the int gems/enchants out and replacing them with sp is a safe bet? I understand that int is the "best in slot" item but honestly if you have mana you can't use and the mp5 from int is not a big deal (once your mana pool is this large of course) and the crit per gem is such a small amount could you reasonably assume it would be safe to replace some of these items.

I guess what I'm saying is if an int gem is going to give you mana you wont use, mp5 you don't need, and only a small amount of crit, would it be better to just socket/enchant sp at that point?

And if 30k mana is not sufficient to make this argument lets assume you have 100k mana just to eliminate the "I have 30k mana and I go oom all the time" argument.

 

vorda

It is, assuming you are spending every time you have squeezing as much/big heals as possible. If at that point you still have tons of mana, regemming is a more effective (pretty much the only one actually) way of increasing your HPS.

 

• frmorrison

Since HL overheals a lot of the time, Haste is a more effective way to increase your HPS at this point in time. However, as had been said 100s of times, current content is easy and you could go enchantless/gemless and still do fine.

DK - Ashbane Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

 

Elistan

There are 3 factors in which a person will not go oom. One is that the content is to easy and healers are not being challenged, second is a guild is taking way to many healers to raid again with so many healers and content being so easy again mana pools will not change because it is not being challenged. The third is that Int is doing the job we want it to in the arena of mana regen and mana becomes a non issue.

All these things can change. If you take 7 healers to Naxx that is way to many. Again once content become harder mana could very well become an issue. We get enough haste from our gear that we don't really need to gem for it. Here is where the SP arguement falls apart. Paladins are bad for overhealing right now more than any other time, because we use HL a lot more than any other spell. Lets say I regem for so SP, ok my heals are bigger but I can now cast few of them, and all the extra SP I gemmed for is getting thrown away in overheals, which is a waste of a gem slot. SP is a single stat that effects the amount I heal. Int effects SP, crit, mana pool, Divine Plea, Replinishment. From one stat I get all that. That is not a waste to me. Gemming for SP when the extra healing I get from it is going to be thrown away in overhealing is not a smart way to itemize. I would rather end the fight with mana then waste a gem slot on a stat that is only going to add to my overhealing anyway.

 

Endoscient

Almost all of these arguments against Int are saying I don't run OOM so I don't need Int. They never say why the extra SP is better choice over the Int. You should try to show situations where gemming for SP over Int would prevent someone from dying.

 

Soralin

To be fair - if int is being stacked primarily as a regen stat (which it is, although it does also provide SP and a small amount of Crit) then not running OOM is enough justification to stop stacking it. Whether SP is the better option to stack, or whether it should be Haste, doesn't really matter.

There is a lot of debate in this topic about whether int stacking is good, or whether something else should be stacked. The two main arguments are "Future encounters will need lots of regen so stack for Int" and "I don't go OOM now so stacking for Int is silly". One is the long term view, one is the short term. Neither are wrong, perhaps people should relax a little and realise that their point of view isn't necessarily the only right one.

At the end of the day nobody has seen any of the Uludar encounters. They could be ridiculously long fights that require int stacking or they should be really short fights that require insane amounts of HPS. Until we know, the majority of conversations going on in this thread are largely pointless.

 

Arthaal

Those arguing they "don't run OOM" simply aren't outputting the maximum HPS they could be. Anything short of 30k mana will not sustain full HL spam for any amount of time past 5min or so in top end gear. That's the highest amount of HPS you can output. Substituting SP/haste for int, it follows, would then reduce the amount of time you could maintain spam for and would result in either breaks or FoL subbing in and your HPS would drop.

Encounters aren't currently longer than this 5min duration and few require HL spam which is why some don't feel they need the extra regen capabilities provided by more int. In an ideal world, you'd figure out the fight length and plug in your numbers into some spreadsheet to get the right mix of haste and int to be able to maintain spam over whatever fight length... seems like a job for a coding monkey!

Percent modifiers R'US

 

Firecrest

The benefit of bigger heals with no downside should be immediately obvious. Offhand, I can think of two examples where the benefit of extra Spellpower shows up. The first is any time you cast a HL that doesn't overheal. MT healing Sarth, Gluth and Patch are a few fights where I think you'd best be able to see this in effect. The other, and much more common, would simply be the increase to your HL Glyph splashes. Again we would be talking only about splashes with no overheal.

Are either of these situations overtly common? No, not really. But they don't need to be common to be considered a benefit. We're talking about squeezing out every ounce of potential here and there is benefit to increased Spellpower.

"The content is so easy it doesn't matter" is not really an argument I buy. Yes it is easy. But is that a reason for us to slack off? Not in my book. "The content coming will be harder and require changes" is all good and well also, but I'm worried only about the here and now. Sure I could heal Naxx in Spirit gear. But if I (and my guildmates) maximize our gear and my ability, maybe we can take one less healer and finish faster. Or maybe we can get Immortal or I can save a tank by the skin of my teeth and save the raid a wipe. When Uldar comes, I'll worry about how best to perform there. But now I want to be the best I can in the content we're actually doing.

I have to revisit my very first comment and mention that it is important to analyze the "no downside" that I mentioned. If you really and truly are ending the vast majority of your fights with significant mana left over and are never slacking on heals or endangering deaths by holding back to conserve mana, then yes - pretty much anything will give you some improvement over the Int that's of no use to you. These are not considerations to be made lightly though.

When I finally decided to stop stacking Int, the question I asked wasn't "why is some other stat better", but rather "why am I investing in this stat that is doing nothing for me?" You ask why is SP better than Int and I ask you if I don't need the regen, why is Int better than SP?

 

Elistan

You ask the question but the answer is right there. I don't see int as wasted stat even with the mana I have left over from the fight. Spellpower is a wasted stat, when we overheal. If you can make so we never overheal then I could see SP being worthwhile. But any paladin that is any good knows that we will overheal. Ok, I go full out end the fight with mana but nobody dies. Oh well, so i ended up with mana, I consider that not that bad. Now I stack int, in a perfect world where guild healer don't snipe each other and overhealing would be less because of it, then stacking SP might be worthwhile. But any guild that doesn't assign healing will have every healer sniping another healers heals so again we have massive amounts of overhealing with the lack of smart heals this is even more so. So in the end you have the benefit of int that is real and helps to Int which does nothing but lead to more overhealing. That is why Int is better then SP. When Paladins no longer overheal then I will look at SP being a stat worth stacking. Right now because Int effects so many things, SP, CRIT, MANA REGEN it is the best stat. When you stack SP you just throwing away the extra healing to Overhealing so there is no benefit from it at all. And to say Int does nothing for you is wrong, it does more for you as a Paladin then SP does.

 

Endoscient

The down side to bigger heals is that you are trading off being able to cast a lot more Holy Lights. You are stuck in the notion that a fight requires a certain amount of mana, and anything over that is useless. Unless you are spamming Holy Light for 100% of the time, you can always make use out of more mana. It is extremely abnormal circumstance that someone you are spam HL'ing dies, so why would you want to cast FoL over it?

 

Ngita

A higher maximum hps does not mean a higher effective hps. Indeed over time your effective hps decreases as mitigation and knowledge of the encounters increases. The counter to that is too drop healers, but any radical change to raid makeup leads to healers feeling unused, dps who wonder why you are allowing respecced and lesser geared healers in as dps over them, and dps becoming confortble in raid spots they would'nt normally be entitled too.

 

Apollion

Even if you are spamming HL 100% of the time and have mana to spare, you can still use more int for certain fights. On a fight like patchwerk where really the tanks are taking consistent spikes the entire time, using DP sucks now because we can still feel it. My tank didn't risk a death when I was using it last night, but I definetly noticed the difference. So if I stacked enough int where I DON'T need to use DP and still maintain constant HL spam, that too is an increase in HPS. I realize that there are plenty of fights where you can easily squeeze in a few ticks or the entire DP during boss downtimes (malygos being by best example), but unless you think you can spam DP whenever its up during 3d sarth, we can still make use of more int.

 

• Mex

Arguing for stacking HPS stats (SP and haste, perhaps even crit) because you don't find yourself going oom spamming nothing but HL is one thing. Perhaps you get put into a group with 4 resto shamans. Maybe you have 8 druids casting Innervate on you. Whatever the case, in that situation it's viable to try and increase your raw HPS.

What isn't correct is arguing that SP or haste or whatever will increase your HPS at the cost of substituting HLs for FoLs. If your mana pool is at the size where you have to substitute HLs for FoLs in order to avoid going oom before the end of the fight, then int will provide more HPS than any other stat.

Assume you've got a 1.5 second HL and 1 second FoL (impossible, since the amount of haste needed for a 1 second FoL would drop HL to 1.3-1.4, but 1.5 simplifies things). If you're replacing every 4th HL with a FoL, then that's a 5.5 second "rotation". Three of these is 16.5 seconds, and totals 9 HLs and 3 FoLs. Compared to 11 HLs in the same time period. Assuming equal crit % on both spells, and 2000 SP, then the amount of SP you'd need for the FoL rotation to provide superior HPS (ie for those 3 FoL + 9 HL @ X SP to provide superior output to 11 HLs at 2000 SP) is just over 400.

11HL @ 2000 SP = ~8936*11 = 98296
9HL @ 2400 SP = ~9690*9 = 87210 + FoL @ 2400 SP = 87210 + 3544*3 = 97842

That 400 SP is roughly 340 intellect in terms of item budget, adding ~6451 base mana, and ~2500 mana per minute through DP and Replenishment. Again, roughly squashing the numbers into an easy-to-work-with figure, let's assume we're looking at 4 "rotations" per minute -- 44 HLs vs 36 HLs + 12 FoLs. Same crit rate (~50%), GoSoW, 4T7 and libram. ~662 mana per HL, ~200 per FoL. Difference in mana usage between the two rotations is ~2896 mana per minute, 396 mana more than what the int returns per minute. You'd need a fight to go beyond 16 minutes before that extra mana saved outweighed the mana gained at the start of the fight.

It's very rough maths, and I ignored a lot of stuff like correct haste values, the SP and crit gained from the 340 int (which would push the SP required to "beat" it higher, and allow for _more_ int, etc), the fact that HL will always have a higher crit % than FoL unless you're using PvP gloves, the fact that not having to glyph for FoL gives you a bonus ~2340 mana from LoH, etc etc.

Really though, the biggest thing here as far as I'm concerned is steady output. Chaining HLs, even if they are slightly weaker, is (in the majority of cases), going to be safer for the tank than weaving in a weak FoL every now and then. This isn't something that we'll really ever be exposed to in this tier of content, so it's somewhat moot, but even ignoring that, unless the fight goes for an absolutely ridiculous period of time, int+HL will give you more HPS than SP+3HL,1FoL.

If your DPS is blasting through bosses in 3-4 minutes, and no matter how many HLs you spam you still can't get rid of your mana pool, then switching to SP or haste is absolutely going to make your tank safer. But if you're hinging your argument on the ability to switch to FoL then you're putting your tank in needless risk as far as I'm concerned.

 

Ichà go

Personally I would go for haste if I reached the "int cap". As it has been said, sp isn't that useful because of overhealing. You wouldn't need mana regaining part of crit since you don't oom anymore nor do you need the extra rng healing output. That only leaves haste which increases your healing output and is controllable while also giving more burst potential.

Then again because of the recent DP changes I don't see "int cap" being reachable, possibly not even in t8 content. 30k might have been near before but now you would want to depend as little on dp as possible.

After healing naxx and malygos today with the new dp I have to say that the nerfs aren't over yet. I would still use dp just like before and spam HL. I can see a 75-100% penalty incoming.

 

Bilbobubblin

But who knows what other changes will be introduced before Ulduar comes out? Blizzard keeps talking about how mana regen is too easy right now. Maybe Replenishment will be nerfed, which on top of the Divine Plea nerf would hit Int even harder. Maybe they will increase the mana cost of healing spells, to the point that we can not get away with Holy Light spam even if we use Divine Plea routinely. I have no idea what changes will come, if any, but easymode mana regen is certainly a hot topic right now and I wouldn't be surprised to see Holy Paladins to be the first class put in the spotlight for mana regen nerfs. Is there any other healing class that can get away with spamming their biggest heal nonstop for entire boss fights?

My point being, Int is primarily a regen stat. I understand that the more Int = more times you can cast HL in a fight = more HPS in the long run. But people arguing you're putting the tank at risk my using Flash of Light? I'm sorry, but if the tank is hovering around full health with a few HoT's on him, I feel absolutely no need to pump a 12k/18k heal into him. I'll be happy with the 4.3k/6.5k FoL. If he needs burst healing after that, I always have Light's Grace active naturally, and I almost always save Holy Shock cooldowns for when I need a burst (it should also be noted Holy Shock scales well with SP, and I routinely get over 10k crits). The bottom line is I've never had a tank die because I threw out an occasional FoL, the only time I've had the Sarth tank die on 3d is when one of two things happen: cooldowns aren't managed well and he gets one-shot or I die from the adds not being controlled well enough (on 10m we do two healers two tanks so adds can sometimes get hairy without a dedicated add tank). And yes, on the 10m Sarth 3d fight, I am almost exclusively using Holy Light. But if I can get away with an occasional 1.05s FoL, with Light's Grace up, with Holy Shock cooldown available, I'll do it. And I've never, ever had the Sarth tank from me doing that.

If Ulduar comes out and we have long, healing intensive fights, yes, I will absolutely regem for Int. But I find it rather odd that the first page of this thread buys very heavily into the Int > all argument, and naturally this is the logic that most Paladins will use for gemming for current content. I absolutely believe that SP is the best stat to max out for current content, and since regemming for SP I have steadily gone up on the meters, even though my Holy Light use has gone down. My overhealing has gone down, my HPS has gone up! It is also important to note that Holy Light spam represents a higher HPS *potential*, but we all know a ~1s FoL will hit a target before another healer's direct heal lands or HoT ticks more often than a ~1.4s Holy Light, and thus Holy Light spam does not guarantee an increase in HPS.

We typically bring six healers to raids, two Resto Druids two Shamans one Priest one Paladin, and this may have something to do with why I can get away with FoL. But I'm simply out to make myself the best healer I can be given the raid composition we bring and the raid scenarios we encounter. I believe there are an absolute ton of Paladins out there blindly buying into the Int > all argument, even if it truly isn't the best stat to max given the raid composition they take part in. I'd strongly suggest, especially if you are finding yourself close to 80% overheal like I was just a week ago, for other Paladins to try gemming for SP and using Flash of Light when you can get away with it. The worst thing that can happen is that you'll have to regem back, and given how cheap gems have gotten and how easy it is to make gold (hello BoE Valor bracers), regemming twice is nothing. You may very well end up like me, SP socketed in every slot and not looking back.

 

Rackdaddy

The problem with the "balanced" approach is that its based on what you "feel". It's arbitrary and has no math behind it.

 

Rackdaddy

Because you are better able to snipe heals with FoL, you will appear to be doing better on the meters. This does not make you a better healer though and is actually bad habit.

 

wighti

Just to confirm that's mostly been said already, did a nearly full run of Naxx last night and honestly couldnt really see a difference with the Divine Plea change. Even on Patchwerk which has somewhat higher tank damage, the effect was almost neglible.

I did end up using it a lot less tho, used to be that DP was #2 on my regen list, dropped down to #4 on my last run.

Here's a WWS parse for 13 bosses in Naxx with my regen list.

EDIT: To be fair, as per said before, more to do with the content than with the actual effect on DP

 

hlubik

Well, I ran Naxx10 yesterday and it was one of alt / offspec gearing run. 2nd healer was a paladin, who gemmed only for SP (+19 SP everywhere, except in chest - there he had [Purified Twilight Opal] in one slot), had [Ember Skyflare Diamond] and he was alt.

I have 27k buffed manapool, we had replenisher, but most of the time, I ended with no mana left or having lot of problems with conserving it.

What I want to say - you will realize how important Int is in these runs when you end with 60% healing done and other guy with 20%.

 

• Mex

If you're concerned about metres, int gemming for HL spam will yield the best results. That said, I've never been a fan of healing metres. Personally I think that they're one of the worst possible ways to measure / assess healing.

Yes, yes. You can heal most fights these days with FoL. It's been said a million times but it's not really relevant.

What I'm trying to say here, is that if your contention is that gemming for SP will yield better results in conjunction with FoL spam, then your reasoning is flawed. If you, at any point in the fight, cast FoL, then the most efficient way to increase your output is to increase your intellect.

If you're trying to say that current content is easy and does not "require" 100% HL spam, then you're not telling anybody anything new. This was old news a month ago. If you want to base your gearing choices on that logic, then I'd recommend not using DKP on any upgrades beyond iLvL 200 loot and saving it to grab a quick 5/5 T8. You could also save money not bothering to enchant / gem it.

There seem to be two questions being woven together here; "What is the best way to maximise theoretical output?" and "What is the best way to handle current content?". "Int" is the answer to the former, and "However you like" is the answer to the latter.

 

kingleonardo

Just wanted to confirm that 1.0s FoLs would conversely constitute 1.33s Holy Lights. 1.0s FoL is not difficult to achieve at all. I've seen several pallies who had 676 haste 3 weeks into Wrath content.

 

Amadseino

Yes, it is a reason to slack, because healing is not like DPS, if there is not enough damage or that damage is healed by the others, you can simply sit back and enjoy (or rather get bored). Paladins are fight-specific healers (e.g. frost tombs on Kelthuzad or healing the add tanks on Razuvious), and we have the blessings... that's our purpose, nothing else.
Healing is not like a "race", I'm happy with my 6th place in healing done. Of course, Ulduar will be a new challenge for all of us and for all healers... we'll see.

And to stay with the topic, I've got a question: since the seals' duration is increased to 30 mins, is it worth getting both seal glyphs (SoW and SoL) and use them depending on the lenght of the fight? If so, which glyph should be replaced, the HL or FoL one? (because currently I got SoW, HL and FoL glyphs)

 

Sansei

I believe that you should only have either SoW or SoL glyph and not both at the same time.
If you think they'll be crucial for a specific fight (probably a future progress kill for your guild?), best is to reglyph for that fight. I personally choose SoW with HL and FoL, since I haven't hit the 30k raid buffed mana. Maybe if I see that in future, fights are shorter and harder as they were in Sunwell. I could think of making up with the SoL glyph _if_ mana management is ok. But i very much think that mana management gets to be a greater factor when you're going with more haste and more HPS.

Bottomline, I'd personally suggest to keep only one of SoW/SoL glyphs at any given time.

 

Tzeni

What's your definition of a really short fight? Even in short fights, int will probably give you a greater HPS than SP or haste. Consider having 30K mana, with 4 piece valorous and the SoW glyph with 45% crit. Your holy lights now cost an average of ~700 mana, which if you're hitting a HL every 2 seconds (which is conservative) equals mana consumption of 1750 mana per five.

30K mana gives you 375 MP5 from replenishment, 7.2K mana from mana tide, and we'll assume 250 native MP5 w/ BoW as well as 106.25 MP5 from mana spring. Divine illumination used once will save you ~513 mana on 7 casts of HL, so that's an additional ~3590 mana.

With these stats, and not using DP at all (since you said it would be a healing intensive fight and 50% off heals is a lot), you can spam HL once every 2 seconds for... ~146 seconds. That's a little more than 2 minutes. If you DP once, you can heal ~183 seconds. Now, if the fight lasts for less than this time, then you can go ahead and gem SP and Haste and whatever. If it lasts longer, then you have to either space out your casts more to reduce your mana consumption, or throw in some FoLs to reduce your mana usage. There's no other way. All these alternatives reduce your HPS, and indeed the reduction in HPS is great enough that gemming for int is a better way to increase your HPS than gemming for haste or SP.

Frankly, nothing I'm posting here is new or innovative. It's ALL been discussed before. At this point, I suggest we put a moratorium on talking about gemming/enchanting for Holy. People will not change their opinion in either direction based on given math and evidence. There's enough information in this thread for any paladin to make an informed decision, and nothing new on this topic can possibly be said.

This is what Rawr does currently.

Edit: Fixed my holy light cost math per below poster... forgot about libram and made an arithmetic mistake. Also note that below poster is correct, if the fight is truly healing-intensive, holy light may be used more than 1 every 2 seconds. However, I think 2 seconds per cast is appropriate if you're averaging in fights were movement is required.

 

Endoscient

Your average cost of Holy Light is way too high. With all cost reducers my Holy Light costs 1044 mana, and returns 764 on crits. With 45% crit rate that makes the average cost 700 mana. But you should be able to cast around a Holy Light every 1.5 sec, especially considering the high lust uptime in these short fights. Your point is valid besides that, math is just a little off.