The Holy Paladin Guide for WotLK - Page 78

galzohar · 02/02/09, 5:07 PM

Originally Posted by Sansei

I don't agree. Firstly, the importance of stats are of course not the same. 100haste != 100crit != 100int.
The consensus is that, you gear for crit and haste and gem/enchant for intellect. That can mean that you as well choose a gear with less crit and haste but with more sockets to gem with intellect. Spell power is the first to give up for larger int pool.

That's not exactly true. The reason it seems like the case is because items of similar item level tend to have similar levels of int, but still on items with different int values you very much should look at the int difference just like you do when picking your gems. Also I don't know why you say spellpower is the first to go, I think it's the second best stat after int (although quite a bit behind it, and not a lot better than crit/haste/mp5).

gallamann · 02/02/09, 5:47 PM

Originally Posted by TJourney

In addition to the innate power of casting more Holy Lights relative to Flash of Lights, as highlighted in the first post of this thread, there are other benefits to a large mana pool due to intellect. Many often forget that Divine Plea has a noticeable downside, and while active it could potentially cost the lives of groupmembers if something were to go awry.

One of the beautiful components of additional intellect is that by making your Divine Pleas and Replenishment more effective, you can rely less on Divine Plea and thus be hindered less by its penalty. If one were to use Plea every time it left cooldown, then they would be hindered by the -20% penalty for a quarter of the fight; but by increasing the power of each Plea with additional intellect, a paladin can use Plea less often and thusly increase their throughput.

I know that during more intensive healing moments, I worry about using Plea and will put it off for extended periods of time if I think the -20% penalty could be damning. A more than healthy supply of Intellect allows you to take these reprieves when needed without fear of going oom.

I never worry about the 20% penalty, in fact I welcome it. Why? Simple, we overheal like maniacs.

If I was running closer to 20% overheal, I may be concerned. DOn't think I have seen that.... ever

Sansei · 02/02/09, 5:50 PM

Originally Posted by galzohar

That's not exactly true. The reason it seems like the case is because items of similar item level tend to have similar levels of int, but still on items with different int values you very much should look at the int difference just like you do when picking your gems. Also I don't know why you say spellpower is the first to go, I think it's the second best stat after int (although quite a bit behind it, and not a lot better than crit/haste/mp5).

Sorry, I didn't understand your point. All I understood from your first few sentences is that we're saying the same things...

As for sacrificing SP for int in the first place, it's because of the massive overhealing introduced with wotlk. It's no more a "the more the merrier" stat compared to other stats you can stack instead of it.

gallamann · 02/02/09, 6:28 PM

Originally Posted by Rhadamanthus

Hi Mex,

An argument implies a contradictory position, but we both agree the point you are trying to make.

You point that spamming holy lights probably gives better throughput, and that is something I fully agree with - in a fight like Patchwerk (or, for that matter, even Brutallus). (Un)Fortunately, it's not always the case where you can just stand there and spam one button and fall asleep halfway.

My point is that with intellect stacked my problems appear when I'm not able to stop spamming Holy Lights to perform simple and quick tasks such as refreshing Judgements of the Pure, Sacred Shield, ..., without fearing a dead tank.

In fights where I actually have to move and, by necessity, end up doing pretty much everything reactively during that time, crit+haste saves my day and intellect just means I'm sitting in a 75% mana pool with a dead tank/assignement (with people asking me on ventrilo "Why did the tank die?" and my answer is "I had to move.").

Considering holistically the boss encounters I've been in, instead of picking a specific fight or two, I would say crit+haste make me a better healer than having a quasi-infinite mana pool. My view is that what is important for me, as a Holy Paladin, isn't how long I can heal (realistically, I'm never out of mana when it really matters even without stacking intellect) but how much I can heal during critical moments.

I am going to say... hogwash

Once you have had about 5 pulls on new encounter, you should know the pacing of the healing needed.

For example, on Sarth tank (3d), only time I need HL is when Sarth breath is buffed. Rest of the time, SS, FoL and HS are more than enough to handle that damage.

Same crap was spewed on Brutallus, only time one needed HL there was for Stomp. You got a big ole timer that said when it was coming, about 2 seconds before it, cycle over to HL. Then cycle back to FoL after stomp dropped.

Patch is a complete joke, 2 holy paladins could heal it. One start the fight and other come in as the first hit about 4-5k mana.

All readers, aka not directed at poster I quoted

So the real question is, why are holy paladins "spamming" HL when its not needed? All you have managed to do is put us in the same position as priests pre-3.0.8. Blizzard will swing the nerf bat hard on regen because you all are abusing mechanics due to what? Laziness?

Bat is coming, question is, how many of you will survive when you can't spam HL?

Silver

Soralin · 02/02/09, 7:06 PM

Originally Posted by gallamann

Same crap was spewed on Brutallus, only time one needed HL there was for Stomp. You got a big ole timer that said when it was coming, about 2 seconds before it, cycle over to HL. Then cycle back to FoL after stomp dropped.

Perhaps I was doing it wrong. But I, and all the other holy paladins in my guild, had to sustain HL spam in order to keep the Brutallus tanks alive. How many healers did you take to Brut...?

Endoscient · 02/02/09, 7:39 PM

Originally Posted by gallamann

So the real question is, why are holy paladins "spamming" HL when its not needed? All you have managed to do is put us in the same position as priests pre-3.0.8. Blizzard will swing the nerf bat hard on regen because you all are abusing mechanics due to what? Laziness?

Bat is coming, question is, how many of you will survive when you can't spam HL?

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.

• Mex · 02/02/09, 8:14 PM

Originally Posted by gallamann

I am going to say... hogwash

Once you have had about 5 pulls on new encounter, you should know the pacing of the healing needed.

For example, on Sarth tank (3d), only time I need HL is when Sarth breath is buffed. Rest of the time, SS, FoL and HS are more than enough to handle that damage.

Same crap was spewed on Brutallus, only time one needed HL there was for Stomp. You got a big ole timer that said when it was coming, about 2 seconds before it, cycle over to HL. Then cycle back to FoL after stomp dropped.

Patch is a complete joke, 2 holy paladins could heal it. One start the fight and other come in as the first hit about 4-5k mana.

All readers, aka not directed at poster I quoted

So the real question is, why are holy paladins "spamming" HL when its not needed? All you have managed to do is put us in the same position as priests pre-3.0.8. Blizzard will swing the nerf bat hard on regen because you all are abusing mechanics due to what? Laziness?

Bat is coming, question is, how many of you will survive when you can't spam HL?

Silver

I'm not quite sure what your point is here? Are you trying to say that HL spam is bad because it might/will get nerfed?

The answer to your "real question" is very simple. There's an upside but no downside. But I think you knew that, and are trying to imply something else that I'm not quite understanding?

Efficient healing is not exactly a taxing job. It does not require months of practice or muscle memory. There's no downside to HL spam, and in the event of sudden, unpredictable changes in the fight (maybe your tank forgot to repair his shield, or maybe your other healers disconnected), there's a significant upside to it; so why not do it? Laziness has nothing to do with it, it's the most effective healing method, and quite frankly anyone who isn't doing it isn't playing their class to its full potential.

Feya · 02/02/09, 10:57 PM

What Silver is trying to say is; he outskills you and he outplays his class in a manner normally needed in any boss fight. Thats great, but Blizzard is not likely to cater to players of this magnitude. They've gone through a noticeble simplification of all things related to this game. Dumbing down of basically every aspect of the game, including raid and dungeon encounters.

This trend isn't likely to stop. The last two pages of arguing are all opinion, little if any debate is actually going on here. Its basically a "I say this" versus "well I say this". Whats the chances of Uludar being any more difficult then SSC/TK? Very little.... its almost been said outright by Blue posts that is as difficult as encounters are likely to be. These dungeons were cleared in a week by the top guilds in the world, so min-maxing and theory crafting is likely going to trivialize the upcoming content to an even further extent.

Cosi · 02/02/09, 11:42 PM

Originally Posted by Soralin

Perhaps I was doing it wrong. But I, and all the other holy paladins in my guild, had to sustain HL spam in order to keep the Brutallus tanks alive. How many healers did you take to Brut...?

If I remember correctly on Brutallus tank healing FoL spam was an option if we tightly packed the groups and had shamans bounce CH off the tank in addition to the paladins+priests we had on the tanks. If you do this you basically stick every non-burn healer on the tank. This makes the smaller heals more viable just because of the sheer number of healing being front loaded.

I was usually on burn healing, so I'd throw FoL's at the tanks if I could spare the GCD. Sometimes even HL here or there but for the most part I don't remember actually being on tank healing so much. Me and the druid had burn healing team work down a science so the raid leader didn't really mess with that too much.

• Mex · 02/03/09, 1:35 AM

Originally Posted by Feya

This trend isn't likely to stop. The last two pages of arguing are all opinion, little if any debate is actually going on here. Its basically a "I say this" versus "well I say this". Whats the chances of Uludar being any more difficult then SSC/TK? Very little.... its almost been said outright by Blue posts that is as difficult as encounters are likely to be. These dungeons were cleared in a week by the top guilds in the world, so min-maxing and theory crafting is likely going to trivialize the upcoming content to an even further extent.

SSC and TK were devilishy hard pre-nerf, Vashj and Kael especially.

If wowwiki is to be believed (and if it's wrong I'd welcome correction), then Nihilum took about 3.5 months to go from their first Hydross kill to their first Kael kill. Vashj came about 1.5 months after their first Hydross kill, but they were almost an entire month ahead of the world 2nd kill on her.

They got 4/5 Hyjal and 5/9 BT in a single week, then RoS, Shahraz, Council and Illidan the next week, and finally Archimonde the week after.

Scrolling through the news archives on their site seems to confirm most of these dates.

SWP was of course staggered, and top guilds killed all bosses within a week of them becoming available.

In hindsight, or perhaps if started later on in TBC, post-nerfs and after new rounds of badge gear, the bosses in SSC/TK seem very easy, but they were anything but at the time.

Blizzard has copped a lot of flak over the ease of T7 raid content, but they've also responded numerous times stressing that the content was intended to be easy, and that T8 will be a step up. I wouldn't be surprised if they err on the side of overtuning the encounters this time around, simply to prevent another flow of "this game is too easy super-guild-x cleared Ulduar in 37 minutes" QQ posts on the forums. At the very least, we're likely to see a lot more hard-mode encounters, which I'm sure Blizzard will enjoy, giving them a new way to throw a diverse set of more difficult challenges our way.

Veering back on topic though, I don't think that anyone is really arguing about the best way to gear for current content; the answer to that would simply be "anything with spell power and/or intellect on it (caster items)". You could wear full spirit / spell hit gear and still do fine. What is being discussed is the best way to maximise output on both a theoretical and practical level. It's important to consider both, because we really don't know what sort of content will be thrown at us in 3.1, and aiming to be able to adapt to new challenges (as well as game balance / mechanic changes) or gearing paradigms should be the goal of any raider right now.

Just as tanks will most likely tank new bosses wearing max EH gear (and switch in higher avoidance / resistance / armour / etc) as needed, we should aim to be wearing gear that allows us to prolong learning attempts for as long as possible. In some cases that will mean maximising output through haste/crit/SP while people figure out how not to stand in the fire, and in other cases it will simply mean being able to plant and spam HL non-stop for 7+ minutes while DPS struggle against an enrage timer.

Sure, the discussions throughout this thread probably aren't "relevant" (or perhaps necessary is a better word) to the current tier of raid content, but until we at least are able to judge the requirements of the next tier, then they are useful, at least in a theoretical sense.

Lollers · 02/03/09, 2:06 AM

Originally Posted by gallamann

I am going to say... hogwash

Once you have had about 5 pulls on new encounter, you should know the pacing of the healing needed.

For example, on Sarth tank (3d), only time I need HL is when Sarth breath is buffed. Rest of the time, SS, FoL and HS are more than enough to handle that damage.

Same crap was spewed on Brutallus, only time one needed HL there was for Stomp. You got a big ole timer that said when it was coming, about 2 seconds before it, cycle over to HL. Then cycle back to FoL after stomp dropped.

Patch is a complete joke, 2 holy paladins could heal it. One start the fight and other come in as the first hit about 4-5k mana.

All readers, aka not directed at poster I quoted

So the real question is, why are holy paladins "spamming" HL when its not needed? All you have managed to do is put us in the same position as priests pre-3.0.8. Blizzard will swing the nerf bat hard on regen because you all are abusing mechanics due to what? Laziness?

Bat is coming, question is, how many of you will survive when you can't spam HL?

Silver

How do you translate optimising performance into 'abusing mechanics' and 'laziness'?
The real question is not why are we spamming holy light, that has been answered a thousand times over in this thread. The extended use of holy light is only going to seem worthless to you if you have too many healers in the raid.

Lets look at the hardest content so far, 10 man Sartharion with 3 drakes alive. Sure, if you are not alone in your assignment then flash of light may get you through it. However I'm going to have to see a WWS report before I believe that a tank can be solo healed through the massive damage they take in this raid by using flash of lights in place of holy light.

To answer the last question about what we'll do when we can't use Holy Light as effectively anymore: We'll re-optimise according to any changes that might come in the future since that is what this discussion is all about.

Feep · 02/03/09, 3:24 AM

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...

burghy · 02/03/09, 3:25 AM

So the real question is, why are holy paladins "spamming" HL when its not needed? All you have managed to do is put us in the same position as priests pre-3.0.8. Blizzard will swing the nerf bat hard on regen because you all are abusing mechanics due to what? Laziness?

I turn to HL when FoL doesn't cut it. And even in this gimp content that happens plenty of times.
Maybe blizzard should remember what they promised when they removed downranking instead of going emo that a class with 2 healing spells prefers one over the other. The difference between fol and hl is just too big.

Sansei · 02/03/09, 4:30 AM

Originally Posted by Feep

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...

Sorry if this is a bit of a disappointing, but sarth+2d (especially on 10men) is no indication of anything. Try sarth+3d, or the 25men version of it, then we can talk about going oom or not in an intense fight. Maybe your alchemy helps you a tiny bit with mana return but on a 6-7minute fight, I would like to see your WWS report about how you manage your mana spamming HL.

You really do have a lot of spell power and haste. With the overhealing holy paladins have, I don't understand why you would want to stack spell power when you can cast heals so fast. And seeing that Holy Paladins _can_ go oom if a healer or two die in a fight, I don't see you'd make very good use of all the haste you have when you don't have enough mana pool. The word "enough" here is of course relative to the difficulty of the content you're fighting in. As for our guild, we started doing 25men instances with 7 healers, and we find it very boring with 5 at the moment, but I don't think 4 would make things any more fun for the rest of the raid if DPS starts dying.

Feep · 02/03/09, 5:44 AM

Originally Posted by Sansei

Sorry if this is a bit of a disappointing, but sarth+2d (especially on 10men) is no indication of anything. Try sarth+3d, or the 25men version of it, then we can talk about going oom or not in an intense fight. Maybe your alchemy helps you a tiny bit with mana return but on a 6-7minute fight, I would like to see your WWS report about how you manage your mana spamming HL.

You really do have a lot of spell power and haste. With the overhealing holy paladins have, I don't understand why you would want to stack spell power when you can cast heals so fast. And seeing that Holy Paladins _can_ go oom if a healer or two die in a fight, I don't see you'd make very good use of all the haste you have when you don't have enough mana pool. The word "enough" here is of course relative to the difficulty of the content you're fighting in. As for our guild, we started doing 25men instances with 7 healers, and we find it very boring with 5 at the moment, but I don't think 4 would make things any more fun for the rest of the raid if DPS starts dying.

Sarth+2d as far as solohealing goes I recomend you to try it. If you're seeking a challange, go for it! Sarth + 3d we cleared with 5 healers. I'll try to see if I can find one of the WWS logs.

As far as the manaissue for long fights. Say a fight takes 8 minutes. WIth devine plea on CD, you get you manapool back two times. The reason i stack abit of spellpower with my haste. is becuase i use Plea on CD, which reduces the SP with 20%. This you know ofcourse, just explaining my Spellpower.

Depending on the quality of the players in your raid, i see no point at all in bringing more than 4 healers. Bare in mind that pretty much all the fights in Wotlk has been DPS races. Wit hmore dps, the fight will end earlier and the healers wont waste as much mana. Simple.

If a healer or two dies, all i ever need is haste... Devine Illumination, devine plea, arcane torrent (since im Belf), there is a shitload of abilities you can use to avoid going oom.Glyph of seal of wisdom, libram of renewal, glyph of layonhands - there is so much more you can do to avoid going oom besides gemming/enchanting with intellect. And if you want to top the healing, you can't afford to stack up on intellect..