Good point. We don't want to lower the cast time under one second either though, correct? At 50% haste we're looking at 1.75 seconds, with Light's grace taking it down to 1.25. We'd need another 7.14% haste (I think) to shave off that 0.25 seconds, so 238 more haste. that puts our target haste rating at 925 to get Holy Light down to one second. (Numbers are not my friends, so verification on this point would be helpful

I'm not sure if 925 haste is a reasonable goal considering no other spell we use would be affected by the additional 238 haste. Perhaps for Icecrown... Definitely an interesting point though - if the gear is available from Ulduar to get a one second Holy Light without sacrificing Int/Crit then I'll be highly tempted.

I think you're neglecting to include JotP, a "free" 15% haste which can be assumed to be always present.

925 Haste is incorrect. Light's Grace is calculated before haste not after.

The equation is:
[Base Value - Light's Grace]/([ret aura][wrath of air][JotP][1+%HasteGear]) = [cast time]
so if you do the math for raid buffed - 1 sec cast time:
[2.5-0.5]/([1.03][1.05][1.15][1+%HasteGear]) = [1]
1.61=[1+%HasteGear] <-This is your 0% haste from gear cast time
0.61=%HasteGear
That's right, you need 61% haste to get to 1 sec HL. So roughly 2k haste to hard cap...

FoL soft cap is so easy to reach because
[1.5]/(1.03*1.05*1.15*[1+%HasteGear])=1
1.206=[1+%HasteGear] <-This is your 0% haste from gear cast time
0.206=%HasteGear
So you only need 20.6% haste to get 1 sec FoL.

You will never HL haste cap under normal conditions. (no gimmicks/bloodlust/procs)

Ah, thank you for the correction. Given the amount of haste needed to actually cap, aiming for the 687 soft cap seems to make a bit more sense. At least Scale of the Fates is not completely worthless to us (which I had originally believed).

Having read through many pages of posts, I am still at a loss. My overheal amounts are always 2x my effective heals and I am constantly on the bottom of the stupid recount charts. So basically 200k heals will equate to 400k overheal result.

I have no problems doing heroic dungeons of any sort and am highly regarded as an excellant healer... but Raids are a different story. There are other pally's that undergear myself and are always in one of the top 3 spots whereas I'm either 4th or 5th (often last even after a new level 80 holy priest). My HPS only shows about 1200-1400 whereas the other pally is in the 1.7- 2k range? This would be in 25-man raids and it doesn't matter who the other pally is... they will always have higher results in meters.

Why am I not pulling higher numbers? My Fol of light is between 3-4.5 k, my HL 9k with a crit of 15-16k... then of course trinkets, talents etc. kick in and those numbers increase. My rotation is generally divine favor + holy shock crits 7k plus with an "infusion of Light" FoL for 5K then a 15k HL... that's usually my rotation, depending on the amount of damage being taken I will follow with Fol or HL. I also recently switched back to my Libram of Mending (level 70) over my Libram of Renewal... seems to benefit my situation more--- but maybe I am seriously wrong.

I know I need an increase in Haste, but before I regem I want to get practical advice if at all possible. Do I replace intell with SP or should I increase haste over SP? I generally use FoL to avoid overhealing, but was told that the other pally's use HL. I use beacon and SS on myself and/or OT. Generally use Seal of Wisdom/Light and Judge with Light. Glyphs kick in frequently... but it seems that all of these things go to overhealing (?)

As much as I may hate recount, it is a fact of life on my server. Any suggestions on how to increase my effective heals and produce higher results is greatly appreciated.

Goldelox on Silvermoon. Any and all criticism is welcomed but please be nice.

There is no rotation, you cast as much HL as possible and if your mana can't handle it you throw some FoLs in between during low dmg periods. HS is an emergency/movement only kind of spell, never use it for regular healing, as HL is both more HPS and more mana efficient.

Your gear is very bad for how high item level it is. Swap to a helm with a meta socket (argent crusade exalted provides one until you can get T7/T7.5). Swap all your gems (except having 1 purple or 1 orange and 1 green, and place them in sockets where they would provide the best socket bonuses - with your gear orange in boots and green in bracers), to activate the meta) to +16 int, even if it means losing the (not very good anyway) socket bonuses. Get the heroic badge libram (the mana cost reduction is EXTREMELY better than your lvl70 libram, or any other libram in the game for that matter) and get 4/5 T7 even if it means using ilvl200 gear (hero's) instead of ilvl213 (valorous) - the set bonus is too good to pass up. Farm sons of hodir rep for a shoulder enchant (or at least get one from shattrath in the meanwhile). Get a real (epic, 50 spellpower) leg enchant. Put a socket on your belt and put 16 int in it. Swap boot enchant to icewalker (or tuskar's if you don't take pursuit of justice). Get improved wisdom and might instead of the pretty useless aura mastery, blessed hands and improved judgement. Get real proffessions - you didn't even level alchemy/herb all the way and it's not a very good choice anyway - farm enough gold and then grab jewelcrafting and blacksmithing, it's expensive but the extra intelect you'll gain is more than worth it if you really want to be able to heal better, and it's quite a lot better than the extra spellpower you get from alchemy's effect on flasks.

Get some UI that actually allows you to see who needs healing and react fast to it. If you're using defualt blizzard UI you're going to have a very hard time competing even if you fix all your gear issues.

I will have to disagree with this statement considering I find HS to be a wonderful spell for any occasion. For atleast me and many other paladins in my guild have discussed that HS could be considered an emergency heal, however we feel as if having BoL on the tank and the ability to use HS on damaged raid members when other healers are unable to heal them allows for some very effective burst healing. Looking at recount I find that HS is almost considered roughly 30% of my overall healing. However this is only my two cents.

Galzohar said that HS (and my preferred use for the instant FoL) is an emergency/movement heal only, which it is. The situation you described as far as damaged raid members while still needing to heal the main target is an "emergency" heal. You should never try to work HS into a rotation, at least until 3.1. Perhaps when 3.1 hits rotating HS with 2T8 and to proc the extra 20% chance for a HL crit MAYBE. The OP was trying to actually make some sort of healing rotation, like a dps, but that's not really how healing works, at least not for paladins.

To the OP, you may be seeing large amounts of overheal if you are using JoL and Seal of Light. A ret pally should be judging Light, and you should be using Seal of Wisdom for the mana savings.

Technically, and particularly with the upcoming 3.1 changes to IoL, using HS over HL is strictly a reduction in your HPS output. If you're not moving, or saving someone from imminent death, you shouldn't use it as part of any "rotation". Anyways, to speak of rotation makes it sound as if incoming damage is somehow predictable to the extent that we could say HL-HL-FoL-FoL-HS-HL-HL... which just isn't the case. HL spam provides highest HPS on a single target, so if you can sustain it, you should use it. HS as a regular part of any single target healing strategy will lower HPS.

Would the mana savings from a HS on any regular basis (thus increasing HL crit and Illumination there) pay for the cost of the HS itself? I think this is getting too complicated to try and work in the real world as we'd be hoping for both a HS crit and a HL crit for it to work. I doubt it's worth the brain activity if it saves any mana at all.

When you talk of HPS what is a reasonable amount for paladins to be putting out.

I realise this is largely dependant on gear/fight (and all the other tangibles) but I am curious what others can "pump" out....

Placing high on the healing meters is 90% reaction time and awareness. Depending on the fight, different classes end up being the healer that outputs the most hps - for example druids rock Sarth3d but paladins own Rasuvious, but in a full run generally whoever pays more attention gets more healing done.

Gear doesn't matter beyond a point - as long as you don't run oom you're fine. Placing high on the heal meters is simply a game of whacking the mole faster than the other healers in your raid. So while healing meters aren't totally useless, all they're mainly useful for is seeing who is paying attention. Overheal = other healers whacked your mole first. There is nothing preventing paladins from topping the heal meters. We have a decent aoe built into our main heal, we have the fastest flash heal and the fastest big heal and an instant heal on top. This is offset by having no reactive healing, hots, or strong aoe heals.

Goldelox-
What Galzohar and Kya said were pretty much spot on. I shoot to top the meters every night and every night I come in 2nd behind a damn Tree. Recount and WWS are fantastic tools to show information but don't feel like you are doing "something wrong" when you aren't at the top of them. I'd be curious to see a WWS parse of yours and see what it is exactly that you are doing in the course of a full Naxx.

Now also, you really want to focus on your int, haste and crit. Mp5 shouldn't even be on your mind. Do not scoff at an mp5 item if it is better than what you have but by no means should you seek it out over any of the other three stats. With a larger mana pool you will be able to maintain a constant Holy Light spam that, when combined with the Glyph of Holy Light, will most certainly raise your HPS and overhealing done.

The last thing I'll suggest is that you get something like Grid or Healbot or something that would help show you who has agro, who is taking damage, and heals coming in. Just knowing who has agro in certain fights will help you predict who is about to take a damage spike and thus gives you an edge on who to start healing.

To elaborate on what galzohar said about using FoL on low damage situations, I find it best to use FoL in those situations too and then if the tank takes a large hit (ie. hateful on patch or a breath from maly) i then use my HS and then HL. FoL provides you with great regen time especially if your tank has used shield wall/icebound fort/divine protection/etc.. and then the HS which will usually crit if you are raid buffed/using 2pc t7/7.5 provides a quick HL right after. Just my 2 cents on how to save some mana but also not let your tank fall over if you are taking a much needed mana break.

Obviously you wouldnt want to couple this with divine plea but this is very useful if that is on cooldown and you still need a bit of mana.

EDIT: Goldelox-
Why are you using an agi gem in your pants?? pretty much forget set bonuses and go for the 16 int gem no matter what unless you have an int set bonus like in your boots or if you need the green or blue gem for your meta.

Even with proccing 20% crit on the next HL, HS's mana cost makes it something you really don't want to cast unless you really have to. Would be nice if rawr modeled it, though, since rawr does model HS as "I end up having to cast HS every X seconds even though it's bad".

Keep in mind intelect is way better than any other stat that most socket bonuses aren't worth it, you only socket 3mp5 and 9 spellpower to make your meta gem work, and only if you're still not a jewelcrafter that can make it work with 27 int gems. Don't socket anything other than int except for meta requirements and something like the 4 int socket bonus on poignant sabatons (in which case you still socket 9 sp 8 int). When you do get JC you generally put the 3 JC gems in the 3 items with the highest "socket bonus per non-yellow socket".

You can judge wisdom and seal light, and you can seal light and judge wisdom, they have nothing to do with eachother. I personally seal light since it loses 2.7% efficiency compared to wisdom but gains 5% burst, which I find a good deal more often than not, though it's not always the best choice.

FoL needs to be used simply because once a fight is longer than a certain duration (exact duration depends on your gear), you will not have the mana to spam HL 100% of the time. It is better to cast a few less HLs and a lot more FoLs than cast 100% HLs and have to space them out to avoid going oom. But if the fight is such that you can spam HL at will and not go oom, there's little point to FoL unless nobody ever has a health deficit bigger than ~3.5k, and even then HL is better if they have any chance to take additional damage while your HL is casting.

For topping meters you have to cast a lot and cast faster (that is, having your heals land first) than other healers. This is a big game of reaction time, good UI, latency, knowing the fight and just plain luck - but if your gear sucks you won't have the mana to cast as much as the other healers and thus naturally your healing will fall behind if you play as good as all the other healers.

What hasn't been mentioned on this page is if you usually have 66% overheal, that is likely due to having too many healers.

Ulduar will fix that issue of having too much overheal, since you need between 6-8 healers / 3 healers for 25/10 due to massive AOE damage.

Actual HPS is not a useful statistic to think about when talking about paladin healing.

I "pumped out" ~6k HPS average in naxx tonight, 60% of wich was overheal, leaving me at ~2.4k actual HPS.
However we were running with only 4 healers for most of the evening, so my overheal was quite a bit lower than usual(yeah, i'm HL spamming).

If you are casting exclusively HL you can have upwards of 80% overheal being a norm on fights that have limited raid healing. The glyph contributes to a lot of it.

My record is 19.9k hps on patch, overall hps for all bosses will normally be around 10k, alot of that is overheal though.

I read through all the suggestions and made some changes. I equipped 2 of my tier pieces (the ugly power ranger shoulders and the legs) to get the FoL crit bonus, replaced gems with haste resulting in 655 haste.

I was up against a new tree and priest healer in Naxx 10 last night... I topped the charts with HPS anywhere from 1.7-2200 and with 40%+ healing credit. I did run oom alot though when casting HL and frequently fell back to DP and FoL to rebuild mana.

After the Tree left and the priest left, another Lead Healadin joined. During our first attempt at Sapph, he died and my healing results produced 3300 hps... which demonstrates my capacity at least. The next try, he and I healed through Sapph successfully. He still outhealed me, but the results were far closer than any other time we've healed together and I still pulled a decent HPS close to 1900, he was at 2200.

So I have to surmise that haste was a huge issue. In my case it appears that my heals were just too slow and small (because of my combo use). Have a new helm I will gem with intell and haste (trying to reach hard cap) and I will use 4 of the tier pieces to see if I solve the oom issue and how it affects my healing results tonight at 25 man naxx. If I don't oom, I may try starting with HL first and keep pumping that as needed.

I still prefer my first shot as DF + HS + FoL... I use this everytime it becomes available. Not so much for the mana aspect... but it procs several items. Honestly can't tell you what is setting off, but I will try to catch the names as they do. Noob I admit... but always willing to learn. Criticism welcomed, but again please be nice. I'll post results if they provide anything useful.

I'm glad that you were able to see some improvement. However, I think you missed the biggest suggestion that people were giving you. Stack intellect. Intellect is by far our best stat point for point right now since it allows for more total heals cast, better Divine Plea return, gives some spell power, and gives some crit. Haste is a fantastic stat but if you are going OOM (which of course you are with a 19k mana pool) then you need to be trading that for intellect.

You should only be gemming +16int (yellow sockets), +9sp and 8int (red sockets), and +8int and 3mp5 (blue sockets). Once you get a mana pool that will sustain an almost completely Holy Light spam then you can try to focus on other stats. I hope this helps.

Yeah you did miss the whole point. Stack haste, not intelect. T7 is used for its 4-piece bonus, the 2-piece bonus is pretty useless as you shouldn't be casting holy shocks. Once you can cast more HLs, you will automatically do more healing. FoL is just too weak and with your gear you have to cast it a lot, and with casting HS often you have to FoL even more since you wasted the mana on HS instead of using it on HL. Instant flashes are the same HPS as regular flashes, it's just that they do their healing at the start of the GCD rather than the end of it, but the healing done per GCD is the same.

So:
-Gem INTELECT, not haste/spellpower
-Get 4-piece T7, even if it means just farming emblems for gloves/chest
-Use a helm with a meta socket. The mana restore meta gem is extremely powerful, so much that it makes helms with no meta socket rather useless. An easily attainable one is from argent crusade exalted.