• frmorrison

These are the best bonuses ever for Holy, but if someone had a solid argument why the all the gear should be mp5/haste instead of Crit/X, they may listen.

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

 

Pirjo

Actually since judgement is considered a melee attack (allowing it to proc the seal in the first place), it has a 8% base chance to miss. After talents (4% hit) this leaves a 4% chance to miss. This also means 32.8 rating gives you 1% hit since it is melee.

Calculatiing how much mana return per %hit is going to be highly variable. In fights where mana isn't a concern you'll judge less. If mana is an issue you'll get melee attacks in as well. Therefore the best way to calculate the value of 1 hit rating is taking a log of a fight...
[mana returned via SoW/JoW] * [(1/32.8)/{Current Hit Chance}] / [Fight duration/5] = mp5 gained from 1 hit rating

 

Dugarax

This shouldn't really have any effect on your stat calculations, but unless you are alliance, you get 4% hit from talents and 0% from debuffs leaving a 4% miss chance (Judgement is considered as a melee attack that can't be dodged or parried). You are also assuming that one will judge every cooldown, but boss mechanics and healing intensive moments may not allow so.

 

TimWischmeier

Could you share a few more thoughts on that? The 2pc bonus is actually quite nice, because you usually use DI when you have to spam HL, and that's when you need the HPS most. Over time this roughly equates to a 3% boost in HPS mathematically, but it has more value because it's an on-demand boost (that does not lock me out of Divine shield which kills me when I use Divine Sacrifice...).

But I would like to read some opinions about the 4pc bonus. I get that it seems heavily connected to our T10 libram (xx SP on HS, stacks 3 times). The 0.3 seconds cast time reduction also was guessed to be applied before haste, which reduces it's absolute (reactive) value. In theory it sounds quite good: keep the libram buff up with HS and don't get penalized for that by using 4T10. I guess this is aimed at steering us away from HL spam.

But I see some possible flaws in that. The problem is, after landing a HS, you have to wait about 2.2 seconds for your next HL to land (1 second GCD + about 1.2 seconds HL cast time with 4T10 buff; this is further inflated by latency, because you cannot chain cast after an instant spell).If you would otherwise chain cast HL with some 0.5 seconds spacing, you land a heal every 1.8 seconds (1.3 HL cast time without 4T10 buff). Wich means your average HL "reaction time" to a big hit on the tank is 0.9 seconds.

If my thinking is right, in a boss fight with critical tank damage, if they didn't fix they tank-deaths-in-under-1-second, you might still want to use spells with cast time (either HL with FoL interleave or spaced HL spam) and the iLvl200 libram. In a boss fight with damage more spread, the T10 libram and 4T10 might prove very good.

 

thatbox

I'm still not sold on the 2piece bonus because it confuses the use of DP and DI. DI is best used during HL spam, and usually during HL spam we don't need 35% increased healing. The main time we need increased healing is when we're DPing - but usually you try to pick light damage times to DP, making it less likely that 35% healing is necessary. In times of light damage, we don't need HL spam, making it kind of a waste to use DI. It's a weird little circle and I'm going to have to play with it some, but right now I'm not sure about it.

It's similar to how spellpower isn't the most desirable of stats because Holy Light tends to heal for enough as-is.

Edit: I was just investigating using DI+2pc with FoL. It looks like the difference in mana savings between FoL spam during DI and HL during DI is about 5040 mana, which is for me about 4.2 HL casts. The extra healing conferred by the bonus is about 30k for my HL setup Flash of Light spam, whereas if I'd "regenned" that 5040 mana by saving DI for a HL spam phase, I could eek out almost 60k healing by spending it on more Holy Lights (without taking into account the extra 2pc bonus healing during the DI use). This just makes it seem to me like we'd continue using DI and DP at the times best suited to maximizing their unique regen or mana savings.

 

Mox

Given that the 258 ilvl T9 helm/shoulders/gloves are best in slot (purposefully ignoring cloth gloves) what are peoples opinions on picking up either (258) chest or legs in place of the "better" sp/haste/crit pieces to get the 4-set. This is with a HL/int stacking in mind, I still find it beneficial to keep up the fol hot on a tank. Tested it on rawr and theres neglible difference between using frozen lake chest vs 258 T9 and this is without rawr modelling the hot, mostly seems down to the fact that in mostly 258 gear the chest puts u way above the haste softcap which devalues it alittle?

Although obviously with icecrown pretty "near" the 4-set would get broke almost immediately which shifts back in favour of the non-set chest/legs.

 

DiamondTear

1 second tank gibs seem to be a thing of the past. That means that your focus should be on healing the raid as efficiently as possible and you should assume that the tank will be kept up by beacon healing even if you have a 2 second gap. Realistically, you will have a 1 second gap every time you refresh a buff anyway, so you shouldn't be worried about that 0.9 seconds you get after a holy shock.

For your raid members the difference this: getting two heals at 1.3 seconds vs two heals at 1.3 and 2.6 seconds.

The bonus is good for encounters with steady damage throughout the fight. For maximum HPS you will be using both DP and DI as soon as you can get the full benefit from them. With the bonus the healing reduction will be smaller for the first DP.

 

• frmorrison

I would think most guilds that are able to get 258 pieces give them to dps or tanks, since at a point more, faster healing isn't helping that much.

Whenever I heal the FoL hot is mostly overheal since the tank is getting HL spam, so I will likely never will have the Holy 4 piece.

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

 

Mox

Well remember the conq token is shared by priests/pallys/locks only, priests/locks dont seem overly eager for the pieces so the tokens were going freely which made me ponder the choice.

 

MathWizard

If you're already killing 25h anub, you don't technically need better geared tanks or DPS either.

 

• frmorrison

You can never have too much dps (unless you pull aggro even with Tricks/Salvation) or have too much tanking survival, but you can have too much healing.

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

 

MathWizard

What about for the next dungeon? You'll presumably need more healing there, and if you cut all your healers off from more gear then you're freezing them where they are now.

 

Renew

As a healer, bosses dying faster makes my job easier. Loot based mentality healers make me /facepalm. Upgrades are nice, but I usually pass anything and everything to DPS/Tanks who have put in as much time as me in a slot we share. It's essentially making my job easier.

I've always looked at loot as something you get over time. It's going to come to you as long as you put in the time.

Confidence is not Arrogance.

 

jdh79

I think the only reason why the helm/shoulders/gloves are BiS is because they are the only 258 shoulders and helm we can use, and as mentioned, there are only the cloth gloves as an alternative. I think as long as using the T9 over Frozen Lake/Failing Light or Concealed Hatred doesn't bring your haste below the soft haste cap, the difference is marginal. I agree fully with the notion that haste past the soft cap devalues it quite a bit.

However, that being said, I still don't think T9 is worth pursuing unless you want a SP/FoL build, because maintaining the HoT on the tank cuts into your HPS, and you should already have renews/earth shields/rejuvs, etc on the tank.

 

jdh79

Both of the holy set bonuses are extremely weak, at least if you are using the conventional INT stacking/HL method. I don't know how good the priest/warlock set bonuses are, but most ret paladins just want T9 2 piece with offset items, and most prot paladins that I have talked to think the set bonuses are not worth pursuing because the set pieces are so poorly itemized. So, it might be a matter that noone really wants the T9 over offset pieces.

Plus, holy paladins probably have an easier gearing route than any other class/spec just because of the fact there's a full set of drops that are uncontested by any other spec. For those two reasons alone, I think a guild would be crazy to allocate T9.75 items to holy pallies

 

MathWizard

Well, that's reasonable enough.

I just wanted to step in against the argument "better healing is pointless on farm content, so you shouldn't give healers gear". That argument is ridiculous unless:

1. you're doing the last dungeon until the next complete gear reset and
2. your healing is PERFECT (which is possible, sure, but it's also possible that's not the case),

Edited to add periods to the ends of all sentences, because apparently not having them gets you banned.

 

jdh79

In general, perfection in healing comes more from individual player skill than from gear; moreso than DPS or tanking, healing is more skill than gear dependent (within reason of course). That being said, holy paladins are arguably the most gear dependent healers, because how effective we are is basically dependent on how much we can maximize HL spam while minimizing Divine Plea usage. That means we are very dependent on the size of our mana pool, which can only be improved by gear, and HL spammers basically stack as much regen (INT) as possible. Other healing classes (especially druids and priests) once they are to the point they essentially can benefit no more from further regen, stack straight throughput stats. More throughput in the same fights without more damage being taken is just going to increase overhealing and end of fight mana reserves as the healers become more geared.

However, there are 2 reasons why alot of guilds still won't prioritize gear to DPS over healers.

1. The more geared your healers are, the less healers you have to take. Think of Ulduar, when some fights that required 7 healers at launch can be 4-5 healed now. Getting your core healers highly geared then taking dropping 1-2 healers for DPS can have the same effect as giving all the shared gear to DPS first.
2. For the very top guilds this isn't a factor, but for most below that level it is. Generally, there is much more of a healer shortage than a DPS shortage for 25 man raids both in existing guilds and in terms of finding recruits. Since healer recruitment is more competitive, guilds that gear healers last will probably have a harder time recruiting and retaining healers than guilds who do not do that.

 

DiamondTear

Sometimes the benefit you gain from optimization is less than the impact it has on morale. Whether a player gets a 264 upgrade from ICC before you get access from hard modes is down to RNG and optimizing loot distribution based on that RNG is taking it a bit too far in my opinion.

Just gear up your tanks and let the DKP do the rest.

 

Neraya

The thing with ICC is that you can't "force" tier gear/tokens on your tanks any faster than they can get the emblems to effectively cash in the tokens.
It may be worthwhile to hand them the first token that drops, but a second would be somewhat wasted until such time they actually have the emblems for it. And by that time i'm sure some non-tier tanking gear will have dropped (which would go to your MT's by default).

 

◊ Kaubel

No. But being a stubborn, smartass shit does though.

 

kjart

Agreed. When you think about it, we primarily gear now for greater longevity (since we have sufficient throughput via holy light) and bosses dying faster is a good way to achieve that.

In any case, we're pretty lucky since there aren't many classes vying for spellpower plate (poor priests) so it makes sense to me to pass on some of the shared slots.