But what do you do if you don't have haste rings from Ulduar hard modes? Our guild has pretty much given up on Ulduar at this point in time, because the officers were running 10 (and all the assorted hard modes) and 25 (we've done some hard modes, but only the 'easy' ones), so the officers are sick of Ulduar. TotC 25 is easy peasy for us, so we are currently tackling TotGC 25 (almost downed Beasts last reset, had an enrage at 10% a couple of times).

I'm sitting at 531 haste, with the best gear I can get at this point in time (I have to bid against 2 other holy paladins for gear, and we have to rotate from raid to raid, so I don't get to attend all the raids, and of course I have to bid against the entire raid for trophies when I do get to raid). I will be getting the crafted breastplate and bracers soon to help upgrade my gear. I am also doing TotC 10 and TotGC 10 every week (although we haven't downed Anub on heroic yet - need more practice on kiting spikes).

So I'm really at a loss - I gem for int since I need the mana pool to spam holy light on Beasts heroic, but I know my haste is low. So do I sacrifice some int for haste?

The problem here is that you're assuming a Holy Light built Paladin will be using 4pcT9. As was mentioned a few posts back, the FoL build and HL build go for slightly different stat allocations. The Haste/Crit/SP legs and body are both wonderful for this spec, because Crit appears to be more valuable than MP5 (when spamming FoL you won't really run out of mana). Thus, the Haste/MP5 legs aren't even really something to look at.

When dealing with Holy Light, the only worthwhile tier piece is the hands. Perhaps the shoulders if you can't get any ToGC10 or 25 gear, and the head if Haste/Crit/SP is your thing. This leaves you to use both Breastplate of the Frozen Lake (or Merlin's Robe, if you aren't into ToGC25 yet and don't mind cloth) and one of the leg options.

I was sitting around 570 haste for a little while during the upgrade process, and tossed 3 haste gems in some new pieces to boost me up to 630, which I felt was a comfortable level. I don't regret doing so at all. Your haste level is rather low, and if you can afford to drop the mana I would gem haste.

Incorrect. The only 258 pieces available to us for shoulder and head slots are the t9 items. The hands slot is a bit iffy as well, since the only 258 off-piece is cloth and it might be hard to get.

A realistic BiS for HL builds would be t9-258 head, shoulders and hands, and any 258 offpiece you can get for chest and legs (and hands). Of course, haste/mp5 is preferred.

I understand. My question is, did you have higher haste before the upgrades from ToC25/10 ? If so, you might consider keeping some crit/haste or haste/mp5 pieces to keep your haste a bit higher ( 600 is just a number i made up ). If your answer is "no", then it's the gear available to you, not your choices. What you need to do in that case is to raid and hope for good drops. If you're not doing ulduar anymore, at least try and get 10 people for ulduar10 HMs. The ring from freya10 HM is quite nice. the 25man ignis ring is good, and even naxx25 ring from KT isn't too bad for the haste/crit it has. See what is available to you. I can't tell you not to gem for haste, but covering for the lack of haste with gems is rather costly in terms of item/stats budget.

Afaik, t9 shoulders, hands and headpiece are direct upgrades from t8.5 ones in terms of stats. You'll surely use either of chest and legs to complete the set. After all, especially for a FoL-oriented build and gearing/gemming, 4set bonus is extremely helpful with SP-stacked FoLs. Excuse me, but I don't see what your argument at this point is. If you're saying crit/haste is better than haste/mp5 for FoL builds, then I say, it also depends on your choice of gemming, I'd expect you to gem lots and lots of SP and even gem for mp5 and haste if you're low those stats. It means mp5 is indeed a viable stat when you don't have the huge mana pools like the rest. Of course, it'll be the paladin himself to weigh and decide if he'll choose the haste/crit or the haste/mp5 item for the leg slot, but neither is 100% out of the question.

A small correction: MP5 is extremely important for FoL spamming since it almost removes the need to use Divine Plea.


In any case, one thing I'd like to stress about ilvl258 tier pieces is this: at best a guild will be able to get 4 tokens a week. If we assume 3.3 comes out within 3 months - it will probably be less - a guild that farms ToGC25 would be able to outfit less than 15 players in full ilvl258 gear. I'm assuming a lot of the guilds who have access to 4 ilvl258 set pieces will somehow prioritize gearing up their guild's 3-4 tanks, it leaves very few pieces for healers to realistically pick up. Most Holy Paladins won't be using 4 pieces if ilvl258 T9 gear come Icecrown.

With that being said: the raw stat upgrade from T8.5 to ilvl245/258 pieces more than make up for the added tank mitigation stemming from stronger Sacred Shields. I also feel that 4pcT9 is only worth sacrificing badly itemized gear slots if the Paladin is making decent use of the FoL HoT in the first place - otherwise it'd probably be best to just keep stacking Int/MP5. So putting together a set with the strongest and best itemized ilvl258 pieces is probably the best bet for HL builds - stack Int/MP5.


Crit is still a bad throughput stat for HL spam. Holy Light crit heals are in themselves rather inefficient for the most part since the extra healing provided by the crit will generally only add up more overhealing. Then you have to think in terms of crit rating: 10% chance to crit with spells is about 530SP or 230MP5; going from 30 to 40% chance to crit with Holy Light (critting 33% more often) will result in about 11-12% more raw healing done which is less throughput than if you were to convert the item budget needed for 10% chance to crit into SP. And that 11-12% increase doesn't factor the fact that most of it would be spent overhealing, while converting the item budget into SP also gives you stronger Sacred Shields. And finally, MP5 completely obliterates crit rating in terms of mana regen. All of that makes crit rating a stat to avoid until you're satisfied with how much haste rating you have.


And one last thing: mana regen is the lifeblood of the HL spam playstyle. The only time you can say that you have too much mana is if you end a fight with a generous amount of mana left without hitting Divine Plea, without judging outside of putting up JoW/JoL, without using the SoW glyph or using Libram of Renewal. Until you reach that point, adding up more regen translates into less GCDs wasted not healing the tank (Judgements/Divine Plea) and not having to heal the tank through the self-MS effects of Divine Plea as often.

You can get the 75 badge mail helm which is haste/mp5 geared and arguably better itemized than the T9.5 helm. They are really expensive in terms of mats (requires 8 crusader orbs for the chest and 4 for the bracers), but there is are LW craftable mail chest and bracers that are haste/mp5 itemized.

Do FoL spammers have a specific player in raid that specs for bonus healing taken and has amp magic, such as Nurturing Instinct for a feral Druid? I was surprised to find this worked with Beacon of Light and made me think of the FoL build.

I understand it would be entirely situational to spam heal a DPS, but if only the tank is taking damage and happens to have a beacon on him, FoL could gain an additional 20% healing from a talent such as Nurturing Instinct.

Anybody use a strat like this even with a Holy Light build when they plea or stack up a meteorite crystal?

EDIT: Nevermind, was out of the loop.

This was fixed months ago, besides amplify magic, it doesn't work.

I've read over all the pages. my biggest question is, what are BiS trinkets for holy paladins? They're seems to be a debate on which trinkets are but I also think its based off your stats, on what trinket could be more useful.

For a HL build, I think [Meteorite Crystal] is our current overall BiS trinket, despite being only ilevel 226. For second BiS, I personally would go with [Talisman of Resurgence], but there is some debate as to whether the Solace trinkets are better. The 50 badge trinket is a lot easier to get, the regen from the INT is close to the regen from the solace trinkets, and the on use SP effect is very useful for popping during divine pleas. That, plus the solace trinkets are a much bigger upgrade over everything else available for other healing classes than they are over the INT trinkets for an INT stacking pally that it's best to save your DKP/loot priority for weapons/rings/etc. IMO.

For a SP stacking FoL build, the 245 and 258 Solace trinkets are probably by far BiS.

Because the equip effect is always on (and likely should not be), I would think that those are BiS for any healer. I guess personal preference matters to what stats you like to have since trinkets are hard to model how great they are, but Rawr says after the two [Solace of the Defeated] with the perma-mp5 are BiS, [Talisman of Resurgence]and [Pandora's Plea] are 3 and 4.

[Solace of the Defeated] proccs every second as long as you have BoL up so you can count on it being up constantly and fully stacked so the ilvl 258 verson gives you 168 Spellpower and 144 mp5.

The [Meteorite Crystal] is abit more tricky though since it's an on use-procc that only last for 20 seconds and you have to cast to stack it.
I personally haven't seen this drop yet so I have been unable to test it myself, but what I have heard is that you get double stacks of it if you have BoL up, so theoretically you should be able to stack it up to 20 in 10 seconds if you are on the haste soft cap.
So if that is true then each time you use it you will have (please correct me if I'm wrong here):

19s*120 mp5 + 18s*120 mp5 + 17s*120 mp5 + ... + 10s*120 mp5

456+432+408+384+360+336+312+288+264+240 = 3480 mana / 2 min = 145 mp5

So in a perfect situation you will get 145 mp5 + the regen you get from 111 int witch, in theory, makes it quite abit better regen trinket than SotD, but then again, in situations where you need to go full out regen you might not be able to use FoL for 10 seconds and you will probably not be able to stack it up that quickly due to lag or other reasons so the regen will probably never be that high in a real raid situation.

So in a fight where heavy regen is needed [Meteorite Crystal] and [Solace of the Defeated] might be the best combination and in all other fights double [Solace of the Defeated] are the best.

That's correct. Stacks by multiples of two when making use of beacon heals.

In an ideal world, by stacking double every second, and considering mp5 ticks every 2 seconds, here's the maths for it:
0 seconds - 0mp5
2 seconds - (4stacks) 240mp5 -- 96mana for the 2-seconds-tick
4 seconds - (8 stacks) 480 mp5 -- 192mana for the tick
6 seconds - (12 stacks) 720mp5 -- 288mana
8 seconds - (16 stacks) 960mp5 -- 384
10 seconds - (20 stacks) 1200mp5 -- 480
12 seconds - (20 stacks) 1200mp5 -- 480
..
..
..
18 seconds - (20 stacks) 1200mp5 -- 480
20 seconds - (20 stacks) 1200mp5 -- 480

total yielding: 6x480 + 384 + 288 + 192 + 96 = 3840 mana with 2 minutes CD
that is 160mp5 + the regen from its base 111 intellect
To be honest, this is extreme optimism, so I'd say forget the last tick and forget stacking that fast even with beacon and consider that it gives 128mp5 (3072mana) which is still not half bad.

Nor have I, and I've seen people claim it stack twice per cast with BoL up, but I'm wondering if in fact it doesn't behave just like [Solace of the Defeated] and [Tears of the Vanquished] and it adds a stack every second, plus a stack for every cast.

I'm one of the lucky Paladins with this gem of a trinket, the Meteorite Crystal, and have done extensive testing and ran numbers a few pages back.

Meteorite Crystal doubles with Beacon of Light and I calculated the on use effect yielding a maximum of 145mp5 in a best case scenario if used on cooldown.

However I have noticed it can't stack quicker than latency allows, even mashing my FoL bind with Beacon of Light up I've only gotten 16 or 18 stacks at the 10s mark before. I'm not positive if this is due to client side lag, combat log catching up, some kind of mechanic prevention, or what not, but there are times when the stacks are lagging behind the casts.

If you'd care to read above, i had just confirmed it on the post above yours.
When your heals are transfered to a beacon target other than yourself, your stacks will build up 2 by 2. Nothing else - according to my experience - causes it to gain double stacks.

There is a weird behavior with [Solace of the Defeated] though. I tested it with casts on myself.
If you beacon anyone (meaning yourself included), it'll start stacking up and refreshing every second. So, cast a beacon and sit down, you'll not lose the stacks until 10 seconds after your beacon expires. with the duration bug of beacon when you beacon yourself twice, you're looking at a constant mp5 at max stacks for 122 seconds.

- Make sure you don't have any buffs on you, and cast a FoL, you'll receive one stack per cast.
- Cast a sacred shield beforehand, you'll receive 2 stacks at every FoL cast (due to FoL HoT probably)
- Remove all your buffs and cast a Holy Light on yourself, you'll stack the stacks 3 by 3! Now i don't have an explanation as to why it happens.

All of these mean that with 100% beacon uptime, you're guaranteed to never lose the buff, even if you run around without casting a single spell for quite a long time (depending on your remaining BoL duration)

Hey guys, im having some trouble deciding whether to go with Haste/MP5 on my gear, or haste/crit. i just recently made my paladin my main so i havn't raided much yet, but normally what i tend to do in the 10 ToC and 25 ToC runs that i have done is spam flash of light, until the tank drops to low health, then ill hit him with a holy shock, then a holy light. so far i havnt had any mana problem and the tanks havnt died, but right now i have a combination of haste/mp5 and haste/crit gear. for example, i have enough emblems to pick up either Helm of Inner Warmth or Liadrin's Headpiece of Triumph, and i cannot decide which one to choose. all help is appreciated . thanks

Splash did hit some people occasionally during my test, as there were people around me even though not in the same party/raid. Both when splash happened and when it did not, stacks built up in triples.

Well, if you are going for a primarily FoL based build, you want to get to the soft haste cap at about 675 so you have 1 second buffed FoLs. Once you're there, crit/mp5 gear is probably going to be better for you than anything else, because haste past the soft cap does nothing for using FoL.

Beyond that, haste/crit vs haste/mp5 comes down to what you want more. Mp5 is a pure regen stat, while Crit is a hybrid regen/throughput stat. The problem with crit is it is far weaker than mp5 for regen (by a margin of 2:1 to 3:1 per itemization point depending on what you are casting). It's also far weaker than haste (up to the soft cap) and SP for throughput, so it's kind of a weak stat. That's why for most purposes, haste/mp5 is the most idea holy pally itemization.

Our set bonuses are so weak that I would probably go with the badge helm and save your trophy/dkp/loot priority for something else. Really, only the T9 gloves are better itemized than the other non set alternatives in my opinion.

There is nothing strange about this behavior.

In the first instance, you get one stack per cast because you cast one spell.
In the second instance, you through SS on yourself, remove the solace buff, cast FoL on yourself. The first stack comes from the FoL cast, the second stack comes from the FoL HoT which acts as another spell cast.
In the third instance, the reason you are getting three stacks is your glyph of holy light. One from Holy light, one from Light's Grace, one from the glyph.

You can confirm this by unglyphing holy light.

And if you cared to read page 37, the first part of your post was already mentioned.

There are some flaws with these arguments. Direct crit HL may contribute to overhealing, but so does every throughput stat. In addition, it helps the HL glyph which probably doesn't overheal much unless the target is at full HP.
Second, comparing crit to SP is mostly pointless, as these are not competing stats. You can't, generally speaking, trade crit for SP within the same item level. The stats that need to be compared are haste, crit and mp5. Stats can only be compared fully when talking about gems, and no one is gemming for crit.
Finally, many fights have dead moments in which you can safely Plea/judge more aggressively. You don't have to forego these abilities completely to have enough mana.

Well, crit is going to have proportionately more overheal than SP or haste as a throughput stat because haste makes you cast faster, so its controllable, SP increases the base healing of the spell, so it is also controllable while crit is RNG based, and you cast your heals not counting on crits, so your crit will always overheal more. The HL glyph is a valid point, but it seems since moving out of T7 content, the HL glyph has been getting less and less valuable just because the encounter design in Ulduar and ToC seems to lead to alot less stacking.

Here is how I view the stats; ignoring INT and SP because you obviously will stack INT for HL builds and SP for FoL builds:

Haste: Up to the soft haste cap, this is our best stat overall. Even for HL builds, getting down to a 1 second GCD gives us more casting time since we have a lot of instant abilities. For FoL, going past about 680 haste is useless, and for HL it is only marginally useful because the haste needed to go from a 1.3 second buffed HL to a 1.2 second is astronomical. Yes, its true that haste doesn't have diminishing returns, because it is linear and adding 1% haste means you can cast 1% more spells in the same time regardless of casting time. However, I think haste is something that is mainly useful to help you react to spike damage. A pally spamming HL with a 1.3 second cast time with beacon on a second target is going to be outputting more raw HPS than any other healing class is capable of, and there is really no encounter in the game that that level of HPS is necessary. Therefore, even for HL builds, once you're haste capped, I would almost put haste at the bottom of the 3 stats in terms of viability. You already have more than enough HPS at that point, more haste only marginally affects your ability to react to spike damage, and you are better served gearing to maintain that HPS longer than increase the HPS any more.

Mp5: Other than INT, this is our best overall regen stat and it outpaces crit by a 2:1 margin in terms of itemization points. Once you are haste soft capped, this is your best way to improve your longevity. It's kind of a boring stat and it doesn't scale with anything, but this is the reason that haste/mp5 gear is probably our best bet.

Crit: Pretty weak stat in terms of both regen and output. 1% crit is worth 10-14 mp5 depending on what you're casting. However, once you're at 680 haste, I would personally prefer crit over haste, because while it's bad regen, it's still regen. For FoL builds, crit is probably more valuable.

Therefore, I think that:

-Haste/mp5 gear is best up to the haste soft cap
-Past that point, Crit/mp5 becomes our best itemization
-The haste/crit itemization that everyone wanted before 3.2 is probably our worst combination at this point.

Since we can easily hit 680 haste with ToC gear, is it possible that the reason why we have so much Crit/mp5 gear in ToC because Blizzard realized this and was trying to help us out?