Thank you gcbirzan (huzzah to the avitar, BTW). Wall of numbers incoming.
Cast Times
FoL with Grandon's haste and spec:1.25s
HL with Grandon's haste and spec:2.09s
FoL with grandon's haste and DivGuard:1.09s
HL with Grandon's haste and DivGuard:1.45s
HPS
FoL w/ Grandon's haste and spec:6036.5 = 5749 + 287.5 (HoT)
HL w/ Grandon's haste and spec:7144.2 = 6804 + 340.2 (HoT)
FoL w/ Grandon's haste and DivGuard:5211
HL w/ Grandon's haste and DivGuard:9873
I calculated the HoT by taking the base HPS with his spec and gear, multiplying by .6 to get 60%, then dividing by 12 to get 1 second rather than 12. If I did that incorrectly, please fix it.
So what I see from this is that, if HL spamming, DivGuard spec with his gear comes out on top, but if FoL spamming, his spec comes out on top, even without the HoT. This is completely disregarding Beacon, with which DivGuard blows the ret spec out of the water (assuming overheal is nonexistant). Does that sound about right?
And thanks for helping me through this, you two. I've been trying to understand it more, and while this hasn't helped me understand it, it HAS helped me understand why its wrong.
Out of curiosity I tried both specs in rawr with my gear. Retri spec produces around 5.3k HPS in 7min fight with reasonable parameters, while Holy spec gives around 8.5k HPS (with divine plea used each 2 min).
Out of curiosity I tried both specs in rawr with my gear. Retri spec produces around 5.3k HPS in 7min fight with reasonable parameters, while Holy spec gives around 8.5k HPS (with divine plea used each 2 min).
good call. The only problem I see with that is that your gear is all ilvl232+, whereas his is all 226-, and I know he is also itemized differently than your standard holy pally. I'll admit I don't know how to model fights in Rawr, would you mind loading him from armory and running it the same way? You've got my curiosity peaked. I still plan on getting combat logs within the next week, and we can compare the numbers.
Out of curiosity I tried both specs in rawr with my gear. Retri spec produces around 5.3k HPS in 7min fight with reasonable parameters, while Holy spec gives around 8.5k HPS (with divine plea used each 2 min).
Trouble with trying to model it in rawr is that you can't force rawr to cast more FoL than HL, ret spec highly favours FoL spam so the HPS numbers from rawr aren't close to realistic. Get the same problem trying to model the 'normal' spellpower stacking FoL build.
Would be really good to have a slider bar in rawr to set % of FoL casts!
I'll admit, I'm not a holy pally guy, but having a pally tank, I can appreciate the snore-fest that pally healing has always been for me, since it keeps my ass standing. I've got something for you guys to pick over. A friend of mine, Grandon, is using quite possibly the most jacked up spec i've ever seen for healing. I've seen plenty of healing builds that go into ret for the free crit, but he's invested mostly in the ret tree, with a few points in holy and prot to round it off. It is definately an FoL spam spec, but the HL's hit me hard enough to keep me alive while I take the runic punches in P3 IC hardmode, and with all the points in ret, he gets a bubble, and two HoTs. His gear is definately sub-par, but he's easily out-healing anyone else in the raid.
I know it works, and I know how it works. It makes him a true single-target healer, but I would love to see the healing output it could do at higher gear levels. I'm more curious as to everyone else's input on this spec.
He is absolutely killing his healing output and potential using that spec.
1. No beacon means off the bat you are giving away 50% of your HPS. Even if you want to be a single target only healer, beaconing your primary target means you are giving free heals to the rest of the raid
2. Mana efficiency is likely to be terrible if he ever has to cast anything but FoL. Very low mana pool and no Divine Illumination means there is no way HL spam can be sustained for any period of time.
3. I don't see how he is hitting with his heals fast enough to be effective either. No JoTP, no Light's Grace, only 272 haste.
4. 2172 SP is nowhere near high enough for FoL to heal for enough on non trivial content. Not having the 20% INT to SP conversion hurts, but even with hit, he wouldn't have the gear/SP to make a FoL style work.
5. Using the sheath hot depends on crit, but he is losing the 5% crit from the holy tree, so his holy crit percentage is on par to below what you see from most 51/5/15 or 51/2/18 pallies
6. The sheath hot is nice; however, I don't see it as viable or dependable enough to even consider wasting so many talent points to get to. Realistically, it probably overheals more than it heals, because the healing from that is going to be sniped alot of the time from other direct heals and HoTs. Also, if you are tank healing, you are going to be constantly overwriting the sheath HoT, further reducing your HPS.
He is absolutely killing his healing output and potential using that spec.
1. No beacon means off the bat you are giving away 50% of your HPS. Even if you want to be a single target only healer, beaconing your primary target means you are giving free heals to the rest of the raid
We've gone over this. its an unfortunate loss, but our raid healers have been more than capable of keeping the raid alive, as well.
Originally Posted by jdh79
2. Mana efficiency is likely to be terrible if he ever has to cast anything but FoL. Very low mana pool and no Divine Illumination means there is no way HL spam can be sustained for any period of time.
I thought the same, at first, but he has zero problems keeping me alive, and his mana >=90% over the course of any boss fight, due to JotW (25% base mana every time he judges). He also spams HL on IC HM after punches to get me filled up again, while I dispell the debuff.
Originally Posted by jdh79
3. I don't see how he is hitting with his heals fast enough to be effective either. No JoTP, no Light's Grace, only 272 haste.
I didn't at first, either, but he is. I'll post logs once I have them to back it up. My best guess is that his HoT is getting in ticks to make up for the lack of haste.
Originally Posted by jdh79
4. 2172 SP is nowhere near high enough for FoL to heal for enough on non trivial content. Not having the 20% INT to SP conversion hurts, but even with hit, he wouldn't have the gear/SP to make a FoL style work.
Yes, he's lacking int to SP conversion, but he is also gaining AP to SP conversion. He's only losing about 300 SP between the two specs.
Originally Posted by jdh79
5. Using the sheath hot depends on crit, but he is losing the 5% crit from the holy tree, so his holy crit percentage is on par to below what you see from most 51/5/15 or 51/2/18 pallies
He's losing 5% from the holy tree, but he's gaining 8% crit from the ret tree. In full raid buffs and his spec, he has 49.09% crit, whereas a DivGuard spec only has 41.09% crit.
We've gone over this. its an unfortunate loss, but our raid healers have been more than capable of keeping the raid alive, as well.
He's losing 5% from the holy tree, but he's gaining 8% crit from the ret tree. In full raid buffs and his spec, he has 49.09% crit, whereas a DivGuard spec only has 41.09% crit.
I don't know how many healers you have, but you could perhaps drop a healer (assuming you had 7 or 8) if you had the Holy Pally do 51 Holy spec, since HPS doubles.
You only gain 6% crit from Sheath (8% from Ret and 3% from Holy versus 5% from Holy). With gearing differences (you want sp with Sheath and Int with HL) the crit would be less.
Normal mode ToC25 is easy, so you can do fine with a subpar healer. Hard mode Ulduar is easier due to 245 gear.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
In full raid buffs and his spec, he has 49.09% crit, whereas a DivGuard spec only has 41.09% crit.
Er, no. Without 5/5 Holy Power, he's only gaining 3% crit over Prot subspec.
I also note that you claim Grandon is able to keep you up on Council hard mode. When exactly did he do this? Because according to his Armoury profile, Grandon has yet to defeat the Council in any mode.
We've gone over this. its an unfortunate loss, but our raid healers have been more than capable of keeping the raid alive, as well.
I thought the same, at first, but he has zero problems keeping me alive, and his mana >=90% over the course of any boss fight, due to JotW (25% base mana every time he judges). He also spams HL on IC HM after punches to get me filled up again, while I dispell the debuff.
I didn't at first, either, but he is. I'll post logs once I have them to back it up. My best guess is that his HoT is getting in ticks to make up for the lack of haste.
Yes, he's lacking int to SP conversion, but he is also gaining AP to SP conversion. He's only losing about 300 SP between the two specs.
He's losing 5% from the holy tree, but he's gaining 8% crit from the ret tree. In full raid buffs and his spec, he has 49.09% crit, whereas a DivGuard spec only has 41.09% crit.
Even if he's able to keep a tank alive using a ret offspec, it doesn't mean that he is using his full potential and benefitting the raid. The days of pallies being purely single target healers started to go away with the initial implementation of beacon, and definitely are gone with the 3.2 beacon. The extra healing you can provide on raid by beaconing your tank as mentioned means less healing/mana required from other healers (using beacon to raid heal is basically free healing) and possibly means you can bring one less healer and get more DPS. I really don't think this type of spec would stand up to things like 25 man heroic Beasts (a fight that almost seems tailor made for beacon) or heroic twins where you need every bit of extra healing output you can possibly bring.
Even if he's able to keep a tank alive using a ret offspec, it doesn't mean that he is using his full potential and benefitting the raid.
This statement could also be made of flash of light pallies from what ive read and researched. Yet, people will continue to do not what best offers the community a solution, but their own guild. If they can down a boss with a paladin specd like this (as the argument goes here for FoL pallies), more power to em. While math may be completely contrary to what you expect to be useful in a raid, some people will do it anyways.
This does not mean I find it a valid solution (or FoL builds for that matter). I come back after two-three months of hiatus status in my guild to find the Paladin community obsessed with a build that at best can be defended by statements like "it works in my guild.." or "it smooths out raid and tank healing..."
Is that the best we are now? "smoothers" and emotion calmer's?
I don't deny that FoL is situationally good. I even made a word 'primary' bold to emphasise that only going for FoL as the main spell is bad.
Put it this way - in general if you look at most encounters in hard mode ToC, HL build + HL spam beats FoL build + FoL spam in ability to keep tanks alive. You can construct situations where FoL paladins would be more optimal for raids than HL ones. However for most guilds and ecnounters HL paladin would be better. Also keep in mind, that difference between FoL spam for both sorts of paladins won't be really big, while difference in ability to spam HL would be huge.
You're again going off of the wrong principle behind it.
The job of the FOL paladin is not to keep the tank alive, that would usually be the job of the HL paladin or whatever healer you have that's best suited for it. But if you have a paladin specced FOL, i'd also expect you to have a HL specced one.
Originally Posted by Joanna
My actual gripe, which started off this latest round of back and forth, was that an alarmingly large number of newer Holy Paladins seem to default to Flash spamming, in the absence of any particular need, and when made aware that they are tank healing on hard hitting bosses. I just find it odd that a non trivial number of Paladins applying to (relatively) progressed guilds view Holy Light as something only ever to be touched with Divine Illumination, and Flash of Light as some sort of panacea.
This is almost an inverse of a problem we had with Priests at the end of BC, where they could do perfectly adequate healing with their Flash, but OOM incredibly quickly. Now we have paladins who can effectively spam forever, but simply not heal enough.
Have you also done some investigation as to whether said FOL paladins are mains or alts and if they're in a progression guild or not ?
More likely than not the large majority of these FOL specced paladins are alts, and at best they do pugs and don't or only rarely do hardmodes.
It means they don't have access to the kind of gear that will take their manapool to 35K+ which is necessary for true HL spamming.
The healing requirements for normal modes are a lot more relaxes, you can get a FOL spec, and use fol as your main heal swapping to HL when needed only.
This trend seems to be true on my server at least. So I'll assume it's true on most other servers. Stop thinking that everyone has access to the best possible gear, that everyone is in a progression guild and that a HL build is the best that every paladin can hope to achieve.
But also for a paladin in a progression guild doing hardmodes, a FOL paladin offers several advantages. You just have to give this paladin a proper place in the healing team and stop going off the assumption that "paladin is MT healer" because that's not what the FOL paladin's primary job is.
Originally Posted by Feya
This statement could also be made of flash of light pallies from what ive read and researched. Yet, people will continue to do not what best offers the community a solution, but their own guild. If they can down a boss with a paladin specced like this (as the argument goes here for FoL pallies), more power to em. While math may be completely contrary to what you expect to be useful in a raid, some people will do it anyways.
This does not mean I find it a valid solution (or FoL builds for that matter). I come back after two-three months of hiatus status in my guild to find the Paladin community obsessed with a build that at best can be defended by statements like "it works in my guild.." or "it smooths out raid and tank healing..."
Is that the best we are now? "smoothers" and emotion calmer's?
"The math" you speak off is just a number, calculated by some formula that says higher HPS is better. Under those conditions a HL build will always be superior to FOL.
Higher numbers work for DPS and DPS only since every bit of damage is assumed to go on the boss. You can gear and specc as best as you can assuming all your DPS time is on the boss. But in reality, it's off as well. You aren't 100% on the boss since you're running out of variously colored fires and have adds to deal with. But on a whole the numbers for boss damage tend to translate well to a 'swap to the add' type condition as well.
But neither healing nor tanking can be crammed in a formula and give you the absolute positive "best" for all conditions. HPS calculates what a single healer can potentially do, but how often does he actually get to do a heal that will hit for full force without any overheals ? How do you model a 25people raid with 5-7 healers with multiple people taking damage ? HPS is a number just like the current gearscore trend is. It's a number and nothing more, it may give you a rough indication of what that healer is capable off, but you can put 6 of the highest HPS healers into a raid and still not manage to keep the raid alive.
"smoothers" and "emotion calmers" is probably a good approximation of what a FoL paladins job in a raid is. Is it the best of what a paladin can be ? I guess that would depend on your definition of best. If by best you mean highest HPS, then no. If by best you mean 'best tank healer' then no also. If by best you mean 'most worthwhile addition to the healing team' then yes, that could be it if you already have the tank healing covered.
Healers (not just paladins) have on more than one time in the history of wow taken "substandard" builds and gearing because in actual boss killing it worked out better even if it meant having lower overall personal HPS. Stop thinking of healing as X individuals each individually casting healing spells and start thinking of the healers working together as a team. It's funny that probably all of you will agree that healing meters mean nothing, but yet, a lot of you seem to revere that HPS number as the book of truth.
Hello,
I was wondering what would be the effect of two DivSac used in the same time by two paladins... Will the two of them be cumulated for a "raid wall" of 80% but for only 10 sec instead of 40% for 20 sec if the two are used one after the other? Or in the contrary (most probably I think) only one will be effective, making the second a total waste?
Thanks for your answer, and sorry if my question seems a little obvious.
Er, no. Without 5/5 Holy Power, he's only gaining 3% crit over Prot subspec.
I also note that you claim Grandon is able to keep you up on Council hard mode. When exactly did he do this? Because according to his Armoury profile, Grandon has yet to defeat the Council in any mode.
the crit %s I posted were from Rawr.Healadin. If they're wrong, then maybe we should tell the person who codes that module. And no, with that group we have not successfully downed IC HM yet. Our main problem is a lacking OT, who can't handle the other two bosses at the same time, and/or can't take the hits from the last boss after I explode. We're still fine-tuning. That should change within the next week. This is a fairly new raid group that I've put together, and our progress and group solidification has been solid over the past two weeks. He does have a solid "holy" healing spec as well, so next time we run, i'll get logs to pick over and compare. Since most of IC HM is spent with the raid separated, his beacon wouldn't do any good either way.
As far as the splitting of the quote goes, I'm sorry, I didn't realize that wasn't acceptable here, and I won't do it in the future. I appreciate the post not getting trashed though.
@Neraya: I've never thought of him as a raid healer rather than a MT healer, but with his HoT, I'm curious to see how that goes. I'll have him do that, as well, and see how it looks in the logs.
Last edited by Kevinally : 10/19/09 at 5:48 AM.
Reason: looked like a clusterfuck of a post
Hello,
I was wondering what would be the effect of two DivSac used in the same time by two paladins... Will the two of them be cumulated for a "raid wall" of 80% but for only 10 sec instead of 40% for 20 sec if the two are used one after the other? Or in the contrary (most probably I think) only one will be effective, making the second a total waste?
Thanks for your answer, and sorry if my question seems a little obvious.
DiSac doesn't stack with similar effects (another DiSac or Hand of Sacrifice). What I don't know (and don't want to assume) is what happens when the second paladin uses it 5 seconds into first one, and both DiSac's run for their whole duration. The way I understand it, the last buff overwrites the previous. Although the buff "icon" from first paladin will be on, the effect will not.
the crit %s I posted were from Rawr.Healadin. If they're wrong, then maybe we should tell the person who codes that module. And no, with that group we have not successfully downed IC HM yet. Our main problem is a lacking OT, who can't handle the other two bosses at the same time, and/or can't take the hits from the last boss after I explode. We're still fine-tuning. That should change within the next week. This is a fairly new raid group that I've put together, and our progress and group solidification has been solid over the past two weeks. He does have a solid "holy" healing spec as well, so next time we run, i'll get logs to pick over and compare. Since most of IC HM is spent with the raid separated, his beacon wouldn't do any good either way.
Beacon is 60 yards, so it would take some effort to outrange it.
Not sure if you're talking 10 or 25 here, although it sounds like you're talking 10... so on a side topic I should just mention that you can simply strand Stormcaller back in the back and heal through his Chain Lightning until you get around to killing him (tanking Runecaller on one side and Steelbreaker on the other, the raid should be out of range of Overload).
If by best you mean 'most worthwhile addition to the healing team' then yes, that could be it if you already have the tank healing covered.
Healers (not just paladins) have on more than one time in the history of wow taken "substandard" builds and gearing because in actual boss killing it worked out better even if it meant having lower overall personal HPS. Stop thinking of healing as X individuals each individually casting healing spells and start thinking of the healers working together as a team. It's funny that probably all of you will agree that healing meters mean nothing, but yet, a lot of you seem to revere that HPS number as the book of truth.
If you're going to concede that HL pallies make better tank healers and put out better hps overall, then the only thing left for a FoL pally is that they provide some raid healing.
If a proponent of an FoL build would be so kind as to show me some parses of the FoL pally doing more for a raid than a priest, druid, or shaman could, I'd be more than happy to read it. Until then, FoL is basically snake oil.
As for the argument about meters meaning "nothing": no one will say that meters are worthless. They are a tool -- an incomplete tool, obviously, but they do paint part of the picture. Especially where two spells are nearly identical in their method and result (both FoL and HL are 1.X second healing spells), they are easily comparable from a straight numbers crunch. If one spell was an instant, or one of them was a shield instead of a heal, they might be harder to put side by side for a straight-on analysis. But these two spells are basically the same with different coefficients.
In the end, HL pallies are better tank healers than FoL pallies, and until someone can show that a paladin is more beneficial than a druid/priest/shaman at something OTHER than tank healing, there is little reason to discuss the viability of FoL.
Healers (not just paladins) have on more than one time in the history of wow taken "substandard" builds and gearing because in actual boss killing it worked out better even if it meant having lower overall personal HPS. Stop thinking of healing as X individuals each individually casting healing spells and start thinking of the healers working together as a team. It's funny that probably all of you will agree that healing meters mean nothing, but yet, a lot of you seem to revere that HPS number as the book of truth.
The explanation I got earlier on the strengths of FoL paladins referred to tank healing. Wouldn't you say tank healing is pretty much like dealing damage on a patchwerk-type fight? If both spells can so fast that you can hit them between boss swings, it leaves little to compare but the HPS.
I'm really curious to know FoL paladins would better heal the raid without the HL beacon, after all, HL seems better suited for healing RSTS damage and aura damage.
If by best you mean 'most worthwhile addition to the healing team' then yes, that could be it if you already have the tank healing covered.
It seems to me people are trying to justify having 50% of a paladin. 50% of the FoL pallys job is to heal the tank and 50% is to heal the raid. Fine I get that. Is he good at it? sure, hes the best pally in the world at casting FoL with Beacon up. The real question and someone asked immediately after is; is this spot better filled by someone else. No FoL pallies have come forward to defend Yes. Thats likely because its impossible to prove. Its hard to say that in situation x, class y will do better. I get this, trust me. That doesn't make your build valid.
You have a situation, a single normal holy specd paladin is unable to keep up a tank. Do you bring in a second to assist him? No you say, its overkill. If your solution is to bring in a FoL pally is it because thats your only choice (no other players left in your healing roster?), or is it based on veterancy (i've been in the guild ten years, i deserve a raid spot on this boss!), could it be pride? (trust me guys, this is the best build EVER!).
Originally Posted by Neraya
Healers (not just paladins) have on more than one time in the history of wow taken "substandard" builds and gearing because in actual boss killing it worked out better even if it meant having lower overall personal HPS.
I whole heartedly agree. I took an insane prot-specd healing build to General for the larger shields and bigger spellpower pool back in the early Ulduar days. But I did this, because we didn't have another Discipline priest in our guild capable of providing a steady stream of mitigation shields (arguably 10000X better at shielding the maintank then any paladin regardless of spec).
So how does that make an FoL build better at the fights your refering to then any other class/build? So far, i've seen no evidence that a paladin in FoL digs is the superior choice to a different healing composition.
I previously belonged to the HL-spam, int-stacking school of thought until our guild started working on 25man Heroic Anub. Based on our typical healing setup: 1 Resto. Shaman, 1 Tree, 1 Holy Priest, and 2 Paladins, I swapped over to the SP-stacking, FoL-adin build and have found it immensely more helpful - specifically for this fight only. I believe that most of the FoL-adins are really only stacking SP and going for this build for this one specific gimmicky fight.
As several have mentioned before, HPS is not the end all, be all of things that matter. If you are doing Penetrating Cold healing, HL heals for way too much, and Holy Shocks/FoLs from an int-stacking paladin won't be able to keep 2 PC targets alive. An SP-stacking paladin however, can keep the PC targets alive, without overhealing them too much such that Anub unnecessarily leeches extra amounts. Not to mention, an SP-stacking FoL-adin will have a significantly stronger HoT on the tanks, and a much stronger Sacred Shield. Mitigation, strong HoTs, and less overhealing, all make the FoL build much stronger for 25man Heroic Anub than the int-stacking/HL build. I really think it all boils down to your raid composition, and what your raids healers do best (or fail at).
Out of Heroic Anub however, I will concede that int-stacking/HL spam is still king, unless you are trying for some crazy setup such as solo healing 10man ToGC, in which case the FoL build might trump. Although having said that, anything besides 25man Heroic Anub is really trivial enough that even with sub-optimal healing builds, there is no danger of failing.
Cmon, it was mentioned a couple of times by Zaroua. Strengths of FoL builds are very steady tank healing and the highest possible hps in case it's needed.
Not prot-FoL or ret-FoL builds, no. Haste loss is too big. FoL-gearing might be. But would you trade excellent tank healing for OKish steady healing with ability to do a tad more burst? I wouldn't, since we tend to underheal encounters and every bit of overall HPS helps there.
Cmon, it was mentioned a couple of times by Zaroua. Strengths of FoL builds are very steady tank healing and the highest possible hps in case it's needed.
HL provides "very steady tank healing." I mean, at the FoL haste cap, the difference in cast times between FoL and HL is, what, like .3 seconds? And that gets smaller as you push over the haste cap as an HL build. Over the course of a five to eight minute fight, you would have a lot more FoL casts than HL casts, but on a cast by cast comparison, .3 seconds is a small window. Bosses will not be sneaking in very many hits that would've been covered by FoL but not by HL. Any insurance you need on the tank can be easily handled by some druid hots or earth shield procs (that don't require an entire raid spot). I can't really stress that last sentence enough. The things that people claim FoL is good for are already being accomplished by other classes currently, only it's such a secondary role that we don't even assign it a name, let alone exchange it with a dps class.
People are treating HL like it's some kind of awkward ten second cast that is unwieldy and burdensome, when in reality, we're talking about a relatively nimble spell. With JotP, HL straddles the line between the traditional categories of "bomb" heals and "flash" heals. It's much faster than its cross-class counterparts (healing wave, healing touch, greater heal), but it still heals for just as much -- more, actually, if you get much use out of the HL glyph.
I guess I'm just sort of mystified that people keep treating FoL as something other than the kid brother of HL. FoL is only marginally faster, it heals for a lot less, and its mana efficiency is negligible given the mana pools that any serious raiding paladin can achieve heading into Icecrown.
I've gone through both INT and SP builds extensively over the past month. And I will try to explain this so that newer paladins can understand:
It seems that many are forgetting that T9 4pc is the only way that FoL comes close to HL. Many people ask me why I swapped to SP over Int, and basically the answer is the ease of Anub HM and what kind of tanks we have. Should they switch to spellpower? No. I don't advocate the spec since there is a small niche where the spec is viable. Most guilds are either overgeared, or the paladins are undergeared for FoL to be used longer than a small section of ToC.
And it is my belief, that the play-style is a little more difficult than the typical HL build.
1. You need 4 piece t9.
2. You should have well over 4k Spellpower with FoL
3. It depends on the number of tanks/paladins you have. You should have a sacred shield available for each tank.
4. The spec depends on the encounter, Anub HM, NB, FC are fights where the spec really shines. On encounters like LJ and VT, you will never come close to a HL spec paladin, mainly because there is so much raid damage taken and so little tank damage. I attempted to heal VT a few times as FoL, but quickly reglyphed for HL.
In terms of gearing, I went as close to the haste cap softcap as I could, ideally slightly under it, and then I stacked SP/crit for throughput.
Not ever having to worry about mana is nice and all, but not really the biggest point of contention. A typical FoL will heal for 7-10.5k, translating to 1100-1600 healing per second in addition to the FoL spam that you are throwing out. While most HoTs tick every 3 seconds, the strength of T9 is that its hitting every second. Three tanks is probably the ideal amount you want for rolling FL HoTs.
So not only am I healing my own assignment, but adding those 1500/sec to each tank as a 'buffer.' We obviously didn't use ideal tanks for those kills but you work with what you have. There's lots of different parses available from FoL paladins. Compare them to HL builds. But if people are too lazy to look and compare how the different specs can function, their loss.
Rawr is and has always been very limited and cannot properly model a FoL build, so the math you must do yourself.
With Icecrown on the Horizon its quite clear that this kind of build is no longer viable, and we will continue to stack INT as our primary stat. I will be swapping back to INT/HL today as well. So unless you are working on Anub and your tank setup is very close to this one, stick with INT but don't discredit it until you've tried it.
3. It depends on the number of tanks/paladins you have. You should have a sacred shield available for each tank.
Which is why the Flash spec is non-viable. To do your job, you are totally dependent on assistance from another healer - Prots and Rets not being able to spare the CDs to put up SS every 30 seconds. If that other Holy Paladin dies, you become a liability.
I'd also like to know why you think the Flash spec is good on Beasts and Champions. I really can't think of any use for it on Beasts that isn't covered more easily by a raid healer, and on Champions there are too many enemy target switches to allow consistent Shielding - and without Shield, Flash spec is no different from any other.
Which is why the Flash spec is non-viable. To do your job, you are totally dependent on assistance from another healer - Prots and Rets not being able to spare the CDs to put up SS every 30 seconds. If that other Holy Paladin dies, you become a liability.
I'd also like to know why you think the Flash spec is good on Beasts and Champions. I really can't think of any use for it on Beasts that isn't covered more easily by a raid healer, and on Champions there are too many enemy target switches to allow consistent Shielding - and without Shield, Flash spec is no different from any other.
FoL could be done on FC actually, since it's easy to shield and beacon yourself then heal whoever needs it. That way you don't have to worry about yourself too much. Of course, since it's such a dynamic fight typically, HL, FoL, and HS are used a fair bit on their own really and that's where a haste and int setup shines because there are plenty of ways for us (and them) to drain our mana.
10/18/09, 5:27 AM
Similar Threads
