The Flash of Light spell's description has the HoT information on it. I can add a quick note about the HoT in the SS section as well.

I was under the impression that you could have more than one paladin's SS on a target, and there was testing to show this. I belive it was determined that with multiple SS's, you can have more than one hit absorbed per ICD, but no more than one shield will be used per hit.

Has this changed or been proven incorrect? Or am I missing something something on the first post as to why only one SS is recommended per target?

This behavior was true in 3.1 but was removed in 3.2. Now there is a hard cap of only one SS per character -- applying a new SS will remove the old one.

Frmorrison does say only one target can have an SS at a time, but its wording could be more precise. The exact wording from patch 3.2.2 is:

Sacred Shield: This buff will no longer have any effect if the target is another player engaged in a duel. In addition, the heal from this buff will no longer cause the paladin to stand, and it is no longer possible for two paladins to both have the spell active on one target.

I am not certain if it needs spelling out or not. But maybe a note that 3.3 changes to both IoL and SS have invalidated off spec healing (or at least made them more suboptimal).

Also maybe a summary of the 3.3 changes and there affect on healing and play-styles.

3.2 was the change to SS making it one per target and in 3.3 losing the HoT on Flash (from a Ret or Prot) doesn't mean that much, their heals can still be useful.

The FoL HoT, nerfing of AM by 40% and change to DiSac are mentioned, I don't see a need for a summary. You use the tools pretty like before (with the exception that you can use DiSac more often).

I just have a few questions. Most holy paladins in our guild are rocking Brilliant Spellthread - WoWWiki - Your guide to the World of Warcraft. Now i haven't played a paladin in a while but i doubt spirit suddenly is usefull to paladins. Also some are using items with hit on it. And as for enchants i see 16 int on bracers 30 int on weapon and 250 mana on chest. Is this just weird or is it me and am i stuck in the old days?


p.s I'm at work and didn't have much time so excuse me please if i posted in the wrong thread

Yeah I checked which paladin that was via armory, hes just dumb. He isn't even gemming correctly which leads me to believe he is a clueless alt. 16 int to bracers is acceptable. Your FoL spamming paladin is using the wrong gearset and gemming set as well. So you're very right thinking its all weird.

In 4.0 (the next expansion) that spellthread may be the correct choice (mp5 is removed and spirit will give regen), but now not so much. 16 int/30 int/250 mana are fine choices for enchants (assuming HL-based, not for FoL-based). Notice there is a section on Enchants in the OP that tells you the "correct" enchants.

Tell your Paladin friend to read the first post!

I recently picked up a [Meteorite Crystal] and I am trying to calculate the exact mp5 it's worth under ideal conditions with my current haste.

Currently fully raid buffed my HL cast time is 1.33 seconds, fortunately the [Meteorite Crystal] procs twice when my heals hit my target and my beacon target. However, the tooltip has not been updated in a while, it gives a stacking bonus of 75mp5 not 60mp5 and it can stack to a max of 20 stacks. So ideally I can get 20 stacks in 13.3 seconds if I am chain casting HL, calculating the actual mana gained from this is a bit tricky, which is why I'm posting my math here, I want to make sure it's correct.

(20seconds-(1.33second-HL))*30mp1 <-(This comes from 2 stacks of 75mp5 divided by 5 to get mp1, it seemed less complicated this way)
(20seconds-2(1.33second-HL)*30mp1
(20seconds-3(1.33second-HL)*30mp1
etc...

The equation for this caculation is the sum from n=1 to n=10 (n being positive integers) of

30(20-1.33n)

This turns out to be ~3806 mana every 2 minutes which in turn is ~160mp5

In addition if DP is used every CD we can add ~42mp5 and ~20mp5 from replenishment

That brings the trinket to a grand total of 222mp5 under ideal conditions, obviously there wont always be ideal conditions (I wont be popping DP every CD), however even if I didn't use DP ever, the trinket is still worth ~180mp5.

Being that 222mp5 seems to be a little off for a 226 ilevel trinket, I think my math may be incorrect somewhere, if someone else could weigh in on the subject I would greatly appreciate it (as well I'm sure others would).

Now try hitting a greater blessing on warriors in a raid and tell me if you get more than 5+ stacks at the same time. If you get multiple stacks at the same time by doing that, hit it as many times as possible to get the 20 stacks and then calculate the mp5. I'm interested to see if it works the same way as Solace does but am unable to test it myself because I don't have that trinket x_X

Another great thing about it is that you can macro Arcane Torrent to it and you'll get 1 stack from the Arcane Torrent making it even higher mp5, and they're both 2 minute cooldowns too. Just make sure to macro it so you Arcane Torrent after the trinket use.

Perhaps I am missing something, but is this part correct? The average cost reduction is 1.5%, or just over 4.6 mana per cast.

I have noticed the same thing. And from digging through the logs of my last run through Jaraxxus, it looks something like this:

Beacon didn't go off until after the debuff was removed. And if I remember how to read these right, the 0,0,13318 part is effective,over,absorbed. Which means the 3k extra healing from the cast that removed the debuff went to the beacon.

So would a viable strat be to beacon the Incinerate Flesh target and continue to heal tank/raid? If you were tank healing moving the beacon would mean you could spam the tank, keeping heals going while apply the beacon heals to Incinerate Flesh. Of course this costs 2 beacons, because you would have to move it back. Thoughts?

It's not sensible since the IF is off in three HLs. Doesn't make sense to use one of them to move the Beacon.

That's actually a very bad idea. Even in ToGC, Incinerate only takes around 2-3 HLs to get off. Not worth wasting GCDs and mana to move the beacon.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure. In my head I was thinking instead of 3-4 HL on IF with no beacon healing that it might be reasonable to Beacon IF>HLx3 (or) 4 on any raid target that needed healing>Beacon back. Adds 2 casts but puts out more healing during that time and less chance of missing a crucial heal elsewhere.

The other night I almost lost a couple people, including the tank, because I had moved to the IF target just as a couple people were caught up in Fel aoe damage. Got me thinking about how to help spot heal (or maintain tank heals) and get IF removed at the same time... But yeah, I think I was rushing to get the IF off, when in reality there is time to HL, throw a spot heal elsewhere, HL, HL, and get back to normal rotations.

Greater blessings only give 1 stack, changing auras gives no stacks, while Hand of Reckoning, Righteous defense, Aura Mastery, Divine Favor, Divine illumination, Lay on Hands, Arcane Torrent, Divine Plea, Divine Shield, Divine Sacrifice, Beacon of Light bounce, and even spaming Sense Undead all proc additional charges despite most costing little to no mana and some being off the GCD.

Now that we are a few weeks into ICC, what is everyones experience with mana returns through crit? I've been out of the loop for the last few months and haven't kept up on my Paladin theorycrafting. Are people choosing gear itemized with haste/mp5/sp or are you still allowing haste/crit gear or crit/mp5 plate gear into their selections?

I've seen quite a few Paladins running around on Illidan lately with several poor choices in crit/mp5 or crit/haste gear when better mp5/haste alternatives exist. After reading and re-reading some of the Paladin theorycrafting here, it seems people are briefly reading over the front page posts in EJ regarding Paladin stats and merely attaining the soft haste cap despite the numerous benefits one receives going far above it.

I talked with a few and they seem to be ignoring the fact that the soft haste cap is for Flash of Light going below 1sec cast time (edit: in a 25man raid environment with ALL haste buffs present) when few if any of them are casting Flash of Light anymore (throughput increase from Beacon makes it almost pointless). I understand the ICC Hard Modes aren't quite on our doorstep but it still seems to be a check list for Paladins not quite paying attention to the reasons and logic behind the haste soft cap.

Anyone else experiencing similar naiveness? or is it me thats uninformed?

Holy paladins, as a community, are notoriously poor on theorycraft. Always have been. I can name two paladins on my server not in my guild that realize that mp5 is better than crit out of dozens I've spoken to. Another sad fact is that (according to WoW-Heroes on Medivh) more than half of all holy paladins use librams other than Libram of Renewal.

The paladins you're seeing probably don't do any theorycraft at all; they probably just wear the highest iLvl things that drop.

Another thing to realize, however, is that random loot is random. Even more so with us, because most of our haste/mp5 options come from offset mail, so not only do we have to pass up all of our tier and wait for an offset piece to drop most guilds and groups won't allow us to roll or bid on the item unless no shaman wants it (and I fully respect their reasoning and right to do that). So, by and large, for most slots we simply have to swallow our pride and use haste/crit even though mp5 outperforms crit 3 times over. Unless the haste/mp5 option in that slot is a badge or crafted item it's not exactly a sign of a bad paladin. But if you see him wearing a t9 hat, well, you know he's bad, because he should be wearing the Helm of Inner Warmth unless he's going for 4pc.

Speaking of which, checking WoW-Heroes data again, fewer than 15 holy paladins on Medivh have been recorded wearing the Helm of Inner Warmth while a net total of 146 holy paladins on Medivh were recorded wearing the t9 helm. That's a failure rate of over 90% of the population. Is it a small fail? Yeah. But it's a fail nonetheless and it's a sign of the problem within the holy paladin community.

The simple truth of it is, the vast majority of WoW players don't know optimal from utter crap, and holy paladins seem to just have more such people than most classes.

Edit for more useful statistics. 507 holy paladins on WoW-Heroes(Medivh) have the Arcanum of Burning Mysteries while 170 have the Arcanum of Blissful Mending -- a 75% failure rate. 483 have the Greater/Lesser Inscriptions of the Storm while 124 have the Greater/Lesser Inscriptions of the Crag -- an almost 80% failure rate. The list goes on...

With Inner Warmth you lose 16 Haste and about 900 armor to gain 45MP5. It's definitely the better piece but I'm reluctant to vilify paladins using haste/crit plate, which is passable, especially considering the strong history paladins have with this itemization. So, while I understand what you're saying, you should temper it with reason - most people, though they want to be properly itemized, also want to primarily stick with their armor class, wear gear which promotes a consistent aesthetic and wear gear that fills in blanks on tier piece mouseovers. That's just the way it is. I'm perfectly aware of ideal itemization on my paladin (Armory) but I use the tier helm over Inner Warmth, for example. So I wouldn't judge the intelligence of a realm's paladins based solely on that fact, just as I wouldn't base it off of the Libram they logged out in, either. (I often switch to the PVP Libram for heroics, but don't pay particular attention to what I log out wearing.)