Additionally, ICC doesn't offer any fight where a FoL build would shine. Bosses either have relatively short and predictable burst periods, such as Festergut stacking to three or Soul Reaper coming off cooldown on LK, and/or allow for plenty melee swinging regen to keep your mana up. This leads me to conclude that when needed, one can sustain HL spam during crucial bursts periods and then fill up again from plea/melee'ing during damage downtime, which in turn voids any requirement for a more mana efficient FoL setup.

The notable exceptions to the above rules are BQL and Saurfang, since they don't generally allow for melee regen. However, gimping your HPS by any amount of Hard Mode Saurfang is poor practise and Glyph of Holy Light is of considerable value on BQL.

/cancelaura Divine Sacrifice
/cast Divine Sacrifice

This macro will cast Divine Sacrifice and then pressing it again will cancel the damage transferred part of the aura while leaving up the raid wide 20% reduction for 6 seconds (Divine Guardian).

DS auto cancel macro still works (as far as I'm aware - I didn't die from it last night on Stinky or Precious without Divine Shield - so that's a good indicator!).


One click macro:

/cast Divine Sacrifice
/in 0.2 /script CancelUnitBuff("player","Divine Sacrifice")


I add in a chat component to mine:

/cast Divine Sacrifice
/gr +++6s 20% damage reduction FTW!+++
/in 0.2 /script CancelUnitBuff("player","Divine Sacrifice")
/in 6 /gr ---Damage reduction complete---

Many ICC encounters have a period of time in which I'm moving and unable to cast, say from goo on PP or fear during air phase on BQ or running behind a block on Sindragosa or running to the edge during transitions on LK, that I can afford the GCD(s) for Divine Sacrifice and Bubble.

I prepare for heavy AoE spell damage by using a specific resistance aura and using Aura Mastery which does not trigger a GCD when I can't afford the GCD.

In my experience with heroic Saurfang, during the frenzy every GCD is vital and I usually must Holy Shock after each GCD to refresh Beacon/JotP/SS, and I typically just use Dsac during the beginning to reduce his runic gain and then during the frenzy if I can afford the GCD but it is often risky.

No Holy Paladin likes spending two consecutive GCDs not healing their tank. There are too many occasions where spending one GCD to refresh Beacon is risky enough. That's why Glyph of BoL is better - it lets you spend that bit longer healing. If you need more regen you can gear for it, but you cannot make more time.

First of all, your figures are incorrect regarding the amount of mana gained from LoH'ing yourself with the Glyph of Divinity. With the glyph, you gain 3900*2 (5850 more than not having the glyph) for an extra mana gain of 81.25 mp5

Secondly, you are also forgetting that if you use LoH on a tank instead (for the extra 20% mitigation if nothing else) you gain ZERO mana from it if you are using the BoL glyph. So on that fight, a paladin using LoH on the tank is getting 3900 mana over one using the BoL glyph. That's 54mp5

In regards to clashing GCD's, I can see your point but I have yet to have a problem.

I just showed both examples and they both clearly provide more mana return........?

Here's a screeenshot I just took. On the left is me LoH myself with the Glyph of Divinity and on the right is without it.

Your point is a valid one, I just see a lot of false math regarding Glyph of Divinity and people thinking it gives less mana return than it does. To be clear on the gains of both, assuming a 6 minute fight:

Glyph of Divinity:

81.25 Mp5 if LoH is used on yourself (does cause 2 minutes of Forbearance)
54.2 Mp5 if LoH is used on the tank or someone else.

Glyph of Beacon of Light:

40.65 Mp5
2 less Gcd's (assuming you refresh it at 0 time)

I am surprised glyph of Holy Shock is not considered more carefully for a major glyph slot. Personally I have always ran with this glyph and never thought twice about swapping it out. While I fully understand the value of mana conserved/returned by BoL and Divinity, I've noticed that their value on paper diminishes during actual encounters. Divinity, while capable of providing significant mana returns when cast on onesself, is nevertheless NOT the best use of Lay on Hands, especially since the change to talented LoH that effectively serves as another mini shieldwall for a tank. When cast on a tank, it's potential return is halved, and in a T10 setting, 3900 mana returned simply is not that much over the scope of a 6-minute fight (would you choose a glyph for a passive ~50 mp5 bonus?). Likewise, Beacon's extra 30 seconds is often cut short any time we deal with a beacon swap at intervals shorter than 90 seconds (actually, two of the hardest encounters, hard mode Putricide and Sindragosa P3, deal with swaps at intervals much shorter than this). Yes, an extra 30 seconds of beacon can save a global on fights with 1 beacon target - rotface, saurfang on the marked target, princes, et al. But there are usually natural windows built into these fights where refreshing the beacon early is not a big deal.

And yes, Glyph of HS of course also has its limitations. There are fights where Holy Shock just sits off CD, diminishing the glyphs perceived usefulness. However, since it is our only instant heal, I want it available on demand. That means coming off CD as fast as possible when I use it, to be used again IF necessary. There are several mobility fights where having it up 1 second earlier is priceless. Even on non-mobile fights where raid damage is likely to spike, it absolutely can be used on CD and often can save people who would otherwise die from the extra second of cooldown time (Sindragosa when recovering from icy grip, BQL during pact, Rotface/Festergut if they vile gas multiple targets are just a few I can think of off the top of my head).

I've always been fairly liberal with Holy Shock but I think improving our one instant is just too great of an advantage to be ignored. And I apologize for this extremely subjective justification, but we all know that the nature of healing is an art, not a science. Increasing my healing versatility at the cost of some static mp5 has always felt like a better choice to me.

I used to be skeptical about the BoL glyph, but after using it I find that I can't live without it. Personally the reason I use it has nothing to do with mana efficiency, but simply because it just works better for me.

Does anyone actually refresh their BoL at 0s? I don't if I have any other option, because the last thing I want to happen is for Beacon to wear off right as my targets desperately need healing. I tend to be fairly aggressive about refreshing Beacon and I would have to imagine most Holy Paladins are as well - whenever I get a lull, and Beacon duration is less than 20s or so I usually refresh BoL.

This makes the 'effective' duration of BoL about 45s rather than a minute, and the glyph gives you considerably more leeway in when you need to refresh Beacon than it may appear initially, on paper. I probably end up casting BoL almost as often as I did without the glyph, but now I rarely find myself in a corner any more where I really want to refresh my Beacon again, but I'm not sure if I can afford to - because I can essentially 'skip' a refresh if I really need to do so.

Like so many other healing issues this is probably a matter of preference over anything else, but at least for me, the glyph has been far more useful in practice than I expected it to be on paper.

I definitely agree that the Holy Shock glyph is underrated, though it's not my first choice. I myself still lean towards the Glyph of Divinity just because it fits my playstyle, but I imagine in a long fight with few beacon switches, or if you have problems with remembering to keep your beacon up, Beacon of Light glyph would work best. On the other hand, for PvP or for fast and hard fights like heroic bosses, the Divinity would be unparalleled. Then again, one could always dual-spec both into holy and get the best of both for those die-hard healers out there; heck I may even do that.