Holydin - PvE 4.2

[poptart]

From Elitist Jerks, the current 4.2 "Haste soft-point" that you want to shoot for is 1860 Haste for an extra tick of Holy Radiance.

My general rule of thumb for Firelands has been:

Max Intellect possible (higher I-level PLATE and Int enchants)
Match gem sockets if the bonus is Intellect (Blue = Int/Spirit, Yellow = Int/Haste); pure Intellect gems if bonus is not Int
Spirit to 2500
Haste to 1860
Mastery after that...

However, under 4.3 and a Holy Radiance that is only 3 seconds (ticks) long, the Haste Soft Point is only going to be 901 Haste rating (when you have your 9% haste buff from Judgement). That gives you a 4th tick of Holy Radiance. The 5th tick of Holy Radiance comes at like 3600 Haste rating (or when under Bloodlust, DF, etc).

So, one of the most interesting things about 4.3, IMO, is how our stats are going to change.

Spirit is going to become interesting since we will get an additional 30% in combat Spirit based mana regen (just like Priests) and can only boost that with melee swings. Does that mean we need more Spirit than now? Less Spirit? The same relative amount?

Haste has become significantly less important once you get to the 901 cap. Theoritically, you just gained 900 rating points to allocate into Mastery or Crit strike. In reality, very few Paladins will probably go as low as 900 haste rating because our timed casts will feel sluggish as all get out (like my Priest's do now with only 950 haste rating). But, I can imagine easily dropped down 400 rating points to 1400 Haste rating and moving those to Mastery/Crit. That is exciting.

Crit no longer has any synergy with anything to do with Paladin healing which is sad. I still like 200% crit heals but everyone gets those.

Light of Dawn (glyphed) will now be an excellent tool for the 10 man raider (and 5 man heroic) healer. I am excited to add that back into my toolkit (AoE healing phases can now be HR, 1pt LoD, HR, 1pt LoD spam).

Very exciting times for a Holy Paladin. I cannot wait for 4.3

Poptart

[rodos]

Spirit is going to become interesting since we will get an additional 30% in combat Spirit based mana regen (just like Priests) and can only boost that with melee swings. Does that mean we need more Spirit than now? Less Spirit? The same relative amount?

The calculations I've seen indicate that in current gear levels the change is a nerf to regen if you were diligent about judging on cooldown. So, if that was you, you might want more spirit. Personally I've found myself to be pretty bad about judging regularly, so it might be a buff to me.

Haste has become significantly less important once you get to the 901 cap. Theoritically, you just gained 900 rating points to allocate into Mastery or Crit strike. In reality, very few Paladins will probably go as low as 900 haste rating because our timed casts will feel sluggish as all get out (like my Priest's do now with only 950 haste rating). But, I can imagine easily dropped down 400 rating points to 1400 Haste rating and moving those to Mastery/Crit. That is exciting.

It certainly makes things more flexible. I'll probably still prefer haste as I find long cast times pretty irksome.

Light of Dawn (glyphed) will now be an excellent tool for the 10 man raider (and 5 man heroic) healer. I am excited to add that back into my toolkit (AoE healing phases can now be HR, 1pt LoD, HR, 1pt LoD spam).

I've seen people talking about this rotation, but not sure what the advantage is. I'm assuming that the splash effect from Radiance will stack, so you can overlap them slightly by using alternating targets, because with haste over 900 the HoT duration will be a little longer than the cast time of the next HR. The healing scales linearly with HoPo, but it seems a waste to use 3 GCD when you could use 1: HR,HR,HR,LoD3.

[Skye1013]

Max Intellect possible (higher I-level PLATE and Int enchants)

Subtle...

Only reason I don't have full plate is because I was upgrading already non-plate pieces (and haven't found plate replacements.) And they were non-plate pieces from Wrath (prior to plate specialization being introduced.)

I am wondering with 4.3 changes to HR... how much more desirable mastery will become (do we know how it affects it at this point, or is it just that HR will now stack the bubble?)

[poptart]

Max Intellect possible (higher I-level PLATE and Int enchants)

Subtle...

Lol, no, not really! I am not known for being subtle.

I am wondering with 4.3 changes to HR... how much more desirable mastery will become (do we know how it affects it at this point, or is it just that HR will now stack the bubble?)

I already find Mastery pretty darn desirable....but not at the sacrifice of the 1860 Haste break point. I am turning everything I can into Mastery above 2500 Spirit and the Haste break point because I find Crit at this point to be very, very meh.

Again, in 4.3, I don't think that Mastery will be better than Haste or Spirit but I do think that it is next in line and will be the secondary stat that you are most reforging to over time. 90% of our pieces are going to have Spirit already on them and the 900 Haste rating will be pretty easy to get with just 5 or 6 of "native" Haste pieces. Maximizing Mastery at that point just makes a lot of sense.

Poptart

[Skye1013]

Ok, so I've had the chance to upgrade my gear a little and was wondering if anyone thinks my paladin is sufficiently geared to do some starter FL runs (ie. guild alt runs)? I haven't had any particular difficulties in healing trolls, though my cd usage is still fairly low, so can leave me mana tight in certain situations (ie. ZG Panther boss.)

What are some good stat numbers to shoot for before trying to get into these runs, and does anyone see any of my gear pieces that could be easily upgraded ("Aleks" in sig, I think I'm in my healing set... if not I'll try to remember to swap out tonight)?

I don't really have the drive to fully complete the MF dailies on another character, but might be convinced to knock out one set if there is one of the three that has optimal upgrades for me. Also, I've already grabbed the tanking cloak from the Thrall quest chain, so that's not an available option.

Other tidbits: I have ~30k gold, but would prefer not to have to spend huge amounts to upgrade, as it is an alt, and I don't even put that much gold into upgrading my main... Also, I don't prefer to have to grind reps, however, I am willing to run dungeons/farm for mats to get things crafted, so any rep I gain from that might get me past certain thresholds.

[Amirya]

I don't see why you couldn't start. About the only thing I'd say is keep running trolls until you've replaced the helm - I believe it's on Zanil, and the shield with the shield/offhand from either Jin'do or the Cache of Madness respectively.

At least do the MF opening questline; the necklace from the troll vendor would be an upgrade.

And the cloak is also easily replaced by the 353 BoE.

Enchant helm and cloak when upgraded.

That's about all I see.

[Skye1013]

I figure FL rep should come quickly enough to replace my cloak, so I don't know that I'm too worried about that, unless it just happens to drop while running stuff. I do need to finish up the Hyjal pre-quests to open MF... I think I completed wolf, but still have harpy/turtle.

[rodos]

So long as you're not trying to 2-heal all the FL fights you should be fine. Just go and have some fun times - 4.3 is probably going to drop next week anyway, and 378+ gear will rain from the sky for HP, from LFR, and from the new heroics.

Also, going OOM on the panther boss in ZG is caused by bad groups, not your gear. I have full 378 and if people stand in the wave, don't interrupt, and take too much agro on the cats, I OOM too.

[Skye1013]

Also, going OOM on the panther boss in ZG is caused by bad groups, not your gear. I have full 378 and if people stand in the wave, don't interrupt, and take too much agro on the cats, I OOM too.

Liberal use of HR will definitely cause that, but if I used cds, it would be even less of an issue .

[poptart]

I would also echo the call that spending time and money on upgrading an alt now seems a bit of a waste...at this point you could probably be a 3rd healer for FL runs in about 350 item level gear and do just fine. 378/384 gear is going to start raining down in the next 2 weeks so I would not stress now.

So, my checklist for 4.3 is:

1. Respec to pick up Light of Dawn and glyph it. This will be the "go to" use of Holy Power in 4.3 even for 5 and 10 man content. The glyph to lower it to hitting only 4 targets but with increased power will almost always pump up its output over WoG.

2. Spec out of the talents that prop up Word of Glory and Judgement because those will be significantly downplayed with the betterment of LoD.

3. Pick your Spirit target. I would recommend at least 2500 but pick what you are comfortable with so you are not OOM on your current content. I think the change to our in combat mana regen will end up being a net plus for most Healadins (who do not Judge on CD) so 2500 may be sufficient to almost everyone.

4. Pick your Haste target. Minimum of 901 Haste rating to get the 4th tick of Holy Radiance but you need to pick what does not feel "sluggish" for you. I just recently dropped from the 1860 Haste breakpoint down to 1300ish Haste and saw my cast time for HL/DL increase from 1.9 seconds to 2.0 seconds on Quartz. I can live with that.

5. Dump everything else into Mastery. I have never been a fan of Critical Strike rating since the days of being able to guarentee a crit with Flash of Light/Sacred Shield combo in middle Wrath so I am bias against it. But I would trade out Mastery for Crit every day of the week.

That is my plan for 4.3 and we will see how it goes. I think we are going to be in a good place for 4.3.

Poptart

[Amirya]

So I need some advice for holy paladin in LFR.

So far, I pretty much treat it the same as in a 10 man - we have holy priests, druids, and resto shamans? I'll focus more on tank healing, and not bother spamming Holy Radiance until OOM. Apparently, this is Unacceptable.

Mostly, what do the other holy paladins do, other than spam HR, and hope someone else picks up tank healing?

(Really frustrated, and can't quite put into words what I'm asking, I guess)

[rodos]

I'm not sure what you mean by "unacceptable". Are people calling you out for being low on the meters? They're completely irrelevant for LFR because there's not enough healing required to keep all 6 healers busy.

Here's what I do in LFR:

Morchok - Help soak bubbles because dps don't want to. HR after stomp and use WoG to top up a tank every now and then.
Zon'ozz - Beacon tank, heal the bubble bouncer, HR spam during dark phase
Yor'sahj - Heal tank a bit, then use Speed of Light to chase said tank half way across the map when he takes off after a slime with massive debuff stacks. Spam HR during black phase and red phase, except if blue is up, in which case follow the void until someone remembers to kill it.
Haggara - Use glyphed DP to soak up some ice shards. Heal up "that guy" who miraculously survives ice walls with 1% health
Ultraxion - Spam HR, use LoD and maybe a DL to heal the tank up after Hour of Twilight
Gunship - Use HR on the melee who all got themselves debuffed by the cleave, spot heal the raid with HL.
Spine - /dance, taunt bloods off people who are trying to kill them too far from the amalgamation, exo spam on the tendon
Madness - This one I actually dedicate some attention to keeping the tanks alive by watching DBM for incoming Impale. Once corruptions are down, just spam HR when the bloods and tentacles come out. Use DP while changing platforms.

[Amirya]

I'm not sure what you mean by "unacceptable". Are people calling you out for being low on the meters? They're completely irrelevant for LFR because there's not enough healing required to keep all 6 healers busy.

So pretty much what I do. In this case, a dumbass dk called for me and a priest to be vote kicked for "low healing" except the reason that 8 people fell over dead on Kalec's platform was AoE on the blistering tentacles. The tanks told them it was dps issue, not healing issue.

Pretty much what I do on Ami is beacon one tank, focus on the other, except for obvious idiots.

Morchok: Heal tanks, heal dps near me during the crystals, heal up the raiders smart enough to get out of blood
Zon'ozz: Beacon bubble chaser, heal tank, spam HR and LoD during transitions
Yor'sahj: Beacon tank, melee Yor during blood to regain mana (I've never had a tank take off after the bloods)
Hagara: HR on melee, heal the tank who didn't get out of FA, melee adds/totems
Ultraxion: Heal tanks, HR/LoD after Hour, use the goddamn purple button when I need to
Ship: Heal tanks, HR/LoD when needed
Spine: same as above
Madness: Beacon one tank, heal the other, HR melee, LoD ranged, AM bolts, HR spam bloods, melee/DP the wing/arm/whatever

Just wasn't sure if there was some other obvious thing I'm missing

[Levantine]

Tanks don't take damage in LFR. No really, they take only marginally more damage than the rest of the raid does from the AoE mechanics in most fights in that mode. I can't believe I'm saying this but just meter pad with holy radiance. Damage is so low that you should be able to melee frequently and use DP whenever needed for mana as well as judging once a minute.

[Amirya]

ITT: Levie encouraging bad habits lol

Will do, as it appears my only mistake was actually tank healing