6.0 Talent and Glyph Guide

One thing I don't get about sacred shield is how recasting interacts with vengeance. If you cast SS with no vengeance, immediately get a big hit (an impale say) and then cast it again with high vengeance, I understand that you will get a higher shield as the size of the shield scales with vengeance. But when does the size of the shield increase? After 6 seconds? Or after all shields from the first cast would have expired (20+ seconds)? I guess it must be the former, otherwise there'd be a big incentive not to keep SS up.

I could be wrong but I'm fairly sure blizz said a while back that they'd be making all dot's and hot's dynamically refresh. So I'd hope SS recalculates the absorb size at the start of each 6 sec tick, hence no advantage to refreshing after an impale.

It doesnt however.
EF hot is recalculated all the time, but SS keeps its initial value.

Damn that sucks, any idea if it's intended or a bug/lazy design?

Well, since SS can be recast at any time* and EF is a hot that comes with the WoG you just cast, it makes sense for them to behave differently.

SS not updating is both good and bad.
For tank swaps, its freaking amazing.
I reached 130k SS, then the other tank taunted and thats pretty insane (imo)
It also means an SS prepull is going to turn out pretty useless a few sec into the fight, and should be reapplied before its due to expire for more survivability, but I tent do not care about SS uptime that early in the fight since few fights kill you in the begining before shit starts to happen.

aresius wrote:For example, if your group has a Spriest/Bdruid/EleShammy wouldent the extra spellhaste, wouldent it grant extra healing ticks to EF's HoT(while not improving SS)?

It does, but that's already been accounted for in my calculations. It does improve EF, but as you noted, the absorb is still more attractive. I haven't run numbers on EF with BoG stacks, but if I recall properly EF was doing ~1/3 as much healing as SS absorbs. Another 150-200% healing from BoG stacks would only barely pull it even with SS's absorb. And there's still the opportunity cost (and absorb vs. heal difference) to consider, both of which lean in favor of SS.

Any chance of updating the guide to include a discussion of the L90 talents?

I've plumped for Holy Prism.

I was thinking of Execution Sentence, but at the moment, running 5 mans, I don't see a need for a dps CD as a tank. A marginal increase in my damage in that context seems inconsequential.

Holy Prism seems to have more utility, both for a little extra AOE threat and perhaps some healing, and as a button to press when everything else is on CD.

Light's Hammer sounded attractive for picking up adds, but there's a thread on MMO-Champion saying it does not generate threat, which would rule out that use.

I checked Light's Hammer last night while the baby was napping. It does generate threat, but it is probably bugged:

1. Damage neither shows up in the combat window nor generates threat, though it does occur as Light's Hammer kills stuff.
2. Healing generates 25% threat as opposed to 50% like everything else, assuming it isn't overhealing.

In my 451ish gear, it was generating similar threat to consecration if I was getting healed by it (versus just overhealing).

Still I like it just for how much damage and healing it does. It's not huge, but it has nice utility.

I posted a thread in the bug forum for it. Hopefully they read it and maybe respond to it.

1. Damage neither shows up in the combat window nor generates threat, though it does occur as Light's Hammer kills stuff.

From what i've seen from a few recount people linked me (and looking at the combat log) after i used LH,while healing is linked to the caster,damage is reported to the hammer itself (see http://i49.tinypic.com/vcutfc.jpg here).So if you have some kind of filter for "show only what i do" active on the chat,that could be why it's not showing.

And i guess that mean the aggro from healing goes to the caster while that caused by the damage could actually be wasted.



Another problem with LH is that the hammer can bug out with the terrain (you cast it=>it goes inside the ground/something else) so you get no aoe & waste the cd

I've only had issues with it on hilly terrain. Nothing bad yet in dungeons.

jere wrote:I've only had issues with it on hilly terrain. Nothing bad yet in dungeons.

I've seen it sink into plain ground here and there too (first room of shando-pan monastery for example)

So with the huge nerfs to Censure, is Glyph of Immediate Truth more worthwhile if you're wanting to focus on DPS? It's hard to imagine it being a DPS loss now that Censure does very little damage.

From a damage soothing POV shouldnt we pick EF > SS? If we compare those 2, SS makes us more spiky (every 6 secs, a nice absorb, rest of time nothing) while EF smoothes the incoming DPS by giving a us preiodic hot?
The contra argument is, that SS adds more survivability in regards of reducing the total damage taken. A bit mirrored to the damage soothing via hit/exp/mastery/haste vs avoid.

More importantly, EF costs us uptime on ShoR if we want to maintain it, and if we don't and only use it in emergencies, the extra hot is not useful, as the healers will definately have a big heal incoming when we spike low and use WoG.

First off, please allow me to steal a few words to express my gratitude for the write-ups and work done to shed some light on the inner workings of the Protection Paladin. It's been of considerable help.

theckhd wrote:Glyphs

Glyph of Harsh Words - This glyph is actually a pretty significant DPS increase, believe it or not. WoG's healing is significantly larger than SotR's damage at all AP levels, so substituting Harsh Word for SotR is a DPS increase. Alabaster Shield negates most of the benefit while tanking, but while off-tanking Harsh Words lets you eke out a little more DPS. I don't have numbers for L85, but at L90 with 50k Vengeance, it's a ~1k DPS increase while tanking and a ~2.5k DPS increase while off-tanking (out of ~45k DPS).

I can certainly see how this would be worthwhile in terms of increasing damage output; especially if used in combination with Glyph of Word of Glory. However - and I apologize in advance if this question's been covered and/or is considered too trivial - if opting for Glyph of Harsh Words, this would make Word of Glory our primary way of spending Holy Power when dealing damage, right? If that's the case, and you now replace Shield of the Righteous with Word of Glory as a way to spend Holy Power to deal damage, aren't you depriving yourself of the damage reduction caused by Shield of the Righteous?

To me it seems, that even if your Holy Power spender becomes more powerful in terms of damage, you'd still never opt to spend your Holy Power dealing damage with Word of Glory considering you'd then miss out on the damage reduction provided by Shield of the Righteous. And if it's thought to only be utilized in encounters where the damage input is primarily magical (like Word of Glory is thought of without the glyph, only to heal yourself, of course), then the benefit of the Glyph of Harsh Words certainly seems limited at best.

I realize you don't recommend it, as such, but you do go some way to point out that it's a considerable damage increase - which is, of course, totally correct. However, considering the trade-off of using Word of Glory instead of Shield of the Righteous to deal damage in anything but strictly magic damage based encounters, it seems to render this glyph largely irrelevant. Also, if Word of Glory was now used as the primary Holy Power consuming damage dealer, wouldn't that entail considerable ramifications on the stat weighting (i.e the priority of hard capping Expertise). Or am I completely missing something here?

Additionally: In the discussion of the T90 talent, most of the focus has been on which of the three abilities would yield more damage or healing; fully relevant, obviously. However, in my opinion, there's also a versatility issue to consider. An issue that, in my book, favours Holy Prism; especially compared to Light's Hammer. Holy Prism is front-end, instant, long range damage whereas Light's Hammer is damage over time confined to a 10 yard area for a longer period of time.

In both raids and five-man content, there can be hefty movement requirements and it's by no means certain, that you can be sure to keep whatever you want to hurt inside that 10 yard area for the full duration of the spell. As such, there's a considerable risk of losing damage or healing with Light's Hammer; a risk that's virtually non-existing with Holy Prism. Secondly, Holy Prism offers the possibility of both dealing damage and healing at once - either single heal and aoe damage, or single damage and aoe heal. In this sense, Holy Prism comes across as a tool you can use in different ways to best fit your situation. Even compared to Execution Sentence which, granted, will yield the highest amount of damage.

ramboschox wrote:From a damage soothing POV shouldnt we pick EF > SS? If we compare those 2, SS makes us more spiky (every 6 secs, a nice absorb, rest of time nothing) while EF smoothes the incoming DPS by giving a us preiodic hot?
The contra argument is, that SS adds more survivability in regards of reducing the total damage taken. A bit mirrored to the damage soothing via hit/exp/mastery/haste vs avoid.

No. You're suggesting that taking more damage and then healing it up makes you less spiky than not taking the damage in the first place. I'd argue that's actually completely backwards. EF causes you to take quite a bit more damage (because it isn't an absorb and because it costs you SotR uptime and because the raw healing is much less than the total raw absorb of SS), and makes that damage intake spikier.

Shamran wrote:I can certainly see how this would be worthwhile in terms of increasing damage output; especially if used in combination with Glyph of Word of Glory. However - and I apologize in advance if this question's been covered and/or is considered too trivial - if opting for Glyph of Harsh Words, this would make Word of Glory our primary way of spending Holy Power when dealing damage, right? If that's the case, and you now replace Shield of the Righteous with Word of Glory as a way to spend Holy Power to deal damage, aren't you depriving yourself of the damage reduction caused by Shield of the Righteous?

Yes, completely correct. Which is why I don't reccommend using the glyph.

Shamran wrote:I realize you don't recommend it, as such, but you do go some way to point out that it's a considerable damage increase - which is, of course, totally correct. However, considering the trade-off of using Word of Glory instead of Shield of the Righteous to deal damage in anything but strictly magic damage based encounters, it seems to render this glyph largely irrelevant. Also, if Word of Glory was now used as the primary Holy Power consuming damage dealer, wouldn't that entail considerable ramifications on the stat weighting (i.e the priority of hard capping Expertise). Or am I completely missing something here?

Even on a strictly magic-based encounter, you'd probably be using WoG to heal yourself, not deal damage. I'd agree that the glyph is probably largely irrelevant, but it might have a use in niche situations (for example, while off-tanking the loss of SotR uptime is meaningless). Better to have all of the information available and let smart players make their own decisions (hopefully not-so-smart players will just stick with the recommendations!).

Also, it doesn't change the gearing paradigm much. Hard-capping expertise wouldn't be as relevant (since if you're DPSing with WoG, you aren't concerned with your damage intake). In that situation, you'd probably be using DPS-based stat weights though, which would tell you to drop expertise above the soft cap in favor of more haste.

Shamran wrote:Additionally: In the discussion of the T90 talent, most of the focus has been on which of the three abilities would yield more damage or healing; fully relevant, obviously. However, in my opinion, there's also a versatility issue to consider. An issue that, in my book, favours Holy Prism; especially compared to Light's Hammer. Holy Prism is front-end, instant, long range damage whereas Light's Hammer is damage over time confined to a 10 yard area for a longer period of time.

In both raids and five-man content, there can be hefty movement requirements and it's by no means certain, that you can be sure to keep whatever you want to hurt inside that 10 yard area for the full duration of the spell. As such, there's a considerable risk of losing damage or healing with Light's Hammer; a risk that's virtually non-existing with Holy Prism. Secondly, Holy Prism offers the possibility of both dealing damage and healing at once - either single heal and aoe damage, or single damage and aoe heal. In this sense, Holy Prism comes across as a tool you can use in different ways to best fit your situation. Even compared to Execution Sentence which, granted, will yield the highest amount of damage.

My experience so far has been exactly the opposite. In 5-mans, Holy Prism has some use for snap aggro, and probably barely pulls ahead of LH in the raw DPS department (useful for Challenge Modes). But in raids, I've been using Light's Hammer almost exclusively for the raid cooldown aspect. Note that the radius, not the diameter, is 10 yards. We have LH rotations (2 paladin tanks, 2 paladin healers) for most of the bosses in MSV, because most of them have a high-raid-damage period. Being able to drop one after a large, raid-wide damage event saves healers a lot of mana, especially if they know to expect it.

So, you're perfectly welcome to prefer Holy Prism, but I don't think you can feasibly argue that Holy Prism is much more versatile, at least in raids. LH is, in my opinion, far more versatile in raid encounters, even if HPr has an advantage in 5-mans.

Examples- Drop LH on:
The melee after every explosion on Stone Guard.
The entire raid group during the group-up sections of Feng
Voodoo Dolled people on Gara'jal (also good if they're in melee and you can cover yourself and the boss for more deeps)
Entire raid group for various portions of the four emperors (insanity thing, especially)
Melee/ranged after every Total Annihilation during Elegon encounter; great cooldown for phase 3 as well.
Every gas phase of Will of the Emperor, and 1-2 casts in-between (helps heal up melee who fail at the dance, too).
Yourself and the boss any time you won't need it in the next minute and you have a free GCD.

Regarding the T90 talent: This makes sense. I can certainly see I may have neglected the significance of particularly the healing portion of Light's Hammer and how long a way it can go to counter incoming raid wide damage. My concern was primarily focused on the damage portion and how "Don't-stand-in-the-fire" mechanics might lead to sub-optimal use. Aside from that, I reckon the value of Light's Hammer will also increase through each raid tier as you become more familiar with each encounter and get a better understanding of when and where to use it optimally.

theckhd wrote:No. You're suggesting that taking more damage and then healing it up makes you less spiky than not taking the damage in the first place. I'd argue that's actually completely backwards. EF causes you to take quite a bit more damage (because it isn't an absorb and because it costs you SotR uptime and because the raw healing is much less than the total raw absorb of SS), and makes that damage intake spikier.

Hey, thanks for pointing that out. I should just try to follow your advises (for quite a time that always did the job) instead of posting my beer-influenced thoughts after a raid eve/customer meeting (dunno exactly when i posted this^^).

theckhd wrote:

Shamran wrote:I realize you don't recommend it, as such, but you do go some way to point out that it's a considerable damage increase - which is, of course, totally correct. However, considering the trade-off of using Word of Glory instead of Shield of the Righteous to deal damage in anything but strictly magic damage based encounters, it seems to render this glyph largely irrelevant. Also, if Word of Glory was now used as the primary Holy Power consuming damage dealer, wouldn't that entail considerable ramifications on the stat weighting (i.e the priority of hard capping Expertise). Or am I completely missing something here?

Even on a strictly magic-based encounter, you'd probably be using WoG to heal yourself, not deal damage. I'd agree that the glyph is probably largely irrelevant, but it might have a use in niche situations (for example, while off-tanking the loss of SotR uptime is meaningless). Better to have all of the information available and let smart players make their own decisions (hopefully not-so-smart players will just stick with the recommendations!).

The important thing with glyphing harsh words is that you dont think WoG replaces SotR, on occations you prioritize it higher, cause you are not taking any damage, most fights in mogushan vaults actually allow you to use it since there are many tank swaps or times you dont take physical damage, that said, im not sure if its a bigger dps increase than having glyph of focused shield instead (since imo battle healer is mandatory on all fights, and divine prot glyph is imo used on all as well, even tho that could be argued)

theckhd wrote:So, you're perfectly welcome to prefer Holy Prism, but I don't think you can feasibly argue that Holy Prism is much more versatile, at least in raids. LH is, in my opinion, far more versatile in raid encounters, even if HPr has an advantage in 5-mans.
Examples- Drop LH on:
The melee after every explosion on Stone Guard.
The entire raid group during the group-up sections of Feng
Voodoo Dolled people on Gara'jal (also good if they're in melee and you can cover yourself and the boss for more deeps)
Entire raid group for various portions of the four emperors (insanity thing, especially)
Melee/ranged after every Total Annihilation during Elegon encounter; great cooldown for phase 3 as well.
Every gas phase of Will of the Emperor, and 1-2 casts in-between (helps heal up melee who fail at the dance, too).
Yourself and the boss any time you won't need it in the next minute and you have a free GCD.

LH is just to good in raids due to it sorta beeing another raid CD, Holy Prism is decent, but its on a short CD meaning you either cant use it on CD every time, or you are pushing other spells away.
If you are using LH as a CD, you will pretty much always put off your rotation a little, but its once a min, if even used that ofthen.
I can understand if holy prism gets more interesting in 10man, since then it actually hits half the raid, but you are not going to hold off your rotation to use it when people are low, i guess you can prio it (garajal is a good example, its likely decent in 25man as well for that, as long as it doesnt hurt your holy power generation.
I catually use Holy prism on Will of the emperor heroic, to keep the melee on my side topped so healers dont have to worry about them, since battle healer + holy prism will do about as much healing as the titan gas (since its up 100% of the time, LH would certainly reduce the healing needed in the range camp, but there are so many raid heals going off all the time anyway, it would just be blurred out), and the healers can focus a lot more on the warrior side with those melee.
I wonder if exexution sentence or selfcasting holy prism would do the most damage on stone guard (since Holyprism would always hit 2 targets, but again it means 3GCDs a min instead of one)

Treck wrote:The important thing with glyphing harsh words is that you dont think WoG replaces SotR, on occations you prioritize it higher, cause you are not taking any damage, most fights in mogushan vaults actually allow you to use it since there are many tank swaps or times you dont take physical damage, that said, im not sure if its a bigger dps increase than having glyph of focused shield instead (since imo battle healer is mandatory on all fights, and divine prot glyph is imo used on all as well, even tho that could be argued)

It's about 4x the DPS of Focused Shield, so even on a fight where tank swapping is 50/50, GoHW would win out. That said, I still don't use it myself, partly because of versatility (Harsh Words doesn't help if you're tanking during a burn phase, for example).

Also, I think you're right about HPr on Stone Guard being the high-DPS choice. It's probably close though due to the extra GCD pushback.

theckhd wrote:It's about 4x the DPS of Focused Shield, so even on a fight where tank swapping is 50/50, GoHW would win out. That said, I still don't use it myself, partly because of versatility (Harsh Words doesn't help if you're tanking during a burn phase, for example).

Does this scale equally on all vengeance levels?
Problem with quantifying this is that its a big dps increase if you dont have alabaster, if you do its a smaller dps increase, but that means you need both glyphs, meaning no glyphed divine prot.
If you would to have both, if its like before, then 3x alabaster would mean just about the same damage as WoG?
Currently I really only use alabaster on stone guard, the other bosses hit to slow for it to be better than focused shield, and you obviously dont want thatone on stoneguard due to hitting 2 targets all the time.

HA bursting would do quite a bit more damage tho with harsh words, provided you are using it purely for dps.

I think Long Arm of the Law needs a slight edit here. As your haste increases, so does its value. Yes, its a great gap closer but it starts to shine quite a bit as Haste eats away at your judgement cooldown. With many pally tanks starting to value haste as the most valuable stat (after hard capping exp/hit) this is something that should be taken into account.

I agree that the talent is underrated. It's not quite as reliable as Pursuit but it's got quite a bit more kick to it. I like it better than Speed of Light at any rate.

I don't see how that rationalization changes anything about my description. It increases the uptime, but I still think it's inferior to either of the other two options. It costs you survivability if you want to hold it for a specific moment, and it doesn't give you the control that Speed of Light does. Again, it's not a bad talent, but it's harder to use and less versatile than the other two options.