Questions & Feedback #36:
The feedback and questions have been coming hard and fast lately. I love it. Keep it all coming. Every Friday we're going to post Questions and Feedback!
This is the last Questions and Feedback that I have planned in this format. If all goes well, I'm planning on going to a podcast format. Stay tuned!
Some of the reason is the absurd amound of questions that I receive from people who are just too lazy to type their question or a few words of it into the search box. While I don't mind the question, typing out the answer multiple times just isn't something that I'm going to do anymore. I'll talk about it and I'll also be able to talk more in depth about some topics and you might just find things a little more candid in audio format.
Some really great thing, Celestial (the author of The Best you can be) has expressed some interest in doing the Questions and Feedback podcast with me. It'd be great to get multiple views on questions. There may even be other people interested in going on and may even become more of a podcast than I had first thought out.
You never know, I might just even get to post it on to iTunes. Perhaps some other Holy Paladins that aren't aware of this site may catch on!
Anyway, on with this weeks feedback:
Feedback: Ive been talking abit around with some holy paladins etc, and they recommended me to go full out intellect(Meaning intellect on bracers and wep aswell) but you recommend SP. Any particular reason or?
Response: While I don’t recommend it, it’s not a bad option to to simply enchant intellect everywhere you can. If you want a further explanation, look through old questions and answers. It was discussed a long time ago. It does depend on your gear level and what you’re healing, if you’re having issues with mana and who else is healing with you.
Feedback: Hey I'm new. Nice forum. Just found it on AOL. Thanks 4 the Excellent community we have here :)
From some money making online.com.info.blah blah site.
Response: Fail. But I’ll give you the plug… without the link. Kinda useless but kinda the point for me including a useless post for you. Grats! ;)
Feedback: Hello there,
I had asked you a few questions a while back and thought I would repay the favor. I see a lot of people asking you on your site for BiS lists focused around crit/haste. This is how I feel pally's should gear and I was willing to offer up a loot list with my BiS gear from ICC 10/25 regular or heroic.
Here goes... (all of these are BiS as heroics or BiS til heroic)
Helm - Tier 10 (as much sanc as you can get)
Neck - Blood Queen Lanathel's Choker
Shoulder - Tier 10 (as much sanc as you can get)
Back - Frostbinder's Shredded Cape
Chest - Rot-Resistant Breastplate
Wrist - Crypt Keeper's Bracers
Hands - Fallen Lord's Handguards
Waist - Lich King's Lanyard/Belt of Lonely Noble -- or the 277 Belt of the Blood Nova
Legs - Corrupted Silverplate Leggings (10 man)
Feet - Crafted Mail - Earthsoul Boots
Rings - Ashen Verdict
- Ring of Rapid Ascent
Trinkets - Sliver of Pure Ice
- Purified Lunar Dust
Weapon - Bloodsurge, Kel'Thuzad's Blade of Agony
Shield - Bulwark of Smouldering Steel
Libram - Libram of Veracity if no mana issues because more sp is amazing. Libram of Binding Light is no good with Haste/Crit build for HLing.
There you have it. The BiS gear for crit/haste.
I would like to help contribute more. I already know the BiSs from Ruby Sanctum. Hope this saves you some time.
Response: Thanks for doing the work on this BIS list. Unfortunately I did have to go through and do all the work myself, but to those readers who were after the BIS list, believe it or not, just having you write in your BIS list got me off my rear end to do it. I'm sure others readers will also say to you, Thanks!
Feedback: Well in regards to ICC, especially hardmodes, I can tell you that FoL tank healing will not hold up. I was in a 10 HM on Saurfang yesterday and with 2 marks out there is now way you are keeping them up with FoL.
In the 1st wing, hell even most of plague wing on reg sure FoL is fine. But once you get past Rotface (assuming you do Rot before Fester) you need to be able to spam HL regularly in my experience.
RE: http://www.theholypaladin.com/blog-10july-offence-to-my-old-fol-article.php
Feedback: This isnt feedback on a particular article, but more of a general group of questions I had regarding everything I have learned about holy pally healing the past couple months. I actually just finished leveling my holy pally to 80 about 1 month ago now, and its been very easy to pick up and heal, i can usually top the meters in my HL spec and im sitting with 2 piece T9 and T10 as well as a mix of other ICC 10 man stuff.
Now that ive sort of explained my situation, my questions are:
1. Are you going to do another Grid + Clique setup guide when Cataclysm comes out? --That guide was a godsend and saved me from healbot, I dont wanna go back :P
2. Is it correct that a beacon the tank, SS the OT and just bomb the raid with HL?---Nobody dies, and I dont have any mana issues so long as i judge on CD, use pots, DP every so often, and capitalize on DI. I guess I was sorta surprised at how easy it was and if should just bomb the tanks instead of messing with the raid,
3. If im not going to use an FoL build, or gem for it, is it worthwhile to break T9 4 piece if i just have T10 2 piece?---i like the FoL HoT buff, but i was just curious if it was worth keeping, or just upgrading my gear for even more Int
Thanks for all the help, i spent my time during 60-80 reading this blog and a couple others so i was fully prepared when i got up to 80 and geared for ICC (Was previously a warrior (MT) for my guild in ICC 25). The addon guides are very useful, and id love to see more of them, as well as some of the product suggestions, BiS lists! Cheers!
Response: 1). Probably not. There doesn’t seem to be that many changes in Cataclysm so far… but I won’t say never. It’s a possibility. The basics are still the same. We'll make that decision when we come to it I suppose.
2). It’s usually fine so long as the tanks don’t die. It’s about how I heal but currently I’m dealing with tanks that can take quite a hit before they keel over. It all depends on the situation that you’re in.
3). Yeah, T9 wasn’t really that special. You’ll do better with the extra stats from the T10 than you would sticking with the T9 gear. You’ll find that the FOL HOT thing either doesn’t matter or doesn’t make enough of a difference to warrant keeping it.
The thing about product suggestions is I won’t really write about something I haven’t used and like. That’s why there’s so few product reviews here. There’s just not that many things out there that I consider worth trying.
Further Feedback: Thanks for the help with those questions, I actually had one other question I remembered afterwards: How much should I focus on Crit vs. Mp5? If I have a long spam of HL then I feel like the Mp5 would be more useful, and in terms of mana security I wonder if its more useful based on my crits often turn to overhealing anyways, so why not just get it back instead? I guess my problem is ive never understood the math behind Illumination, It makes sense that if i crit often enough that id probably get a decent amount of mana back, as well as the throughput benefit of having +crit on my gear as opposed to Mp5. The question is, how much Crit should I be at to make the Mp% benefit negligable?
Lastly,
"The thing about product suggestions is I won’t really write about something I haven’t used and like. That’s why there’s so few product reviews here. There’s just not that many things out there that I consider worth trying"
--I wouldnt mind knowing what some of those things are...more from an addon perspective then other stuff
Response: It’s really difficult to tell you whether you should go for crit or mp5. The general rule of thumb is go for mp5 but I’m really hesitant in saying that due to risk of being misunderstood. See, I go for haste/crit gear myself but I do know that between the two stats of crit and mp5, mp5 is slightly the better stat for holy light spamming on its own. Stats aren’t in their own class though. It’s a lot more complicated than that. So much depends on how you use your toon and what raid buffs are brought to the raid too. I have about 250mp5 (off the top of my head) and I rarely have mana issues therefore I stack crit over mp5 on my gear. I use the trinkets to help me get my mana back with Solace of the Defeated x 2 and intellect gems to pump my Divine Pleas, Seal of Wisdom proc’s and Replenishment.
Product reviews: It seems I totally misunderstood you on that. Addon’s. I posted pretty much all of my addon’s that have to do with Holy Paladins in my UI series. Just go back and take a look over the last 2 months of articles and you’ll see most of them. The other addon’s that I use are more to do with the auction house which isn’t really suitable for this site.
Feedback: i think you got trolled.
hope the post of your feedback/response situation was just a ploy to bring them out of hiding. my guess is that s/he found out that legitimate pallies don't use the FoL build because of the numbers s/he found. know you're trying to help everyone, but you know how the addage goes according to opinions. don't lower yourself to their level.
RE: http://www.theholypaladin.com/blog-10july-offence-to-my-old-fol-article.php
Response: I don’t think I got trolled. It’s a possibility though. I think it was just some misguided paladin who has lost their way and had no proof to back it up.
Feedback: You're right, he's wrong, its that simple.
Let's see him keep up a tank in anything that is comparable to the level of his gear.
He's either using FoL on easy content, where his gear exceeds the amount of healing required, which seems to be the case, or he's being carried by other healers and his numbers only come from sniping heals out from under them which just hurts the raid.
And the argumentative and defensive nature of his discussion seems to suggest that he knows at some level he's only a second-rate holy paladin.
As others have stated, if a guild has a large predominance of holy paladins as healers, then it makes sense that a FoL spec would round out the healing assignments, but to argue that FoL spec is better than HL, is just misguided.
RE: http://www.theholypaladin.com/blog-10july-offence-to-my-old-fol-article.php
Feedback: Great article and debate. I agree with you that, while FOL heals are fine for 5-mens and TOC, HL spamming is the way to go for Holy Paladins in ICC or Ruby Sanctum. I am sure that, with proper gear, gemming and enchants, someone could have a FOL Holy Paladin spamming 15+K FOL heals very quickly. But why? Druids, shamans and priests can all do this better. The real benefit to a Holy Paladin is that with our massive HL heals we can bring someone back from brink of death to full health in about one second. I beacon my assigned tank and spam holy light on anyone that is below 50% health. This strategy has saved many fellow raiders from certain deaths and my raid from wipes. Again, FL can be effective but I think this style is not the best use of a holy paladin. This may change with Cataclysm. There are rumors that beacon may only work with FL. If this is the case, the whole equation may change in favor of FL. Until then, HL is the way to go.
Response: Thanks for the feedback. What I’ve looked at for Cataclysm Beacon will work with Holy Light only. Blizzard hinted that they want it to be our go to spell. They’re going to put out a bigger healing spell for us and FOL will cost more. Lets see if it holds up for Cataclysm.
Further Feedback: That is great news. I was worried that they would just nerf holy paly so that it would be a lesser version of shamans and druids. And by the way, I don't really care if a FOL healer can put out 18K fol crits (I have never seen this by the way but am told that sightings are true, much like bigfoot sightings). It can't compare to the 25+K holy light plus additional 12.5+K holy light glyph heals that I can put out consistently. FOL can be used effectively on ICC trash fights, daily frost runs and normal mode TOCs or keep raid members topped off if your raid healers need help in doing so. And on fights where tank will take consistently high damage, sacred shield+FOL HOT can be helpful since every bit of additional healing helps. But our main gun is HL. I don't even see why there is a debate over this at this moment.
Response: I’m not entirely sure, but I think there’s a few of reasons. 1). Back late in Ulduar there were a chunk of top end guilds getting holy paladins to switch over to FOL spam and from what I heard the numbers supported the move back then. Perhaps people still cling on to the golden era?
2). People like to be different or unique. I cannot blame them for that.
3). They’re looking for the next big healing style or perhaps they are stubborn?
Feedback: Read this entire article. I remember reading the original posts about FoL. It may help to mention that a boost of FoL build was that the 4pc in ToC with Sacred Shield helped it HUGELY!!! I agree with your HL views 95% of the time and this other pally talking back has almost no support at this point. He says,
"BTW ... I have never been in ICC. Nor do I expect to be able to go since I am Dial-up. And I still sucessfully heal up to Heroic Frost Hall and ToTC-10 using FoL."
It contradicts itself. Other than that, the Glyph of Holy Light by itself makes HL better than Flash.
Currently, my paladin has 1049 haste, and the difference between FoL and HL is 0.219 seconds. (Considering that you can't FoL faster than once per second).
I would really encourage you to try to get some figures from this person. As it stands, gemming straight SP in ICC with 25% buff can land you about 17k FoL Crits (with procs ect) while HL without crits land for 20-22k without procs or gemd sp.
Your quote about inexperienced players and FOL stands. Very true. It involves much faster reactions and much more raid awareness.
Simply put, he doesn't know what he is talking about.
Response: Well he did say he’d get back to me with figures. I waited for a little over a month (I think it was, might have been 2 months) for him to get back to me with the figures, data or something to back up his point with no response. I’m not going to push him to get back to me with figures since there aren’t any that can support his argument anymore. I guess he just was happy in his own healing world and that’s fine too.
Epilogue:
Keep the feedback and questions coming. Believe it or not, it makes me go out and research some things. Sometimes the results surprise me and we'll all learn something new together!
Be sure to send them in, if you're asking the question, others are going to be asking too.
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