Holy Light Switch

[Ajren]

My paladin's armory link:
Ashlin (sentinels server - armory is being weird!)

So I have hit the point with my little healadin where it's time to buckle down and make things solid. Up to now I've been picking up what I can wherever I can get in on a PuG or two. I've found I enjoy the healing role so much that I actually want to play her seriously rather than as a fill in (as she was originally created for). I've done ICC10 (Marrowgar only) as MT heals twice and had no problems with my FoL style - though I'm pretty sure I was getting more than a little help from the raid healer. My one try in an ICC25 slapped me home with some reality.
Since her incarnation I had planned on eventually going with a HL play style but now I'm finding myself stuck on how to fix her gear to support it.

Advice is needed!

What am I looking for? Where am I looking to go?
I will be respeccing 51/0/20.
I know I need to fix her main weapon ASAP. I plan on changing her gems out for INT stacking (-meta req).
I'm hoping to pick up on some ToC10s and 25s for Solace and Vigilant Ward but beyond that I'm a little lost on where else to go or how to boost my haste enough to make healing as HL viable.

So if this was *your* pally, tell me where would you start to fix things and go from there!


Much appreciated!

[Golijov]

What am I looking for? Where am I looking to go?
I will be respeccing 51/0/20.
I know I need to fix her main weapon ASAP. I plan on changing her gems out for INT stacking (-meta req).
I'm hoping to pick up on some ToC10s and 25s for Solace and Vigilant Ward but beyond that I'm a little lost on where else to go or how to boost my haste enough to make healing as HL viable.

So if this was *your* pally, tell me where would you start to fix things and go from there!

Talents/Glyphs
==========
Here is a pretty cookie-cutter and very strong raiding spec/glyphs:
Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

The prot subtree can actually be a much stronger tool for healing than the extra crit provided by ret. Longer and Stronger Sacred Shields, coupled with a raid-wise cooldown you can use every two minutes. This spec actually has 3 floater points which, in this case, are placed in 2/5 Benediction and maxing 2/2 Imp LoH.


Gems
======
For HL it can be more efficient to use a single nightmare's tear to fulfill your meta, allowing your remaining gems to be all yellow. Alternatively if you are able to get 2 sockets bonuses, 1 Luminous Ametrine and 1 Dazzling Eye of Zul can be equally as effective. Obviously as you've stated you need to get all Brilliant King's Ambers.


Enchants
======
You'll likely run into regen issues when starting out with HL, so in order to optimize these some of your enchants could be changed. First and foremost your helm arcanum and shoulder inscription should be changed to the SP/Mp5 alternatives. As well you should probably opt for 16 intellect to bracers and 30 intellect for your weapon.

You will likely want to swap your leg enchant to Sapphire Spellthread (SP/Stam). The spirit you are currently recieving from your Brilliant Spellthread is really wasted itemization and not doing anything for you. The stam gain is helpful for personal survivability and will yield a marginal increase to the effectiveness of your Hand of Sacrifice and Divine Sacrifice cooldowns.


Gearing
======
The ideal itemization for HL is haste/mp5; after that haste/crit and then crit/mp5. Haste is definitely our best throughput stat so I would look for attaining quite a bit of that, while maintaining 'acceptable' amounts of regen. Hopefully after some time you will find what is a good amount of regen to support your particular playstyle.

Having said that I'm just going to list some attainable/farmable upgrades that are either crafted, from emblems, or from 5 mans.

Libram: Libram of Renewal (ilvl 200) Emblems of Heroism
Head: Headguard of Inner Warmth - Emblems of Triumph
Neck: Love's Prisoner - Bronjahm (H) FoS
Chest: Chestpiece of High Treason - Falric (H) HoR
Bracers: Sunforged Bracers OR Black Chitin Bracers - Crafted Plate/Mail
Shield: Protector of Frigid Souls - Scourgelord Tyrannus (N) PoS
Trinket*: Tears of the Vanquished - The Black Knight (N) ToC

*This is over the Ephemeral Snowflake

Obviously this list is very limited since I tried to restrict to non-raid upgrades.

Hope this helps!

[Ajren]

Thank you Golijov. That little starter list helps a lot.
Everything else (mp5, mana pool, etc) I know I can get done, it's jut reaching the needed haste that has eluded me thus far. This is why I'm gemmed/specced as I am, because there seemed no point to worry about going full HL healing when there's no way I could pull it off. Right now I'm sitting 200someodd below the recommended goal and have lost on where to pick it up.

Now I have an idea of where to start my farming.

[Ajren]

Re-looking at all this while I make my changes, I'm curious why Improved Righteous Fury is taken in the prot tree. Isn't increasing threat a bad idea?

[Tierax]

Re-looking at all this while I make my changes, I'm curious why Improved Righteous Fury is taken in the prot tree. Isn't increasing threat a bad idea?

98% of the time, even with RF on you won't be doing more threat than ANY decent DPS.

Only time it matters would be potentially threat sensitive add fights, like Rotface for example. I know I still haven't switched it off on Rotface, but have heard that some Healadins manage to pull slimes.

Alternatively if you are able to get 2 sockets bonuses, 1 Luminous Ametrine and 1 Dazzling Eye of Zul can be equally as effective. Obviously as you've stated you need to get all Brilliant King's Ambers.

I'd also only recommend not using a Nightmare Tear if you have two socket bonus' that are not SP. I figured that was mostly a given, but I've seen Paladin applicants who failed to make that connection.

[Golijov]

I'd also only recommend not using a Nightmare Tear if you have two socket bonus' that are not SP. I figured that was mostly a given, but I've seen Paladin applicants who failed to make that connection.

I'd tend to agree with that as general rule of thumb. I personally switched from nightmare's tear to dual socket bonuses because SP actually does have value if you are fortunate enough to have a Val'anyr.

[Meeks]

A little late to this thread, the advice you have been getting is solid. All I wanted to add is that you need to prioritize getting the Libram of Renewal immediately. Despite being ilvl 200 is the single most important piece of gear you will ever have with a HL set-up. After that I would focus on replacing the snowflake with the int trinket from normal toc.

[Compromise]

While we're on the topic of healadins, is 51/20/0 still an acceptable spec for healing icc? I like divine guardian over Conviction... Should I go 51/0/20 for icc? Only have about 30k mana unbuffed, hesitant to go full HL (haste).

[reigo]

I think you are all crazy 51/20/0 yeah that's good but not great i feel there are few different ways you can go with your tree the way i go is 53/5/13 i run over 30K man buffed which is plenty as long as you manage your cool downs properly. if you think this is crazy to let you know its not i single heal a few of the ICC 10 in counters right now such as Deathbringer Saurfang and the gunship battle there not that hard. ICC 25 i run the same spec and have no problem be #1 on HPS on every fight. here is the link to my armory if your interested.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...=Xarda&group=2

[Meeks]

While we're on the topic of healadins, is 51/20/0 still an acceptable spec for healing icc? I like divine guardian over Conviction... Should I go 51/0/20 for icc? Only have about 30k mana unbuffed, hesitant to go full HL (haste).

Divine Guardian is MUCH MUCH MUCH better for raids than anything in the ret tree...especially with how bad crit is for us now.

[Meeks]

I think you are all crazy 51/20/0 yeah that's good but not great i feel there are few different ways you can go with your tree the way i go is 53/5/13 i run over 30K man buffed which is plenty as long as you manage your cool downs properly. if you think this is crazy to let you know its not i single heal a few of the ICC 10 in counters right now such as Deathbringer Saurfang and the gunship battle there not that hard. ICC 25 i run the same spec and have no problem be #1 on HPS on every fight. here is the link to my armory if your interested.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-t...=Xarda&group=2

You run with glyph of holy shock and no glyph of seal of wisdom? You give up a stronger sacred sheilds, taking less damage, and a massive damage reduction for the entire raid for 3% crit? You also run a flash libram and gem all over the place as if you are unsure if you want to be flash or holy light based. Simply put you are all over the place and while that may not be a problem with icc normal modes you are gimping yourself a lot and it is going to come back and hurt.

[Tierax]

i run over 30K man buffed which is plenty

I want to know your secret. I'm running upwards of 42,000 and I'm still looking nervously towards H-FG.

[Soan]

Divine Guardian is MUCH MUCH MUCH better for raids than anything in the ret tree...especially with how bad crit is for us now.

100% this.

I want to know your secret. I'm running upwards of 42,000 and I'm still looking nervously towards H-FG.

42k? :s I only run about 38k fully buffed. I'm not gemmed 100% pure 20 int gems, but even then I think that'd only give me about an extra 1-2k mana last time I checked in rawr.

[Tierax]

I run 42k when I run two INT trinkets and an INT flask. Normally I'm only around 40-41, but that is because I wear 258 Solace instead of one INT trinket.

[reigo]

Thanks Meeks have given me something to look at and have respect like what you have to say. also the libram flash i use for heroics more or less i do run with the holy light one in raid. Love to hear different perspectives on pally healing helps me get better

[Soan]

I run 42k when I run two INT trinkets and an INT flask. Normally I'm only around 40-41, but that is because I wear 258 Solace instead of one INT trinket.

Yeah I run 2 int trinkets as well, unfortunately they're all I have, haven't had much luck with solace. Don't use any int flask though, so I guess that and not gemming pure int on my end is most of the difference.

[wfredlund]

I run 2 +int trinkets and sit at 40k mana buffed. I have yet to find myself running OOM. For someone looking to change play style to HL I would suggest getting as much mana as possible. Try to get a group of competent peopkle together to farm algalon 10 man every week to get the trinket there. also the emblem trinket is very nice.