After much consideration, I'm respeccing to Aura Mastery

[shoju]

So, I have always hated divine sacrifice. It's clunky to use, you have to 'prepare' for it and you have to pair it with another cooldown to make it worthwhile.

I have decided to go with the 11/5/55 Ret Spec.

why?

Aura Mastery. This is a cooldown all by itself. I no longer have to jumble bubble + DS.

Massive Physical damage inc? Devo + AM will give you some armor
Silence Protection for my healers with Conc aura + AM
Frozen blows? AWESOME LET ME GIVE YOU 260 Frost Resistance
Mimiron? Here, Have 260 fire resistance
Shadow Resistance? Here have 260


I also find myself wishing that I had unyielding faith over Stoicism. I hate fears more than I hate stuns. It's a personal opinion thing there.

I also picked up Healing light. Why? There are PLENTY of times where I toss heals as a Ret Paladin, especially now that we are working on Hard Modes. Tympanic Tantrum on hard mode XT for example. I found myself in a position where it was a great benefit to FoL the person with Light Bomb or the one who just dropped the void zone during the tantrum. Then, there is the wonderful faction champs in ToC. I have only been in on about 30 minutes of work on them, but I was self healing a LOT there. Sure, it's not *a lot* of healing, but it will hopefully help in a pinch when needed.


I will post my first impressions on the build after my first raid with it on thursday. I have a feeling that I'm going to be pressing aura mastery a lot.





Oh yeah....... Aura Mastery is also a quality of life button. Crusader Aura? Yep. It works on that too AND can be pressed while mounted.

[shoju]

After doing some reading, I'm also thinking about respeccing my holy spec. There is some thought that with the higher levels of Spellpower, Int, Haste, and Natural Crit we are finding on gear, that the Ret spec is now just overkill.

There is a lot of talk about a 51/17/0 +3 build. as the way to go now.

It was put to me this way by a notable holy poster on MT-adin

With the spell power levels we are currently reaching, going into prot for Divine Guardian to increase Sacred Shield outweighs the crit build completely. Our longevity is to a point where that crit provides almost nothing significant anyway, and there is no throughput arguement to be made about a few % spell crit compared to a flat increase of a powerful absorbtion shield.
If you need burst throughput as a holy paladin you use wings or a trinket or divine favor, you dont pray for crits, particularly when our crit from gear is already so good anyway all by itsself.

A lot of holys are actually gearing for spell power and haste over endurance stats like crit and even int now, even after the regen hit this patch. There is no reason for any holy paladin who isnt massively undergeared to still be running the crit spec. You lose too much.

I then asked if that would hold true for 10 man holy paladins, as we are generally not sporting the same levels of things as our 25 man counterparts. The response was

that depends. how frequently do you find yourself running oom? If the answer is alot, are you making use of plea effectively already? (using it during all obligitory movement periods, using it preemptively early and not waiting until you have an empty tank, popping Divine Illum/wing/trinkets at once to allow heavier ssustained spamming when using it during normal healing periods)

There is a place for crit stacking, but that place is when you simply dont have the gear to maintain your output for the length of time your guild takes to kill things, for whatever reason that may be.

As far as tank survivability is concerned though, the prot spec sub-spec is clearly better. Some crit chance would never in a million years compete with a beefed and lengthened absorbtion shield and access to Dsac.

I sat and thought about it, and unless things are going REALLY poorly (most notably, our learning of the Beasts) I never had mana problems. If I found myself getting low, I could plea, and always had cooldowns to make up for the redux in healing.


I've never been huge on theorycrafting for holy. From the time I was leveling as prot to get to 70, everyone just always said, "keep healing gear around it's always good to have it in a pinch"". So I did. It served me well, as I was on the healing crew for the guild first kill of Vashj. But, I never "really" worked hard at learning the ins and outs of healing. I just always got the:

"This is how you gear"
"This is what you pay attention too"
"These are the spells you cast"

I'm wanting to be a better holy paladin and feel less gimped in my off spec.

So, after doing some research, I'm thinking about trying out a spec like this:

51/20/0

Some of the highlights of the spec.

1.) It would allow me to use Lay on Hands as a Proactive ability, similar to pain suppression for

XT during tantrum.
Ignis with several adds up.
Steelbreaker last.
Thorim's Unbalancing Strike as the soft enrage builds.
Vezax during his 1-minute dark rage thingy.
Full HP Immortal Guardians vs. Yogg.
Algalon just about anytime.
Gormok's Impale attack.
Anub'arak with adds up

2.) Improved Hand of Salvation. I haven't had to salv a target in a long time, but it could come in handy on fights with increased damage components.

3.) 5% more Hand of Sacrifice. I have used Hand of Sacrifice a couple of times, and with the 3.2 changes to Beacon this could be a more viable way to deal with some tank damage.

4.) 11% more throughput. Going with Divinity and Imp. Devo Aura would give me 11% more throughput all the time, and would give a Second Tree of life type healing improvement for the times when there isn't a tree around.

5.) Divine Sacrifice. The bubble + DS, while I despise it, is easier for a Holy Paladin to manage than a Ret Paladin.

6.) Divine Guardian. double duration on Sacred Shield, and 20% more absortion. This would really add nice bonuses to the ability.

7.) Reduced cooldown on Hand of Protection, and increased duration of Hand of Freedom. Again, not REAL useful, but more utility

8.) Through the use of a cast / cancel macro, 6% damage reduction through the use of Righteous Fury. This is probably very gimmicky at best, but could be used to help mitigate more damage during something like Tantrum on XT, Hodir, etc... where threat wouldn't be an issue.

[Frag]

2.) Improved Hand of Salvation. I haven't had to salv a target in a long time, but it could come in handy on fights with increased damage components.

The only time salv is neccessary is on aoe fights where the tanks are lazy or undergeared, specifically.

8.) Through the use of a cast / cancel macro, 6% damage reduction through the use of Righteous Fury. This is probably very gimmicky at best, but could be used to help mitigate more damage during something like Tantrum on XT, Hodir, etc... where threat wouldn't be an issue.

You can seriously just leave it on and it shouldn't cause an issue in all but the most sensitive aggro fights that also include adds that can one shot a plate healer. (Zero, in case you're wondering)

Threat is as much of an issue at the moment as regen is for healers.
~FragB)

[shoju]

The only time salv is neccessary is on aoe fights where the tanks are lazy or undergeared, specifically. You can seriously just leave it on and it shouldn't cause an issue in all but the most sensitive aggro fights that also include adds that can one shot a plate healer. (Zero, in case you're wondering)

Threat is as much of an issue at the moment as regen is for healers.
~FragB)

Oh... I figured RF would make it fairly difficult for a tank.

I thought about the Salv bonus mainly for Hodir. After looking at the parse from the hodir fight, it blew my mind to see that Mel spiked to 20+k dps. I would have figured that would put his threat pretty high.

All in all, I don't know if 10 man holy can pull it off, especially as an off spec, but after reading and researching the build, there is just some really nice things that it adds. I'm not going to respec it before tonight, but if we do a Naxx this weekend that I'm able to get into, I'm going to spec it to try it out in there, or maybe if I heal an ULd run or something. I'm finding more and more things I like in holy the more I research it. Not enough to make me run for the hills to be a full time healer, but the more I research, the more I REALLY like the place that Holy Paladins are in right now. I just need to get more comfortable with the spec.

[bonemage]

Oh... I figured RF would make it fairly difficult for a tank.

Only if you're Ret and DPSing. Adds will go for a RF using holy pally, but anything tanked won't matter.

[Kevin]

Oh... I figured RF would make it fairly difficult for a tank.

I thought about the Salv bonus mainly for Hodir. After looking at the parse from the hodir fight, it blew my mind to see that Mel spiked to 20+k dps. I would have figured that would put his threat pretty high.

All in all, I don't know if 10 man holy can pull it off, especially as an off spec, but after reading and researching the build, there is just some really nice things that it adds. I'm not going to respec it before tonight, but if we do a Naxx this weekend that I'm able to get into, I'm going to spec it to try it out in there, or maybe if I heal an ULd run or something. I'm finding more and more things I like in holy the more I research it. Not enough to make me run for the hills to be a full time healer, but the more I research, the more I REALLY like the place that Holy Paladins are in right now. I just need to get more comfortable with the spec.

I've needed innervates and mana tides a few times still and I'm pretty good with plea, wings, trinkets, etc. Though admittedly the only reason I'm still holy/ret is that I haven't felt like respecing as the extra crit isn't that helpful for regen right now anyway. Of course most of those times I was with off spec healers and carrying about 50% of the effective healing load (and keep in mind that the non healers do about 5-10% of the effective healing on most fights and the 3 healers tend to only need to do 90-95% so 50% when there are 3 healers is a huge amount).

I also hate losing PoJ. :) But yeah I've been thinking about going the holy prot build for awhile now, I was thinking about it before 3.2 :) I'm just lazy and when I have done more effective healing than Tori a couple of times I've never felt I needed much more help on that (and note that I still tend to slow my healing down when when Tori is around because I like to let the HoTs do their thing so my FoL usage goes up and my HL usage goes down which mean throughput drops). :)


As to RF, yeah it's not a problem except you may not want to judge right on the pull. I've pulled aggro doing that with out RF up before because I like my speed boost so I judge early.:)

Of course I think I could get to 8K FoL crits raid buffed if I did change spec and I'll need some of the other tricks for hard modes anyway I think I also hate refresh SS, that would be the biggest reason for me to change honestly the longer duration. :)

[shoju]

I've needed innervates and mana tides a few times still and I'm pretty good with plea, wings, trinkets, etc.

Really? That's interesting to hear. My healing post 3.2 has been lessened since we added Tuliane to the heal crew. With hearing this, I will definitely try the spec out in a "less dangerous" area and see how it feels mana wise.

I also hate losing PoJ. :) But yeah I've been thinking about going the holy prot build for awhile now, I was thinking about it before 3.2 :)

This honestly is a sticking point for me too. I'm so used to have PoJ, that I'm not sure I would like not having it.

I'm just lazy and when I have done more effective healing than Tori a couple of times I've never felt I needed much more help on that (and note that I still tend to slow my healing down when when Tori is around because I like to let the HoTs do their thing so my FoL usage goes up and my HL usage goes down which mean throughput drops). :)

I too seem to lean harder on FoL when I heal with her, and Tuliane. I don't know if it's the bubbles of disc, or what... I have only healed wit Conc.... twice? So I'm not certain it is a Disc thing, as I have no basis for comparison there.

As to RF, yeah it's not a problem except you may not want to judge right on the pull. I've pulled aggro doing that with out RF up before because I like my speed boost so I judge early.:)

There was a very memorable heroic run where I was specc'd holy and forgot that my judge macro was no longer setup to target my focus targets target, and I pulled extra mobs with long range judging:)

Of course I think I could get to 8K FoL crits raid buffed if I did change spec and I'll need some of the other tricks for hard modes anyway I think I also hate refresh SS, that would be the biggest reason for me to change honestly the longer duration. :)

I don't know if I will regem right off the bat, but I think 8k FoL crits when you have such a high crit rate on FoL would be pretty easy to sustain as well.

[Frag]

Oh... I figured RF would make it fairly difficult for a tank.

I thought about the Salv bonus mainly for Hodir. After looking at the parse from the hodir fight, it blew my mind to see that Mel spiked to 20+k dps. I would have figured that would put his threat pretty high.

Wasn't even close to me, but I do have the luxury of having a very good set of gear to chose from. For other tanks it might be more of an issue. I had one pull where JB, Glaur & Felonius were all above 7k dps and I stayed ahead of them. On the kill, we had to have JB vanish late in the fight but I didn't receive any external buffs that fight and I still held off of JB & Mel during bloodlust. For other tanks, it is possible it might be needed but I really doubt it. Tac's tanking set isn't up to the level of our main tanks (obviously) and on the fights where I've looked he's been maintaing 7k tps, that means Mel would have had to break 9100 dps sustained to pull (e.g.) if he wasn't Vigilance'd. If he was, the number would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10.1k dps sustained.

For perspective on differences, under Hodir conditions, (assuming I can snag a Moonbeam) and I really knuckled down on threat, I could allow up to about 12k dps.

Threat is not the issue.
~FragB)

[adam156]

Tal's Edit: No gold spam please. Your other posts have been deleted and your account banned.

[Concillian]

I thought about the Salv bonus mainly for Hodir. After looking at the parse from the hodir fight, it blew my mind to see that Mel spiked to 20+k dps. I would have figured that would put his threat pretty high.

This is how the fight is designed. If tanks weren't designed to be able to deal with this kind of thing, then the fight would have a really, really poor design as a whole. The designer side of me really loves that fight. It's a little frustrating and RNG in practice, but the design concept of Hodir hard is my favorite fight in game, I like Kael's design too, but I like Hodir better.