Paladin Healing as it is now.

[shoju]

A couple of my fellow Lurker Paladins were interested in this, so I figured I would just post it here for all to see, and get some more feedback on.

This contains tidbits of my conversations in the Offspec forums on Maintankadin, and includes help from MTadin Posters Joanadark, Baelor, Corpsicle, and Medvih2


Paladins have been given a lot of options on how to heal, and it is really making paladin healing less of the 'SPAM FLASH OF LIGHT' (TBC) or 'SPAM HOLY LIGHT' (early Wotlk).

First, the builds
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Crit Focused: This build is good for beginning or undergeared off spec paladins who need the extra crit to maintain mana through Illumination. Once you get to a point where you are no longer in danger of going OOM on longer fights (which anymore is in solid 'ready for ulduar' healing gear), this build starts to lose some of its luster.

Throughput Focused: This spec will give you another cooldown to use (Divine Shield + Divine Sacrifice) which is easier for healers to pull off, and more throughput. You don't lose as much crit as you would think, because you have talents in the holy tree that up your specific spells, and overall holy crit. This spec offers you two choices in how you want to gem, cast, and glyph.


The two philosophies of healing with a 51/20/0 (Throughput based build)
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The one that I linked still centers around being an int stacking healer. You will still Bacon a target, Hot your SS target, and heal the way you would with a 51/0/20 or 51/5/15 build. The change here is that you will weave in more Flash of Lights, refresh Sacred Shield less, and rely on managing your cooldowns, making more conscious decisions on what heal to use when. Choosing between downranking from Holy Light to Flash of Light

By changing the Seal of Wisdom Glyph to the Seal of Light glyph, and gemming your gear for Spellpower instead of int, you start to work with a higher % of Flash of Light casts, and your Holy Light is less commonly used. This is because from changing the glyph, and speccing prot, you are picking up 16% throughput, making your Flash of Light, and Holy Shock noticeably 'bigger' heals. This spec also relies on Cooldown Management and choosing what heal to use when, but it is in reverse of the previous style. You will be choosing to Holy Light for larger heals over using Flash or Shock.

The reason a lot of Holy paladins are picking this spec for either style of healing is the throughput (and not having to babysit Sacred Shield). Even if you are INT stacking, you pick 11% throughput through talents, and there is no reason to bank on crit heals for extra throughput when you can talent it. When your tank needs a massive heal, you can pop Divine Favor. Don't pray for a crit.

The prot spec has better survivability in Hard modes (Yes, you turn on Righteous Fury sometimes), 2 cooldowns to use, higher baseline heals, less mana consumption on Sacred Shield

During a fight like Hodir Hard Mode, XT, and the like, you can turn on Righteous Fury which will reduce the damage you take from the AoE effects by 6%. Because these fights don't have adds of consequence, you are safe to run it as you will NEVER pull aggro from the tank.

On the Hodir Hard Mode that I healed, I was able to make effective use of both of my 'big' cooldowns. Frost Resist Aura + Aura Mastery will increase the Frost Rest Aura you grant to 260 for 10 seconds. Divine Shield + Divine Sacrifice also helped to mitigate the AoE damage + Tank Damage.

Make sure that you are running the minor Glyph Lay on Hands as well. Cutting 5 minutes of the Cooldown means that you will be running with a CD of 11 minutes. With the talent, you can then Proactively use Lay on Hands to reduce Physical Damage taken by the tank by 20%. This is a nice little addition as well, and I'm sure something that a lot of people have been doing for a while, but it becomes even easier with the new spec, because you aren't running into situations where your tank is staying upright and safe more often.

Why do I advocate the use of the 51/20/0 spec?
It gives you options. With this build, there are 2 completely distinct ways to heal, gem, and enchant your gear. It gives you greater flexibility and greater throughput in either spec.

The pros of each 'way' to heal.

By stacking Spellpower, you will have a more robust Sacred Shield, your FoL Hot will be ticking for more, and you will be more of a 'raid healer' than just a main tank healer.

By stacking INT, focusing on haste, you will be slinging HUGE heals all over the place, and FAST. You will have a nice Sacred Shield still with the longer timer, and you will be able to keep most tanks (in a 10 man setting) up by yourself.

[Sir_Die_alot]

This makes some sense if you aren't using a prot pally in your raid/heroic but if you are you are trading 8% crit for 3% healing and an AOE cooldown in place of your single target one. Good for trivial damage but not hard hitting raid bosses which is really the paladin's specialty. It's worth an alternate spec for when your prot pally or ret pallly does not show up and/or you need that specific cooldown.

[shoju]

This makes some sense if you aren't using a prot pally in your raid/heroic but if you are you are trading 8% crit for 3% healing and an AOE cooldown in place of your single target one. Good for trivial damage but not hard hitting raid bosses which is really the paladin's specialty. It's worth an alternate spec for when your prot pally or ret pallly does not show up and/or you need that specific cooldown.

The thing is, the 8% crit from Ret is overkill. It's not needed. So even if you do have a Prot paladin in the raid, You then still have

5% through put from Divinity
extra Cooldown through Divine Sacrifice + Divine Shield
double duration Sacred Shield, + more absorption from Sacred Shield
Personal Damage reduction for AoE effects

Trust me, this is quickly becoming the most popular spec for raiding holy paladins. The ret Crit build is overkill, and the prot build (even when you have a tree druid or prot paladin) gives more throughput, and more utility to the healing.

I don't understand what you mean by losing a personal Cooldown. Holy trades absolutely NOTHING but 8% crit for this build. The benefits far outweigh the losses.


EDIT:

Most Ret Paladins are moving away from the 5/11/55 Spec. DS + Dsac is just not easy for them to pull off and still do damage in hard modes, while Aura Mastery gives similar mitigation through Aura doubling on fights like Hodir, Mimiron, Vezax.

DS + DSac is 2 GCD's + making sure that you don't wings within 30secs of needing the cooldown.

AM is one button press, 0 GCD's, and has similar benefits.


EDIT:

I went and did a check of a nice sample of Holy Paladins in top tier raiding guilds. I looked at holy paladins in 7/12 top guilds in the world.
Premonition
Juggernaut
Ensidia
Vodka
Blood Legion
Inner Sanctum
Might

Out of their ranks of 80's, there were 46 Healing paladins. This was determined by being able to search for them in a 7 day cache. (They had to have logged in the last 7 days in a heal spec)

Of those 46,

35 of them were specc'd in a healing throughput (54/17 or 51/20) format.
10 were specc'd in a crit format (51/5/15 or 51/0/20) format.
and 1, well, I just don't know what to make of their healing spec. VERY different.
This means that there has been a shift in the healing spec based upon gearing. 76% of the 'top end' raiding paladins who heal are moving to a throughput based healing spec.

Before I respecc'd prot, I was 51/20/0. I stopped using a 51/0/20 build because at some point, there is just too much crit. I was sitting at 42% crit self buffed on holy spells not counting Sancitified Light which ups the crit of Holy Light and Holy Shock by 6%. It was too much crit. When I end a boss fight at over 75% mana, That means that I have room to make adjustments in the spec so that I can gain more througput and tools.

Most Holy Paladins are approaching 2500 spellpower, 40% Holy Crit, and 25k mana by now raid buffed. BiS T9/HM geared Holy paladins are going to be pushing 3100 Spellpower, 46% Holy Crit and 30k Mana raid buffed. With these levels, 8% more crit isn't serving any logical purpose except to say:

"YAY! I finished the fight at almost full mana!"

By switching to the prot build, you will still not go OOM, and you can provide much more to the group.

[Mordekhuul]

Yep - our main paladin healer is 54/17/0 and is amazing. The extra crit in ret is way overkill with gear.

[shoju]

Yep - our main paladin healer is 54/17/0 and is amazing. The extra crit in ret is way overkill with gear.

I tried the 54/17, and didn't care for it as much as the 51/20. If I were doing 25s I bet I would favor the extra 4 points in holy more.

With 10s the imp devo aura seems to be pretty useful on a lot of fights since you are less likely to have that covered from somewhere else.

[Sir_Die_alot]

5% through put from Divinity

3%. You're putting 2 points into POJ you could put here.

extra Cooldown through Divine Sacrifice + Divine Shield

It's a replacement cooldown. You can't use both because DS is the limiting cooldown with these abilities.

double duration Sacred Shield, + more absorption from Sacred Shield

Honestly this is probably the best all around feature of the spec.

Personal Damage reduction for AoE effects

On another class I'd think it better but paladins have bubbles for times they are in trouble.


I didn't say it was 'bad' I just said situational. I'm REALLY surprised to see Val'anyr users taking this spec. Our holy paladin loves this proc because he pretty much has a free pass on the next boss hit. The reason I think guilds are using this spec is probably for divine sac with hard mode twins and hard mode anub so once again: situational. There is just more healing potential with holy/ret. Holy/prot helps more where paladins are weak: AOE heals which the 2 hardest fights in the game now basicly require.

[Mordekhuul]

I didn't say it was 'bad' I just said situational. I'm REALLY surprised to see Val'anyr users taking this spec. Our holy paladin loves this proc because he pretty much has a free pass on the next boss hit. The reason I think guilds are using this spec is probably for divine sac with hard mode twins and hard mode anub so once again: situational. There is just more healing potential with holy/ret. Holy/prot helps more where paladins are weak: AOE heals which the 2 hardest fights in the game now basicly require.

I'd be pretty surprised if they weren't spec'ing holy/prot. Just flipping though the last few pages of the major EJ holy paladin thread, nearly every healadin I clicked was holy/prot, and the one exception's post was stating he didn't see a strong point in favor of holy/ret.

No one needs the longevity the extra percents of crit provides, not with gear. So it is just whether they think more crits will really provide much throughput, or mostly provide overhealing, and whether they are healing hard/heroic modes or not, where DS is pretty damn valuable.