Well, another day of healing as a Holy Paladin and still Flash of Light is stronger than Holy Light and very expensive. Maybe I was half expecting my massive Holy Lights to be back – they weren’t.
Today I ran a couple of heroics and killed Ignis in Ulduar for the weekly quest. Definitely do not feel as powerful as I used to. Not to say that it was very hard to heal that content nor did anyone die. I suppose the shaman who pulled before the tank died but, don’t enhance shamans always die? I’m not sure that counts. No, it definitely doesn’t count. Regardless, it takes a lot more attention to make sure that people don’t die (shamans aside). Prior to 4.0.1, there was really no need to do anything other than hit Holy Light, especially with the Glyph of Holy light which added a splash heal to nearby players. Finally, I’m picking up on the idea that I have to use Holy Shock on cool down. Outside of HS, FL spam is still the way to go for most fights without huge incoming damage. This is making me want to go after more haste than I had before. Yes, haste was always a go to stat for Holy, but now that HL doesn’t hit like a bus, I need it to hit more often to even attempt a comparable throughput. I see reforging in my future.
Without the Illumination talent which gave mana return on crits, crit is even less valuable than it was. Spirit is still a decent stat as a high damage fight could tax our mana regen after the severe nerf to Divine Plea (10% mana down from 25% mana gained). Proper spell use, AKA Holy Light/Holy Shock, will help negate that mana regen nerf to make sure we can keep casting through out a long fight. I’ll probably reforge a fair chunk of crit into haste so that my little HL’s can do the job still.
The other big factor in mana conservation is Word of Glory. Word of Glory is the Holy Power outlet for Holy. Unlike other HP outlets, Word of Glory scales linearly and each point of Holy Power is worth the same amount of healing. For example, 1 holy power might equal 2,000 healing, while 3 holy power will just equal 6,000 healing. This is an instant cast, mana free heal. Without huge cheap mana regen, free heals are a big deal. What about our other two new spells? Light of Dawn is alright for helping out with incoming AoE damage. If you have a Resto Shaman or Druid, you’re better of letting them do the raid healing. I still haven’t found much use for Divine Light – Paladin’s new big heal. Considering that Flash of Light ends up being a little more throughput and Holy Light is cheap, I just can’t find the right Niche for Divine Light.
One thing that is keeping Holy Paladins a contender for big tank healing is our Mastery – Illuminated Healing, which adds a 8% of the healing done as a bubble that lasts 6 seconds. If your tank is taking consistent damage the bubble will constantly being used, adding a lot of effective healing. The other nice part of Illuminated Healing, it is affected by Beacon of Light Heals. So all healing you do to the raid adds 50% of healing to the tank which constantly places that 8% bubble onto the tank. Keep in mind though, this bubble doesn’t stack, each new heal replaces it and resets the 6 second duration.
That’s all for tonight. I’m thinking about taking Holy into PVP tomorrow, though I might end up focusing on gearing my Fury warrior. As always, comments are welcome. Feel free to ask questions or give feedback/suggestions.