sherck wrote:Holy Shock should be your most cast spell. I need to work harder on training myself to cast it on CD...I bet I could generate an extra 100 HoPow over the course of a 3 hour raid if I just cast it on CD.
This is incorrect, there are levels of haste where it is beneficial to delay the casting of holy shock by up to a second to finish other heals. As haste gets higher and higher, holy shock gets less and less important (as well as damage).
sherck wrote:
A 30% boost to a spell you should cast 9-10 times a minute; 50-80 times in a typical boss encounter, is a pretty good use of 3 talent points.
This is however right, the use of talent points here should be a given.
sherck wrote:
I follow Hrobertgar's spec exactly with the following 2 exceptions: I take 1 point out of Last Word and 2 points out of Improved Judgement in order to put 3 points in Crusade.
I can't say for sure as I dont know what spec excatly you are talking about, but looking at what I presume to be your armory and I can't find much argument in terms of a raid spec. You may find you gain more from a point in imp judgement compared to the 2nd point in blessed life (the second point is not as effective as the first), depending on how often you find yourself out of range. For heroic raids you may wish to look for a PoJ spec.
sherck wrote:I ran this spec for the first time on Wednesday and tried to change my playstyle completely. Things that I tried to do differently Wednesday:
- Stayed in melee range whenever possible for SoI procs.
- Cast my Divine Plea/Avenging Wrath/Divine Favor/VP trinket "on use" macro on CD.
- Holy Shock on CD
- Judge on CD (harder with only a 15 yard range)
- Only cast Divine Light as a timed heal spell. No Holy Light (which was TOUGH!)
- Use Lay on Hands pretty much on CD for mana returns
- Use Arcane Torrent on CD
- Used Holy Radiance much more often but did try to "save" it if a boss mechanic called for it at a certain time.
- Crusader Strike if nothing else was needed for the GCD
- Only use HoPow on WoG.
This "playstyle" will quickly become very poor when you start doing heroic raids or the hardest normals (nefarian). Melee range is fine, although some mechanics need you in range.
- Cast my Divine Plea/Avenging Wrath/Divine Favor/VP trinket "on use" macro on CD.
This is what I have the biggest issue with. It is a -horrible- use of AW and DF to tie them up with a 50% healing reduction. If you EVER use divine plea, it should be during a lull in damage. If you EVER use AW/DF, it should be during periods of damage that require it (usually times when you need to use holy radiance). The VP trinket should be used on CD once you go below 90% mana and predict that you aren't going to get anymore mana.
- Use Lay on Hands pretty much on CD for mana returns
This is a poor use of an otherwise powerful tool that is extremely useful for when you find someone has made a mistake and people dip below 20k hp (especially tanks). The mana gain is good, but you should only use it as such if you have already, potted, DPd, used all raid-wide mana regen tools. LoH is a burst healing cooldown, you will not be able to use it willy-nilly come heroic raiding.
- Only use HoPow on WoG.
Just no, if anything only use HP on LoD. Only a select few fights need WoG use over LoD use, maloriak and Chimaeron heroic. If you run 10 man, the majority of skill involved in healing is about excellent use of LoD.
sherck wrote:
I see the potential of this playstyle; my mana returns were suprisingly good and I was rarely worried about mana even with Divine Light being my primary "go to" spell. My HPS was only in the 9k range (not 12k like noted above) but that may be a product of my gear...I only had 2 epics for that run (crafted shield, drop belt) so most of my gear is 346.
Anyway, look into Crusade if you try to Holy Shock on CD. It is a good use of your talent points.
Cheers,
In all honesty, paladins should rarely have mana issues. You have far better ways to keep mana up than some of the things you said. Heal intelligently, don't focus on meters. I've said it before, but if you keep your assignments alive, then it doesn't matter if you do 9k HPs or 15k HPS. HPS is just some useful tool on the side. Judging on cooldown is the most useful mana tool we have right now, you should be able to gain the majority of your mana from it. You should look to match your healing done to the damage profile, once you can do that you are on course to be an excellent healer.