[Holy] To Tower of Radiance or to not Tower of Radiance...

To those out there still doing the Healadin thing.

What do you think of Tower of Radiance and raiding?

Now, in 5-man content with only 1 healer, I think ToR is a fine use of those three talent points as a majority of my Divine Light heals are going onto the tank and I am getting Holy Power return from it.

But in raids right now (2 raids under my belt at 85), I am finding that my generation of Holy Power is very, very small from ToR. My last 3 hour raid, I got 15 ToR Holy Power points credited and the previous 3 hour raid I got 17 ToR Holy Power points credited.

That is in comparison to getting 87 and 83 Blessed Life Holy Power points credited with Holy Shock numbering in the 350s - 400s.

I see our skill set as being much better suited right now in putting Beacon on a tank and healing either the other tank or the raid.

I run with a Resto druid and so far either a Resto Shaman or other Holy Pally and the Druid is saying that their ability to raid heal is suffering and that they feel better about concentrating on the Main Tank which fits in well with where I think my skill set lies.

I am thinking of pulling my 3 points out of ToR (which should not hurt Heroic 5-mans as I am now about fully 346 geared) and using them in other talents that I like but cannot currently get them all (Paragon of Virtue, Eternal Glory, Pursuit of Justice).

I mentioned this in the how to heal thread, and I think it comes down to strategy.

If healing is not intense, and I can plan ahead, I preferentially drop holy shocks every CD on my non-beaconed tank or the boss (or the tank if he actually needs it) for free holy power. I also prefer to drop Divine Light on my beacon target, as most times, the tanks take the majority of the dmg.

For a fight like Twilight Ascendant Council, I melee my tank's target, and sometimes the other tank is out of range, leaving me to direct cast on my tank and build holy power thru ToR. During a raid AOE phase I hit Holy Radiance, and with a 30sec CD, it is almost always up for these. Healing the raid with direct heals is either time or mana intensive, and best left to the other healers, if possible. I suppose I could beacon the other tank, but usually the other healers can keep him up until he comes back into range and I can drop a couple heals on him.

Yes, I do mix direct casts on the other tank, and sometimes the raid, but I get a lot of casts on my tank. I have also decided to manage my mana in cleanse intensive fights like Council by not cleansing. Unfortunately for cho'gall cleanses are so important I do the vast majority of them. In Twilight Council cleanses aren't as critical so I do not feel so bad forcing the other 2 healers to pick it up, while I maintain a decent mana pool for ph3.

So for me, I feel that I do generate a fair amount of holy power thru ToR, and I would not change it. If your own strategy works out different, and changing your spec will get a net benefit, then why not.

One thing I have noticed is that I am so focused on WoG for takn or other direct heals that I rarely use flashlight even though it is on my bar. I really have to conciously prepare myself before a fight, like Magmaw in order to be prepared to use it properly. When used will in conjunction with Holy Radiance, flashlight can be quite nice for raid healing.

As far as the other talents, I think pursuit of justice is nice for a tank, but not required for a healer. I can't look at the talent tree at the moment so I cannot directly attach talent names to effects, but I believe I do have Eternal Glory, although I am not certain about Paragon of Virtue. For my raid holy spec, I took none of the dmg taking talents or exorcism talents, except for free holy power every 8sec upon taking dmg. I also like having a 30% chance not to consume holy power with WoG, which is a sweet proc, sometimes giving me 3 or even 4 WoG in a chain.

Okay, another opinion requested.

I have decided to try this next raid week without Tower of Radiance. I am down to my last two talent points and am debating between these two talents:

Pursuit of Justice (2/2)
Divinity (points 2 and 3 in the talent. I will for sure be putting 1 point in)

So, 4% healing increase or the ability to move from danger to safety 15% faster and get back on task (although, with the number of instance heals now available, this is perhaps less important than in the old days).

I also see this build leaning towards the use of Holy Power for WoG instead of LoD except in specific times like during Lava Spew on Magmaw or the Frost "Ultimate Attack" on Conclave.

Honestly, I am leaning towards PoJ because I seem to be losing people in raids not because my heals were just a bit too weak/strong but because a heal was not delivered on time, perhaps because I was moving.

Opinions?

Cheers,

[EDIT: If interested, this is the base build http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scIbzrkuubdobZcb

Hrobertgar wrote:I also like having a 30% chance not to consume holy power with WoG, which is a sweet proc, sometimes giving me 3 or even 4 WoG in a chain.

ORLY?

My understanding is that a 15s internal cooldown was added to EG to prevent this. Do you wait it out casting other heals, or is this an observation from pre 4.0.3?

sherck wrote:[EDIT: If interested, this is the base build http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scIbzrkuubdobZcb

I cannot imagine a build that doesn't max out Divinity. It's a straight-up throughput increase no matter which way you look at it, since we're long past the days of spamming your way to the top of the overhealing meters.

Epimer wrote:

sherck wrote:[EDIT: If interested, this is the base build http://www.wowhead.com/talent#scIbzrkuubdobZcb

I cannot imagine a build that doesn't max out Divinity. It's a straight-up throughput increase no matter which way you look at it, since we're long past the days of spamming your way to the top of the overhealing meters.

I understand where your PoV is coming from. I only have 4 boss encounters under my belt thus far (3 of them down, Tron Council up) but from where I see it:

So, I guess my trade-off is...

PRO for taking POJ:

50 Haste vs 35 Mastery (on enchant)
15% speed increase over 7% speed increase (from enchant)
100% to get combo point on stun/fear/immobilize

CON for taking POJ:

Minus 4% overall healing

I am still not sure which to do.

Cheers,

I won't lie. I'm a MS Holydin, OS Tankadin, so my views are a little different than some. (I am a good tankadin, but there are only 3 healers in mah guild currently, so, yeah, I'm stuck healing for raids.)

I have 0 points in ToR. Haven't missed them since the change.

Blessed Life is a nice trick, and procs fairly often. I also highly reccomend divinity now that it's fixed. (Previously it wasn't work right.)

BTW It's a good time to be a holydin, if you hadn't tried it out lately.

Life long pursuit of justice fan, but with cataclysm and our array of insta-casts and speed boost from holy radiance i just don't find it worth the investment. i do use the speed boot enchant though. (for pvp hell yes PoJ)(for tanking PoJ)

Then again i am not too fussed about putting any points in increasing my judgement range in the ret tree.

Have had no issue judging at a 20 yard range. also tends to make me stay in range of the raid as i am not judging from a bazillion yards away.

i also don't max out tower of radiance, can probably drop them all as my bacon tends to be on the druids/shamans target.

Disclaimer am a 10 man raider, so range on people less of an issue.

Pursuit of justice is a luxury that should not be taken in instead of gimping your ability to heal. Tower of radiance is specced almost always not because of the high amount of holy power it gives on average, but because of the on demand nature that you can call upon. Being able to LoD on demand is vital for heroic encounters, and although the return will still only be at best equal to one point in blessed life for most BL giving encounters, it is none-the-less vital points.

If you choose it, the standard PoJ build can be found here:

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/l ... nt/primary

A fairly standard non-PoJ build is something I currently use, found here:

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/character/a ... /secondary

A couple of points relatively debatable in the non-PoJ build such as EG/Last word, but for PoJ that build is pretty much the only one viable right now. This is from my experience doing hardmodes right now, and also from what is considered one of the world's leading holy paladin. You shouldn't however be needing PoJ for the majority of encounters, only particularly useful in heroics - if you have issues with range on normal modes your execution is incorrect (as the time to move out of fire is plentiful).

Minarva wrote:...Tower of radiance is specced almost always not because of the high amount of holy power it gives on average, but because of the on demand nature that you can call upon. Being able to LoD on demand is vital for heroic encounters...

A good point on the first sentence; if you cannot CS, then it is another, not on a 6-sec CD "on demand" source of HoPow.

However, spending 3 talent points on it seems very, very expensive for the encounters I have done thus far (only 6 unique bosses; Halfus, V&T, Magmaw, Tron council, Conclave, BH).



Light of Dawn. You say it is vital for heroics but I am seeing it as an awful use of my HoPow as a 10-man raider.

LoD will only heal for about the same as WoG at 3x HoPow if you hit, say, 3 damaged raiders and you yourself are damaged. I would say the breakpoint is 4 people healed; if you can heal 5 or more people with it, it is probably always going to be a better use of HoPow than WoG.

In 25-man raiding, I would say that the chance of being able to heal 5 (or 6 or 7) people with it is probably close to 100%. To a 25-man Healadin, I would be happy to say that LoD is probably always the right answer.

However, as a 10-man raider, there are lots and lots and lots of encounters where I cannot be sure that I am going to heal 5 or more people with a LoD cast that is not "held" until the "proper" time at which point I have wasted HoPow building opportunities.

Sure, for certain encounters (Magmaw during his Lava Spew, Conclave and the frost guy's "Ultimate Attack"), if you line up your HoPow, I know I will hit 6 people (non-glyphed) who are damaged.

But, is it worth the "wasted" HoPow generation that I am missing out on by holding the LoD for the extra healing? If I could build 3x HoPow, cast WoG and then build another 1 or 2 HoPow in the same amount of time that I build 3x HoPow and then delay for a properly timed LoD that heals 6, which is better?

I guess I just don't value HoPow enough to put 3 points in ToR for that "on demand" HoPow generator. Perhaps my viewpoint will change when/if we get to Heroic modes but right now, spending 3 talent points on ToR just does not seem worth it.

Cheers,

I am a 10m raider, and have 9/12 now (only 3 sector bosses remain, and we may get some tries in tonight or Monday). I do like ToR, but I admit, I almost never use flashlight, as Holy Radiance is simply far superior in most fights where the raid is close, and WoG is better when the raid is spread out. For many fights, 1 tank is taking more damage than the other, and so I can generate free holy power thru DL+ToR on that tank, and then have more free WoG for the other tank.

As I have posted elsewhere I am all about healing the tank with minimal use of mana, especially with the 10% increase in casting cost from 4.0.6. (oh the pain, I hope it is completely if not substantially reversed soon, especially considering combat regen for other healer classes).

Cast Holy Shock on CD, preferably on a target other than your beaconed target (but on him if he needs it). Cast DL on beaconed tank for free holy power, and mastery bubble to buy time for melee with Seal of Insight. Cast WoG on whomever needs it. And yes, I can confirm I still get my initial WoG, plus the 30% proc for Eternal Glory, and sometimes an additional proc right afterwards. It is awesome.