How should you use Eternal Flame?

I'm still struggling to figure out the best way to use Eternal Flame. It's effectiveness seems to do depend on so many factors: (a) holy power; (b) bastion of glory stacks; (c) vengeance; (d) your current health %; (e) whether you will take any big hits soon; (f) how many seconds are left on any existing EF HoT; (g) how much damage is physical vs magic; (h) whether you have talented DP and whether it procs. And probably more.

What are some good rules of thumb that make best use of the talent given this complexity?

One "conservative" rule, is to build up 5 bastions of glory and only cast EF at 3 HoPo when your health has dipped considerably (say 50% or whatever). That's how I used to use WoG pre-5.4 when I talented SS as it gives you a mini-Lay on Hands for emergencies but it seems potentially wasteful of the HoT part of EF. It's what Firefly33 recommends at MMO Champion.

At the other extreme, a "maintenance rule" would be to try to keep the HoT up as much as possible: cast it at 3HoPo initially (even if at full health) just to get the HoT, and then refresh when it is about to expire. That's what Wrathblood recommends at Elitist Jerks.

If you go the maintenance route, there's also the issue of refreshing EF to get a stronger HoT, if the vengeance spikes up (or you get much higher Bastions of Glory). I used to do this with SS, perhaps excessively, using Theck's weakauras.

What do other people do? What's best?

Came here to ask the same questions. Opted for Sacred Shield for last week just to be in my comfort zone for the new content. Didn't manage to get to Garrosh in the first week, so with another week of normals it seems like a good time for me to try out Eternal Flame.

If following the conservative rule do I want to be getting up a small EF HoT as soon as possible in the fight? Waiting to get the 5 stacks of bastion & three holy power may take a while without instantly popping holy avenger.

Magnilda wrote:Waiting to get the 5 stacks of bastion & three holy power may take a while without instantly popping holy avenger.

People say let the other tank go first in tank swap fights, so you can build up BoG. But otherwise yes, HA does look pretty attractive for the conservative rule.

I tried EF last week and treat it like I used to treat SS, following the maintenance rule. The HoT was very noticeable but it wasn't clear I was playing optimally, as I was refreshing it in rather ad hoc ways.

What I have gathered is its best to keep it up at all times just like SS. The biggest thing to keep in mind is your vengeance and if your using holy avenger, because 30k every 2 seconds isnt as great as you can get it to the 200k+ every 2 sec which is pretty awesome. I really wish there was a way to keep track of how much it is ticking for so you know if its worth refreshing.

Basically though if im going from no vengeance with the hot still on to high vengeance I will refresh.

but yea I was hoping ot find some advice on an addon to keep track of the EF tick making it easier to know if it should be refreshed.

Honor wrote:...but yea I was hoping ot find some advice on an addon to keep track of the EF tick making it easier to know if it should be refreshed.

Have you checked out Theck's weakaura's strings:

http://www.sacredduty.net/2013/09/12/5- ... s-strings/

On usage, I finding it more interesting than Sacred Shield, just because it is more complex. I'm inclined to follow Wrathblood's advice to get the HoT ticking as soon as you have 3 HoPo, but thereafter try to refresh at 5BoG. I am not sure about Firefly's suggestion to wait for a big hit: I don't think I've got the self-control for that, but it's something to work on.

I've been struggling with this as well. For me (low haste atm due to laziness), I can only manage to keep up EF if I cast it every 3 stacks of BoG. Waiting for 5 stacks of BoG drops my uptime considerably. Considering switching back to SS until I have more haste. I wonder how 3BoG EF's compare to SS. I guess I need to dig through some posts to figure it out.

At 25% Mastery and 200k vengeance, they tick for the same amount. Naturally, EF still has the advantage of ticking twice, while SS has the advantage of being an absorb.

Increasing vengeance makes SS more efficient. Increasing mastery makes EF more efficient. At 20% mastery, SS ticks harder, even at very low vengeance levels. At 30% mastery, EF ticks harder, even at very high vengeance levels.



As for how to use it... EF heals, and therefor is reactive. The dot doesn't do you much good if you are at full health, so imho, you might as well save it for when you take a drop in health, even if that means EF falls off. The moment you drop a bit, the WoG part brings you back up, and from there the EF hot is in place again.

That of course assumes you can EF whenever needed. If you have the 4 piece T16 bonus, that's easy, you won't be needing any HoPo. If you do not have the 4 piece T16 bonus, you should still be fine, if you SotR only when you have 5 HoPo and a generator available.

However, if you need to use SotR at other times, like to mitigate a boss ability, then you basically have 3 options:
- EF prematurely, just to get the HoT up.
- Sit on some HoPo, SotR just before the boss ability, and EF directly after. If by sitting on HoPo you actually take damage beforehand, it's quite possible to EF before the ability strikes to bring yourself back up, and SotR to mitigate it's damage.
- Just do as normal, and hope that after you used SotR, you get back up to 3 HoPo fast enough.

I'm not convinced yet which of the 3 options would be best. It probably varies from situation to situation.

Honor wrote:What I have gathered is its best to keep it up at all times just like SS. The biggest thing to keep in mind is your vengeance and if your using holy avenger, because 30k every 2 seconds isnt as great as you can get it to the 200k+ every 2 sec which is pretty awesome. I really wish there was a way to keep track of how much it is ticking for so you know if its worth refreshing.

Basically though if im going from no vengeance with the hot still on to high vengeance I will refresh.

but yea I was hoping ot find some advice on an addon to keep track of the EF tick making it easier to know if it should be refreshed.

For what it is worth, I have begun considering this issue, which is of concern regardless of whether the player casts EF continuously or reactively, and whether to address it in the paladin protection addon CLCProt for WoW Mists of Pandaria 5.4 (http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=23105).

First, note that the calculations use one or more values that can change frequently and often change unpredictably. For example, the HoT amount that will be applied every 3 seconds for 30 seconds is determined at the time that EF is cast; it can (I hope!) be calculated before EF is cast, but the amount might be more or less when the player actually casts the spell, because the paladin's Spell Power changes as Attack Power changes, and Attack Power fluctuates with Vengeance. (A trinket proc or a potion that changes the paladin's Strength also changes Attack Power, thus Spell Power.) Of course, when the number of Bastion of Glory changes, and/or the paladin's Mastery changes (e.g., Blessing of Might expires or is renewed), the amount of each heal that will be applied during a prospective HoT changes also.

What would you use as the criteria for change, and how would you express it? Perhaps the difference between the current HoT and the prospective HoT should be evaluated and presented as a percentage of the paladin's base amount of health. That is, if the current HoT is equal to X% of the paladin's base amount of health, and the prospective HoT is a "sufficiently higher" Y%, then the player would be advised to cast EF. For reactive use, though, perhaps the respective percentages of the paladin's depleted health would be a more appropriate measure.

Also, I am considering adding bars for tracking Vengeance, which are now a feature of the Retribution FCFS Rotation Helper. It can be a bit thorny to implement, and I am concerned with whether it would increase the time that CLCProt requires to execute during each "update" by too much. Prior versions of CLCProt as a clcInfo module included Vengeance tracking as an option, with the caveat that it requires a lot more memory to use.

That said, there are two contrasting strategies for using EF. One is to initiate it as soon as possible after a fight begins and refresh it each and every time just before it expires. The other is to use it as if it is "Word of Glory with a HoT added", since EF and WoG respectively apply almost the same amount of initial healing.

In theory, at least, it is possible to do both, i.e., to keep the EF HoT up because it mitigates damage spikes and allows the healers to respond more effectively. But also use it "reactively" for healing after the paladin's health drops, assuming that there is not enough support from healer(s).

I do not know whether that blend is feasible in practice, though. ;-)

--- Adeya

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