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"Other" Holy spec - Worth it?
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Post by
Erethzium
So I was reading the sticky for Holy paladins, and it has two specs:
51/0/18
and
51/17/0
I'm wondering, is
5% extra healing
,
DS
and
longer-lasting, slightly more powerful Sacred Shield
better than
8%
Crit
,
Buffed Might
, and
-10% mana on HS and Infusion of Light'd Flash Heals
?
Post by
Rouen
I asked a slightly similar question, about the 51/17/0 spec not too long ago. I will help weigh this out for you.
51/0/18 is generally accepted as the "starter" holy paladin spec. This is due to the extra 8% spell crit the retribution tree provides you. 8% Crit = greater chance at a bigger heal + additional mana regen from Illumination. Pursuit of Justice is a bonus to help close the distance between you and your tank if you get separated, maybe by an overzealous tank chain pulling or accidently knockback in a raid encounter. You didn't post an armory, so I can't say if this spec is good for you. You won't need to spec for the extra crit after you reach a certain point in gear, maybe full Ulduar 25 or ToC 10 gear levels.
The 51/17/0 spec is sometimes called the "hard-mode" spec. This is more about
raid-wide
party-wide damage mitigation. This talent was overpowered prior to patch 3.3 because when you popped Divine Shield, the damage was never counted towards 150% of your health since you were immune to all the damage. Now it is only party-wide. Improved Righteous Fury should NOT be popped until the encounter has been underway for a while. The idea is to give you a little extra survivibility. It can cause problems when fresh adds spawn however if you are not careful. I would personally just put them into Toughness as a filler, but it won't give you as much damage mitigation. The game behind this spec is damage mitigation, which is more important in hardmodes then bigger heals, which as a holy paladin, will generally go right into your overheal count.
Post by
pezz
Basically when DS first came out and Illumination was pre-nerf, both of these specs were more powerful. Now they've both been nerfed.
Ret spec: crit is sort of unreliable throughput unless you really stack it, and it's no longer too great for mana regen either. The might buff isn't huge and there's tons of ret paladins around nowadays. Benediction doesn't benefit IoL Flash heals.
However, DS/DG has taken a nerf now in 3.3.
What you're REALLY choosing between now is 8% crit and the HS cost reduction versus a weaker but more versatile Aura Mastery, which, if you bubble while you use it, interferes with your ability to bubble while using HoSac.
To be honest I'm pretty unimpressed with the way DS/DG looks now, especially considering you have Aura Mastery. Still, 20% raid wide mitigation is nothing to sneeze at. Also, you could avoid the problem of having to bubble with it by placing your holy paladin in his or her own group, so no damage is transferred through DS, but you still have DG giving 20% reduction for 6 seconds.
Whether or not the spell will actually fire when you have no party members though, is something to wonder about.
TL;DR Which spec is better depends on how much use you think you'll get out of DS/DG. Also Rouen reminded me: it also depends whether you want a free 6% personal mitigation and potentially Imp Dev Aura. Your odds of running without a protection paladin or resto druid are really, really, small, but if you're in a pretty established raiding group without either of those than imp dev aura is definitely something to consider.
Post by
Rouen
HS cost reduction versus a weaker but more versatile Aura Mastery,
How is Aura Mastery more versatile? It was nerfed from 10 seconds to 6 seconds. Unless there is something in the patch notes I'm missing.
Post by
321419
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Post by
172720
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Arigise
Furthermore a simple macro such as
/cancelaura Divine Guardian
/cast Divine Guardian
will allow you to double click the spell to take no damage and still apply the 20% raid damage reduction even when in a group with others. Even if half a second of damage comes through it isnt going to be deadly anymore due to the health percentage automatic cut-off point.
It will take some testing to see whether Im going to remain with my filler points in prot or move back into ret, but if this allows me to save my bubble/forbearance to remove either a personal debuff or save me from an uncontrolled add and still make use of Divine Guardian very nearly on any CD its up I very well get more use out of it now than I had before.
Post by
pezz
HS cost reduction versus a weaker but more versatile Aura Mastery,
How is Aura Mastery more versatile? It was nerfed from 10 seconds to 6 seconds. Unless there is something in the patch notes I'm missing.
So was the Divine Guardian 20% raid damage reduction.
Here
is the less TL;DR version.
Post by
Rouen
I think he means because Aura Mastery is still a full raid buff while DS is now a party only damage buffer.
I understand now. That was me just not reading in between the lines and just reading the statement by itself, outside of the context of what Pezz was trying to say.
Post by
valundar
Don't forget the stronger/longer lasting SS.
Post by
Erethzium
Yeah, having to cast SS less would be a bit better, but I'm wondering if 8% crit or +30 seconds to SS is better...
My gear is a mixed bag. It's mostly ilvl 200/219's, with 5 232's from ToC10. I've got 40% Holy crit, though. (35% base crit)
Post by
valundar
Yeah, having to cast SS less would be a bit better, but I'm wondering if 8% crit or +30 seconds to SS is better...
My gear is a mixed bag. It's mostly ilvl 200/219's, with 5 232's from ToC10. I've got 40% Holy crit, though. (35% base crit)
Its not just that...
it is 8% crit vs bigger heals, longer SS, the party shield.. and the aura (for when there are no trees)
Post by
Rouen
Angewo, can you link your armory? I just tried out the 51/20/0 spec myself for the first time when doing Saurfang 10 man last night. We didn't have a tree in the raid, and it ended up being highly beneficial to the raid group, more then my usual 51/0/17 spec. I also didn't suffer from mana problems since I am sufficently geared and have a healthy amount of crit and intellect.
Edit: Corrected the spec figures.
Post by
pezz
I'm leveling my new paladin with a 51/20/0 build now and I find that I only run out of mana when there's heavy AoE damage, and between DS/DG and AM, there is no heavy AoE damage.
Obviously normal instances are not the most challenging things in existence, but with about 11k mana and intelligent use of cooldowns I'm not having mana problems. I can't imagine 8% crit would help me more than giant damage reducing cooldowns.
Post by
Rouen
Obviously normal instances are not the most challenging things in existence, but with about 11k mana and intelligent use of cooldowns I'm not having mana problems.
True dat.
I can't imagine 8% crit would help me more than giant damage reducing cooldowns. I'm a creature of habit, I've used the 51/0/20 spec since I hit 80. I desired the extra 8% crit for maintaining mana better, especially since my MP5 is lower then I would like. Because we were getting too many Marks of the Fallen Champion being placed on raid members during the Saurfang encounter, I changed the spec to help out with damage mitigation. I was not disappointed and I will not go back to the 51/0/20 spec.
Post by
pezz
To be honest I hadn't used it either on my first paladin, being a creature of habit myself. I'm liking it now, though.
Also now that I've hit 80 and have exactly 1000 spellpower it seems I'm good enough for heroics, so we'll see how that goes. Maybe srs bzns content won't be so forgiving of horrible mana regen.
Post by
Erethzium
and the aura (for when there are no trees)
Hmm? I don't get what you mean.
Post by
pezz
and the aura (for when there are no trees)
Hmm? I don't get what you mean.
Resto druids have a talent which gives 6% healing done to every member of the raid and does not stack with Imp. Dev aura.
Post by
Kataly
and the aura (for when there are no trees)
Hmm? I don't get what you mean.
Resto druids have a talent which gives 6% healing done to every member of the raid and does not stack with Imp. Dev aura.It's actually part of the Tree of Life talent itself.
Post by
pezz
Wow, the fact that I didn't know that is a testament to how much I hate my Resto Druid.
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